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Rudy and I had been close as kids, and we had done our prospecting for the club together. Our bond went pretty deep, and we had raised a whole lot of hell coming up. Shit, we had shared everything… money, drugs, clothes, living spaces and for a while, we were even banging the same woman.
The two of us had been out on a Sunday drive, literally just cruising on our bikes in the sunshine when we were hit fast and furious by a bunch of assholes who opened fire on us from the flatbed of an old Ford pickup. Rudy must have seen them first though because he pulled full throttle in front of me just as they opened fire. I lost control of the bike and went down hard skidding along the asphalt at killing speed. Even though my head bounced hard inside my helmet, I never passed out but instead experienced every single moment in living technicolor. I felt all of it…the asphalt tearing through my leathers and scraping off layers of skin, the smell of the fuel as it leaked out leaving hot sparks that ate at my flesh, the burn of the hot pipes, and the unbearably heavy weight of the engine as it dragged me straight into hell.
The list of injuries was long…multiple third-degree burns, a shattered collar and knee bone, deep scrapes that required skin grafting, and some swelling of the brain which put me in a medically induced coma. All that time Deke never left my side except for once. And that was to attend the funeral of the man who put himself between me and those rapid-firing bullets. I like to blame it on all the meds, but the real truth is that when I found out what had gone down. I cried like a goddamn baby.
Now I live in the house that Rudy and me had gone balls deep into a dangerous heist to afford. Our intent had been to flip it and set ourselves up for life, but it hadn’t worked out that way. Now every time I walk through the door, I see him. I feel the shame and guilt of his death every day. My life is shit. I fight, fuck, or work my body to the point of exhaustion every night, then I drink myself into oblivion. For a while, I started to develop a nasty addiction to sex and cocaine, but even that hadn’t lasted long. The worst part of the whole fucking story is that we still haven’t found out who the assholes were who hit us that day, or why they had done it. The club has put all kinds of feelers out, pulled in markers, and took out more. No one is talking. It's just a matter of time before we get word, but the waiting has manifested itself in all kinds of rage for me, suppressed and otherwise.
I leaned against the back of the couch, took off my boots, and tossed them over to the corner of the room. Then I walked into a deep, wide kitchen. The large granite countertop held a motley assortment of half-finished coffee mugs, rolling papers, a mirror with a razor and cocaine residue on it, and a sea of dirty dishes.
I draped an arm over the opened refrigerator door and studied the contents. There was a hunk of moldy cheese, two gallons of orange juice, a half-empty gallon of milk, microwave bacon, a package of English muffins, and something green and moldy in an air-tight container. With a sigh, I reached for the milk and tried to remember when I had bought it. Throwing caution to the wind, I tipped the jug up to my mouth and took a long gulp. Then, gagging, I ran to the sink to spit out the rancid chunks. I turned the faucet on full force and lowered my mouth to the forceful stream of cold water, rinsed, and spit. Repeating this several times, it was a good minute before I lifted my mouth from that running water.
Despite the warning rumble in my gut, I grabbed the orange juice and a fifth of Tequila. I sat down on the couch, then I pulled off my bloody sock. I picked out the pointy shard that must have been hiding somewhere on the floor. When I did, images of a very young, very mad Liddy and the piece of glass she had landed on while chasing me, ran through my mind.
Goddamn, I had been crazy about that redhead from the minute I had laid eyes on her. Liddy Rose Hall with her skinny knees, bony chest, and hair that looked like the wrong end of an orange mop. She couldn’t read worth a shit, had trouble with numbers, and one of her eyes was slightly crossed. She went between hating me and ignoring me and I couldn’t get enough of her. When we were younger, I had a serious case of puppy love. But as we grew older my feelings for her had turned into something deeper. I had never worked so hard at something in my life as I did to get that girl to like me. Then it finally happened and I was all in. I had all kinds of thoughts and ideas in my head about what our life would be like together. Then minutes after she had let me inside of her she told me she was leaving and maybehopefullyfor good.
Shehopedthat she would be gone for good. And off she went to the big bad city leaving me broken-hearted and full of meanness whenever I thought about her.
Five goddamn years…it took her that long to come to her senses and all that time I never heard even once from her. Okay, well maybe I mighta woke up once or twice and seen her at my bedside after my accident. And maybe I mighta told her to leave me alone, go straight to hell and fuck herself on the way there. But I was in a lotta pain and full of drugs. Besides, I basically told that same thing to everyone who came to visit. It’s not on me that she couldn’t tough that out considering the damn circumstances. She never should have left me in the first place. And really it was just the shock of seeing her again that was turning me inside out now. Not because I had any residual feelings for her.
But damn, no denying it…the woman looked good. Hot in that wild hair, hot body, innocent eyes kind of way. The memory of the night we spent together tore through my mind like a bullet. The sound of her soft, young voice as she moaned, gasped, and screamed my name as I pushed myself inside of her tight, virgin body. It had taken some doing though, I smiled when I thought of those few attempts and remembered how scared and tight she had been, and how hard and eager I had been. But when we finally both relaxed and let things start to happen naturally…it had been goddamn magic. The first and only woman I ever actuallymade love towas Lydia Rose. There had been a few before her and a shitload after her, but nothing compared, nothing had come even close to that night with Liddy. I had spent many a night palming myself thinking about her perfect little tits, and that pretty little bush of red fire between her legs. Those wide eyes were so full of trust when they looked up at me and those swollen lips pursed and gasping when I touched herthere. Liddy had smelled so clean and fresh. Her skin had tasted so sweet. We hadn’t used any kind of protection, and for months after she left, I had prayed that I had put a baby inside of her and that she would come back to me.
