Christopher Golden - Sons of Anarchy - Bratva

Jax shook his head. “Nah. She took off with him. Left home. But from everything Oleg said before they left, I know there’s some serious shit going on with you and your people and I want to get my sister back before she ends up in a ditch with a bullet in the back of her head. I want to get her out of this, and I’ll do whatever I have to do to make sure she gets home safely.”

Iov scratched at a spot under his left eye, thinking.

“You want us to help you find your sister? To tell you where to find Oleg?”

“He’s not your brother, is he?” Joyce asked, looking a little squirrely. A sheen of sweat had formed on his forehead.

“I can pay,” Jax said.

Iov’s eyes sparkled. “I work for a man who would also like to find Oleg. Right now, we don’t know where he is, but maybe my employer will want to meet you. Maybe you can help him, and he can help you.”

He sent Yurik to make a call, and the thug headed toward the men’s room, where the thumping music wouldn’t prevent him from hearing voices on the other end of the line. Los Lonely Boys’ “Crazy Dream” came on the sound system, and the girl on the rear stage dropped down and began pumping her lace-covered crotch at the bachelor-party guys. All the while, she stared longingly at Iov—the Russians tipped way better than suburban dads. She caught Jax watching her and scowled at him, pissed that he’d drawn her best customers away.

A waitress floated their way, a lithe brunette who looked closer to fifteen than twenty, which had to be an illusion given the law. Her purple eye shadow had sparkles in it that changed color with the shifting lights in the club. She wore a little tartan skirt that must have sparked a thousand Catholic-schoolgirl fantasies, and she made a beeline toward Joyce. Her eyes lit up like she knew him.

“Hey, Harry. Give a girl a taste?” the waitress asked. “You’ve always got the good stuff.”

Joyce gave her a dark look. “Now ain’t the time.”

Jax bristled. He didn’t much care if Joyce was using drugs to buy favors from strippers, but if he was selling in clubs, that was the kind of small-time shit that could get the whole charter jammed up. It was something for Rollie to take care of—and Jax would bring it to his attention—but right now the girl was just a distraction.

Jax saw Opie signal him and looked toward the front of the bar to see what had gotten Opie’s attention. One of the bouncers—the bodybuilder, not the jarhead—stood beside the main stage watching Jax and Joyce talk to the Russians.

“Maybe next time, honey,” the waitress said, before she turned to the rest of them. “What’ll you have, boys?”

“Go away, girl,” Iov rumbled.

She glanced at Jax. “You look like a whiskey man.”

Iov grew angry. “Are you blind or stupid? We want a drink, we find you. Now fuck off.”

She looked him up and down with the belittling disdain only a beautiful young woman could muster.

“I can’t decide if you’ve had too much to drink or not enough,” she said, and then she turned to Joyce, moving close enough to give him a whiff of the perfume that had already filled Jax’s nostrils. “I’m dancing in about half an hour, honey. I hope you’ll stick around for my show. Trust me, you won’t be—”

Iov shoved her. The girl’s arms pinwheeled, flinging away the trayful of Jell-O shots. For a heartbeat, the music stopped—just between songs—and Jax could hear the little cry of surprise as she staggered backward and fell on her ass, tartan skirt flipping up to reveal the tiny patch of pink lace between her legs.

Joyce tried to wade in. “Hang on, man, there’s no need for that.”

“Stay out of it,” Jax told him, shoving him backward.

Iov barely glanced at them, but he wasn’t stupid. The Russian had to have noticed Joyce’s obedience, recognized that Jax was the one in charge. His eyes narrowed, but Jax wasn’t sure if it was with appreciation or suspicion.

Yurik came out of the bathroom but stopped with his phone in his hand and a stupid look on his face. The girl had risen to one knee and was glancing around at the splotches of Jell-O and little paper cups strewn around her, cursing like a lunatic in the drunk tank. Opie started to leave his position in the back corner, but Jax gestured for him to stay put, thinking he could salvage the whole thing…

The bouncer who’d been watching marched toward them, looking confident in his strength and his purpose. Anger rushed like fire through Jax’s veins—any other day, this bodybuilder wouldn’t have been an issue, but he needed to finish his conversation, and time had just run out. One of the bartenders emerged from behind the bar, and a couple of customers—good old boys with noble intentions—had started shuffling as though they might also step in.

The girl came surging to her feet and spit in Iov’s face.

He backhanded her, the slap so loud that the stripper on the little rear stage stopped dancing to stare, and so did the bachelor-party guys. Jax swore under his breath and went to intervene, but the bouncer beat him to it. The muscle head slid between Jax and Joyce, brushed by the waitress, ducked a punch from Iov, and grabbed the Russian’s arm, twisting it behind his back in one smooth move.

The third Russian, who’d been lingering the whole time, kidney punched the bouncer, and the poor bastard roared in pain and went down on one knee, releasing his grip on Iov. Jax almost felt bad for the guy—the way he’d subdued Iov, he’d been better at his job than Jax had expected—but when shit turned ugly, you had to know how to read the situation if you wanted to keep your head from getting caved in.

Slapping the girl had done it.

The bartender punched Joyce just for standing there. The noble civilians waded in, but by then all hesitation had passed. Jax stepped inside the reach of the first guy and leaned into his swing, punching the man in the gut so hard he heard the burble of vomit about to spew from the hero’s mouth. He stepped out of the way, saw the guy fighting the urge to puke, and nailed him in the temple with enough force that he dropped straight down.

When Jax looked up, Opie had the bartender from behind, crushing his larynx, and Joyce had started to pound on the second Good Samaritan. People were shouting, and the stripper on the stage had stood up and was screaming, covering herself like Eve after her first bite of the apple.

Jax grabbed Joyce’s shoulder, blocked the guy’s instinctive retaliation, and then spun around. “Opie! We’re going!”

Opie gave the bartender a shove and started moving. Jax glanced over at the Russians, who’d started kicking the fallen bouncer and took over after Opie abandoned the bartender. He knew they should stay, knew that no matter the consequences these assholes were his best chance to find Trinity, but jail would mean going back to Stockton. As it was, he wasn’t supposed to be out of the state of California. Jail would also likely mean they’d figure out who he was, and he couldn’t have that.

In a place like this, the management wasn’t likely to bother calling the cops for a bar fight—not with the backroom blow jobs and front-room drug deals likely happening on the premises—but he couldn’t chance it.

Ablaze with fury, he shoved his way through the bar with Opie and Joyce in tow. Several times guys tried to get in the way before seeing the rage on Jax’s features and changing their minds. Chibs had stayed by the bar, where Jax had left him. He saw them coming and drained the last of his beer, dropped some money on the bar, and smiled at the same waitress he’d charmed when they’d come in. She tucked a piece of paper into his hand that might have been her number, and he stroked his goatee like he was one of the Three Musketeers.