Sons of Mayhem 3: The Full Force (3 page)

D
eep breaths Ava
, deep breaths. I stood outside the club for a minute quietly panicking. What the hell was going on? This wasn’t like Lily. Not at all. They must have done something to her I decided. Tricked her, hypnotized her, drugged her?

Damn. It was all my fault. How did I let her slip away from me like that? Why couldn’t I look after her properly? I had one job, dammit. One job. Look after my little sister. And now I’d let that ugly bastard biker kidnap her and hustle her off who-knows-where.

Well shit. They weren’t going to get away with it. No way. I took a final deep breath and exhaled it with deep resolve. I was going to get her back, whatever it took.

I
drove past
the hotel slowly, scouting it out. There were makeshift barriers stopping the small crowd outside from getting too close to the hotel, and a couple of cops to stop unwanted fans going in.

I pondered explaining to the cops that, no, actually, I wasn’t a fan, I was there to yell at the band and slap them upside their bastard British heads.
Sure, go on through
, they’d say to me. Yeah right. I needed another way in.

On a side street about a quarter mile away I parked my car. I hesitated a moment before getting out, thinking. They weren’t going to let just anyone in there, and I wasn’t about to drop three hundred bucks or more on one of their overpriced rooms. Could I be going to one of the restaurants? Nope, it was too late. The lobby bar? Nope, I was underdressed. I needed a better plan.

Luckily for Lily and me I’m pretty resourceful. I had to be, especially in that difficult time six years ago when I first had to take over as Lily’s guardian despite being only eighteen. Think, Ava, think. So I thought. Not for long, though. It never takes me long.

A moment later I had it. I reached across the passenger seat where Lily had been sitting fixing her hair and makeup just a few hours before. I delved into the glovebox and grabbed exactly what I was looking for. My clipboard and a pair of clear lens sunglasses.

When I’m not taking my little sister out to get kidnapped by limey bastards I work in marketing, and part of my job is to visit various sites and make sure everything is set up correctly. A lot of ticking boxes, getting signatures - stuff like that, in a variety of locations. So I always have a clipboard in my car.

It was a funny thing I’d learned in my job, but a clipboard gives you power, respect, sometimes even fear. If you’re walking around with a clipboard you’re doing something
official
. You very well may be able to fuck someone’s day up if you’re working for the right inspection board or internal review department. Of course, I worked in marketing, but people don’t necessarily know that when you’re working at a new location. They just see the clipboard, and think either
official business
or
uh oh, I hope we haven’t fucked up lately.

I hadn’t taken advantage of this power much though, just filed it away neatly in my mind in case I ever needed it. That’s the thing about knowledge: you may not need it right away, but if you’ve got it stored away somewhere upstairs it’ll be waiting for you at just the right moment.

And the glasses? Well, I was a bit of a sweaty mess and I was wearing a t-shirt and jean shorts instead of a more business-like outfit. Glasses can go a long way to making you look more official. It was unfortunate though that my clear lensed sunglasses made the world even darker than it already was. If only I’d had poor vision and real glasses.

I locked the door of my car and headed to the trunk. I had a black cardigan in there and after putting it on I looked almost professional. Except for the short shorts, that is. I was kind of a
sexy
professional I thought with a grin.

As I started walking back in the direction of the hotel I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, finishing my new tidier disguise. While I was walking I heard a loud series of shrieks. Not the shrieks of a woman cornered in a dark alley. No, something much more frightening: the shrieks of countless teen girls as they spotted one of their idols. Had one of the band just peered out of a window? Come outside to grab another groupie? I increased my pace.

Back at the hotel it seemed as if the crowd had grown and now they were loud. I hadn’t heard much driving past them in my car, but I was certain if I drove by now I would.

Bunches of teenage girls were bouncing excitedly from foot to foot, holding up signs saying
I love you Neal
or
Johnny Let Me Fill Your Needs
echoing their popular hit song. Occasionally one of them would scream out “Neal!” or “I love you!” or “Come out here!” or “Over here! I love you Johnny!”

