“Then we wait?” I asked.
“Yes, we don’t have a choice. Get dressed. It’s time to introduce you to the crowd with your new status. It’ll take a while to get the things in line, but you won’t be working the bar anymore.”
“Seriously?”
“Sticking with me comes with perks,” he said. When he smiled, it was a beautiful thing. I got off the bed and he popped my bare ass as I passed him.
“Wear that cat suit tonight.”
I smiled as he disappeared into the bathroom and I got out his requested outfit. The black suit had long sleeves and hugged my body like a second skin. Layered lace gave random flashes of my flesh but covered all the important areas. He’d purchase thigh-high suede boots to go with the look. I laid everything out and once he was done in the shower, I hopped in to get cleaned up. Thirty minutes and a quick makeup job later, we left Jack’s room together to meet the associated crew that rode in to visit.
“Ah, here he is. Got some good news from this one today, so he had his woman all tied up,” Samuel called from the middle of the bar. “Bikers and bitches, introducing the future Old Lady of Jack!”
I jumped and laughed as bikers stomped on the ground, catcalling and lifting their beers in the air. Fix handed Jack and me beers to toast with before he clinked Jack’s glass and took a swig.
“You did it now, my man,” Fix said.
To Jack’s credit, he smiled and thumped Fix’s back. “Look at her. What would you have done?”
Jack tucked me against his side and headed toward where Samuel stood. I couldn’t help the big smile on my face as Jasmin scowled at me. Take that. She stood tall next to Samuel as she pushed her breasts out in a fire-red pair of shorts and cropped shirt. I could see her belly ring with a cherry dangling from it over her shorts.
“Congrats, man,” Rex said from the left. Jack stopped long enough to shake his hand before he continued to the center.
“Just because you are going to be his Old Lady doesn’t mean I’ll accept you,” Jasmin hissed so only I could hear. I didn’t acknowledge her as Jack shook Samuel’s hand.
“Thank you, Pres. Long time coming, I guess,” Jack said.
“Shit happens. Keep her tight, and we won’t have to make any alterations to the status, now, will we?” Samuel asked.
Jack tensed and I rubbed his back. This wasn’t the place to cause a scene.
“Won’t have to worry about that,” Jack gritted out. “Come on, baby, let’s meet the associated club.”
I followed my biker away from the snakes in the center of the club, but I felt their eyes on me. I swished my hips a bit harder to prove a point. Jack was mine, and if he fought for me, I was sure as hell going to fight for him.
They wanted a war, they could bring it.
10
Jack
I shouldn’t have been on the streets in Felthill, but I couldn’t stay away. Dope fiends scurried along the trash-laden dark alleys like fucking cockroaches. One slumped against the wall with thick, white smoke curling around his face as he exhaled from his crack pipe. I stepped over his outstretched legs and splashed into the puddle right next to him. He never blinked, just rode his high, rubbing his arms.
Melody used to be like this.
As a prostitute bobbed her head in a side alley, her John lost in pleasure, I hated it all. Melody walked these streets. She’d lived in this rat-infested area where desperation and bodily odor mixed into a noxious aroma. My fingers itched to tear down every building, light every corner, and clean up the very streets that had made my Melody a fighter.
My Melody.
I walked these streets now because of her, my heart thundering in my chest. Around every dark corner or in the dim open doors of the abandoned brink buildings, I saw her image. The way she was the day I met her—short mini dress riding up her thighs, red lipstick smeared across her lips, and her twisted needs in her gaze.
In hindsight, I couldn’t have done anything to walk away from her, even if I tried. Yeah, she’d seen hell, I could feel it, understood it when she told me her story. But her fragile frame harbored an inner core of innocence. She’d hardened herself to survive, to live, but sweetness still resided inside of that steel. I’d stained her light, and she wanted me anyway. And because of that, I promised her what I could.
After weeks of planning, I’d begun to fulfill that promise.
