"Yeah. So you gotta understand my confusion in finding out one of my men that I thought I knew everything about was hiding a secret wife from me," he said, shooting a hard look in Che's direction.
"Hey, Huck," a female voice called, coming down the stairs. "Did you guys notice the white car parked on the... oh," she said, coming to the bottom landing, noticing me.
She was insanely gorgeous with her perfect skin, amazing makeup, and bright blue hair. She was also very pregnant.
"Harm, babe. Meet Che's wife, Saskia."
"His... what?" she asked, brows drawing together, looking between me and Che.
"Yeah, that's where we're at," Huck agreed when his woman's gaze slipped to him again, a question in her eyes.
"Well, uhm, it's nice to meet you," Harm said, giving a slight grimace. "Even if I didn't know you existed until right now."
Why was Che being so silent?
Even when I was looking at the other players in the room, I could feel his intense gaze on me, making me once again upset that I hadn't gotten a chance to shower and change before I showed up. Not that it mattered that I looked a wreck. I wasn't here to claim my wifely rights to bed the man. I was here for help.
Because of psychos with guns and whatnot.
"Gotta wonder why a man's estranged wife that no one knows about would show up one day and barely look at her husband," Huck continued, raising a brow at me.
To that, I took a deep breath. I'd hoped to talk to Che in private, but it was clear his club were the gatekeepers that controlled my access to him. I had to get through them first.
"He owes me," I told Huck, refusing to break eye-contact. "I'm here to call in a marker."
"A marker," Huck repeated. "Harmon, babe," he said, turning to his woman. "Why don't you and Seeley take Sass here into the kitchen for some coffee?" he suggested. "While the rest of us have a talk with Che."
"Huck—" Che started.
"It wasn't a suggestion," Huck said, tone hard.
"Okay," Harmon said, dragging out the word as she shot her man a look that seemed to say something to the effect of Do you have to be so bossy? "Sass, do you need a drink?" she asked.
"That'd be great," I agreed, noticing the kid was the one who rose off the couch to join us.
"Seeley," he said, giving me a chin lift.
He had the charm of old-school mobsters. All danger and a quiet kind of arrogance. He probably got all the girls when they went out on the town. Even if he was significantly younger than the others. Barely even able to drink, I'd say.
With that, Harmon and Seeley moved forward past Che, leaving me nothing to do but follow.
My gaze fell on him, wondering if he was going to say something, but he stayed silent, his eyes watching me as I moved past.
He didn't say a word.
Not until I was out of earshot anyway.
When his brothers started questioning him.
Chapter Three
Che
I hadn't heard her voice in what seemed like half a lifetime. I'd have known it anywhere, though. It was a little husky, the kind of voice that made normal, everyday words sound sexy without even trying.
But a part of me was struggling to wrap my head around the fact that she was there, at the clubhouse, wanting to speak to me.
It made no sense.
But then Huck was leading her inside, and there was no way to deny it was her.
Saskia.
She looked good.
I mean she'd always looked good.
She was around five-eight with thick thighs, round hips, a great ass, and a nice rack. Curvy, hourglass, both very accurate ways to describe her. Also the right way to describe the kind of woman I'd always been into.
She was perfect in the face, too, with her round eyes, her small nose, plump lips, lightly cleft chin, and a softness to her jaw that always made her look sweet, even if she was angry.
Despite living in Florida her whole life—at least she had been the last time I'd seen her—she somehow always managed to be pale, something that made her dark green eyes pop all the more.
Her hair when I'd known her had been a natural white-blonde that hung three-fourths the way down her back. The Saskia in the clubhouse living room now, though, had shoulder-length hair with soft waves. Which somehow suited her even more.
She looked rough, though.
Beautiful as ever, but rough.
Like she hadn't slept in days, judging by the dark smudges under her eyes. Her lower lip was split. And her shoulders were tight like she had the weight of the world on them.
I guess a part of me had wondered for a moment if she was just there to see me. But then she'd dropped the truth.
She came to call in her marker.
Because I owed her.
And, fuck, did I ever.
"What the fuck, Che?" Huck growled as soon as Harmon and Seeley took Sass into the kitchen.
"It's a long story," I told him, because it was the truth.
"And I'm still going to need to hear it," Huck said.
—
- 9 years before
It was a packed night.
Street racing had taken off in a big way a decade before, and showed no signs of slowing down. Especially in our area.
The faces changed, eventually, but you could always count on there being a crowd of some size around.
Cars lined both sides of the road. Red, blue, purple, green, and pink undercarriage lights shined on the blacktop. Even on the cars that weren't there on display with their hoods propped open, showing up the tens of thousands of dollars of upgrades the owners had put into their rides.
You could tell the serious racers from the amateurs who wanted to be taken seriously. The latter had the fancy rims, the expensive sound systems, the special-order colors on the seats and steering wheels.
The professionals, the ones who were here to race and win, put their money where it counted.
Downpipes, upgraded turbochargers, larger exhaust pipes, racing seats, thinner carpets, the shit you did to make your car lighter and therefore faster.
"Yo, look at this pretty fucker," Eddie called from where he was leaning against his hideous yellow car. Eddie was a mix of amateur and pro. He had the right upgrades, but he liked flashy shit too. Well, maybe it was more that the women liked the flashy, and Eddie liked the women.
He was a nice enough guy, but at only five-seven who liked fast food more than working out, he wasn't always the man who the long-legged, stacked women he liked flocked to first.
"They're like magpies, man," he'd told me once. "They flock to shiny shit. So I make sure I shine."
Much like me, Eddie wasn't originally from the area, from the country even. Him, from Mexico. Me, of course, from Cuba. We'd both found our way to the local racing scene a few years before. And promptly got our asses handed to us for a while until we finally started winning. The money, the pink slips, the respect. And perhaps most importantly for Eddie, the affections of the women.
"Beauty contest is tomorrow night, homie," he added, his arm around the waist of a woman in a jean skirt and crop top, her dangling butterfly belly ring sparkling against her tan skin.