The Heavy Crown: Washington, DC Chapter (Royal Bastards MC Book 1)

by Linny Lawless

  My crazy-prego hormones were all jacked up, along with having morning sickness. Heavy didn’t want me to breathe in cigarette smoke or weed and made me quit working at the Dollhouse. He wanted me to stay home and take care of the baby and the house. I was okay with that too.

  Heavy knew more about me than I knew about him, but after some time, he opened up to me about his past. Heavy’s mother’s name was Sheila. She left the young Hendrix when he was only seven years old. His father, Patrick, beat her relentlessly like it was some quota he had to meet every month. He threatened to kill Sheila so many times when he was high on meth or tripped out on PCP. Heavy didn’t have many memories of Sheila, but he did feel loved by her. He didn’t hate her for leaving because he knew Patrick would hunt her down if she took little Hendrix with her. Heavy did think about her often and hoped she was still alive and had a good, happy life. Patrick turned his hatred and violence toward young Hendrix, and he was beaten with his father’s fists. This was Patrick’s way of raising his son not to be a pussy. Hendrix was told that women were useless. The only thing they were good for was to make a profit or use them up and throw them away like trash.

  Heavy grew up believing he was just like his father. He treated me bad when I came back into his world because he couldn’t fathom the idea that he did have a heart and was capable of love. As for me, I had to fuck men who only wanted to take what they could from me. I did what I had to do to survive, and in return, I got clothed, fed, and a place to sleep.

  We both endured abuse from cruel and vicious men who had no mercy.

  I couldn’t ever remember feeling happy. When I first met Heavy all those years ago, I never thought I’d see him again, let alone end up pregnant with his baby. Heavy no longer looked at me with that death stare of his. His eyes now lit up with desire, kindness, and love for me.

  Some nights as we slept together in bed, I’d see our baby in my dreams and promised him or her that their mom and dad would always love them and be there for them no matter what.

  The bedroom I used to sleep in was turned into a nursery, and I was giddy with excitement and started to decorate it in pastel colors with cute things for decorations. The baby was getting spoiled by the ol’ ladies and girls from the Dollhouse before it was even born.

  ***

  Two weeks before my sonogram, I stayed up late, waiting for Heavy to come home from the Dollhouse. I sat on the couch late, watching some stupid reality TV show while eating a big bowl of chocolate ice cream. I blamed my new craving for everything with sugar on the baby and Heavy bought me a big tub of ice cream the day before. I heard the rumbling pipes on Heavy’s bike as he pulled into the garage. He came into the living room from the garage, and sat down on the couch beside me. He leaned over, and kissed me before telling me he was riding up to meet with Gamble, the Baltimore chapter Prez in the morning. It was club business, which just meant that things Heavy did or did not tell me was for my own protection.

  But when he said that she would meet him by mid-morning, I interrupted him and asked, “The Baltimore chapter president is a woman?”

  Heavy leaned his head back against the couch and laid his forearm over his eyes. “Yeah. Gamble loved a Royal Bastard brother of ours we called Dog. Rancid was the National Prez of the Royal Bastards MC then. First Rancid kills Dog, then he just throws Gamble away like trash, giving her up to all the Presidents of other Royal Bastard chapters, including me.”

  Heavy paused for a moment, and I could see he was having a hard time telling me what happened.

  “Rancid told us that she was now the Baltimore chapter’s Prez and the Royal Bastards club whore was just a sick joke and that all of us could fuck her. I was the only asshole who did.”

  I swallowed down a spoonful of ice cream. “Did you rape her, Heavy?”

  He lifted his forearm and looked at me. “No. Yes. I don’t know. If I didn’t fuck her, then Rancid would’ve gone ballistic and put a bullet in her head along with all of us Royal Bastards who were there. Luckily, Gamble killed Rancid later on, but only after Jameson, our New Orleans Chapter brother, tortured him first. Rancid suffered a good deal of pain before he stopped breathin’. Jameson is now the National Prez, and New Orleans is our mother chapter.”

  He stood from the couch and began to pace back and forth. “When I meet with Gamble tomorrow, first thing I’ll do is apologize to her.” He stopped pacing and knelt down in front of me. His brows were furrowed, with guilt in his eyes. “I can’t take back what I did to her. But telling her that I’m sorry is the best I can do.”