I’d killed, many times. My hands had seen enough blood to last a few lifetimes, but not a single hit meant as much as this. Happiness and sanity drained under the sounds of the clinical logic of how I would kill my enemy, destroy evidence, and flee the scene. The Diamond Eaters faded from existence as lava raced through my veins. My neck popped as I snapped my head to one side. First, I needed to find him; then the fun could begin. A muscle worked in my jaw as I clenched my teeth. Stupid, insignificant asshole had touched what belonged to me. He’d hurt her. Destroyed pieces of her and ground them to dust.
People like Melody and me didn’t heal. The scars ran too deep, the memories still fresh. Time ran in a blink of an eye and yet it felt like eternity. The two of us were trapped by the makings of our pasts, things we could not escape, and uncertain future. I knew the feeling, the absolute fear of never being good enough. No matter what I did or how hard I fought, I’d always be the child of a snitch father.
And she would always be a druggie.
But we could snatch our futures and bend them to our will. Twist and break them until they fit us like jagged puzzle pieces. She and I would force the world to fit. It wasn’t about love or some insipid bullshit-like emotion. It was pure survival. Because to do anything else allowed the past to win, and to let it win meant death. I wasn’t the man to buy her roses and whisper sweet nothings in her ear. Instead, I could lay bodies at her feet and control her every orgasm with a word. But she needed it. Needed me.
And I was addicted to that.
So fucking hooked that I traipsed through filth and bile-covered bodies to find the one she’d whispered to me about. The one who took everything from her and turned her world upside-down. I knew Tony Sanchez through club dealings, and it had taken a bit of time to plan a meeting with him. Of course, I used a proxy so my name wouldn’t be attached when he never returned to his gang. Tony may be big shit in Felthill, but he was a little fish within Sur Muerte. Still, they didn’t like one of their dealers coming up missing, so I needed to play my cards right. I wore no club colors and had left my cut at home. After parking my Jeep a few blocks away, one of the rare occasions I’d used it, I hoofed it through the alleyways on the way to our rendezvous point.
I ducked around a trap house where soldiers of Tony whipped up crack and slipped into the shadows. Tony had agreed to meet to up the amount of his product sold throughout Chicago. Right now, he only had control over the ten-block radius of Felthill, but dealing directly with a club could give him access to better transport. I would offer him neither, but he didn’t need to know that. My black t-shirt hung loose to hide the gun and blade tucked into the back of my jeans. Dirt and mud had changed my blond strands to murky brown, and I tucked them under a ball cap to appear shorter.
Then, I waited.
Cocky little shit made me wait for thirty minutes before he showed up with a grin on his face, a half-dressed girl at his side. As he got closer, he tongued her slack mouth before slapping her ass.
“Beat it. Keep it warm for me until I get back,” he told her. I clenched my fist tight and kept my anger contained as the glassy-eyed girl nodded and stumbled away. Melody. That could have … had once been Melody.
“Deal is off,” I said. First matter of business was to get the boy away from his goons. Walking away from this deal looked like a good bet. I spun on the heels of my black riding boots and delved deeper into the shadows.
“Wait, man. What the fuck?”
I didn’t stop. Little fucker could catch up, chase after his death. The idea made me smile.
“I said wait up.”
“I don
’t answer to no one, and ain’t no pussy-ass middle man going to make me wait for business and show up with some chick on his arm. She never should have been around a meeting like this. Tells me you’re soft and aren’t ready to jump off the porch yet.”
I measured my steps but didn’t slow down. I needed him to believe I’d really leave. I turned down another dark alley just as I heard shoes scuffle on the concrete. Got him.
“Alright, man. My bad. Look, I was just having a little fun. To make it up to you, I’ll let you have a bit of fun with her after we’re done. Deal?”
“That ain’t your girl?” I asked, even though I knew the answer before he said it.
“Hell no. None of these women going to get that title. They are pieces of ass, and I share them how, and when, I want. They know the deal. And I keep them high enough they don’t even fight it.”
