Chapter Four

Zeke ‘Silver’ Bennett walked over to Nell Patton, who had started pouring his double whiskey the second that she’d spotted him coming through the door of her bar. By the time he’d reached her, she’d already dropped in a single ice cube and she stood, her arm extended. Silver gave her his slow smile, took the drink from her with a nod of thanks.

“Here you go, handsome,” she said, in that husky voice that still made men pause in their tracks and eye her up, even at sixty-one years of age. “Welcome back to Nebraska. Been a while. What – six months? Eight?”

“Thanks, gorgeous,” Silver replied, raising the glass in a toast. “And yeah, eight months sounds about right. How you been?”

Nell shrugged, her tattooed shoulders strong and beautiful in the half-light. “Busy as all hell. As usual.”

“So business is booming, huh?” Silver looked around the crowded bar. “Any trouble to speak of?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.” Nell cocked her head, nailed him with her trademark hard blue stare. “But I heard that you boys have had trouble enough for all of us.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Silver said heavily. “Word gets around.”

“Jesus, Silver,” Nell scoffed. “The Road Devils tattoo parlour gets bombed and blown up, your Veep is in some burn treatment center in California, your Prez is rampaging around trying to kill Dawson and take down The Blood Crew MC, and you think word won’t get around? And this is all after Wolf took y’all straight and safe going on two years ago. What the hell have you boys not been doing down there in Denver?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Silver muttered. “All true, or mostly true. But none of what happened at Blue Dragon Ink had anything to do with Dawson and his Blood Crew boys. And yeah, for one hot minute, Wolf thought about making Dawson disappear permanently, but soon enough, he figured out that Dawson wasn’t responsible for any of what went down with the parlour.”

“No?”

“Nuh-uh. It was an outsider, looking to hurt a woman named Zoe who came to work for us.”

“Yeah, I heard something about that, but didn’t really believe it, because it sounded so fucking out there. Some guy was looking for his little girl? Am I in the neighbourhood of the truth?”

“You’re smack bang in the middle of it,” Silver said. “An asshole from North Dakota, on the run for killing Zoe’s sister when she was pregnant with Keira, the baby girl you heard about. Wolf and Zoe go way back… back twenty-plus years, raised in the same bad neighbourhood in Denver. Zee was struggling in Fargo, raising her sister’s baby on her own, and Wolf offered her a job at the club tattoo parlour. Daddy Dickface showed up and set off a bomb. Died in the fire, thank fuck, and Zee and Keira are safe.”

“But Scars?” Nell asked quietly. “I heard he wasn’t doing so well.”

Silver fell silent for a minute, remembering The Road Devils’ Vice-President Scars Innis running into that burning tattoo parlour to rescue Keira, remembering him running back out of Blue Dragon again, holding that sweet baby – and with his hair and back on fire. The explosion had taken place almost seven months earlier, and Scars, Zoe, and Keira were still out in California, where Scars was undergoing intensive skin grafts and physical therapy.

Wolf Connor, President of The Road Devils MC, had been in touch with Zoe daily, and with Scars whenever the other man had been up for talking, which hadn’t been every day. No surprise, considering the amount of pain the man was in, and the amount of healing he was doing. But Wolf reported back to his guys every chance he got and every time they asked, and just that day, he’d told the Road Devils that their Veep should be back within a week. Just in time for Christmas.

“Scars has quite a few more scars, unfortunately,” Silver told Nell now. “I haven’t seen him, but Wolf says he’s doing really well. Incredibly well, actually… he and Zoe are engaged.”

“For real?” Nell exclaimed. “Scars Innis found a woman, huh?”

“One hell of a woman. She rented my place for a while so I got to know her a bit. Zee’s a great Mom, great manager at the tattoo place, great person. A bit prickly at first, made Scars jump through serious hoops… but she came around.”

“Nothing wrong with making sure a man means what he says when his jeans are down around his ankles,” Nell said tartly. “You MC boys aren’t known for your levels of commitment to the opposite sex, you know.”

“Hey,” Silver protested. “Some of us are alright.”

“I’ll take your word for that, handsome. And speaking of MC boys and commitment, where the hell’s your cut?” She stared accusingly at his jean jacket. “That’s not right.”

“Took it to Lev’s.”

“Ahhh. Needed some repair work to the leather?”

“Nah. Patch job. As in, I have a new patch that needs to get sewn on.” Silver drank a bit more whiskey. “Got a new one, and I trust Lev more than anyone else in the business.”

“What patch?” Nell asked. “You earn something?”

“Kind of.”

Nell stared at him, then her face broke out in a huge smile. “You got a promotion!”

“Yep.”

“Jesus Christ, Silver… spill it! You got an official rank or title now?”

Silver set his glass down. “Yeah. Nothing glamorous, so contain your excitement.”

“C’mon. Just tell me. What did Wolf and your brothers honor you with?”

“Treasurer.” Silver gave a tiny grin as he stroked his golden-blond beard. “Basically, a glorified record-keeper and report-writer.”