That didn't mean he was above the occasional big brother lecture. Like the one I knew was coming.
"You can't steal from this guy, Gus, okay? It's fucking important."
"Important why?" I asked, brows scrunching.
"Business," Huck told me, jaw a little tight. A surefire indicator that this was actually a big deal, that the guy with the biker cut with a patch from around where our Uncle Ricky lived, was someone my brother needed me to respect.
Whoops.
"What kind of bikers are in your business?" I asked.
Almost as a rule, Huck didn't try to protect me from everything. Maybe because he respected women enough not to question their ability to handle the truth. Or maybe because he knew that if he didn't tell me, I would damn sure find out on my own. Likely a combination of the two.
So I knew what he did.
I'd been around when he jacked cars. I'd even helped him on occasion. Since there was nothing that distracted a man quite as well as a woman with her ass hanging out of the bottom of her shorts and spilling out of her push-up bra. He didn't like it, but he utilized me and my eagerness to help out when they really needed a specific car.
He never shied away from sharing details about the family business with me.
"They're not," he clarified. "They are in arms."
"You want to be an arms dealer now?" I asked, brows lowering.
My brother, while successful at what he did, had never shown the sort of dogged ambition that would be necessary to completely change gears, to, essentially, start over.
"I'm considering it."
"Why?"
"That's a long discussion, and we're short on time," he told me as Remy's engine cut, the doors starting to open.
"You're going to have it with me," I told him.
"Just not here. Try to fucking behave yourself around West, okay?" he demanded, voice low.
"No promises," I told him, watching as his lips twitched ever so slightly.
"West," he said when the man in question came around Remy's car. "Gus would never do it, so I will apologize for her."
"To do it, I'd have to be sorry," I agreed, watching as West shot me a smile while he took his keys from Huck. "In my defense, though, I love bikes. And the last time I bought one, my brother confiscated it."
"I can barely trust you on four wheels. I'm not losing sleep over you rolling around on only two of 'em," Huck explained.
I was a better driver than he was, and he knew it. Alright, maybe more aggressive and prone to some bad road rage. With a very low level of respect for posted speed limits. But even at a hundred miles an hour, I was better than him. And McCoy. And even Remy. Che, well, Che had been known around these parts for street racing before he started working for my brother. He'd maybe snuck in some defensive driving lessons for me when I was younger.
"You also have a tendency to get pulled over," McCoy reminded me.
"And that bike is full of illegal weapons,": Huck concluded.
"Whoops," I said, shrugging. It was as close to an admission of guilt as they'd get from me. They all seemed to accept it.
"Where are your girls?" Remy asked, even though he knew that my girls were off-limits to his charming ass. They'd fall. He'd crush them. It was a lose-lose all around.
"Inside with Teddy. He got bottle service. You walking me in, handsome?" I asked, linking my arm into West's, completely ignoring my brother's disapproving glare.
"Ease up, pretty girl, your brother said you're off-limits," West explained as we fell into step behind the rest of the guys.
"You know, it's the funniest thing..."
"What is?" he asked when I deliberately trailed off.
"That we don't live in the seventeen-hundreds where women were the property of their male relatives. I can, if you can believe this, make my own decisions! I can even fuck hot biker guys from Jersey," I added, getting close to his ear as I did so.
"I got sisters, sweetheart. I understand where your brother is coming from. It's not going to happen."
"First, there is very little sweet about me," I told him, shooting him a smirk. "And, secondly, that sounds like a hell of a challenge to me."
"Uh-oh," he said as we moved inside the club without getting a pat-down or having some idiot go through my purse. Like I would hide my weapons there in the first place.
Without fail, either me or my brother and his men knew people working at the places we frequented, allowing us to cut lines and avoid the bullshit.
"This is more what I was looking for," West declared as we moved into the club, the music thumping so loud it vibrated your insides.
Chaos was what you expected when you heard the word 'club.' It was dimly lit, loud, packed full of bodies wearing too many different scents. Women wore as little as possible. Men noticed. Liquor flowed. Dancing was one step away from actual intercourse.