  Early the next morning, I stood in the driveway while Heavy pulled the bike out of the garage. After he strapped his helmet on, he pulled me into his arms and grabbed a handful of my ass.

  “I could fuck you again before I head up to Baltimore,” he said as he planted a kiss on my lips.

  I slapped his hand that still held onto my ass cheek and kissed him back. “Tame that monster in your pants until you come back home to me later. Then I’ll ride you reverse cowgirl style.”

  “Yeehaw!” Heavy shouted, then swung a leg over his bike, started it up, and rode away.

  I felt a bit better that morning and was relieved that I didn’t have to run to the bathroom to throw up for once. This put me in a better mood, and after taking a nice long shower, I called up Lacey to see if she wanted to go shopping for some baby things. I dressed in a plain tank, yoga pants and a pair of flip-flops, and drove the truck a few miles to her house.

  When Lacey greeted me at the door, we both laughed at the way we had dressed exactly the same. Lacey was a natural beauty, and I thought she looked much prettier in her casual look instead of all dolled up with makeup and hair products. Her blonde hair was straight with less curl. She had a nice complexion with no blemishes to her fair skin and pretty blue eyes. She still had issues with her self-confidence because of the braces, and as much as her friends told her she had nothing to be self-conscious about, she struggled with it.

  We sat in her living room to finish drinking the smoothie she made for her morning breakfast, and she filled me in on how the girls and Chasidy were doing at the Dollhouse.

  I also figured it out on my own that Roadkill liked Lacey. Like, a lot!

  I had to mention Roadkill to find out how she felt about him. “I saw you having a very deep conversation with Roadkill at the clubhouse that one night. You held his attention the whole time.”

  Lacey smiled, and her pretty blue eyes lit up. “I used to be afraid of Roadkill. He never really says much at all, and he’s so huge! I’d catch him staring at me sometimes, and I know he watches me dance at the club when he’s there. He’s never once made a pass at me or requested a private dance in the VIP. But he was like a knight in shining armor when he beat that asshole up at the Dollhouse. I saw him in a new light afterward. I know he grunts like a bear sometimes, but I can look past the rough and menacing exterior and see that he’s actually a fine-as-fuck good-looking man!”

  My jaw dropped, and we both giggled like teenagers.

  A loud crash. The sound of wood splintering as Lacey’s front door flew open and slammed into the wall.

  Trick stepped through the open doorway. He raised his arm and marched over to the couch with quick strides as another man entered the house. Lacey screamed, clinging to me.

  Trick’s eyes were bloodshot as he glared angrily at me. “You and the blonde bitch are going for a ride.”

  CHAPTER 18

  HEAVY

  The ride up to Baltimore was all jacked up with traffic on the beltway. I pulled the bike into a gas station to fill up when my phone started to buzz in the fork bag. I pulled it out to see a text message from Trick.

  I opened it.

  The pain that hit my gut felt like a stab from a knife.

  An image of Dani. Tears and the look of terror in her pretty brown eyes. The blade of a buck knife pressed to her throat.

  The phone buzzed again, and Trick’s name lit up the screen.

  I pushed the
green button. “You’re a dead man.”

  Trick chuckled on the other end. “Not if I kill you first, son.”

  “Deal. I’m all yours. Let. Her. Fucking. Go.”

  “Sounds like a fair trade. But I also got the blonde bitch here too. Maybe I’ll just keep that one.”

  “When and where?”

  “Meet me at noon at my clubhouse. You got two hours. Bring all your Royal Bastard brothers along, but no firearms. We’ll do this the old-fashioned way with knives and anything else you can use to kill.”

  “Your clubhouse? Whose club did you patch in with already?”

  “I’m not only patched in, I’m the motherfuckin’ president of the Bloody Aces MC!”

  I hung up on him.

  I scrolled through my phone and called Wrecker. I told him that Trick took Dani and Lacey to the Bloody Aces MC’s clubhouse and to get every Royal Bastard to meet at our clubhouse in thirty minutes.

