Queen of Clubs Read online

  He shut off the shower and dressed in a pair of worn-in jeans and a white Henley t-shirt. He carefully laced up his hiking boots under his jeans. He had planned to walk across the grounds to Mina’s place since it was only about half a mile between his house and the main building on her compound. Making sure Andy was secure inside, he set off through the trees.

  Victor was pleasantly surprised by what he found when he came out on the other side. Mina’s house stood taller than the rest, a two story adobe with wide, hacienda-style porches all the way around. It was flanked by several smaller adobe structures with a courtyard and garden in the middle, and the entirety of the buildings surrounded by a tall, thick adobe fence. The whole area showed the women’s caring touch, with flourishing plants and turquoise blue painted designs winding up the sides of the buildings, he guessed Isabel was responsible for those. He walked through the open gate, which closed automatically behind him, into the courtyard where Shelli was flitting around setting, a long, outdoor dining table. She turned as he approached and smiled, welcoming him inside. He handed off the bottles of wine he brought with him to Isabel as she came out of her little building and then turned, his breath caught up in his chest, as he saw Mina descend the stairs from the porch of the main building.

  She looked stunning with her thick curls bound up in an intricate braid, strands capped by the same little hammered silver charms he was sure she made herself. A red embroidered peasant blouse topped her worn in cutoffs, while her long, tan legs slipped into a pair of strappy sandals at her feet. She looked so much softer her than when he had first seen her, and without the hardened attitude and the dark lipstick, she glowed with health and happiness. Her eyes met his, at first wide with a hint of uncertainty, but under his hungry perusal they quickly heated, sweeping over his face and body like a palpable caress. He luxuriated in the warmth of her gaze, frozen under her starkly needy appraisal.

  Shelli jostled him a little bit with her elbow and gave him a not-so-discreet wink as she pointed him toward a chair to Mina’s right. All of the other women filtered in as Shelli settled in across from him, explaining she made steak fajitas especially for him and that Reina had grown most of the vegetables in their own garden. He relaxed a bit into the warm camaraderie of the women around him. He could see what an incredible community she had built here, he was so proud of her.

  “Mina, this really is a beautiful place you have here. I can’t imagine how much work it took to create all of this.”

  Mina smiled at that, her pearly white teeth flashing at him in the first genuine grin he’d witnessed from her and it felt like his whole world ignited, his orbit shifted and he knew the rest of his days would revolve around creating reasons for this woman to smile.

  “It was a lot of work. When I got here the buildings and fence were here but they had been abandoned and were in rough shape. The well was dry and it looked like a ghost town out here. Shelli and Isabel were the only ones with me the first few months and without them I never would have been able to get us up and running.”

  “Are there any more clubs like yours nearby? I think I saw another MC clubhouse from the air today and I was surprised how close they were to you.”

  Mina’s head jerked up at that and she shared a concerned look with both Isabel and Reina. He was right then, something wasn’t right about what he’d seen.

  “Where did you see it? The closest one would be in town in Espanola, but we haven’t had any dealings with them, they stick to the city.”

  Victor filled the women at the head of the table in about the roadhouse club and the delivery he witnessed today. Despite the tension he saw rising in all three of the women around him, he could tell Mina was also relieved.

  “I had to let a member go a few nights ago when we found her tweaking — we have a no drugs policy here that’s very strict. I offered her rehab if she would let me know where she got the drugs but she refused — I guess we know now where they came from. I heard she was with a new guy even though she never brought him around here. Thank you for telling us, I appreciate you noticing and letting me know.”

  He warmed a little, knowing his attention to detail offered her answers to questions haunting her mind. Giving up one of the girls, especially knowing she had a drug habit? It was a bold decision and a wise one, especially if a new club was moving in, but he was sure the choice took a toll on Mina’s confidence.

