Prologue
“The truth is all I know how to tell.”
JAMES NORTH
ASSIGNMENT—VERSION 1
CREATIVE WRITING FOR ADULTS—GREENFIELD COMMUNITY COLLEGE
I’m an open book.
Ask me anything and I’ll tell you the truth. The truth is all I know how to tell. That’s probably because if I ever dared tell a lie my parents would have whooped my ass until I couldn’t sit for a week. I’ve done some things in my life—things I’m not proud of and things that I am—but I always own up to whatever actions I’ve taken. I’ve never told anyone why I left the military.
‘Left’ isn’t the right way to say it.
I was dishonorably discharged. I was kicked out.
I never told anyone this story, and I honestly don’t know why I’m telling some random (forgive me) English professor now. The only people who know the truth are the ones who were there, even though they lied through their teeth about it. I understand why. For them to admit what happened would mean certain jail time. I understand. I hid the truth also to protect her. I took the blame to save her the degradation of a trial.
That’s the one time in my life that I’ve lied, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat, even though I’m not a liar.
As you know, Professor, the prompt for this assignment was to tell an original anecdote from our lives that helped make us who we are today. I don’t know if that experience made me who I am, or if who I was caused me to go through that experience. Either way, it’s time to talk about what happened that night. . .
One—North—Now
“. . .that devil.”
Darkness.
I know it well. We’re old friends. Far as I’m concerned, any man who doesn’t acquaint himself with the solitude that only darkness can afford him is in some trouble when things go south. I made peace with the dark a long time ago, and thank God, because I’m surrounded by it now. And, sure as the love I have for my wife, things have gone pretty fuckin’ south.
Travis.
I never thought I’d see that ugly, wicked face again, but I see now that was wishful thinking on my part. The ghosts of the past don’t always stay there, trapped only in occasional memory and nightmare. Sometimes those motherfuckers come strolling back into your life, confident as can be in how not dead they actually are.
Sometimes they don’t just walk, they ride.
It was my friend Knight’s wedding. A beautiful affair. That man has had his ups and downs, but he sure got it right when he asked that gorgeous woman to be his bride. Outside of my own bride, who no woman yet compares to, I don’t think I’ve seen a woman look so lovely on her wedding day. All the boys were there—Colton, Grayson, G, Brody, the whole bunch of us. It was an event for the ages, the start of a new life between two amazing people.
And then those pricks showed their faces.
I heard the steel battle cry in the distance, and my heart stopped. That sound—that cacophony of engines—it had a purpose, it had a destination. When I saw Travis standing there I felt as though I’d seen a savage ghost. The man is a pure villain. He looks like he walked straight out of the Thunder Dome, high as a kite and ready to wreak havoc on anything worth ruining.
Last I saw him, I thought he’d done the universe a favor and departed from our plane of existence. But he’s alive as can be. When our eyes locked back at Knight’s wedding, it was like two apex predators staring each other down—neither one of us willing to back down, and an unspoken knowledge between us that there can be only one. He’s everything that I’m not—cruel, selfish, evil. And the way I see it, this world just isn’t large enough for people as different as we are to exist together. We both know that one of us needed to go, we just disagreed on who that was.
It should be him, but it might be me.
I’m bleeding pretty badly right now, the pain in my side matched only by the warm, throbbing sensations I feel all over my face. His guys tuned me up good. I knew a beating was coming the entire ride over here. There was no getting around that. I took my shots like a man—never crying out or begging for mercy. That kind of weakness would have spelled my death, so I dealt with the pain as best as I could, until they finally got tired of hitting me. Once I was a well tenderized piece of meat, lying on the floor and bleeding all over, that’s when Travis stepped forward. What a coward, the man couldn’t even do his own fighting.
“Well, look at you now. You look pathetic.” I’d forgotten the sound of his voice—deep and gruff from years of smoking, drinking, and God knows what else. It isn’t a sound I thought I’d ever hear again, but the memories are flooding back. Memories from that night.