He laughed, and I turned to face him in the darkness. “I might take you up on that.”
“Deal, man. Look, I’ve got a hookup who can transport over thirty kilos of white for me if I have a large enough market. I’m willing to give you twenty percent of the profits to have access to your larger clientele.”
“Too low. You’d be taking business from us, and we wouldn’t earn enough to make up the difference. Thirty percent, then we can work.”
Keep him talking. Draw him in. And then destroy him.
“Thirty percent? Man, you trippin’. I can get that with protection from Tres Blast.”
“No, your captain can get that sort of deal from Tres Blast. You don’t have the weight to pull that gang into Sur Muerte territory and step on toes. They don’t work for anything less than fifty keys a transfer.”
They didn’t, and the deal had already been made with DE.
“Twenty-five percent, then, and one run a month with protection.”
He didn’t know who I was. Too bad for him.
“Did she ask for it?” I asked him.
“What?”
I stepped closer and used my shirt to shield me as I gripped the hilt on my blade. “Did she ask for you to put a needle in her arm?”
“You talking about that bitch from back there? Fuck, she asked for it when she let me buy her a drink. These hoes always want something for free. But we aren’t talking about her.”
“No, we aren’t.” I took another step, crowding him. “We’re talking about Melody.”
Tony frowned, and I punched him in the gut. He gasped, his mouth slack and his eyes wide. It felt good fucking her demons up for her. I’d fill her world, take up residence in the darkness others fed her.
“Did she cry when you were on top of her, raping her? Did she fight you until you had to drug her?”
“I …” His throat worked as he stumbled toward the brick wall behind him. I wrapped my arm around him and pulled him further into the darkness.
“She cried when she told me about it. Shattered under me when she remembered your fucking hands on her. But I’ll rebuild her. Piece by piece,” I promised in his ear. I withdrew my knife.
“I’m Sur Muerte,” he said. His voice weakened as he spoke. “They kill those who hurt them.”
“But who am I, Tony? What club do I belong to? Who knows you’re out here? And who will fucking care?”
I pulled back so I could see his eyes as I forced the knife deep and twisted the serrated blade. He whimpered as his knees buckled. I let him fall to the dirty ground and straddled his chest.
“She won’t forget what you did, but it has only made her stronger. And she has me, her avenging angel, to make all things right.”
Part of me wished she could see him right now. That she could know, without a shadow of a doubt, I would ruin anyone who touched her, who harmed her. This fucker turned a perfect angel into a broken soul who now could align herself with a demon. Broke her from heaven and made her cling to hell. I could thank him for that, but the rage inside wouldn’t let me. Instead, I placed one booted foot against the wound I’d given him and pressed down. He hollered, but no one would come. Not here. People in Felthill learned long ago no one would answer their cries. No one cared about their prayers. Tony would be no different.
“That bitch was a good fuck, you know that?” Tony said. His blood-stained teeth flashed as he grinned. Idiot. A pointless idiot, but a dead one soon.
“She has never, nor will she ever, be a bitch. She is mine.”
I struck with my blade, piercing his throat in one swoop. Blood sprayed over me as I ripped the blade back out. That shit-eating grin was gone now. Tony’s eyes stared at nothing as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, down his cheek.
“You never broke her,” I whispered into the air.
My words faded under the throb of alley life. Papers rustled, bodies moved, and hookers called out to passersby. No one screamed for Tony, no one cried. And no one cared when a murderer walked away from the alley covered in blood. In clean-up mode, I wiped my face as best I could with my shirt as I paced to my Jeep. Once inside, I bagged my knife in a gallon bag, tossed in the ball cap, and poured bleach in it. My black clothes would cover the blood as I drove to the drop site, and then I’d head straight back to the clubhouse to clean up.