It seemed the two frontmen of the band, the singer and lead guitarist, were the most popular. I didn’t see anyone holding signs offering themselves up to the drummer or the bassist though. I couldn’t even remember their names myself.

As I got closer my field of view extended and I saw the reason for the increased size of the crowd. There was now a tour bus there. It hadn’t been there when I’d driven by just a few minutes ago.

I stood on the sidewalk and pondered that fact for a few seconds. Let it sink in. The tour bus wasn’t there before, but now it was. That meant they had only just arrived. And I certainly hadn’t passed them on my way here. Which meant that English bastard at the club had lied to me when he said they had already gone.

“
Fucker!
” I whispered to myself. How could he have done that? Shit, Lily was probably still at the club when I left. For Chrissakes.

I was shaking in anger when I got to the front door, my fingers white as I grasped my clipboard as if it was a weapon.

“Oh, great idea,” said a girl with pink and green hair.

“What?”

She nodded at the clipboard in my hands.

“Oh. Yeah. Thanks. It’s not for… thanks.”

I walked away from her, heading along the front of the hotel looking for an access road or a side alley. I’d not gone more than a couple dozen yards when the sound of the teen girls was drowned out by a new, throatier roar.

I gritted my teeth angrily. Well, well, well. I knew exactly who that would be. The bikers. The so-called security guards from the club. No doubt that English bastard with his stupid tattoos would be with them. Sure enough, a moment later they were there.

I counted them as they went by. Eight of them this time including my English friend. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh… they flew by me toward the front of the hotel. From a distance I watched as the fans outside parted like the Red Sea. One after the other the bikers parked up in front of the hotel, right next to the front door. The manager wouldn’t allow that, surely?

The giant on the trike I’d noticed earlier and the English bastard from before spoke to the two cops manning the little metal fence the fans were forbidden to cross. Nodding between them, and then that was it, the cops were leaving, walking over to their cruiser.

Well that sucked. Those guys had all seen me at the club, making a scene. They wouldn’t be letting me in, no way. Fuck ‘em. I already had my plan anyway.

I
t was
quiet around the side of the hotel except for the droning of a large extractor unit. The big building blocked out most of the sounds of the mayhem out front. I walked purposefully, shoulders back, ponytail swinging, clipboard firmly in hand.

A rat scurried across my path from under a dumpster. Suppressing my fear I watched it sternly as it scampered away and then looked at my clipboard and made a thoughtful mark. Maybe someone was watching.

A few feet further I saw what I was looking for. There was a green dumpster for food waste and next to it a door to the kitchen, propped open. It’s a pretty common sight. Kitchens get way too hot and there’s never enough breeze, so even in winter you’ll find the doors of commercial kitchens propped open across the country. I smiled to myself.

I just had to get inside, and then go get my sister. Simple as.

“Buenas noches,” said a dark haired chef as I walked through the kitchen door like I owned the place, my head scanning left and right as if I was inspecting the kitchen. His voice, while friendly, had a questioning tone to it. Surely it wasn’t every night he had young women walking in through his fire exit conducting impromptu inspections

I gave him a big grin and waved my clipboard at him. “Good evening.”

He nodded knowingly when he saw the clipboard, content that I was, in fact, someone who should be there. I stood there scanning the room, and then pointedly made a check on the paper clipped to the board. The paper was actually a checklist for an installation showing off a new skin cream I’d inspected in San Francisco the week before, but he wasn’t to know that. It gave me a bit longer to examine my surroundings and figure out where to go.

A moment later I was on my way, straight down an access hallway, until I saw the green signs indicating a fire escape. Too easy. All I’d do is walk up the stairs to the top floor where the best suites were and rescue my sister. What could go wrong?

I headed on up, and by the fourth floor I was panting a bit. I took a break. Six more stories to go. The stairway was dark above and below me, but where I was standing a light shone down illuminating the immediate area around me. There were sensors that lit when I moved, and then when I passed the lights turned off again. So at any one time there were one or two lights allowing me to see.

