Brothers in Arms (The Kings of Mayhem MC Book 2)

by Penny Dee

“Good question. Thank you for asking.” He stood up and started pacing back and forth in front of me. “You see, at first, I wasn’t out to kill anyone. I was going to simply break the club apart from the inside. Gain their trust, become a faithful confidante and use whatever intimate knowledge I had to unravel the MC inch by glorious inch. And my plan was beginning to work. A few ruined deals here and there, a few phone calls to the Knights or the feds. And I have to say, Indy, it was a pleasure to sit amongst them and feel their frustrations when their run of bad luck began. And to know that I was the cause of it all, well, that was truly poetic!” He grinned again, clearly pleased with himself. But it suddenly vanished and his eyes settled on me again. “But then your old man died, and man, I’d seen nothing like that outpouring of grief in my six years in the club. It was magnificent, and that funeral, hell yeah! That was some ostentatious bullshit right there!” The darkness in his eyes zeroed in on me and he stopped pacing again. “You think my sister got that when she died? You think she got a send off like that?”

  Blood whirled in my ears and again I struggled to swallow “I don’t know.”

  “Eight people. That’s how many people came to her funeral. Eight. And not one of the men who stuck their dick in her showed up. Yet, when a dried-out, old, wife-beating drunk goes flatline, he fills up a church and draws chapters in from near and far.” He shook his head. “That’s when I figured, hey, nothing impacts these guys like a good old death in the club. And since I failed to get any real traction with the screwed-up business dealings, I thought to myself, hey, why not create more deaths in the club? And just like that, a new plan evolved in my head.”

  “You’re insane,” I breathed.

  “No, I’m just fucking pissed.” He brushed me off and looked away.

  A sudden wave of weakness softened my limbs, and in the back of my mind I was vaguely aware of a dull pain heating up inside of me. Period pain. A new fear took up residence in my core. I needed to get to the hospital. I had to keep Elias distracted while I worked out a new escape plan.

  “Caveman’s accident—was that you?” I asked, trying to breathe away the pain in my womb and keep my focus on escaping.

  Elias looked up and grinned. “Now, that was spur of the moment decision. I came across him and his two-bit skank by chance, and I just thought to myself, why the fuck not? Let’s see how easy it is to do this. So, I rammed him. One sweet little tap with my pickup and they zipped off that road like a fucking pinball!”

  He started to laugh out loud, almost maniacally, but then stopped when he realized I wasn’t laughing along with his craziness.

  “But Caveman wasn’t involved with Talia’s death,” I said. The police and the MC had put it down to a one-off act of road rage. Not the start of a personal vendetta against the club.

  He shrugged. “Like I said, it was spur of the moment. I didn’t decide to start with those low-life thugs until after Caveman’s accident.”

  He paused and bit his lower lip as he recalled what happened next. It was clear he felt proud of himself.

  “Isaac’s death, now that . . . that was some sweet, sweet revenge!” He drew in a deep breath as if the memory brought him much pleasure, and then exhaled slowly, savoring the satisfaction clouding his diseased mind. “That outpouring of grief and devastation was mind blowing. It was like the peak of a climax. The wane of an orgasm. I couldn’t have imagined just how satisfying it was going be, not in my wildest dreams. I hoped it would devastate everyone, I mean, clearly. But I had no idea just how catastrophic it was going to be.” He laughed again, that same crazed laugh of an unstable man, then sighed, disappointed that I didn’t share his humor. “I have to admit, though, the others didn’t feel nearly as satisfying as Isaac. But then again, nothing ever beats your first high, does it? Irish. Tex.” He waved them off like they were afterthoughts. “Not nearly as exciting.”

  “What did you do to them?” I asked. I had to keep him talking. Stall him while I worked out my next move.

  He grinned nefariously at me, and again looked pleased with himself.

  “Irish was easy, stupid fool. He could never turn down a bourbon, so I got him drunk. Then once he was passed out—”

  “—you shot him.”

  He clicked his fingers. “Just like that.”

  “And Tex?”

  “I waited for him to get home, knocked him out and then placed him in the garage and turned on the car. Easy.”