Forty minutes later, I parked near a new construction site and got out. A cop on our payroll alerted me the foundations were being poured this week, and the building was under a lot of red tape to get proper zoning. That meant no new construction for quite some time, and by then, there would be no viable evidence on my weapons. If I kept it, I ran the risk of it being around to use in court. I cut the fence guarding the area and headed to the rebar framing the foundation. Just a few minutes later, the bleach-filled bag of evidence sank to the bottom of the hardening concrete. On my way back out, I wire tied the hole I’d cut and left the scene with nothing left behind.
Blood stained my gloves, shirt, and shoes. Once I got back home, I’d need to burn them after I cleaned up. I wanted none of this to go back to Melody. She’d suffered enough, and all she needed to know was Tony would never touch her or any other woman again.
And Melody?
I’d killed for her, fought my club, and claimed her as my Old Lady.
Come hell or high water, I never would let her go.
11
Melody
“Get behind the bar and work,” Jasmin ordered. I glanced at her from under my lashes and continued painting my toenails. I knew the rules. She outranked me, but that didn’t mean she owned me. As a fellow Old Lady, her rank with me only went as far as our commands when it came to the Honeys. We didn’t boss each other around like cattle. She knew it, but the men weren’t around, specifically mine, to smooth things out.
Her tactics were starting to get old.
“Did you hear me?” she asked. Ignored. She stomped over to me and snatched my nail polish out of my hand.
“Oh, thank you. Can you give that back to Dina? I’m done with it,” I said with a smile.
“You think you’re so special because he liked you enough to make you his. Let me clue you in. He did it to save your life, argued that he didn’t want to make you his Old Lady. You got elevated by default.”
My palms itched as I barely refrained from slapping her Cheshire smile off her face. My heart stuttered in my chest, but I held my head high and looked her right in the eye. She didn’t have to tell me Jack didn’t love me. What we had wasn’t about love—albeit one-sided. He’d saved my life, again, and I wouldn’t turn my back on him.
“Still his Old Lady, either way, and that can’t be changed.”
“He can leave you, idiot.”
“And we both know that isn’t going to happen. If he did it to save my life, he isn’t going to walk away and throw me under the bus now.”
I stood up and wiggled my toes. “You think he’ll like the red?”
Jasmin stepped into my personal space and lowered her voice. “There are always loopholes, bitch. I’m not going to stand with you as an Old Lady, ever.”
“What’s your probl
em with me? Did you want Jack? Is that it? Or are you mad that your lover boy liked my ass in his lap?”
Jasmin sneered at me, and then laughed in my face. “You’re a tool. A fucking way for Samuel to fuck with that bastard Jack, that’s all. You think my man hasn’t sampled the Honeys? You think yours won’t now that he has you in his bed? This is biker life, chick. Wake up. You aren’t special, and the sooner you know that, the better.”
“Jack is mine, and that’s all that matters.”
When a side door slammed open, I ignored Jasmin’s parting shot; all I could see was Jack. Caked to his scalp, his hair hung limp with dirt clinging to the strands. His black t-shirt stuck to his pecs and abs in a wet mess and his black pants were just as bad. I shuffled around Jasmin as he stalked to the room. With his back to me, I could make out something poking from his waistband and blood streaks on his neck. Lana gazed at him longingly as I stepped into her field of vision. By the time I caught up with him, he was stripping out of his clothes in our bedroom.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“Not right now, Firecracker. Let me get cleaned up.”
As he headed to the bathroom, I jumped in front of him. “No, you don’t get to do that to me. Are you bleeding? Were you hurt?”
“Not mine,” he said through clenched teeth. I struggled against him as he pushed me from the bathroom door and out of the way. My toes caught the edge of his boot and I squealed as I fell. The ground got closer and I closed my eyes, locking my arms to brace my fall. But the hit never came. Jack’s warm arms wrapped around my waist and steadied me.
“Clumsy little thing, aren’t you?”
I ignored his question as I turned in his arms. Sweat trickled down his neck, mixing with the blood. I swept my finger over the spot and lifted it so he could see.
“Tell me what happened.”
He sighed. “I killed him.”
I trembled as he stood us up straight but kept me in his arms. “You killed who?”
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