“I’m Torch. I’m here to take you to the clubhouse,” he says, keeping his voice soft and gentle.
He puts out his hand, approaching me like one might approach a scared animal. Aren’t I just that, too? A scared, helpless animal. I sigh and take a step back from Dragon, then my eyes stop on the gigantic wet spot my tears have left on his shirt. They widen as my cheeks turn hot with embarrassment.
“I’m so sorry,” I mutter, still staring at his shirt.
“I’ll dry, babe,” he laughs before he presses his hand to my back and gently pushes me toward Torch. I slip my hand into his, but don’t look away from Dragon.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“Take care of your arm, and keep me posted, yeah?” he asks.
I nod as my only response, and then Torch gently tugs on my hand and we leave. I can feel Dragon’s eyes following me until we’re outside.
I’m grateful and thankful for his help. Without him, I’d probably just curl into a ball and cry, having zero idea what to do, being the silly, young girl that I am.
I watch as Torch stops in front of a motorcycle and straddles it before he turns and lifts his chin to me, wanting me to do the same.
I bite my bottom lip and try to hold back the tears. There’s only one man I want to hold onto from the back of a bike, and it’s not the sexy one in front of me. It’s my man, my Johnny.
I inhale deeply, letting out the air before I bite the bullet and climb on. I try not to press my body against his, but I have to. I’m not one hundred percent comfortable riding on a bike, and I need to hold on to him or I’ll freak out even more.
“Bitchin’ ink, darlin’,” Torch yells over the roar of his engine. Before I can respond, he takes off down the street.
I try not to think about Johnny, about where he could be or what’s happened to him, at least not until I know more. Turning into an anxious ball of insecurity, doubt, and fear won’t do anybody any good, especially not me.
We pull into the clubhouse parking area and I’m surprised to see so many bikes parked during the day. It looks like they’re having a party, or maybe like they could all be on lockdown again.
Torch doesn’t say a word as he dismounts his bike and then takes my hand again, helping me off of the motorcycle as well. He doesn’t release my hand as we walk toward the clubhouse door. I don’t want him to either. I’m shaking and scared.
When we walk inside, the whole place is silent. There are no women or children around at all; there also aren’t any men.
“I’m gonna take you up to Johnny’s room. I want you to stay inside until Fury or I come up to get you. Don’t open the door for anybody else, do you understand me?” he asks, pinning me with his watery blue eyes.
“Yes,” I whisper.
Torch nods as if my one-word answer was all he needed, and he tugs on my hand as he takes me toward the bedrooms. I step through the threshold of Johnny’s room and look around. Everything is exactly how we left it the last time we were here a couple of weeks ago. Not even the bedclothes have been touched.
“He didn’t leave me, did he?” I ask, turning around to face Torch.
“No, honey, he didn’t just take off on you. Nobody can get a hold of him. We’re going to meet and then we’ll get a plan of action together. We’ll find him,” he says quietly.
“I thought… I thought maybe he freaked out, about the tattoo,” I mutter, more to myself then to him.
“He’s an idiot, but he’s not a fool, Hattie. He knows the kind of girl you are, and no way is he going to just walk away from you.”
“Do the same group of men who had me, did they take him? Are they going to hurt him?” I ask as my heart starts to race.
I have been so consumed with my own fears and doubt that I didn’t even think of those men that he called the Bastards—they could have him.
“Don’t know, honey. But you need to be strong, yeah?” he says.
I nod.
Torch leaves and I run over to the door and flip the lock. I feel anything but strong. I feel exactly like the weak, scared girl that I am.
Johnny knew I wasn’t ready for this world, and he offered me a way out, a way to still have him yet not be exposed to any of this. He knew what was coming, and he knew I wasn’t strong enough.
I close my eyes, but when I reopen them, I see his name on my arm and I know that it wouldn’t be possible, not being embedded in his life this way. Even if it hurts, even if he does things that I don’t agree on, I don’t care because I want to be at his side.