“Too afraid to hit me yourself, Travis? I see nothing has changed.” I look up at him. Even though I’m doubled over in pain, I make it a point to muster enough strength to look him in the eye. I want him to know that I’m down, but I’m never out. “Actually, I’m wrong. You got older and fatter.” It’s about two seconds between my insult and his steel toed boot crashing into my side. The pain is blinding, like nothing I’ve ever felt before, and it takes all of my will to not scream. He may have broken a rib or two, but I can’t tell just yet.
“That mouth always got you into trouble, North.”
It’s almost impossible to breathe right now. The pain from his kick dulling, but still acute all over my abdomen. Despite that, I can’t let him have the last word. I fill my lungs with as much air as I can muster. “I thought you were dead.”
“I think I look pretty fuckin’ alive, don’t you? If you think what happened that night was enough to kill me, then you’re even more stupid than I thought. I’m a hard man to kill, North.” He leans down and puts his face close to mine. His breath is rank, and he reeks of booze and old cigarette smoke. It makes me want to vomit, but I hold back. I’m not showing him any weakness.
“What happened to Rollins?” I ask. “Though he was in charge.”
He smiles. It’s dark and sardonic. “Now, Rollins? He’s one dead motherfucker.” He laughs after he says it, which sends chills into my bones. He, umm. . . he met with an accident. I think that’s what the official coroner’s report stated.” I realize what he’s saying just by the look on his face. Travis was always power hungry, and a snake in the grass, even among the scum that make up his organization.
“A lot of people seem to meet with accidents when you’re around.” He shrugs his shoulders at me and gives me that disingenuous I-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about look, even though he knows exactly. We both do. “So, you’re in charge now?” I ask. He nods.
The Leviathans MC.
They’re holding me in the mother chapter, which Travis is now apparently the president of, but they have new chapters popping up all over the United States, from the east coast to the west. They have a reputation like no other, and that reputation was solidified when a few Leviathans killed two state troopers last year after a routine traffic stop. That incident brought them national attention, and put them squarely at the top of the FBI’s hierarchy of criminal organizations. And now Travis is in charge of all of them. Rollins wouldn’t have sanctioned the call to kill those cops, that has Travis’ stamp all over it.
“So, am I meeting with an ‘accident’, then, Travis? Is that your move? Kidnap and kill me?”
“Look at me, North,” he commands, but I don’t. I won’t give him the satisfaction, but I also can’t really fight back. After I refuse, I feel his fingers grip my chin and yank my face upwards, forcing me to look him in his ugly face. “I’m going to kill you, you miserable fuck. That much I promise you, but I’m going to do more than that. If it was just your death I wanted, I could have had you killed about fifty different times. When your time comes, I’m the one who’s gonna do you. But, right now, I don’t just want you dead, I want you to suffer.”
“There ain’t shit you can do to me that I haven’t had done before, Travis. Hate to tell you, but I’ve had a hard life and you’re not that creative. So, if it’s torture you hav
e in mind. . .”
He starts to laugh. Hard. A deep belly laugh that makes me uncomfortable. I’m being strong, showing him the toughest exterior that I can, because strength is all guys like him know or understand, but I know, all too well, the terrible, depraved shit that Travis is capable of. I once saw him blind a man with a pencil that a waitress left on a bar. Why? The guy brushed against him and almost made Travis spill his beer. For that, Travis took the man’s sight. I’d never heard someone scream that loudly before.
If I show him any weakness, I’m dead. Shit, I might be a dead man regardless. “Torture? Nah, North. I’m not gonna torture you. Not my style.” He crouches down on the ground next to me, and puts his face close again. “Delilah, on the other hand. . .” He stops for effect. When he mentions her name all bets are off. I don’t think, I just lunge at him, throwing my face forward to try and headbutt him, but he slides to the side. I fall over and he kicks me again, hard.
“Fuck you!” I yell.
