Driller: Dead Ringers MC Book 1 Read online

  I look over at Riley and she just shrugs like she has just as much idea of what’s going on as I do.

  I’m still confused. From what Driller told me last night, there’s a lot of weird stuff going on in the club, and I can’t just trust anyone, but Betty never did me wrong. Hearing the way she talks about my dad only reminds me how much his family of friends cared about him. Maybe they really do care about me. Maybe I’m just being paranoid and this isn’t some sort of epic cover-up. Maybe Driller doesn’t even know what he’s talking about.

  “It’s your call,” Riley says. “I’ll gladly take you to breakfast and back to my place if you want. Henry’s gonna start looking for me soon, though, and he’s gonna notice the tracking on my phone is off.”

  “The tracking on your phone?” I ask, raising my eyebrow.

  “It’s just for safety reasons. Wife of a cop. You never know. People are psycho.”

  I can’t help but think the only psycho person is the one who has a tracker on his wife’s phone.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  She walks over and hugs me. “Anything you need, you let me know. I’d really like it if you dropped by tonight. Henry’s working the overnight, so I’d really enjoy the company. Besides, I want to catch up with you, bestie. I want to be here for you.”

  I hug her tight and can’t help but think maybe she needs me to be there for her more than I need her to be there for me. “Definitely.”

  I follow her out on the front porch, and she walks to the end of the long driveway. Soon Betty’s out there with me, car keys in hand.

  “That’s just weird to me,” I mutter, following her across the parking lot to her bright red hot rod that’s about as big as a boat.

  “Oh honey, if only you knew the half of it,” she says. She hops in and fires up the engine, and the thing roars so loud I have to hold my ears. She swings the door open for me and I join her. “I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough for yourself, but let’s just say your girl Riley isn’t the innocent little wife of a cop she tries to come off as.” She slides her sunglasses down and taps out a cigarette from her pack, offering me one. “Now let’s go get in some trouble.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Driller

  “I’m sorry, man, but you’re gonna have to get your shit out of here, effective immediately,” I say to the guy who’s been chewing my ear off for the last forty-five minutes. I wanted to be back at the clubhouse by now. I’m sure Pearl is awake and she’s probably freaking out.

  “I don’t think you understand how rental properties work,” he says. He pulls out his phone and tries to call his lawyer again. Every time it goes straight to voicemail I have to hold back my laughter. I don’t know where Vinnie found this guy, but he’s a fucking piece of work.

  “I can call the cops if you want,” I suggest, knowing full well the cops just want to put an end to this whole investigation. Henry called up Stoney this morning practically begging him to get down here and figure out what we were going to do with the building Vinnie left to us.

  There was only ever one option. The club was going to restore this place back to its original glory, only this time with Pearl in mind. My uncle Stoney might be a lot of things, but at the end of the day he wasn’t going to turn his back on his family, and by proxy, Pearl was family. I tried to explain to him that she might not want to stick around, but I can’t help but admit I really hope, when she sees the place, she might never want to leave again.

  Don’t know why I want her near, but I do.

  I keep trying to tell myself if I can help clean this place out maybe I can find some hint, some clue, some reason why Vinnie died like he did and how that’s connected to the MC. Sure as shit the cops aren’t trying to help. They already released his body to be cremated as per his request, long before the twenty-four-hour waiting period was up. It’s funny how they’re in such a rush to brush this whole thing under the rug to maintain the ruse that this city is a great place to live.

  Sad thing is, the only person who seems to give a shit at all is me. Me, and maybe Pearl.

  “You don’t have to call the cops,” the guy says, putting his hands in the air. “Let’s not get them involved, alright? I don’t want any problems.”

  I chuckle, my curiosity piqued as to what he has going on up in that apartment.

  “You want help moving? I got guys.”

  “No, no, I’m just going to need a little privacy. Maybe I can come back tonight? When you’re done here?”

  “Whatever you say, chief.” I’m just glad I finally got through to him. Now I can get back to the task at hand. I don’t think anybody’s been through the filing cabinets yet. I’m overwhelmed with where to even start.

  Ransom and Red Eye are boarding up windows until we can get someone proper in here to install new ones. Bulletproof ones. Decker and my dad are taking furniture out the back door to be hauled off. By the time Pearl gets here I want all the blood gone. I want all the remnants of how her dad was living his final days out of here. I don’t want her to see the filth and squalor. I want a blank slate for her, surrounded only by art, memorabilia, and good memories of her old man.

  My uncle Stoney seems to be on board as he takes apart a drawer full of tattoo machines and sets them on the countertop. “I think we could probably figure out a way to display these on the wall.”

  “I like that idea, uncle.” He seems to be moving in slow motion today, but between his declining health and the loss of his longtime friend, he’s holding his shit together pretty good. It’s just a reminder of what a great leader he’s always been. How he always knows exactly what to do no matter what goes down in the club. Maybe his episode was just that, an episode.

  The way he keeps wiping tears from his face with the sleeve of his flannel, thinking nobody is watching, kind of leads me to believe otherwise.

  The front door swings open and I assume it’s renter guy looking to get back into it again, but instead, mama Betty stands there with her lips pursed and hands on her hips. “I tried guys,” she says, shaking her head.

