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“So much better than hospital bed sex.”
“No arguments there.”
We take our time rinsing each other and drying off with brand new, fluffy towels Heidi bought just for the new house. “How many towels do we need?” I ask, spying inside one of the closets.
She shrugs. “I never had a house to buy them for before.”
While we’re in there, she starts unpacking boxes and putting stuff away.
“You don’t have to do that now.”
“I have to do it sometime.”
After securing a towel around my hips, I start helping her unpack.
The first box knocks the wind out of me.
“Uh, Heidi?”
She turns and I hold up her little pack of birth control pills. “You haven’t taken these in a while…?”
Her eyes go saucer-wide. “Oh, fuck.”
“Yeah, we just did that.”
She laughs and swipes them out of my hand. “With everything going on. At the hospital…I totally forgot.” Her eyes meet mine. “What should we do?”
“Wait and see?” I give her a filthy grin. “And fuck a whole lot more.”
Forty-Nine
Murphy
“How you feeling?” Z asks the next morning at church.
“Much better. Feels good to be home.” I look around the table at my brothers. “Thank you for moving our stuff into the house.”
“We got you, brother. So fucking happy you’re back,” Ravage says. Everyone else echoes the sentiment.
“Happy to be back.”
“All right.” Rock calls our attention to the head of the table. “We have some pressing matters to discuss.” He nods to Teller.
“The S.O.S. guy’s done,” Teller says. “Remy’s got Bryce on hold for you to deal with.”
“The S.O.S. guy is the one who hit me.” I’d been planning to return the favor.
“You were in a coma.” Teller shrugs. “I made a judgment call.”
I glance at Rock, and he shrugs in an eerily similar way. “We needed to send a message. They were warned what would happen if they tried worming their way into our territory again.”
That’s true. We’d shown mercy to their club before.
Not this time.
“Remy’s been holding on to Bryce this whole time?”
Wrath sits forward and catches my eye. “They’re pretty fucking loyal to you, brother.”
“I don’t know if it was loyalty to Murphy or that they’re petrified of Wrath,” Rooster says. “He went out there and terrorized the shit out them.”
“You say terrorize, I say we had a friendly chat.” Wrath gives us a lazy shrug. “We came to an understanding.”
“What are we doing with Bryce?” Rock asks. “Going after Heidi the way he did can’t go unpunished.”
“It’s not just Heidi,” I say. Once my brain started functioning again, I gave this a lot of thought. “He threatened her friend Dawn too.”
“You fucking serious?” Jigsaw slaps the table.
“She’s a friend of Heidi’s?” Z asks.
“Yeah. Single mom. Her kid’s Alexa’s age. If Heidi hadn’t stopped him that night, I think he was planning to go after her next.”
“Not cool,” Jigsaw fumes. “What kind of man goes after little college girls like that? What the fuck’s wrong with this dude?”
“Something you need to share, brother?” Rooster grins at Jigsaw. “You seem awfully invested in this.”
“Fuck off.”
“You answered your own question, he’s not any kind of man at all,” Z says.
Rock taps is knuckles against the table. “Let’s save the cultural debate for another time and figure out what we’re doing with this kid.”
“He needs to go to ground,” Dex says. “Not even sure why we need to talk about it. He may have been planning to hurt this girl, but he definitely tried to run Murphy and Heidi over. That’s a fact. Not to mention blackmailing Heidi, taking photos of us.” He gestures toward Rooster and me. “He’s a liability.”
“I recovered the photos,” Rooster says. “He never actually sent them to anyone from what I can tell, but he did have them stored in a few places online.”
Someone, Rooster, I guess, printed them out. He stands and tosses them in the middle of the table. The one of Heidi bent over my bike lands on top.
“Jesus Christ.” Teller shoves the pics away and glares at me. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What?” I give him an innocent shrug. “She started it.”
“I knew it!” Ravage smacks his hands together and half-jumps out of his chair.
“Knew what?” Teller sits forward, daring Ravage to say whatever’s on his filthy little mind.
“It’s always those sweet, shy, innocent ones who are the bossy bitches in bed.”
Teller pushes his chair back. “I will fucking murder you.”
