Page 2 of Dread’s Beloved

“Mellie?” I call out, but she doesn’t answer.

I crawl out of bed and grab my pink narwhal. I amble down the hallway.

I peer around the corner and see big, muddy, black boots on the kitchen floor. Only it's not mud they are tracking through. It’s red stuff. I see Mellie lying on the floor. Her face looks funny.

“Mellie?” I whisper.

“Shhh.” A gritty voice shushes me. I look up at a big, scary man with a scar that runs in a lightning bolt shape across his cheek. “Go back to bed, little girl.”

“What’s wrong with Mellie?”

“Nothing. Go to your room and forget I was here.”

“I’m scared of the dark, and Mellie said she’d tuck me in.”

“How about I tuck you in? Would that be all right?”

I nod.

“Good.” The big, scary man with a big skull ring on his left hand ushers me back to bed and tucks my covers in around me. He wears a biker’s vest like my daddy does, but his patches are different.

Mommy is gonna be so mad if he got that red stuff all over the carpet.

I close my eyes and awaken much later to a scream followed by my father bursting into my room. He scoops me up out of the bed and hugs me to his chest.

“Thank God,” he mutters.

I have to talk to a policeman and some lady. They ask me all kinds of questions.

My daddy says that I helped them catch a bad guy.

The man who hurt Mellie.

He’s going away to prison for a long, long time and will never hurt anyone again.

Present day

Twenty-years later

“Shake that ass…” the lyrics play through the speakers of the clubhouse as a cloud of smoke smacks me right in the face. Some chick gyrates on a pole wearing a thong and nothing else. Her fake tits stay still as her ass jiggles.

Members of my brother’s motorcycle club aren’t even paying her any attention or any of the other whores hanging around waiting for someone to take them upstairs and fuck them. Their eyes are glued to the cards in their hands as they sit around a table drinking and smoking bud.

The bar part of the clubhouse is located in what was once the old fire department. Over the years they’ve built on, but the pole remains intact, and the guys have been known to get drunk and slide down it.

Dread glances up as I walk past their poker game. His lips tip into a smile in greeting.

I return the expression and hope my cheeks aren’t pink. That man is fine as hell. Way too old for me, but still fine.

If I didn’t think my brother would lock me up and throw away the key, Dread is exactly my type. Darkish hair. Tattoos. Muscles. Hard working. Loyal. Sexy. Sweet Lord, is the man hotter than hot. His problem is that he knows he’s a catch. Every woman in this town aged eighteen to sixty wants a piece of him. And I don’t blame them.

“You got anything in that bag for the rest of us?” He grins, knowing damn well I don’t.

“Maybe next time,” I call out as the music changes from rap to rock.

I scurry past the group of skanks hanging by the bar, reeking of cheap perfume and looking like they are one bleach job away from their hair falling out or catching fire the minute someone strikes a match to light up their next cigarette.

I swear if Candy’s tits get any bigger they are either going to pop or she’s going to float away. Considering all the air between her ears, someone better anchor her to that stool she’s sitting on.