  Pearl peeks around her shoulder and slaps her hand over her mouth.

  “Didn’t try too hard. She was starting to get suspicious.”

  All eyes turn to the tattooed woman as she starts to slink around the shop, looking all around at the chaos. There’s still so much blood everywhere, not mention trash on the ground. She doesn’t say anything, just walks over to the table where Stoney is laying out the tattoo machines and starts picking them up one by one, smiling sadly as she examines them.

  “He never tossed one of these,” she says softly. “Hung on to them even if they were busted to shit. Too many memories for him to part with.”

  Stoney wraps his arms around her, and she goes limp as she starts to bawl.

  “It’s okay, girl,” he says, trying to calm her, but his tears flow, too. I want to run to her and scoop her up and promise her everything’s going to be alright. I want to promise her if she sticks around I’ll never let anybody make her cry like this again. I don’t know if I can, though. As of right now, we’re standing on the edge of uncertainty.

  I know one thing; I’ll do whatever she needs to me to do, even if that means just standing here watching her cry.

  “This place is a disaster,” she groans. “You guys shouldn’t have to take care of it. Please, let me help you.”

  “Darling, you don’t have to.”

  “I want to,” she pleads. “I know I’ve been gone a long time and my dad and I weren’t exactly on the best terms, but I never stopped loving him. This is where I grew up. Every memory I have happened in this place. It’s as much my responsibility to take care of it as anybody else’s. I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure his legacy doesn’t get taken away from him.”

  “Oh my dear, it won’t. I promise. Your old man willed this building to me. Didn’t want you to have to worry about paying taxes on it or taking care of it if you didn’t plan on coming back. No matter what you decide,
this place will always stay in the family. You want to run it, it’s all yours. You don’t, we’ll figure it out. You don’t have to decide right now. I know everything is happening really fast.”

  She clutches one of the antique tattoo guns in her fist and stares up at the ceiling, and for a moment it looks like she’s about to start cussing.

  “I’m gonna be honest with you, Stoney; coming back here for the rest of my life was something I never considered. It’s no offense to any of you. I just… as long as my dad was alive, I don’t think I’d ever be able to get out from underneath his shadow. We weren’t good for each other.”

  “Trust me, Pearl, he knew that, too. And there’s a stipulation in the will that if you choose to not take the shop on, we’ll pay you a monthly stipend so he knows you’re still being taken care of.”

  She nods and looks over his shoulder directly at me with a confused look on her face.

  “I appreciate it. It’s a lot to take in. I think today I just kind of want to be here. I don’t know if I can give you a solid answer right now. Not until his body’s in the ground.”

  Everyone starts mumbling to themselves. Nobody wants to be the one to tell her.

  “He’s being cremated, Pearl,” I say. “They sent him off this morning.”

  “What? I haven’t even identified his body yet. I didn’t get to see him one last time. They’re just burning him up right now?”

  “It was his request, Pearl,” Stoney says, reaching for her arm. I can see the fire burning in her eyes as she jerks away. I like her feistiness but I know she’s hurting.

  “Get off me,” she shouts as she starts to storm off. Stoney looks at her and shrugs as she starts for the steps up to the apartment.

  “I’ll go,” I say, rushing after her.

  She’s at the top of the steps, pulling on the locked door, cursing under her breath.

  “Pearl.”

  “Go away, Driller,” she says through tears.

  “I’m just saying, I have the keys if you want them.”

  I’m just saying I’m not going to ever leave her side again, but if I can bribe her with some keys that’ll make my case a lot easier. I put the key in the lock and turn it, and she looks up at me, eyes full of tears, and mouths ‘thank you.’

  “I don’t know what we’re gonna be walking into here. I have no idea what the guy renting off your dad is into, but he seems to be a little…”

  “What the fuck?!” she stammers as we walk through the door.

  I try to hold back my laughter, but he has the place converted into some full-blown freaky-ass sex dungeon. There’s a four-poster bed in the middle of the living room with chains hanging from it, and assorted whips and paddles intricately displayed on the walls.

  “I’m kind of scared to touch anything,” she says with a giggle as she walks around the place.

  “He’s moving out tonight, so if you want to keep anything you better grab it now,” I say, covering my hand with the sleeve of my shirt and picking up what looks like a very detailed rubber alien dick and waving it towards her.

  She bursts out laughing.

  “This might come in handy when you try to feed me your bullshit,” she says, tossing a ball gag at my head. I duck and it bounces off the tile floor and rolls towards the drain he’s had installed in the middle.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

  She paces towards me and gets so close her face is right in mine, a twisted grin on her lips.

  “I thought we were a team. You’re over here destroying evidence while my dad’s body is being burned up and I’m back at the house sleeping. I thought this was you and me, Driller. Why’d you say all that stuff last night?”

  “You’re gonna have to trust me,” I say. I take her chin in my hand and she bites her lip. My heart is racing. This isn’t what I expected to happen. That wasn’t the reaction I was going for. My body and brain are fighting each other as she puts her fingers over my hand. “There’s things that are gonna be a lot easier if I just do ’em on my own.”

