Lee hated secrets, and yet, he’d spent the better part of a decade saturated in the lies that had broken him and Kit apart at the age of twenty-two.
She’d sent a fucking Dear John letter when he’d been sea bound with the squids on a naval ship. Kit hadn’t returned home after that letter, not even for the major holidays—not until she came home for good over two years ago.
She’d still written.
So had Lee.
They’d been friends long before they’d been high school lovers, and he knew what the service did. He knew it fucked with some people’s heads, so he’d hoped and prayed her continued letters meant she still loved him and just didn’t want to lose focus while in the field. That, he got. As a Marine, he understood focus, commitment, and staying on task better than most.
He slowed his ride as the Rodeo Room came into sight, and he smirked at its location. Settled between the local library and Tujours, the Rodeo Room was a rowdy bar never completely devoid of at least a couple dozen bikes. And fuck, but you could quadruple that amount when it was BBQ Mondays or Feisty Ladies Fridays.
The leader of their merry little band of bikers, Eagle, liked catchy names. He also thought it was funny to have BBQ Mondays when Tujours had their Meatless Monday special right next door on the same night.
The place looked like an old shack, wood splintered and weathered but still sturdy even in its graying state. The front porch was part of its charm, but most nights that spot was filled with a good dozen or so bikers roughhousing and drinking or sitting in some of the old chairs—some of which you had to sit in just right so as not to get a rusty nail in an ass cheek. It wasn’t fancy, but it was a place of safety from all the ugly in the world.
Kit still sat on the bike even as Lee moved to get off. Her hands rested at her side and her face shown with such peaceful bliss as though that fifteen minutes of road were the lifeline she’d needed.
Fifteen minutes of road.
Fifteen minutes of freedom.
Only ten resounding seconds of peace, though.
Her eyes fluttered open and reality hit in an instant.
She lifted herself off the bike with long-practiced ease, no assistance needed. Her roughshod brown boots that she seemed to never take off hit the pavement with a calm, cool, assured strength as she walked toward their clubhouse and bar.
Lee lounged back for a moment, taking her in. She stopped her movements to say, “Hey” to Casper, a pledge who’d shown up six months earlier and was taking care of a friend in the area who’d been injured during the war.
If Kit was damaged, Casper was the mentor of that wound, and Lee didn’t always know if that mentoring was healthy or not. What he did know was that he was jealous as fuck that Casper got something from Kit that he wanted to give. Comfort to the extent she’d let anyone give it. But also understanding. There was an understanding between the two of them, a flow that showed they’d been through hell and back together…like a club Lee’d never gain entrance to. He’d fought his own battles, survived the war as well, but Kit, Casper, and sometimes, even Hammond, acted as though they had a greater understanding of pain than anyone else.
It didn’t help that Casper would throw veiled looks and smug smiles Lee’s way that seemed to challenge him to fight harder, to step forward, to demand change.
Casper didn’t know Kit like Lee did.
Kit wasn’t going to share shit if she felt like she was protecting herself or others.
Still, the guy had served with Hammond and Kit, and Eagle had vouched for the douche. So as much as Casper’s looks and subtle comments about Lee and Kit’s relationship pissed him the hell off, he’d deal.
It was when Kit stopped talking, looked off in the distance, and shook loose her curly blonde hair from a tie that Lee felt everything in him still. He saw the swathe of hair hit her mid-back, and his breath caught at the sight of the absolute perfection that was Kit Markham. Brown eyes with flecks of green that shone like small patches of summer grass; naturally thick and crimped hair flowing in the breeze as she re-tied it back in her hair band; creamy skin with the hints of summer sun; and full breasts emphasized by her beautifully muscled arms and shoulders. She wore her usual, a thick-strapped, rough cotton, black tank, black and worn cutoffs that were a permanent part of her getup year-round even in the cold but with shiny leggings instead of the expanse of slightly tanned legs she was revealing now, and her old brown boots that would most likely survive the apocalypse. Nothing better than a pair of well-made boots. Well, nothing better but the package inside of those boots.
He couldn’t unsee what he knew hid under those clothes, and he blamed his dick for his stupidity when unable to help himself, his eyes met hers. The flecks of green were brighter, her pupils larger, and he realized she’d been turned on by his perusal.
