Callous Criminal: Vicious Vipers MC 3

1. Ryker

1

Ryker

A group of teenagers huddled together, waiting for their fancy as f**k coffees, laughing over top of the whirl of the milk frothing thing behind the counter. The murmurs from the long line at the register and those at the tables around me created a buzz beneath their carrying on.

I’d been sitting for over an hour with the ongoing noise, waiting and hoping he would show his ugly mug. I knew he was in town, and he had to have heard I’d been asking around about him.

I’d also made it known I sat at Dunks every morning the previous week drinking coffee like a fiend.

I inhaled the scent of coffee and toasting bagels, but couldn’t stomach the thought of eating so early in the morning. At least I’d managed to escape the sweltering heat outside while riding my Harley to Dunks.

Summer in Southie—a time of freedom for the young, a time to kick back and relax, maybe make a buck or two. I’d only done the third when I’d been a young punk like the noisy, too-happy fuckers on the other side of Dunks. Running messages and delivering drugs for the Irish mafia along with my two best friends Klingon and Martínez had lined my pockets and had given me a thirst for danger and violence.

We’d been inseparable, three peas in a pod, one Irish, one black, and one Latino. Opposites in every way except shared enjoyment of being a hoodlum and making money. My issues with physical touch hindered me from getting the p***y they had, but I’d had a girl or two in my back pocket who didn’t mind sucking me off with their hands behind their back at my request.

A mouth on my d**k, I could handle. Fingertips and palms other than my own, I could not—no matter how much I longed for it.

Gaze flitting around the coffee shop and trying to ignore the heart-eyed couple beside me with their fingers clasped atop the table, I considered my week away from the Vipers’ club.

I’d been poking around and listening, searching for answers about the cartel we’d beheaded a few months earlier. Heading south had been my idea, though. I’d needed to get the f**k out of the club, away from the love birds and public displays of affection from my two brothers who’d supposedly found their soul mates.

Who the f**k was I kidding?

Seeing Warden and Stone with their women made it obvious that sort of s**t did exist. Both were p***y whipped. Madly in love. Sickeningly so, touching non-f*****g stop, and rousing a covetousness inside me I never knew existed even as a young kid whose best friends got all the action.

I scowled at the couple beside me as she laughed and he lifted her hand to his lips.

Fucking sick of it.

Couldn’t f*****g escape cupid’s work and knowing I would never experience that sort of emotion or affection only pissed me off more.

At least I drank less whiskey away from the club. With the path I’d been on, I’d end up like my bastard father—but my luck, probably taking lives along with mine for driving under the influence. I’d turned to black coffee and ended up jittery as f**k from sucking it down like water in liquor’s place.

I lifted the third cup of coffee I’d gotten since arriving at Dunks, scowling deeper to find it lukewarm on my tongue. Another hour of my life f*****g wasted?

A shiny Mercedes pulled into the parking lot, tinted windows giving me the first shot of adrenaline and hope I’d felt in a long f*****g time. I leaned forward to keep the car in sight through the big glass window on my right.

Once parked on the far side of the lot, the driver stepped out and opened the back door.

The fucker showed.

I sipped my cool coffee, gaze tracking him through the window as he adjusted his shades and straightened his suit coat.

Fucking suit in Southie in the middle of a goddamn heat wave. The f**k was wrong with him? As a kid, he’d always been vain as f**k, needing his hair gelled and slicked back, clothes unwrinkled, and new converse every other week.

He stepped inside, head swiveling right to left before stalling out on my hunched form. A flick of his hand removed his sun glasses, his dark eyes pinned on me as he moved my way. His hair slicked back as usual, but at least he hadn’t covered the gray hair shooting backward above his temples.

I’d just shaved mine the f**k off when it started to thin out up top in my early twenties. With a shaved head and full beard, I felt it made me look mean as f**k—the look I’d decided on after taking up with the Vipers. Mean and untouchable.

“Heard you were looking for me.” Martínez settled across from me.

“Visiting with my mom for a few weeks,” I stated a different truth. “Figured I’d see what you were up to. Been awhile.”

“I heard she wasn’t doing well.”