  The rest of dinner carried on without a hitch. Most of the more timid women warmed up to him as the evening went on. He made sure to keep his voice quiet and he talked about lighter subjects with them, about how he met Andy, stories about growing up with his mom and four sisters and then funnier tales about his PJ squadmates. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of Mina, her hair shone a glossy black in the bulbs strung from the trees over the courtyard and she giggled when he talked about having to pick cactus spines out of poor Andy two nights ago. She glowed here and he felt like the luckiest guy in the world just to be near her.

  Hours passed like minutes and eventually Shelli began picking up the plates. He could see the ladies peeling off from the table one by one and saying their goodbyes. When he stood, Mina stood with him, her eyes searching his, suddenly uncertain of what came next. Shelli came to his side, handing him a to-go box with enough food for two more meals and a sack with some of the leftover steak bones for Andy.

  “Thank you so much for coming Victor, Mina will walk you back so you can get out through the gates. She’ll take you at least to the property line.” She patted his back and scooted him a little closer to Mina with a gentle nudge. Her gestures weren’t the most subtle he’d ever witnessed, but his affection for Mina, his attention, would never be kept a secret. He was ready to lay it all on the line.

  Victor gave her a grateful nod and a smile before shuffling his boxes into one hand and looking over at Mina. “Are you ready?”

  9

  Mina

  Mina tried to keep her eyes lowered and her attention straight ahead as they moved toward the trees. She didn’t know why this man in particular had such an effect on her, but she spent most of dinner giggling and sighing like a schoolgirl at his funny stories. He looked delicious under the warm string lights hung over the outdoor dining area in their courtyard. His jaw was strong and sharp, with stubble even after a recent shave and even just watching him chew and swallow during dinner had been a thing of beauty, much less his deep, throaty laughter as he enjoyed their company.

  She really wanted to find something, anything in him that would justify her skepticism about the correlation between his outward appearance and inner rottenness, but he was perpetually perfect. He was so open and kind, it was hard not to feel at ease in his presence and she was grateful for the way he had handled himself around the other girls. Even Shelli had warmed to him quickly and she was surprised to see her make contact with him as she shoved him out the door. Mina was fairly certain the only men she’d been able to get near in the last five years were Mattie and Moises, and only after months of being around them in safe environments. It was a good sign for her recovery.

  The more steps they took side by side toward the airstrip, the more tension Mina felt mount between them. The air was cool and sweet, a nice summer breeze blowing at their backs and pulling the scent of growing sage into the air. They walked comfortable silence, shoulder to shoulder and after a few seconds, she felt his pinky brush hers for a breath. Her body tensed and shivered, his proximity a delicious appetizer to what she hoped would be a much closer encounter. Seconds later, his middle, ring finger and thumb caught hers, holding her hostage for a moment before releasing. She froze internally, her insides screaming for him to just take her hand already. Ridiculous, completely innocent and yet it felt like the most erotic foreplay she had ever engaged in, just walking beside this man in the dark desert night, waiting breathlessly for him to make his move. After endless moments, it finally happened. He reached out and threaded their fingers together, his warm calloused palms cradling her own. It felt
intimate, heady, and when she gently squeezed his hand in response, they smiled as if they shared in a sinfully sweet secret. When their shadows reached the border between the two properties, Victor turned, setting his boxes of leftovers on the ground and pulling her toward him. He linked his hands together in the small of her back and held her tightly up against the center of his chest. Her heart thudded in her chest and she wondered if he could feel it beating in half time against her sternum as their embrace pressed her breasts into his torso. They felt heavy and full on her chest, her nipples tightening into hard peaks under her clothes.

  “Thank you for having me tonight Mina. I love what you’ve built here and all of those women look at you as if you run the world. I’m pretty sure they’re right.”

  She bloomed under his praise, in her experience it wasn’t often a man could fully appreciate strong leadership in a woman and she felt like Victor saw her for who she truly wanted to be, not who she had been and that in itself was a heady drug. She sighed, a happy, contented sigh and let herself hold mentally still, cataloging everything about this moment. His eyes caressing hers, the soft heat of his body against her, his breath fanning out over her face as he praised her leadership. She wanted to remember this feeling forever.