Suddenly it all went black.

I jerked up from my hands-on-knees panting position and the lights came on again. I’d been inactive too long and the stupid lights had gone off. My fault. Shouldn’t be wasting time.

I headed on up the stairs to the tenth floor, going a little slower than before so I didn’t wind myself. When I arrived I took a moment to compose myself, readied my clipboard and went to open the door.

It wouldn’t budge. Not an inch. It was locked.

That didn’t make any sense, who’d lock a fire door? The realization of what was going on struck me like a surprise ice bucket over the head.

These were fire doors and this was a fire escape, not an access stairway. The doors only opened from the inside, not from the stairway itself.

Fuck.

If the door wouldn’t open, it was time for Plan B.

“$
2
,000 a day
, and hotel rooms. Final offer,” said Jase.

“Deal.”

Jase gave me a look. I knew what it meant. He wondered if we’d just sold ourselves short. Chad had been a bit too quick to accept our final offer. We could have gotten more out of him, dammit.

Chad was holding out his hand in front of him, smiling. Jase grabbed it and gave it a squeeze. The deal was done.

The original plan had just been to show up to the shows, get paid in beer and food, listen to some rockin’ music and maybe bang a few groupies. It was more a vacation than serious work.

But shit, providing effectively 24 hour a day security? That was like a real job. So now we’d just agreed to work for $200 a day apiece. Not bad. Not good. It was less than we were making from the drug business back at home, but hey, a bit more beer money never hurt.

“You better get to the hotel, you don’t want to be la--”

Jase gave him a look so harsh it ripped the words right out of the little guy’s mouth. He nodded at us and scurried away.

“That guy,” said Jase shaking his head.

“Twat,” I agreed.

“Alright, you get the boys and take them to the hotel. Me and Reap have got some shit to discuss. Catch you back there.”

I nodded and went to gather the crew. We were ten altogether. Jase and me were representing the Sons as full patched members. Reap the club president and Everest a long standing member from Dawn’s Rage.

We’d each brought three prospects along with us too. See how they did on long rides, see how they did in new circumstances, see how they were to work with for a long stretch at once. You know how it goes. Just testing ‘em out.

We had BK who’d been working our bar back at the clubhouse and a couple of younger blokes too. Good lads.

I told the boys what was up. The thing about almost all of them being prospects was, they weren’t going to complain. But the Rager’s president, Reap, had brought Everest along. I guess he was the equivalent of me. A fully patched member along for a couple of weeks of partying. In my case it was because I’d organized the whole fuckin’ thing, but him? He really was on the party ticket.

The thing about Everest was that he was, well, the size of fuckin’ Mount Everest. Literally. Except not literally, what I mean is he was really, really big. Like he had a tumor on the gland that produces growth hormones and he grew into a fuckin’ monster before the doctors put a stop to it. Anyway, he’s the kind of guy that needs a three wheel trike because the bike engineers didn’t figure out a way to make a two wheel vehicle that’d be anything more than a toy for him.

So I told Everest what was up. We were now going to be on 24/7 security.

“24/7 beer?”

“What?” I asked

“That was the deal. Unlimited beer while working.” His voice had descended into a growl by the end of the sentence.

I didn’t care. Not my business. As far as I knew we still got beer. The shit we’d been given so far was about $7 a case as it was; who gave a fuck?

“Sure, buddy. Beer included.”

The motherfucker grinned the broadest grin you’ve ever seen. I wondered whether Chad Chad’s budget would stretch to cover Everest’s appetite.

W
e almost caught
the tour bus before we got to the hotel. Almost. We got there just after them and arrived into a whole barrel load of horned up fans. Girls. All of them. I guess guys don’t mob their idols in quite the same way. Don’t get me wrong,
The Full Force
aren’t in anyway a boy band, they attract ‘serious’ rock fans too, but the two band leaders had another dedicated fan base among young women, and these were the fans that did things like spend hours waiting outside hotels for them to arrive. Or happily agree to go to their hotel rooms.