I nodded, and he studied me, his eyes as dead as a week-old corpse—and just as cold.

“Looks like you’ve done well for yourself,” I said with a wave toward the fancy as f**k car and the driver who’d stayed outside to light up a cigarette. “f*****g chauffeur, and is that an Italian suit? Silk, I’m guessing.”

Martínez glanced over my old white t-shirt with its stretched out neck and black leather cut worn soft from years of a***e. “And it looks like you’re still running the Vipers’ chop shop.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Deadpan, I kept my focus on his face, wishing I had a cocky grin leftover from our childhood days.

“Lying fuck.” Martínez’s eyes lightened a bit, and he chuckled. “Everyone knows what you and your so-called brothers do. Greased pockets is all that stands between you crooked f***s and jail time.”

So-called.

They weren’t blood, but my Viper brothers knew what loyalty meant, something Martínez had lost touch with over the years.

I shrugged like I didn’t give a s**t about his opinion and sipped, waiting to see what he’d give up.

Martínez continued to study me, and I kept my mouth shut, knowing he’d start talking and give me what I wanted. Fucker couldn’t keep from talking—bragging—when he’d been a punk-a*s teen. Bad habits lingered on that sorry f**k like stench on a pile of hot s**t.

The loud teenagers finally walked outside, but the whirling of bean grinders and frothing continued for the unending line of customers as we sat in silence.

“You know what happened to my cousin?” Martínez finally broke our standoff.

I dipped my head once with a slight nod. “Heard Arturo disappeared awhile back.”

“He’s dead.”

The back of my scalp prickled, but I didn’t let a tic of emotion show on my face. I’d seen the knife stab into him twice. Watched him bleed out from the slice across his neck. It had given me a s**t ton of satisfaction, even though I hadn’t been the one holding the blade. “You sure?”

“He wouldn’t have left his empire willingly.”

“Well, that’s a shame. Sorry for your loss.” The lie came easy. The fucker had deserved to die—and I’d enjoyed watching Stone end his waste-of-sperm existence.

“Remember that time Klingon and you duped me into believing Mrs. Jenson was hot for my d**k?”

I huffed a laugh even though Martínez’s face stayed passive as f**k rather than light up with teenage memories. “Horney f**k—your d**k led the way to her place.”

“And her husband kicked the s**t out of me.”

I tipped my head back and forth a few times as though recalling the memory. “Pretty sure that fight earned you that badass rep you enjoyed having.”

“Breaking a cop’s face is nothing compared to what I’ll do if I find out you and the Vipers had anything to do with Arturo’s death.”

I stared at him, unblinking as my heart rate kicked up a gear.

As expected, Martínez opened his mouth as I sat in silence. “I know you’ve got your connections down here in Southie, but so do I,” he said under his breath, leaning over the table, his dark eyes full of threat—and promise. “You want to know who’s leading the cartel? It’s me, Ryker, but I’m not the friend you grew up with all those years ago. Arturo took me into his inner circle when I left Boston. Unlike you and Klingon, he understood what family meant, what loyalty meant.”

I barely held in my snort and sipped again, fighting off a grimace at the cold bitterness attempting to settle in my clenching gut.

“And,” Martínez continued while standing and adjusting his silk suit coat, “I’m going to be just as loyal to his memory. His plans for the family business.”

A few words of flippant good luck entered my brain, but I bit them back, merely holding my old friend’s gaze. I silently dared him to spew more s**t. More threats—even though I knew as leader of the Martínez cartel he sure as f**k had the means and connections to follow through.

Martínez eventually turned on his heel and strode back out into the bright sun, but his threat hovered over me like a goddamn cloud, chilling me more than the AC blasting overhead. If the cartel came gunning for our club, it wouldn’t just be bikers and club w****s who would meet their end. If Martínez planned on being loyal to Arturo and his ways, even my brothers’ kids and old ladies wouldn’t escape his wrath.

The second the Mercedes disappeared into traffic, I pulled my cell from my back pocket.

“Ryker,” Vigil answered after one ring. “Whatcha got?”

“Martínez took over, just like I figured,” I muttered, finally sitting back in my chair even though my shoulders refused to relax.