  The police still thought it was an accidental death.

  But it wasn’t accidental. It was murder.

  “Now, Freebird . . .”

  My eyes darted to his. “Why hurt him when he wasn’t involved with Talia?”

  Elias shrugged. “Poor timing. He walked in on me setting up Irish’s suicide so he had to go. He started yelling at me, calling me a murdering cunt as he rushed at me. So I grabbed the tire iron Irish had in his bedroom for protection and beat him to death.”

  Just like that.

  My breath left me. Freebird had died because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  I remembered him lying in that ditch, all bloodied and broken, his body already starting to bloat. My heart twisted and I shook my head.

  Elias waved it off. “Collateral damage, if you will.”

  “Is that what Mirabella was?”

  He snickered. “I knew killing her would end Jacob. Slowly. He would die a painful, aching death without the woman he was so in love with.” His eyes gleamed with a sinister brightness. “Just like Cade will.”

  Alarm flared in my chest.

  I thought about Jacob kneeling in a pool of Mirabella’s blood and wondered how Cade would cope with my death.

  “But you killed Jacob anyway,” I said, my voice shaky and hoarse.

  “I had nothing to do with Jacob’s motorcycle accident. That was all him.” He shrugged. “Pity. I was enjoying watching him suffer.”

  Nausea bubbled up inside me when I remembered the rooftop conversation we’d had the night of Mirabella’s death. How we’d shared a joint and he had asked me about the moment Mirabella had died. He wasn’t asking as a grieving friend, it was a perverse question from a sick mind. He’d probably gotten off on it. Aroused by the devastation unfolding around him, psychopathic fuck.

  I breathed out heavily, trying to calm my heart. He was crazy. An overwhelming sense of anger and grief washed over me.

  “You think you’ve won,” I said, unable to hide the disgust from my voice. “But you haven’t.”

  “Oh, I know I haven’t won. Because that would imply that I’ve finished, and I’m sorry, Indy, but I am far from finished.”

  Goosebumps spread across my skin. He was going to kill me.

  “I’m pregnant,” I reminded him.

  He looked at me coldly, raising an eyebrow. “And like I said, I don’t give a goddamn.”

  I struggled to swallow.

  I had to stall him.

  And pray that help was on its way.

  CADE

  Elias.

  He was the soldier in the photos.

  I studied them again, his smiling picture against the photo of Talia, and my head scrambled to make sense of it all.

  Was he related to Talia?

  I wasn’t sure what relevance this had to Indy’s disappearance, but something inside me couldn’t let it go.

  Bull, Maverick, and Grunt joined me at the showcase.

  “What’s going on?” Bull asked.

  “Where is Elias?” I asked.

  “He was supposed to be dropping in on some old girlfriend but he hasn’t been answering his phone. I told the prospect to swing by his place after dropping by Cool Hands.”

  My eyes darted to Bull. “How long ago did he leave?”

  “An hour ago—what’s Elias got to do with this?”

  “I don’t know. But I plan on finding out.”

  As if on cue, Bull’s phone rang. It was the prospect. I watched as he answered it, my impatience growing.

  “
What is he saying?” I growled.

  “He says there is no one home.”

  “Tell him to break in,” I said.

  Bull looked at me questioningly.

  “Tell him to break the fuck in,” I snapped. With my skin prickling with impatience, I took his phone from him. “Listen to me,” I said to the prospect. “I need you to get inside the apartment. Because, if I’m right, then Elias has Indy inside.”

  When the prospect questioned me, I basically threatened to burn everything he owned if he didn’t break the fuck into Elias’s apartment.

  Two minutes later, and with me still on the line, the prospect was inside Elias’s apartment.

  “Um, Cade . . . ”

  “What did you find?”

  “That’s the thing. I found nothing. This place is completely empty.”

  “What do you mean empty?”

  “It’s fucking empty. No furniture. No nothing. Whoever lived here has skipped out.”

  My roar was primal. My fear amplified. The one clue we had to where Indy might be and it was a dead end. Panic took off inside of me because I felt her getting farther and farther away.