I’m laughing too hard to stop Teller.
Rock shoves Teller back into his chair. “Simmer down, knucklehead. Jesus Christ, they’re married for fuck’s sake.”
“What if Ravage said that about Hope?” Teller asks.
“Nah,” Ravage shakes his head. “Hope’s not the boss in that bedroom.”
Rock stares at the ceiling, and I’m pretty sure he’s counting to ten under his breath.
Wrath takes mercy on all of us and slams his fists into the table. “Can we all stop worrying about what everyone’s doing in the bedroom.” He spears Ravage with a look. “With the amount of time you spend obsessing about everyone else’s sex life, I’m starting to wonder if you’re still a virgin.”
That turns out to be the key to finally shutting Ravage’s mouth.
“Besides the photos,” Rooster continues as if that whole conversational detour never happened. “He’s been dealing opiates on campus for a while. Owed S.O.S. for a shipment he lost as well as the races he lost.”
“Fuck. Amazing they let him live.”
“Pretty sure going after you was his last chance to save his ass.”
“Your call,” Rock says to me.
He tried to run me down, stalked my wife. For those two reasons alone, I’m within my rights to end him. Sounds like delivering him to S.O.S. might be as good as slitting his throat, though too. Let’s not forget he also partnered up with the dude who hit me in the back of the head with a bat and while I was rolling around on the ground, he went after Heidi.
“I’ll handle it,” I finally answer.
“Good. Moving on,” Rock says. “Figure out where you’re going on your honeymoon yet?”
“I think we decided on the West coast. Heidi’s always wanted to do a long road trip. We thought we’d start in Seattle and see where we end up.”
Rock nods slowly. “I hate asking, but I’m going to need you to check up on our brothers in Washington State. Even though Priest didn’t make it up here for the wedding,” Rock tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling for a second, probably thanking Buddha we avoided another visit from National this year, “He’s been bugging me about this for a while.”
“Yeah, no problem. That’s where we were planning to go anyway. Got no issue stopping in to see how things are.”
“And that brings us full-circle to our last item on the agenda,” Z says, standing and crossing the room to the locked cabinets.
My stomach twists because I know what’s coming.
And I know what my answer will be.
No more questioning myself or my brothers. My club needs me.
“Murphy ‘Hammer Dick’ O’Callaghan,” Z announces.
The guys bust up laughing.
“Seriously? Don’t I have enough fucking names by now?”
“You’ve been elected Vice President of the Lost Kings MC Upstate charter.” Z sets a brand new blue and grey VP patch on the table in front of me and clutches my shoulder. “I’m proud to have you take my place here, brother.”
I stand and hug him, slapping his back. “Thank you, brother.?
??
“You’ve got this,” he says low enough that only I can hear him.
“Woo!” Ravage punches his fist in the air. “Fuck yeah, Murphy!”
“And,” Wrath stands. “That leaves us a Road Captain short.” He steps over to the cabinet, snags another patch, and drops it on the table in front of Dex. “You’ve been elected, Dex. Congratulations.”
Dex stands and nods, accepting the patch. “You’ve set a good example, Murphy. I intend to honor it.”
“I know you will, brother.” I reach across the table and shake his hand.
“Party time!” Stash shouts.
The rest of the brothers cheer.
Rock slams his gavel down and dismisses everyone from the table.
On my way out the door, he stops me. “You all right with this?”
“I’m good, Rock.”
“We’ll need to sit down soon.”
“Figured.”
“Enjoy the party tonight. Fuck knows you’ve earned it.”
A few hours later, I’m deep in Johnsonville county standing outside some shack nestled into the woods on the Castle’s property.
Griff shakes my hand. “Glad you’re all right brother.”
“Getting there.”
“He’s right inside.”
Bryce is tied up on the floor. Wearing the same clothes as the night I ended up in the hospital. Heidi did a number on his face.
“They forced me to do it.” Bryce lisps and attempts to thrust his chin in the air. “I keep telling them.”
“Yeah, they force you to blackmail my wife, too?”
“I didn’t…I just needed her to help me out.”
What a fucking load. “S.O.S. is looking for you.”
He eyes me warily. “I owe them money.”