  I climbed back on the bike and twisted the throttle wide open, passing cars at breakneck speed around the beltway. All the bikes were parked when I pulled into the clubhouse through the bay door. I kicked my stand down next to Roadkill’s bike. All my brothers gathered together as they stood by the bar—Roadkill, Bagger, Kable, Defcon, Tusk, Gater, and the two prospects.

  I swallowed the big lump in my throat when I hugged Wrecker.

  “I just got off the phone with Nolan Reynolds,” he said. “Told him to hold off the law within a fifty-mile radius around the Bloody Aces clubhouse from now until tomorrow. We’re going to get Dani and Lacey back. Then I’m going to kill Trick myself. For all of us.”

  “No.” Roadkill cut off Wrecker as he stood with our brothers. “Trick took Lacey, and she belongs to me. I get him first.”

  CHAPTER 19

  DANI

  Everything was happening so fast, like a horrible nightmare that you can only remember parts of when you wake up. My survival instinct kicked in, making my brain block out things like turning a light switch on and off. It was the only way I could endure the traumatic experience.

  The patch on the front of Trick’s cut read President, but I couldn’t see the back to know who the MC was. The other man looked about the same age and size as Trick, but he was bald and had a long beard. He sauntered over and sat next to me on the couch. I flinched, then gasped when he jerked me closer to him. Lacey screamed when he pulled out a big knife and pressed the blade to my throat. Trick snapped a picture then moved his thumbs on his phone to send it. I hugged Lacey and listened when he called and spoke to Heavy. I knew then that they were the Bloody Aces MC.

  After Trick spoke to Heavy, he told us that if we screamed or cried out for help, he would kill us both. I believed him. Lacey and I did as Trick said when we left the house with him and the other man. My stomach felt queasy as fear gripped me, and I almost passed out. But I was worried about Lacey. She was in shock—her eyes wide—and I was afraid she’d completely shut down.

  Trick pressed the gun barrel against my side as he walked close beside me. The other man wrapped his arm around Lacey’s waist as they walked ahead of Trick and me. As I looked at the man’s Bloody Aces three-piece patch on his back, I remembered Heavy telling me they’d been enemies of the Royal Bastards for years, and that he wouldn’t put it past Trick to join them.

  He leaned closer to Lacey’s hair. “Damn, you smell good. You got nice tits too. Bet they cost you a lot. Call me Shanker, baby girl.”

  Lacey didn’t respond and kept walking.

  An old rusty van with gray primer paint was parked behind my truck. Trick opened the back doors, shoving us to climb in. We sat together on the dirty carpet that smelled like piss and mildew, then wrapped our arms around each other. I went numb as Lacey sobbed in my arms. I had a dreadful fear of losing my baby.

  “They’re going to kill us,” Lacey whispered. “I don’t want to die, Dani.”

  “We’re not going to die, Lacey. Trick wants Heavy, not us. Heavy, Roadkill, and all the Royal Bastards are on their way,” I whispered back, not believing my own words.

  Trick drove the van while Shanker sat in the passenger seat. I could tell the van was on the interstate, but I didn’t know if we were going north to Maryland, or south to Virginia.

  After what felt like forever, Trick parked the van and pulled open the back doors. He pointed the gun at us while we climbed out. We were parked in front of an old, run-down warehouse with rusty siding. The emblem made of sheet metal above the bay door was the same as the center patch on Trick’s and Shanker’s cuts. This was the clubhouse that belonged to the Bloody Aces MC.

  We entered through a side door to an empty warehouse. It was a shithole with no couches or bar or any pool tables like the Royal Bastard clubhouse. The cement floor was littered with trash, and the stench of piss made me swallow down bile. Four men stood around two wooden chairs. In the far corner of the warehouse, I saw an old mattress on the dirty floor, and a camera attached on top of a tripod stood a few feet away from it.

  “Sit down and make yourselves comfortable, bitches,” Trick sneered as he shoved Lacey and me toward the chairs.

  The four men stepped in closer as we sat down, and they looked at us as if we were their prey. Trick came up and began to pace back and forth, folding his arms over his chest. “Before my shit-bag son gets here with his Royal Bastard faggots, me and my brothers here are gonna make our own porn film with the both of you. Which cunt wants to go first?”