  It had been so long since she’d stood even this close to a man, since she was with the Cheap Tricks, and this was a wholly different experience. He held her so tightly, so tenderly and he smelled like clean earth rather than the stale stink of booze, cigarettes and other women that permeated the members of her old club.

  Victor’s breath stirred her ear as she heard him take a discrete sniff of her hair. She smiled a little to herself at that, she hadn’t fully lost her feminine allure even after years of devoting herself solely to her club. He sighed and pulled back a little, just enough to see her eyes in the fading light.

  “Mina, I would like to see you again. Are you busy Friday night?”

  She considered him, measuring his interest and intent as his thumbs rubbed circles against her lower back, occasionally bunching the fabric and caressing a swath of skin. His question felt serious, as if he wanted to take her on an actual date where they did goofy first date things and he walked her to her door at the end. Covert groping in dark alleys, public sex at parties, she had done it all. But a date? She’d never even been asked.

  “A date? Like with dinner and stuff?” she asked, allowing herself to be a little excited but still unsure.

  “Exactly like that.” He smiled down at her, his face open and hopeful in the moonlight. “They’re showing 10 Things I Hate About You at the drive-in in Espanola and I thought we could take ourselves a picnic. I already talked to Shelli tonight to find out what you liked to eat.”

  He already had it planned? He thought about what would make her comfortable and figured a drive-in would be perfect for her first real date? She was overwhelmed with his attention, both on her and to the details surrounding this date and she struggled a little, her tear ducts heated up and emotion rose in her throat.

  Victor mistook her quiet for hesitance. “If you don’t feel comfortable being alone with me, we can take Andy. He sheds an impressive amount of hair, he farts nearly constantly and he’s guaranteed to get all up in our personal space, but I’m willing to do anything if you’ll only say yes.”

  She laughed at that, so hard tears sprouted up on the edges of her eyes and she leaned her head into his chest while she regained her composure. He gently cupped her chin and pulled her head up so he could see her eyes, one arm still caressing her back.

  “It’s not that I felt like we needed a chaperone, even a dog one. I feel comfortable with you, it’s just that I’ve never been on a date before. I was trying to picture what it would be like and a smelly, farty companion didn’t really fit, even though I think Andy is a big cutie.”

  “I’ll make sure you get all of the first date bells and whistles then and maybe, by the end of the night, you’ll think I’m a big cutie too, huh?” He squeezed her up tighter to him as he said it, growling a little playfully against her neck and causing her to squeal at the sensation of his stubble on her skin. “I’ll pick you up at 6:30? That should give us time to get there and get settled.”

  She quickly agreed, smiling up at him with hope blossoming in her heart for the first time in a long time. Victor ran one hand along the side of her cheek, seemingly memorizing the look on her face, before he gently pressed his warm, soft lips to her forehead and bid her goodnight.

  She watched him walk over the rise, and gave a silent little happy dance while she knew she was hidden from view by the trees before heading back toward the compound.

  But as she made her way out of the trees, she saw something that made her heart go stone cold. It felt like an elevator dropped 50 stories down a shaft in the center of her chest. A strange motorcycle, masculine and low with a chopper style front end was moving away from the front gates, a large package left behind. He’d settled the box next to the gate gingerly, covertly checking his surroundings the entire time and his attention to detail sent her into a frenzy.

  She sprinted forward, praying none of the other women had seen the biker or the package, but as she got closer, she saw Isabel open the front gate and reach out for the box left at their doorstep, a questioning look on her face.

  All Mina could feel was panic, her limbs felt cold and sluggish as she ran, her entire body rolling in slow motion. She frantically started screaming. “Don’t touch it. Don’t pick it up. Back up, back up!”