But I didn’t and she hadn’t. It had taken the death of my best buddy to even come close to the kind of pain I felt when she walked away from me.
Frowning, I poured a shitload of Cuervo and a little orange juice into a tumbler filled with ice. My spirits began to improve slightly as I watched the Steelers kill it on the field and win me five hundred dollars. That win and the thought of how I was going to make Liddy suffer for the shit she had put me through cheered me up considerably. For the first time in a long time, I felt like eating. I called Rocco’s and had them deliver an extra-large, double the meat, extra cheese pizza. By the end of the night, I had won another three hundred bucks, my belly was full, and thoughts of Liddy chained to a wall crying and begging for her goddamn life flashed happily through my mind.
I slept like a baby and woke up to a bright, shiny new day with the phone buzzing its ass off on the bedstand beside me. I reached out and patted the table with one eye open as the palm of my hand ran over all kinds of nasty before I finally located the phone.
Kid
“Tell me…” My dad paced hard across the scarred wooden floors. The heels of his boots left dent marks on the soft wide pine. “Tell me you didn’t shove a .22 downTisha Lacroix’sthroat last night.”
“Okay. I didn’t shove a ….”
Deke was on his feet in an instant. He grabbed me by my shirt and had my back pinned up against the wall and my feet off the floor. Before I could take a breath his powerful forearm squeezed against my neck.
“Who you think you’re fucking talking to?” My old man snarled out as I started to pass out. It took him just a moment too long to release me, when he did I had a hell of a time catching my breath.
“Shit, dad.” My throat felt like I had gravel in it. “The fuck?”
“Don’t give me that dad shit. I am your fucking president.” Then my father took me by the scruff of my neck and pushed me down on a chair like a rag doll. My 6 ft 3 frame and 230 pounds of muscle meant nothing to a guy like him. Especially when he was pissed off like he was now. Sarcasm was definitely not the way to go.
“Can I have some of that?” I managed to squeak out as I watched my dad twist the cap off a beer and drain it.
“No.” He slammed the empty brew on the table so hard he cracked the bottle. Deke’s finger jabbed the air around me as he bellowed out in a rebel yell that thundered through the air and threatened to shake the rafters off the roof. “The last thing I need is to come back from a goddamn bidding war only to find that sleazeball snake of a senator busting my balls!!!!!!” Deke punched a hole through the wall to punctuate his last point, then started towards me again.
I got up and stood my ground then because if I was gonna get my ass handed to me I wasn’t going to take that sitting down. I had seen goddamn hitmen piss their pants during one of Deke’s rants, but I wasn’t afraid of him. First of all, I was one tough motherfucker myself. Secondly and most important of all, Deke was my old man—and he was real high up on the great father list. Growing up I had pretty much worshipped the guy, and I still did. But that didn’t mean I was gonna take shit from him for the rest of my life, either. And that tough mother fucker thing ran deep. Nothing scared me, I wasn’t afraid of the monster in anyone’s closet because Iwasthat monster.
Besides, even though Deke was still huffing and puffing, I knew that things must have ended okay with old Delfoy LaCroix. Because if they hadn’t my ass would have been arrested on attempted murder charges by now. The senator’s wild child had been a royal pain in the ass for the club ever since she hit puberty and had grown a pair of nice, healthy tits. From the time she was fifteen, she had snuck herself into every party the Sinners had and made it clear she was free for the taking. Might as well have hung a big sign around her pretty neck that saidjailbaiton one side, andfifteen will get you twentyon the other. Deke had kept his eye on her, the club had a good thing going with the senator and there was no way that we were going to risk that over a hormone-overloaded teenage girl. So, we let her into the parties, but always assigned a couple of prospects to keep an eye on her. Even if Tisha hadn’t been connected like she was, screwing underaged pussy did not happen on club property. However, the age of consent was seventeen in our parts so once Tisha hit that number, the little ho had been considered free game.
Killer was the club’s pretty boy, and there wasn’t a woman within a hundred-mile radius who wouldn’t give anything to put their pouty mouths around his legendary dick. And Killer loved to give them that chance. He also had a motherfucker of a temper and even though he was not exactly into monogamous relationships, he expected the five women that he was boning at the same time to be completely faithful.
“Her old man should be putting a medal on my chest instead of handing out a rasher of shit. That little slut owes me her goddamn life,” I said with disgust. Then I walked over to the fridge and grabbed my own damn beer.
My father had begun to calm down a little, and now instead of throwing a bottle across the room, he raised a warningdon’t fuck with meeyebrow. “Explain.”
I took a long cold hit off my brew before I answered him, and then I scowled because I don’t make a habit of explaining myself. “Me and some of the brothers decided to stop in at Savages for a drink after the run. I was tired and was sporting a mouthful of road dust, the last thing I wanted was trouble. But there was Tisha dancing…more like humping…the Collins kid right there on the open floor. They were both three sheets to the wind and his hands were all over her. Killer and the rest of the boys had stopped to get gas and were right behind us. You know as well as anybody that his first go-to was gonna be Savages. If Killer had walked into that bar and had seen his flavor of the month all over that boy…shit…he would have lived up to his name in spades. And then you and the good senator would have had a much different conversation.” I paused. “Am I right or am I fucking right?”
“Straight up.” My dad’s voice gave out a low rumble as he rubbed a hard hand over his jaw. I looked at him closer then and damn if he didn’t look tired.