Then he spits in my face. That motherfucker spits in my face. I can feel his thick saliva dripping down from my eyes to my nose, and my blood starts to boil like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I want to rip his face off—to beat him bloodier than his boys beat me—but I can’t do shit right now except listen to this madman speak. “Speaking of getting fucked,” he says, his breath offending every sensation in my nostrils. “I plan on getting first crack at Delilah when we find her. My boys know I get first dibs on all the pussy, and lord knows Delilah has the sweetest pussy of all. But they know they’ll have their chance after me. What do they call it? Sloppy seconds? And thirds. And fourths. Well, you get the picture.”
Rage doesn’t even begin to do justice to the acidic hate that’s boiling inside of me right now. I can feel it crawling up my throat, a mix of anxiety, murderous rage, and the kind of anger that doesn’t really have a proper name just yet. Maybe if I get out of here alive I’ll invent a word for it. I can barely move, but I lunge at the fucker again. I’m not thinking, I’m just acting. I have no chance against him in this state. He knows it, and I know it, but since when does doing what’s right have to do with winning or losing? He anticipates my movement and grabs me as I make my crippled attempt to hit him. I feel my face hit the floor, and there’s a numb sensation before the searing pain kicks in.
Still, I can talk. “You lay a hand on her, motherfucker, and not only will I kill you, but I’ll. . .”
“You’ll what?” he screams, holding me up to his face by the collar of my shirt. “You’ll what? Tell me.”
“I’ll make you say my name before I kill you. I’ll make you scream it to the heavens before I send you to hell.”
Travis doesn’t mean to, but he gives me a tell. It’s only a second, maybe even less than that, but his eyes widen. What I just said to him is the biggest threat I could have made. It’s a Leviathan thing—something they do before they kill their enemies. In this world, pecking order is everything. Guys need to know who the top dog is—the alpha—as well as which MC is the top organization. The Leviathans have a rule that if they kill one of their enemies, the man who does it has to make the guy he’s about to kill say his name first. It’s one last fuck you to add insult to injury.
“That’s adorable, North, but the only name getting screamed out is my name, and it’ll be coming from your wife’s lips as I fuck her in the ass before slitting her pretty little throat. And don’t bother lunging again. Next time I’ll hurt you, permanently.”
“Fuck you!”
“Ha. You got heart, North, but I always knew that. It ain’t gonna help you or your cunt wife one bit, but it’s better than having no balls. Me and some of my guys have business to attend to, but before all that we’ll make sure to pay Delilah a visit. Maybe I’ll have one of my guys record it for you so that I can show you when I get back. Then it’ll be your turn to die. Think about that while you sit here and bleed.”
He spits again, but it hits the floor this time. Then, just like that, he’s gone, but the pain he’s inflicted lingers inside me like a parasite that’s burrowed itself into my body. I didn’t want to show weakness in front of him, but I’m hurting, bad. I can see my own blood on the floor, and I also feel my ribs are busted up. But the real pain he inflicted isn’t physical, it’s psychological. A man I long thought dead just reappeared in my life, like a ghost, and he’s planning on hurting my wife. The thought is unimaginable. I try to fight off the image, but for just a second—literally a second—it squeezes through my defenses, and I picture Travis while he. . .
I stop the thought, but it’s already too late. The damage to my body and soul has been done. I don’t care about the blood or the bruises. I’ll heal, fast. He plans on keeping me alive until after, so I know I’ll get food and water at the very least. But it’s the damage he’s done to me mentally that I’m worried about. I can’t sit here and imagine what’s going to happen to my Delilah if he finds her. I can’t let that happen.
I have to get out of here.
I have to rescue her from that devil.
Two—Delilah—Way Back When
“. . .Jerome was a bad guy.”
I always thought that divorce was a four-letter word.