  As the men turned and walked toward the mattress, I feared that both Lacey and I may not survive what was about to happen to us.

  “Please don’t hurt Dani! She’s pregnant!” Lacey cried out, standing from the chair. “Take me, but please don’t kill me!”

  Trick looked at me and started to laugh. “Well, isn’t that fan-fucking-tastic!” He was quick, snatching Lacey by the arm.

  I was out of my chair, falling to my knees at Trick’s feet. “No! Please, Trick! I’m begging you! Please don’t do this!”

  Trick backhanded me across my face.

  The whole world was spinning.

  Lacey screamed and screamed again.

  Men’s laughter.

  I tried to pull myself up off the ground.

  Then I heard nothing. I saw nothing. Only blackness.

  CHAPTER 20

  HEAVY

  Trick said noon, but I didn’t give a fuck. The prospect drove my truck that Dani left parked at Lacey’s house, and I led the Royal Bastards at full throttle down the interstate and pulled up to the Bloody Aces clubhouse at eleven a.m.

  As we all climbed off the bikes, Trick sauntered out the side door. His belt was unbuckled, and he wiped some blood off his hands with a dirty rag. Was that Dani’s blood or Lacey’s?

  “Bring the girls out now, motherfucker!” I snarled at him, ready to bash my fists into him.

  Trick dropped the bloody rag on the ground when four more Bloody Aces came walking out the side door. “I know your little bitch is knocked up, so I’ve changed my mind. I lost a hundred grand seven years ago since you let her get away. Then the other one ended up fucking dead! I lost my money, my patch, and my fucking club. And my own flesh and blood took it all from me!”

  Trick shrugged off his cut, and I did the same, handing it to Wrecker. I paced back and forth, cracking my knuckles, and stretched my neck side to side, ready to rip his throat out with my bare fuckin’ hands.

  Then I let my soon-to-be-dead father say his last words. “I’m taking everything from you now, son. The girl and the kid she’s carrying belong to me. That stupid bitch with the fake tits is dead after we’re done fuckin’ her.”

  Trick raised his fists, but as I came at him, Roadkill grabbed my arm. “Don’t kill. Just take him down. He’s mine.”

  He released his grip on my arm, and I rushed and swung first, landing a hook to his jaw. He staggered back and came at me with a jab to my left eye. I heard a scream from inside the clubhouse, then Roadkill howled like a beast in pain as he ran into the clubhouse. The
Bloody Aces were outnumbered against the Royal Bastards and it became a bloody fight to the death with knives.

  I was quicker than Trick as I moved around him and away from his reach. We circled each other a few more times, trading punches. Trick was slowing down and breathing harder than I was. I roared, colliding into him, and we fell to the ground. I was quick and moved my body over his. I slammed a fist into him repeatedly while keeping a tight grip on his throat, holding him in place.

  It was over in the next few minutes after I knocked Trick out cold. I looked around and saw four Bloody Aces were covered in blood as they lay dead on the ground. The Royal Bastards were sweating and catching their breaths while they wiped their bloody blades off on the bodies.

  I ran inside the clubhouse and found Dani lying facedown on a dirty cement floor. I dropped to my knees and gently turned her over.

  “Dani!” I shouted, my voice cracking and pulled her into my arms.

  Her eyes fluttered open.

  “Heavy. Please save Lacey,” she whispered.

  I looked up just then to see Roadkill walking toward me, while he carried Lacey wrapped in a dirty blanket. “They’re both alive.”

  I picked Dani up and into my arms and carried her out of the clubhouse with Roadkill.

  CHAPTER 21

  DANI

  Heavy came with me for my sonogram appointment with Dr. Heller, and with DNA testing, we found out our baby was a little girl. Dr. Heller showed her to us on the monitor that looked like a TV screen. Our baby girl looked like a little tiny peanut, and Dr. Heller said she appeared normal and healthy. She was perfect to her mom and dad. I thought it would’ve been Heavy’s worst nightmare come true since he was all freaked out if the baby was a girl, but his reaction was a big grin from ear to ear. He told me he was the happiest man on the planet.