  “Why? Because you’re a man and I’m just some lowly stupid broad?” She shoots me a coy little wink, I swear if she winks at me like that ever again I’m probably going to have to put those chains to use, probably on myself to keep me from ripping her clothes off right now.

  “Never said that. Just that the guys act a certain way when it’s just us.”

  “So many secrets.”

  I stroke my fingers over her chin, and she starts to breathe heavier.

  “No secrets with us, Pearl,” I say. I press my lips to hers, not knowing what to expect. I’ve wanted to kiss those lips since she came strolling up to me in the ambulance yesterday, wanted to do a lot more. She leans into my body and I push my tongue into her mouth. I feel myself growing hard as I catch her moans.

  She pulls away, her face flushed. “Driller, we can’t be doing this,” she says in a husky voice.

  “Cuz you hate me?”

  “No, because this place gives me the fucking creeps,” she says with a laugh. “He probably has video cameras installed somewhere for all we know.”

  I chuckle. That doesn’t bug me at all. As long as it’s known that she’s mine and she’s with me, I don’t care who sees. I run my thumb over her lips and she teases it with her tongue and now I know we need to get the fuck out of here before I start making bad choices.

  “You wanna do a lap around before we get out of here?”

  “If this is the living room, I don’t think I want to see anymore.”

  I take her hand in mine and squeeze it.

  “You don’t hate me,” I tease.

  “Come on. I think I have a good idea where my dad might have kept some stuff.”

  It feels good having her hand in mine.

  I wonder if she realizes it. Wonder if she knows she’s dragging me down the steps. I don’t wanna jinx it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Pearl

  It’s hard for me to just up and trust someone. It’s not that I haven’t fucked before, but only in circumstances where I could run off in the morning without having to worry about what happens next.

  What’s going on between Driller and I feels closer than that, but for some reason it feels good.

  A guy with the name Decker on his patch raises his eyebrows and nearly drops the blood-splattered easy chair he’s carrying out the back of the building when we come down the stairs together. He’s a big brutal-looking guy with a scar across his chest. Super hot, but scary at the same time.

  “Why’s your face all red, Driller?” he asks with a hearty laugh.

  Driller reaches in his pocket and pulls out a strip of glow in the dark condoms he must have confiscated from upstairs and tosses them at his feet. “Got something for ya.”

  He kicks them over in my direction. “Probably best you hang on to those, Pearl. Don’t let old dirty dick fool ya.”

  Driller shoots him a middle finger and I shake my head. It’s not like I expect him to be a virgin. I mean, I personally hope he isn’t. Thinking about the kind of girls I’ve seen hanging around the club, though, and knowing that MCs have a tendency to share these women, I wonder if Decker’s just playing or if he knows something I don’t.

  “Come on. He’s just trying to get under my skin. I always keep my shit clean,” he says with a big toothy grin.

  “Is that supposed to be a pickup line?” I tease. “I don’t ask for much but if you’re gonna be shoving a finger in my mouth I at least expect you to have basic hygiene down.”

  “I’m gonna be shoving a lot more than my finger in your mouth,” he says with a wink.

  The hair on the back of my neck stands up. I’m not used to this kind of back and forth. It makes me feel warm inside. Weird. I’ve never been with a man who wasn’t afraid to tell me exactly what he wants. I’ve never felt ‘sexy’ or ‘wanted’ before.

  “You find anything good, pops?” he asks a man who looks familiar to the point I’m taken aback. If this is
what Driller is going to look like in thirty years, I would not even remotely complain. His patch reads “Old Nasty,” but his eyes are kindly, just like his son’s.

  “Found something the chick might appreciate.”

  He hands me a stack of crayon drawings. When I was a kid I drew on anything I could get my hands on, from the back of cardboard boxes to old receipts from the liquor store. I’m overwhelmed as I flip through them. I knew my dad hung on to the old tattoo machines, but I had no idea he kept this stuff.

  “Look at that; even back then you had skills,” Driller says. “I’d wear that on my chest. You were a morbid little child.”

  The skull with snakes coming out of its eyes was admittedly not my best work, but I recognized it in an instant. I was just trying to copy my dad. “I think somebody you know already has this one,” I say.

  Stoney pulls up his sleeve and flexes his bicep, the faded tattoo.

  “We get this place opened up and I’ll touch that sucker up for you. Make it look shiny as new. And I’ll make sure your chest piece is a Pearl Haines original.”

  “You got any hints?” Driller asks.

  “It depends on how bad you piss me off between now and then,” I say with a giggle. I honestly have no clue. His body is already a work of art. Anything I adorn him with has to be a masterpiece.

  “I like this one,” Old Nasty says with a grunt. “You keep that up, girl, and I might just keep you for myself.”

  Driller shoots daggers from his eyes, and I feel like that’s our cue to get up out of here. I am not trying to get claimed by some old biker like a piece of property. I don’t belong to anybody. I like Driller, but we hardly know each other. He’s just a little bit of fun in all this sadness. A little slice of joy and comfort when I feel like I have nobody. A big hulking blanket of muscles and madness I want to rub all over my body.