I am going to be the strength that he needs, the woman he needs. Because the hurt boy I’ve seen glimpses of, the painful past that makes him who he is, he deserves happiness. I aim to be the woman to give that to him.
I slide down on his bed, lying on his pillow as I inhale his scent before I close my eyes and let sleep take over.
Chapter Twenty-Five
TORCH
Devastated.
That’s how I would describe little Hattie Morris. Right now, she should be celebrating with her Old Man. She’s been branded, made an Old Lady of the Notorious Devils.
She’s now one of us, a part of our family, and instead of partying and fucking her man, she’s upstairs no doubt crying.
“What have we found out?” I ask, walking into church.
The room is full to capacity; every single brother is here. One of our own is missing and we all know something ain’t right.
Johnny is a hot head who likes to fuck and fight, like the rest of us—but no way would he just abandon Hattie like he did today, especially after the Bastards held her hostage the way they did.
“A fuckton of nothing,” Fury grunts, leaning back in his chair.
“Was it the Bastards or The Cartel?” Vault asks.
“Got a call from my contact with the Russians, their tech Oliver says they’re retreating. Apparently, there’s a bite elsewhere on some flesh. If it’s them, they ain’t claimin’ a fuckin’ thing,” Sniper says.
“What about his parents?” Grizz asks.
Grizz is a giant grizzly bear of a man. He’s older than most of us, and he’s been around in this club his entire life. I don’t understand him, though.
Why the fuck would Dirty’s parents have anything to do with his disappearance? His mom’s hooked on some shit and asks him for money, but other than that, they’re quiet as can be. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen his dad.
“His mom’s a junkie. Doubt she’d have the strength to kidnap him and his bike,” Fury says.
“His mom is a junkie, but his dad is a mean sonofabitch. A complete piece of shit. Makes Sniper’s dad look like father of the fuckin’ year. He’d not only do it, but he’d laugh that he got the drop on Dirty. Johnny’s been payin’ for his mama’s habit to keep his dad happy, not her,” Grizz explains. I’m still confused.
“But why?” I ask, thinking out loud.
“When he decided to claim Hattie, Dirty cut them off completely. He blocked his mom from calling him all together. He hasn’t talked to them in weeks,” Grizz says.
“How do you know this?” Fury asks, looking just as confused as I feel.
“Got plastered a while ago and told me everything about cutting them off. I’ve known his father my whole life. He’s my fuckin’ brother,” Grizz announces.
Everybody, including me, stares at him in shock. Grizz is Dirty’s uncle. His uncle. How did we not know this? Why did we not know this? Every man’s mouth in the room is slightly agape at the news.
“There’s a reason he’s part of this club. He’s my nephew, and his life was shit. He needed a family, a good family,” he announces.
“Where would his father have him?” Fury asks, breaking the awkward silence.
“No clue. If I knew, I’d already be gone,” he says.
“I might know,” Serina says as she walks into the room, a room she’s forbidden to enter.
“The fuck?” Drifter growls.
“I didn’t know they’d ta
ke him,” she says. “I thought they’d take that stupid little cunt he’s set up.”
“What did you do?” Fury asks. His voice is deep, menacing, and fucking scary as shit.
Serina shakes slightly in a full body tremble for a second before she speaks.
“I wanted that bitch gone. He doesn’t want her, he just wants a womb to incubate his kids, someone he could toss to the side. So when Jay Williams approached me a week ago, I didn’t hesitate to help him. He didn’t know where Johnny was living. I gave him the address and Hattie’s name. I told him he’d wrangled some tight, young thing and was planning on breeding her or some shit. I thought he’d just take her and fuck her to death. I didn’t think he’d go after Johnny,” she shrugs as if she just made a small error, not that she was willing to sign over another person’s death sentence. An Old Lady’s death sentence.
“Is all of this over jealousy? I’m seriously re-thinking clubwhores at this point,” Fury mutters.