We parked up in front and sent the cops on their way. They’d been keeping the fans at bay and now we’d have to take over. Babysitting. That’s all it was really.

“Yo, Ev! Want to organize a schedule? Two guys on at once. Two hour shifts.”

He gave a deep grunt that was his way of saying yes. A man of few words.

I headed inside the impressive plate glass doors that swung open with a whoosh to see what we were dealing with. An anxious face greeted me when I entered. He’d been peering outside and he didn’t seem pleased. Not pleased at all.

He was another suit, though unlike Chad Chad Price he carried it off with a lot more aplomb. This was a dapper looking chap without a hint of Chad’s greasiness about him. He was clearly the manager on duty and it looked like his night was turning to crap.

“Uh are you--”, he paused, “umm--”

I waited patiently for him to make sense.

“What are you people doing?” he finally managed to ask.

“We’re doing security. For the band.”

He nodded. “Umm, you see, the thing is--”

Go on, say it. I raised my eyebrows at him.

“This hotel, well, it’s quite a, err,
nice
hotel. A very nice hotel. And you umm--”

“Are you saying I don’t look nice?” I didn’t say it in a threatening manner, I asked completely calmly. But the thing about looking like I do, with tats, scruffy jeans and a biker’s cut is that even when you’re being polite people can still get afraid of you. This guy looked afraid.

“No, no, no, no. Not at all. Not at all.” He paused again, trying to figure out how to say what he needed to say. “It’s just that when we asked the band’s manager to provide security we thought… you know… men in black suits, shades, that kind of thing. Not…” he trailed off.

“Not bikers?”

He nodded glumly.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you mate. The cops have gone now, it’s just us keeping that gaggle of horned up fangirls from storming this joint.”

He sighed. “I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

I shrugged. “Nope. Not tonight anyway. Maybe you should give the band manager another call. Maybe you guys can work something out. Maybe he’ll buy us black suits and shades.”

The hotel manager peeked behind me again outside and winced when he saw the seven bikers loitering around.

“Really?”

I shook my head. “No. Just kidding. I ain’t wearing a suit and nor is anyone else.”

The manager let out another worried sigh, though he no longer seemed too intimidated. At least not by me. “I’ll give the manager a call... Chad Price was his name, right?”

I nodded. “Chad Chad actually. Chad Chad Price so twattish they named him twice.”

The suit laughed.

“So where’s the band?” I asked.

The manager gave me directions to the top floor and I decided to head up and see just what kind of trouble they’d managed to start making for themselves.

I
exited the elevator
, pocketing the keycard the manager had given me that was required to access this floor, the tenth and top floor of the building.

I gave a low whistle as I slowly walked down the corridor. It was nice up there. Proper nice. Fancy red carpet, nice and deep. Mirrors and paintings and shit on the walls. A real posh kind of place. It was strange to think that Rabbie, Johnny, Si and Neal were staying there. That they were
supposed
to be staying there. That they were rich and successful enough to be able to afford it. How times change.

Wandering down the hallway I passed several doors. The manager had told me that the band had the whole top floor. That meant they had the two fancy suites - the presidential and royal suites - as well as another six rooms they called “Grand Staterooms”, which meant they were bigger and posher than standard rooms but not quite suites. Whatever they called them it was all pretty swank anyway.

I headed down toward the end of the corridor where the doors for the two suites were. That’s where the boys would be, I figured. It was quiet in the hallway. Too quiet.

Just as I was reaching the end the door of the presidential suite flew inward. As it did sounds of raucous partying poured out into the previously quiet hallway. The doors were clearly well soundproofed.

A naked figure flew out and crashed into me. A naked man, unfortunately. He tumbled to the floor and grabbed onto my cut to pull himself back to his feet. It was Neal, the guitarist.

“They’re crazy! Crazy!”