Ironically, my parents got divorced when my sister, Emily, and I were young. I guess that isn’t really true. I guess they never legally got divorced, but my dad left us when I was in the eighth grade, leaving my mom angry, poor, and bitter towards all creatures with a penis dangling between their legs. Maybe that’s why she was so harsh on me and my sister growing up when it came to the guys we dated. They’re all cheaters, losers, and liars, she’d tell us. She said that so much I think I started believing it at some point.
That’s not true, Mom, I’d tell her. That was just Dad. There are good guys out there. Great ones, you just have to find them. The first time I had the balls to say that to her was when she was in another one of her drunken rages against all things male, and her response to my well thought out argument was a swift slap right across my face. I’d never been slapped before. I literally had her hand impression on the left side of my face for hours afterwards. But as I got older I got tougher, and mom got weaker. Eventually she was drinking half a bottle of whiskey a night, and bringing home random guys for one-night stands that I could hear no matter how loud I played my music.
Eventually I’d bring home boyfriends of my own. Each time I brought a guy around, Mom would be polite enough, smiling in their faces, shaking their hands, and generally keeping quiet around them. As soon as they were gone she’d go on her rants again, telling me that so-and-so was probably banging three of my friends and living a double life that I’d find out about too late. I always gave her the same line, although the older I got the less such declarations came with any attempt at violence on her part. That was just Dad, Mom. There are good guys out there, and I’ll find mine one of these days.
When I got married to Jerome I thought that I’d finally proven her wrong. Sounds crazy, but I was just as happy that I’d disproven her dumb theory about all men as I was to actually get married to him. I got a sick satisfaction when he asked Mom for my hand in marriage, and she said yes. I loved it when she got to walk her oldest daughter down the aisle and send her off to a good man and a happy home. See, Mom, I thought, I found the man you always told me didn’t exist. So, there. God, how petty did I sound?
I was married to Jerome for ten years, nine and a half of which were some of the best and happiest times of my life. He seemed to be everything I thought he was—good to me, reliable, responsible, loving. I had it all, and my mother had been wrong all along, just another bitter old woman whose husband had left her.
All that was true except for one thing—Jerome was a bad guy. When they say ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’, now I know what they mean. He made the mistake of leaving his cell in his dress pants pocket one night. After dinner he went to take a shower, and I heard all of the vibration in the laundry basket at the end of our bed. I didn’t want to pry—I wasn�
��t the kind of wife who checked up on her husband’s texts and social media. I never thought I had to be that woman. I trusted Jerome because I wanted to believe that my mom was wrong—all of them couldn’t be cheaters, liars, and bad people.
But when I opened his screen to see the texts from his other wife, I almost had a heart attack right there in my bedroom.
That’s right. His other fucking wife.
It was the kind of thing you see in Lifetime movies, but never in real life. Who did that? What man in this day and age had a second life? A second wife? A. . .
That’s when I looked at the pictures in his camera roll. With the shower still pounding the bathtub floor I scrolled like a madwoman through his pictures. It was then I discovered a folder labeled ‘scenery.’ But the only scenery in there was of his brand-new baby girl. I dropped the phone and almost smashed the screen. I couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down my face, and I started breathing quick and shallow, like I was having the worst panic attack ever.
See, we’d been trying to get pregnant for over a year.
We’d been to every fertility doctor in the area, more than once. They all told me the same thing, that it would be difficult for me to conceive. Actually, the exact words the last doctor used to describe my uterus were ‘an inhospitable environment for conception’, which was just a nice way of saying that I would never be a mom.
Jerome was the perfect husband during that hard time. Supportive and loving, he never made me feel like he was angry with me, or that it was somehow my fault that we’d never be a true family like we both wanted to be. And that night I found out why he was so relaxed. It’s because he was having a baby with another woman.
I left him that night after a crazy amount of screaming and fighting. At one point I got a knife from the kitchen and told him I’d cut his balls right off if he didn’t tell me everything—who she was, how they met, when he saw her, how he could live a double life without me knowing—I wanted to know all of it, and his desire to keep his manhood attached to his body made him fess up.
True North: A Wordsmith Chronicles MC Standalone Page 2