“Jealousy? Fuck no. I want my place in the club, and Dirty is the only one who would give that to me. But no, this isn’t over jealousy. It actually has little to do with me. Her friend paid me to find a way to get rid of her,” she laughs. Then she whispers, “Her friend is the jealous one. While she wants to fuck Dirty, she wants to fuck Hattie even more. The bitch is jealous of Dirty and wanted them apart, perk for me if Hattie’s out of the picture—then I’d get Dirty to share with whomever I wanted,” she laughs.
“If her friend wanted Dirty gone, then why did you think Hattie was going to be taken and not Dirty?” I ask, turning to face the crazy bitch.
“The friend promised Jay a threesome for his troubles. Her, Hattie, and him. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in that respect. Jay loves his orgies,” she giggles.
“Grizz?” Fury asks, looking over to Grizz.
“I’d venture to guess Jay wanted cash, too. Maybe he was going to fuck the friend over after he fucked both of the girls. Serina’s right, Jay loves orgies.”
“You play with him a little, darlin’?” Fury asks with a smirk on his lips.
“Let’s just say big dick runs in the family, and I love big dick,” she shrugs as she looks at Grizz and licks her lips, eyeing his cock.
“Get this cunt out of my sight. We’ll deal with her ass later,” Fury barks.
Serina opens her mouth but is quickly dragged out of the room by two prospects who were waiting by the door.
“Now that we know, for sure, who has him, we need a plan of how to extract him,” Fury announces.
Serina will be dealt with later, but right now, we need to focus on our brother. I close my eyes for a second and think about the woman upstairs who is waiting for her man to come back.
It takes me back to a time in my life where I had a woman of my own, a woman who didn’t know if I would ever make it back to her. It makes my heart ache. I feel sick to my stomach just thinking about it, about the past, my past.
If I do nothing else in this life, I want my brothers to have good women at their sides, women they can call their own, women who will love and care for them no matter what happens. Women like the one I had and threw away all those years ago.
Eleven years ago, to be exact—when I was a punk ass, motherfucking kid and I didn’t know what I had in front of me until I fucked it up and pushed her away.
Yeah, none of my brothers deserve the misery I’ve brought on myself, so I’ll do what I can to make sure they have their good women and that their good women have them.
“Operation Dirty,” I mutter.
“Fuck yes, Operation Dirty,” Sniper chuckles.
“I want Torch and Sniper to come up with a plan. You have thirty minutes, then we meet back here and you give the orders,” Fury announces.
“What about you?” Sniper asks.
“I’m going to take care of that little cunt, Serina, myself,” he grins.
Nobody says a word, nobody stops him, and nobody asks him what he plans on doing to her. It doesn’t matter. Even if she lives, she won’t ever see the inside of our clubhouse again.
Maybe Fury was right. Maybe we should get rid of all the whores. Their jealousies cause more problems then they’re worth, and it’s not like we all can’t get laid elsewhere. I prefer town girls as opposed to clubwhores, anyway. It wouldn’t bother me one fucking bit.
“Ready?” Sniper asks.
“Recon?” I mumble.
“Yup, lets ride,” he grins.
Together we ride to Dirty Johnny’s parents’ house in town, hoping that they’re stupid enough to take him back there, otherwise it could take us a while to find him. I’d have no fucking idea where else to look.
DIRTY JOHNNY
I open my eyes, but it feels like my head is going to fucking explode at any second. I groan, the sound muffled, and I try to lick my dry lips.
My tongue meets a rancid cloth instead. I’m gagged. I try to move, but my hands are bound behind my back and my feet are tied to the feet of a chair. I look around to try and gauge my whereabouts.
Once I do, my stomach lurches. I’m in my parent’s house. Not my childhood home in California, but my parent’s current shithole of a residence.
“The bastard wakes,” my father says from the corner of the room.
I watch him, waiting to see what he’ll do. Psychos are pretty hard to predict, and my father is just that. He doesn’t move. He’s sitting in his chair just watching me, waiting for some kind of reaction he thinks I might give him. I don’t say anything—not that I can with this rag wrapped around my fuckin’ mouth.