  All she could think was it might be a bomb and she couldn’t stand to watch it blow up everything she loved from so far away. Isabel looked up and quickly stepped back from the box as Mina rounded the corner of the fence and charged up to the front gate. She was out of breath and gasping, but she knew she had to steady her nerves and her hands as she gingerly removed the package from the steps.

  “A biker just dropped this off, I watched him drive away.”

  “I know, I heard the pipes, that’s why I came out.,” Isabel said as Mina pulled a small knife out of her back pocket and prepared to cut the tape. The package itself was much too light to be a bomb, so light it felt empty in her hands. “That guy’s bike matched the description Victor gave us. Do you think you can get Reina to go out after him and make sure he’s from the new club? If she takes the cut through to Espanola, she might be able to get out in front of him. I want to know for sure.”

  Isabel turned to go back inside the fence, heading straight for Reina’s shop and Mina let out a sigh of relief that she would be able to open the package alone. There was no telling what might be inside, and she wanted to limit her club’s interaction with this new threat as much as possible. She could bear the fallout alone.

  But, just as she popped open the packing tape, Shelli came up behind her through the open gate.

  “Hey, Mina I want all the details… wait what is that? Is he giving you presents already? That’s so cute.”

  “It’s not cute, Shells. A biker from that new club just left this on our doorstep as I was walking back. I didn’t get a good look at him but I sent Reina to check him out.”

  Reina’s original mission tailing Tara hadn’t panned out. The exiled woman met up with some friends in Espanola and spent the night with them there. But, with Victor’s new intel, they had more reason than ever to believe a new club was moving in on their territory, bringing illegal drugs and possible cartel connections with them.

  Mina folded back the flaps of the box, running her blade further down the side, so she didn’t have to reach blindly into the dark interior. A small manila envelope was the only thing inside. She rolled her eyes a little — of course they just wanted to create drama.

  But as she opened the envelope, her blood ran cold. From a dark, faded polaroid Tara’s battered face stared up at her. Her eyes were blurry with tears, there was a trail of drool out the corner of her mouth and dark bruise forming on her cheek. The next photos showed track marks in her arms, bound hands and feet, and
finally her naked body strapped to a bare bed. On the back of the last photo was a request for ransom from a club called the Iron Legion. Mina’s notoriety as the caretaker and protector of all the women under her care had come back to haunt them in a profoundly disturbing way.

  The sad part about their request is the small-scale thinking that led them to ask for only $10,000. To Mina, Tara’s life, her safety and happiness was worth so much more. If she had a mind to actually make deals with low-life scumbags, she could have produced the money, but the Honeys a zero-tolerance policy for men who used and abused women.

  The note requested a drop at the roadhouse in twenty-four hours, but Mina knew the ransom note was more than likely a lure to get her out in the open, exposed. Hopefully if she struck back swiftly, she could catch them unaware and end the conflict before they had a chance to inflict any more harm, to Tara or any of the other women in her care.

  Shelli tried to look over Mina’s should but she gently pushed her friend away before she rose up to her feet. “You don’t want to see this.” The abuse was eerily similar to the injuries her friend sustained in her previous life with her club, and she didn’t want to subject her to reliving any bad memories.

  Shelli’s eyes jerked up. “You know I’m with you no matter what, right?”

  “I know.” Mina slid the photos back into the sleeve. She carefully place the envelope back into the box and folded it up. “Make sure nobody touches this. We’ll need it for evidence.”

  Mina took a deep breath as the smiling, giggling girl she allowed herself to be earlier in the evening went up in smoke. She pulled her shoulders back and summoned every bit of strength stored up inside her. “Can you gather Isabel and the two of you meet me back out at our bikes? We’re going to meet Reina out on the road. I want each of you carrying a sidearm and we’re dressing in full colors. I’ll call Mattie and Moises, see if they can come out and watch over the other girls while we’re gone.”