  Shoving his phone back into Bull’s hand, I pulled my phone out from my jeans and found Davey’s number. He answered on the third ring. He was the closest club member to Elias and I was counting on him knowing something.

  “Wait. You think he has something to do with what’s been going on in the club? The murders?” Davey asked.

  The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced it was Elias.

  “How soon can you get down here?”

  “I’m already walking to my bike. I’ll be there in ten.”

  He arrived in seven.

  “There was this one place,” he said. “I thought about it on the ride over here. Years ago we drove past it on our way out of town and he told me it was where he lived when he and his family first moved here.”

  “Do you think you can remember where it is?”

  He frowned. “It was a while ago now—” He clicked his fingers as the memory renewed itself in his mind. “It was near No Man’s land. Near the watermelon fields and water tower.”

  INDY

  “Why me?” I rasped.

  Elias seemed surprised by the question.

  “Because I’ve lost my buzz, Indy. I need the satisfaction of that first kill.”

  He was talking about Isaac’s murder.

  He paused and became very still, and his eyes took on a perverse glint as they settled on mine. “But I’m pretty sure seeing how devastated Cade will be about you will surpass it.”

  “Cade didn’t do anything to her,” I said, trying desperately to control my fear. I could barely breathe. “He tried to get her to go home. To leave before something happened to her. But she wouldn’t go, Elias. She wouldn’t leave.”

  “Well, common sense was not my sister’s strongest suit,” he agreed with a weird kind of calm. “Well, clearly it wasn’t, because we wouldn’t be here if it was, would we?”

  “She had a choice,” I breathed. I felt dizzy. I hadn’t eaten or had much water in God knows how long, so I was dehydrated and fatigued. And in the murkiness of my exhaustion I was aware of a discomfort growing stronger in my womb.

  “Yes, she had choice. But so did they, and they chose to take advantage of her.”

  “I know they did. But they didn’t kill her, Elias. She decided to do that all on her own.”

  My words angered him, but he controlled himself. His eyes narrowed on me and his nostrils flared with barely contained rage. He was thinking and I was terrified.

  “You need to sit,” he said, suddenly snapping out of his thoughts. When I didn’t move, he stomped over to me and shoved me towards a chair sitting up against the wall. He pushed me down and after picking it up off a small table near the front door, he thrust a diary into my hands.

  “Turn to her last entry,” he commanded.

  I did as he told, passing over the pages of Talia’s handwritten hopes and dreams, until I came to the final entry.

  I looked up at Elias who urged me to start. “Now read.”

  I licked my lips and sniffed, tasting the familiar metallic tang of blood down the back of my throat. My eyes moved from the knife in his hands to the diary on my knees.

  “I’m waiting,” he sing-songed.

  My heart was a wildling in my chest, beating fierce as my fear tore through me. I didn’t want to read Talia’s diary because I knew that whatever was on those pages would enrage Elias, and God only knew what he had planned for me then. But I had no choice.

  “Dear diary,” I began . . .

  Tonight I died. Tonight Talia Bennett is no more. It all began when I went to the clubhouse and saw Isaac . . . my sweet, charming Isaac. My MC man. My lover. My addiction. As you know, we hooked up last weekend and he messaged me a couple of times during the week, asking me to come to the party at the clubhouse. I was excited because he had been more attentive to me lately, more responsive to my letters and phone calls, more open to my affection. That alone told me that his feelings were growing stronger for me, and if I played my cards right, and do the right thing and please him, then he’d see what a good old lady I would make, and he will make me his girl.

  I loved him so much, diary.

  So much.

  But now my heart is broken and my grief is pouring into the open wound in my chest until I can’t feel anything but pain. I can’t say these words out loud, but I need to get them out of me so there is proof that this happened. So I won’t ever let myself be fooled by love again.

  The party was a big one. There were a couple of out-of-town chapters visiting, so the Kings went all out. A band. Loud music. Women. Liquor. Drugs.