“Get back here!”

Neal fled down the hallway back the way I’d come just as two nubile dark-haired exotic beauties clad only in tiny knickers burst out of the room. One of them was holding a wooden ruler in one hand while she pulled along her friend in the other.

“There he is!”

Neal let out a shriek and jabbed at the elevator button repeatedly as the two chicks closed in on him, giggling madly.

The doors opened, Neal dived in and before he could get them shut again the two girls had followed him in. As the doors closed on them I heard a feminine voice saying, “You’ve been a very, very bad boy Neal.” He gave a shriek and then the doors were shut.

Uh oh. The manager wasn’t going to be happy when they burst into the lobby. Oh well. Maybe we’d have to get a couple of guys up here to stop the band going too wild in the rest of the hotel. Or not. Isn’t that the kind of behaviour “rock stars” were supposed to engage in?

As I was about to open the door to the suite again I heard thumping and feminine swearing.

“Goddamit open this door!”

It wasn’t coming from either of the suites. I took a few steps onward past the last rooms to the end of the hallway. A green glowing fire exit sign was lit above a metal door with a large push-bar on it. It was coming from the fire exit.

Huh. Weird. I figured one of the groupies must have got locked out there. Probably went to try and find somewhere to smoke.

Whatever. I gave the bar a push. “Welcome, groupies!” I announced giving a theatrical bow, pretending I was a doorman or something.

As my head reached level again I was given a rude awakening when a palm slapped across my face. Again.

Before I knew what I was doing my right hand had flown out and grabbed her. I held her hand high above her head and when she tried to free herself with the other one I grabbed that too. A clipboard clattered to the ground between us. She was panting heavily like she’d just walked up the entire set of stairs.

“You again?”

She tried to knee me and missed. I stepped into her, lowered her arm and held it tight against her waist. I found myself holding her close against me so she wouldn’t have room to maneuver.

And that’s how I found myself with a hot angry chick pressed up against me, my hand holding her arse tight so she couldn’t escape, just outside a very expensive hotel suite. I felt a stirring in my jeans as the blood rushed into my cock. It’s bound to happen when you press up against a gorgeous young woman, but with her it was especially sudden. There was something about her - an energy, an aura, some-fucking-thing - that was getting me extra fired up.

My face was still burning from her palm as she glared at me, her face mere inches from mine, her hot minty breath on my face.

She looked gorgeous in her rage.

I imagined holding her down under me, giving it to her as she dug her nails into my back and called me a
bastard
. A good old fashioned hate fuck. All hot and sweaty and angry. It’d be glorious.

“You lying bastard,” she hissed.

I snapped back from my reverie.

“What do you want?”

“You know what I fuckin’ want. Get my goddamn sister’s ass out here right now. I’ve got work tomorrow and I ain’t got time for this shit.”

Her eyes were fierce, like a mother wolf defending her cub. She really was serious.

“Look, love,” I told her, “your sister is a big girl. Who are you to stop her if she wants to blow a rock star or whatever the hell they’re doing?”

“But she’s only nineteen. We don’t live around here. How would she get home? What if something happened to her? Can I just check on her, please?”

Tears were forming in her eyes and some of the rage was fading. It was like she was giving up. Perhaps she was realizing that it was time to let her sister grow up.

“She’ll be
fine
, love.”

Her voice was quavering. “Let me just talk to her, please. If she really wants to stay I’ll leave quietly.”

I sighed. This was fucked up. Was it always this difficult with groupies? At the MC we had our own equivalent of groupies - the party girls who loved our bad boy lifestyle and threw themselves at us. But they usually didn’t come with overprotective relatives. They were more likely to be society’s rejects that no one gave a damn about. Except us.

“Look love, I’ll tell her you’re here and I’ll try and get her out to talk with you. Okay?”

She nodded and brushed a stray lock of hair away from her face that had escaped her ponytail, subtly wiping away a tear as she did so as if she hoped I wouldn’t notice. I noticed.