“Your smell, of course. Mind you, it’s all disinfectant and hospital aromas. Not your normal sweaty armpits for once.” Her lips quirk.
Liz clearly doesn’t know what to make of her, and just suffers her attentions when her arms go around him.
“Unhand my woman,” says Beef, stepping forward and claiming her, his arms wrapping around her tightly, and pulling her back.
“Want a cinnamon bun, Liz? I baked them ‘specially for you.” Mel’s holding out a tub. “They’re your favourites.” Liz steadies himself on one crutch, takes it automatically, then puts it down unopened on the counter.
“Liz, you don’t know how good it is to see you back,” Vi steps in, carrying Theo.
Lizard’s eyes open wide. “What are you lot? Whores for the club?”
“They’re our old ladies,” Demon tells him sharply, his tone full of warning. “And I don’t care if your brain is fucked up, Brother. You’ll treat them with some fuckin’ respect. Now come with me. We’ve got some talking to do.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Mace
We took a risk today. If Vanna had been serious about taking Lizard back to Denver, or Lizard being determined to go, that steering wheel could have been wrenched to the side and one of us could have ended up dirty side down. Deep down Vanna must have wanted to come back to the club, she hadn’t taken much persuasion to bring Lizard. Had that been relief I’d seen in her eyes once she’d arrived?
If it was, I can see why. I’m having difficulty reconciling the man I’ve known as my brother for the past ten years with the angry person in front of me. If it wasn’t that I hoped the man I knew was still inside, and that I could blame the swelling in his head for the way he is now, he’d already have had my fist in his face.
I’m not sure what I expected. Him to walk in and magically become our Lizard again? Well, fuck that. He doesn’t know us at all, and nothing in the club seems familiar. It’s easier now to understand why Vanna had let him go after two years of trying to live with a man who didn’t know her. Already, after a few minutes, I’m thinking of doing just that.
As I follow Demon toward his office, I know we’ve got to try, even though all our efforts might fail. Christ, I just hope the man I loved as my brother is still in there, somewhere.
Demon goes to sit behind his desk and waves Liz to a seat. I refrain from offering assistance even though Liz has difficulty manoeuvring the crutches and getting himself seated. Beef sits to one side, Thunder pulls up the other chair. I stand in my normal position, leaning with my back against the door. Liz doesn’t know it, but he’s being given an audience with the senior officers of the club.
Lizard rubs his hand over his face, and doesn’t waste time asking, “Hatch?”
Prez explains what happened ten years ago, and how Lizard came to the club, Liz’s face going through a variety of emotions as he does so. “You were cut up, Liz. We gave you a place to stay. You liked it, liked us. After the funeral, you became a prospect. Got patched in a year later.” As Liz looks dumbfounded, Prez leans forward. “You gave us a chance then, just asking that now you give us another.”
“I remember nothing,” Liz states, after taking a moment to digest this information. “Hatch, darn it. Should be able to remember his death. Seems disrespectful to the man not to recall it.” I want to say it’s not his fault, but he’s continuing, “I fucking hate this, I don’t know who I am. Seems I was first one man, Vanna’s husband and a Marine. But he went overseas, came back with a brain injury, and turned into someone else, a biker if you are to be believed. Now I’ve had a fuckin’ tumour removed, and I’m a different man all over again. If what you say is true, and I really was a part of this, I appreciate what you’re trying to do. But maybe it’s wrong for me to be here, I might not now see the club the way you say I did. Everyone here is a stranger.”
Demon sits back in his chair and folds his arms. “And so we were once before. We invited you into the fold, and were no longer strangers, but friends and brothers. Nothing to say we can’t do that again. I’m Demon, we’ve already met. Sitting to your right is Beef, the VP, and Thunder, sergeant-at-arms is on your left. Behind you is Mace, he’s the enforcer.”
“Names tell me nothing.” The news of his friend’s death seems to make Lizard less combative. “Hatch’s death, well that’s as raw to me now as it probably was then. I can’t remember him moving to Denver, but I can see myself leaning on him when I split from Vanna. His death would have hit me hard. Probably hoped to find my own at the hands of the club, or of your enemies. Or hell, by just the life that you lead.”
“What life do we lead, Liz?” Demon’s deceptively calm.
Liz shrugs and tells us what he believes, “A criminal one.”
“Wrong,” says the VP. “You’ve met my wife. You think she’d be involved in a criminal lifestyle? And Mel, Pyro’s woman, bakes muffins for fuck’s sake, she doesn’t cook up meth.”
“We run clean businesses. Wouldn’t touch drugs with a ten-foot pole and don’t deal in guns. Sure, we run a strip club, but the dancers are there voluntarily, and no one is forced. It’s a job for them, like any other.” I’m angry he’s given us such a label. “We’ve got a bowling alley as well.”
“You run our tattoo parlour,” Thunder puts in. “A fuckin’ good one with a good rep.”
With his left hand, Lizard lifts his right. “Won’t be any fuckin’ good to you there now.”
“You not going to recover?” Beef asks sharply.
“I could do or could not. Doctors know fuck all.”
Prez eyes Lizard for a moment. “See, here’s the thing, Lizard. You’ve lived here at the compound for ten years. All your shit is here, your clothes, your bike. You’ve got a room, maybe not much, but it’s your home.”
“I don’t remember,” Lizard says tersely.
Prez ignores him. “You’ve never been to Vanna’s house. You’ve got nothing of yours there, not even a change of underwear. You don’t know her situation. I know she’s lost her job, and I’ve offered her a new one. Temporarily, at least.”
“What job?” Lizard asks fast. “She’s not going to be working in your strip club—”
“For fuck’s sake.” The words are startled out of my mouth. “She wouldn’t do that, and we wouldn’t ask her.”
“She’s going to be doing the admin and management shit at the tattoo parlour. Until you’re able to take it up again.” Demon takes back over.
“She didn’t tell me she lost her job. Why did she?” There’s a spark of the old Lizard there, with an unspoken promise of retribution should it be needed.
“Because her boss is an asshole and thought she was taking too much time off.”
Lizard’s shoulders drop. “Because of me?”
Demon doesn’t lie. “Partly. And partly because of Cas.”
“Why Cas?” Lizard puts in sharply. “What’s up with the boy?”