“Heard you got a pretty, new thing sleepin’ in your bed. Also heard you cut your mama off. Not a very nice boy to your mama, now, are you?” he asks before his smirk turns into a full blown smile.
“Bitch, get your ratty ass out here,” he screams.
I watch as my mom walks out from the back of the house, practically naked. She looks fucking sick, her bra and panties hanging on her skeletal form.
She looks at me but she doesn’t see me. She stares right through me. She’s high as fuck. Odds are, she doesn’t even know who she is, let alone who I am.
“Go get that other cunt,” my father barks. She nods before she scurries off.
He doesn’t say anything, just looks at me, a shit eating grin plastered on his face. Crazy fuck. I turn my head slightly when I see movement. I’m surprised to see Willa, Hattie’s friend, following behind my mother. She’s practically naked too, except she’s wearing a see-through bra and crotchless panties with stiletto heels.
I can’t deny she looks hot as fuck. She’s not Hattie, but she’s a nice piece of ass, nonetheless. I don’t understand what she’s doing here, though.
“Where’s Hattie?” she asks with a frown on her face.
“We’re going to call. A little trade. Hattie for Johnny, plus a little cash. Johnny means more to them than Hattie does, they’ll oblige,” my father says as he palms her ass.
“Can I play with him first?” Willa asks with what I presume is a pout on her lips. She’s facing my dad now and I can’t see her face.
“What do you want, baby?” he coos.
I watch in disgust as his fingers slide between the cheeks of her ass.
“Well, I don’t want to eat that nasty snatch again; I’ll tell you that much,” she practically growls. “It tasted like death, Jay.”
I close my eyes for a second, knowing, knowing she’s talking about my mother.
It makes me fucking sick.
Nothing’s changed.
When I open my eyes, my mother is just sitting on the couch in a stupor. My father stays silent. Instead, I watch him stand and walk over to the television cabinet. Then I watch as he takes out a bag I’m way too fucking familiar with. It’s my mom’s kit. Her dope.
“Time for more medicine,” he cajoles.
My mom’s eyes light up for the first time since she’s been in here. I watch as my dad shoots her up with smack. Her eyes flutter in the back of her head and t
hen he dips down, picking her up and taking her to the back of the house.
Willa is looking at me with a smirk as her fingers start to play with her pussy.
I just watched my mom get drugged; no matter how I feel about her, seeing that again—It fucking sucked ass.
There’s no way in hell I could get it up even if I wanted to right now. And for Willa? It isn’t fucking possible.
“Ready, baby?” my dad asks as he walks back into the room.
“He doesn’t look like he wants to join us, Jay,” Willa pouts.
“Then he can watch,” he grunts.
“But you promised I’d have my ass and my cunt filled,” she whines.
I feel like I’ve been brought back in time. Usually my dad fucked my mom with another woman, not too often he’d bring in another man, except when I was old enough. When my dick could get hard, he’d put me to work, fucking random pieces of ass if my mom had passed out.
I watch as my dad grabs her tit and then pinches her nipple so hard she screams out in pain.
Willa must not know Jay Williams too well. She talked back, she whined, and she questioned him.
Those are three things you never do to Jay Williams. He doesn’t let go until she’s crumpled to her knees and tears are streaming down her face.
“Whiney little bitches won’t be tolerated,” he announces.
He then picks her up and throws her face down over the arm of the couch. I know what he’s going to do next, and it isn’t gonna be pretty.
I’d stop him, except I’m tied up and I’m not so sure Willa doesn’t deserve it. She thought I was Hattie, which means she’s conspired to have my dad take Hattie.
No, this bitch deserves everything she has coming to her. I’m already going straight to hell, so watching her stuffer won’t send me any deeper.
“Now, son, when a mouthy cunt decides she has an opinion, what do you do?” my dad asks.
I don’t answer, because I can’t; but even if this shitty cloth weren’t in my mouth, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer to his crazy as fuck question.
The Notorious Devils MC: Complete Collection BoxSet Page 79