  Isaac was there looking handsome in his cut, his beautiful face angelic in the light of the bonfire. He saw me and I smiled, my heart bursting with happiness because that boy is just so fine he makes my insides quiver. But then he turned away from me, diary, deliberately ignoring me. He walked away and disappeared inside the clubhouse. I felt foolish because I had been waving to him and he turned his back on me and walked away. I looked around me and noticed a couple of snickering girls in tight skirts and tiny tops, leaning up against one of the barbecue tables. Damn skanks. Who were they to laugh at me?

  I went looking for Isaac, I mean, maybe he didn’t see me. After all, why would he ignore me when he had spent the week texting me to come? As I moved through the shadows and light of the party, I managed to convince myself that it was a misunderstanding, that he hadn’t seen me on account of the shadows in the parking lot of the compound. Of course, he hadn’t seen me.

  I found him inside, laughing with his friends, drinking. We spoke but he was preoccupied. He gave me a drink, but then disappeared outside and I didn’t see him again for a long while. By then he was drunk. Happy. And he seemed pleased to see me. He hooked his arm around my neck and planted a kiss on my head. I melted into him, feeling so much love for him, wanting him more than anything in the world.

  Again, he gave me a drink and a few tokes on a joint. We sat on one of the couches in the clubhouse and we kissed. Then Irish, Jacob, and Tex joined us. We drank some more and we laughed a lot. They like me. They really like me. At one point, Isaac’s big hand slid up my leg and found the edge of my panties. The gesture was shocking but exciting. He slid his fingers under the satin and found the slickness of me, making me gasp with pleasure as they slid into me. I looked around. Irish and Tex were watching with a wild gleam in their eyes, while Jacob seemed a little lost as he sipped from his beer bottle and focused on the swirling of his cigarette in the glass ashtray on the table.

  At first, I wasn’t sure. But Isaac’s eyes were soft and tender as he leaned down and kissed me, his tongue stroking into my mouth as his fingers stroked deep into my body. I moaned against his lips at the glow of pleasure that grew between my thighs.

  But I needed to use the restroom. “Let me pee,” I whispered.

  We were go
ing to make love. And when he swept me up in his arms to take me to his room, I didn’t want to break the spell with a stop to the restroom.

  As I came back from the bathroom, I walked in on Cade talking to his club brothers, telling them to think twice about what was happening. When I walked in, he stood in front of me.

  “You don’t want to do this,” he said. And it had made me so mad. Who the hell was he to tell me what I did or did not want to do? So, in an odd moment of defiance, I told him to go to bed if he didn’t want his dick sucked. I don’t know why I said it. I guess I was showing off, and when I saw how amused Isaac was, I raised my chin at Cade and walked back to where he sat with Irish, Jacob, and Tex. I climbed onto Isaac’s lap and he wrapped his arms around me.

  Cade looked at Isaac. “Don’t be a fool, brother,” he said. A drunk and stoned Isaac flipped him the bird and simply took a swig on his beer bottle. Cade gritted his teeth, and I can still see the tick of his jaw muscle as he approached Isaac. “She’s jailbait. She has no business being here. You put her in a cab and send her on her way.” Then he looked at Tex. Then at Jacob and Irish. He said, “She’s someone’s daughter.” So I told him, “Do I need to remind you that I am eighteen and it is my choice to be here?” Feeling encouraged by Isaac’s beautiful smile, I added, “Leave me alone, Cade. Go to bed.” Isaac pushed his hand between my legs, his fingers creeping along my thigh and feeling for the edge of my panties. “You heard the lady, Cade. Go the fuck to bed.”

  Cade walked away with a shake of his head.

  I stopped reading and looked up at Elias.

  His eyes narrowed. “Keep reading.”

  Sadness welled inside of me and my voice was shaky as I continued to read.

  Now I wish he had stood up to me and forced me out of that clubhouse—thrown me out or pushed me into a taxi—anything, except walk away and leave me there with those vultures.”

  I struggled to speak. What did they do to her?

  I remembered her earlier words: Tonight I died. Tonight Talia Bennett is no more.

  As soon as Cade left, Isaac began kissing me. He whispered in my ear, “you sure you want to stay with me?”