“Fuck.”

A shiver licked over my skin as I waited, half-hoping Vigil would tell me to take care of the problem before he became a problem.

“You talk to him?” Vigil said with a grunt.

“Just now.”

“Where’s he at?”

I knew Vigil wasn’t asking about location, but his goddamn headspace. “Hell bent,” I replied, keeping my voice to a murmur so the couple beside me wouldn’t hear even if they were caught up in one another. “Made it clear he’ll clean up that s**t if he finds the mess.”

“f**k,” Vigil muttered again. “Get your a*s back to the club.”

In my head, I compared Mom’s shitty condo where I’d been crashing for a week to the love-shack club outside Topsfield for all of two seconds before shaking my head. “I’m gonna stick around down here for a little while longer,” I told Vigil while standing and striding toward the exit. “Mom’s not doing all that great, and my sister likes having me around to help.”

My half-empty coffee cup thumped into the bottom of the trashcan at the same time Vigil offered condolences.

He knew my mom was on her way out—but he also knew I didn’t give more than a single s**t about the woman who hadn’t done her job as a mother. She hadn’t caused my hatred of being touched, but she hadn’t done anything to protect me from the PTSD I’d ended up with, either.

“Come home when you’re ready,” Vigil said, and I shoved my cell back into my pocket while pushing open the door.

The sun hit my face along with hot, humid air stinking of exhaust, and I turned toward my bike.

Head down, focused on a cell, a woman hurried toward me, and I scuttled sideways to escape her fast clip.

Not f*****g fast enough.

She slammed into my side and grasped hold of my bare forearm, a squeak of surprise ripping from her mouth as her cell clattered to the sidewalk.

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” She lessened her grip on my arm, and I clenched my teeth as my stomach knotted fast as f**k.

Not wanting to be a complete asshole, I didn’t shake off her hold but waited for her to steady herself in her sandals. Her soft touch burned my skin. Sent a shot of need to lash out with my fists along with an energetic zap to my d**k I hadn’t felt in years.

I pulled away the second I could and bent to retrieve her cell while she righted her purse and the sweater she had draped over one arm.

Standing, I handed her the phone she’d dropped.

Straight blonde hair brushed her shoulders, her blue-green eyes and pale lashes unframed or painted by makeup. Pink flushed her cheeks, and she pressed her lips together, drawing my focus to the sparkling gloss coating them while reaching for her cell.

I made sure to keep our fingers from touching. “Not a problem,” I stated with a gruffness I hadn’t meant to do while noting the flush across her chest and the hint of cleavage peeking at the top of her plain, buttoned up blouse.

She smiled up at me, a plain-Jane yet classically beautiful woman who smelled like fresh, juicy watermelon.

My mouth watered, and I stepped back out of her way. With a dip of my head, I moved around her, intent on my bike—and escaping the weird vibe breaking me out into a sweat atop the bright as f**k sun.

It is the heat, I told myself while fighting the need to look over my shoulder. See if her back was as pretty as her front, even if she hadn’t dressed to showcase the curves I’d caught a glimpse of.

The bike roared to life between my thighs, and I glanced toward Dunks while pulling on my helmet. She’d gone inside, escaping the heat, but I couldn’t see her past the glare of the sun on the shop’s windows.

Lips set in a line, I put on my shades and pulled out, already sweating through my t-shirt. I had to stop again for an old woman with her dolly of groceries in the cross walk a block up the road. She moved with more spring in her step than Mom even though they appeared about the same age, and seconds later, I shot down the road, my skin cooling in the wind whipping past me.

I grimaced at the thought of going back to Mom’s with its single window-unit in the living room, but any place was better than the club with all its cupid bullshit. Deciding on the long route back to Mom’s place, I held out my left arm signaling a turn.

Martínez’s threat still hung over my head like the sun baking my back, but I trusted Klingon’s ability to clean up the mess the Vipers had made while taking down the skin sale and handful of assholes out in Vegas earlier that spring.

The scent of watermelon overshadowed both, and I suddenly didn’t trust myself or the confidence I’d banked on a mere fifteen minutes earlier.