Just as quickly, her gaze became shuttered, her light brown eyebrows narrowing, and she walked purposefully into the bar, her shorts riding a bit higher as she took charge of her steps and slammed the front door of the Rodeo Room.
“Well, fuck me,” Lee all but whispered as he walked around his bike and ran his hands through his thick brown hair that reached just a little below his ears. He preferred it longer, even after the service. Short hair made him look like a curly-haired boy band member but when grown out, it was wavier, and with his beard growth, he looked more like a man than his soft face would suggest.
“Have you?” Casper asked, smirking up at Lee. “Fucked her?”
Lee wanted to stop, to work out some aggression, but that look of peace Kit got from their short ride wasn’t one-sided and he wanted to show her he could be her peace, her comfort in a way no one else could, so he shook off his anger, reached for the handle of the Rodeo Room’s front entrance and gave a cool once over as he smiled his best “fuck-you smile”. The older fighter’s laughter flowed through the door as Lee took the high road and felt the loud clack of the door behind him shake the floor a bit.
“Casper being a dick again?” Stealth asked from her corner, smoking what was probably her second pack of the day. You wouldn’t know it by her face, though. She was model-perfect in a way that most men would have been hard for. That is, if they weren’t in love with Kit Markham. Or hell, even without a Kit...if they looked in Stealth’s eyes. Cold. Dead. Empty in a way not even Kit’s were. It’d be an instant moment of deflation. Stealth, the half-sister of their president, wasn’t a woman you wanted to fuck with—in any way.
“Casper’s always a dick, Stealth,” Lee answered as he watched her stand and the group as a whole made their way to the back rooms where Kit and Eagle were probably already pouring over files of recently returned vets or veteran families in need.
Not many in the Fallen Eagles MC were folks you wanted to fuck with, mainly because half were too fucked up for words. And the other half were too busy saving the fucked up, and that took a whole goddamned lot of grit.
Then again, they’d all been built on grit, in the line of fire, out in the field.
All the members of the Fallen Eagles MC were veterans. Most were U.S. veterans, but Beast had come from the other side of the pond and Danger was from Canada.
Rounding out their ragtag team were his brother, Hammond, Rover and his stepbrother, Renegade, a few pledges, and another dozen or so who showed to help when they were dealing with a rather sticky situation.
Like now.
Fuck.
Church was packed.
The raucous noise of voices hushed dramatically as Eagle and Kit stepped forward and took their seats at the round table. A large opened file with what appeared to be letters littered the weathered wood surface. Although Lee wanted to appear casual, he’d been put in the habit long ago to remain standing in a room full of others. He took his place in one corner of the room and Casper took a stance about two feet from him, annoyingly close, a perpetual devil may care look plastered on his ugly ass mug, as though he knew his presence was a nuisance.
“We’re used to dealing with the
issues veterans and their families are exposed to in the area, but this… Well, this is different.” Eagle grimly told them the details of the most recent situation, sharing what were in fact letters with the members around the room.
Kit’s voice was still scratchy from her earlier cries, but she was a true second as she continued to confidently share the intel she and Eagle had been given. “All of the letters say, ‘We know what you did’. That’s the first step. The second step from this perp’s history, and the several cases we’ve discovered, is that an image of the vet or family member they’re targeting is sent usually within a couple days. The image is always simple. It’s taken of the target doing everyday shit. Finally, a second letter is sent naming vague details of the apparent crime with a demand for money,” Kit concluded, her hands and nails holding tightly to the edge of the thick, distressed oak of the table.
“This is a lot of fucking cases.” Beast’s English accent got thicker in surprise but his voice was also assessing as he picked up more of the files.
“And these are only the ones we know of,” Eagle replied in a clipped but not at all unemotional tone. He might be a little rough, have arms the size of tree trunks, and be covered in tattoos from shaved head to the only leg he had left, but Eagle was grounded, guided by his mission, a protector and a good man to his core. “Hildebrand Investigations, out of Philly, are the ones who brought this to our attention. Many of you have worked with them or have gotten help from their team on a case here and there, but the evidence was mounting as families and military members started coming forward. Gabe Hildebrand is a friend and pulled us in to gather some further intel, knowing the type of work we do. ”
Lee took one of the letters Casper handed him, feeling disgust touch his stomach. Hadn’t vets and their families been through enough? No one deserved this, least of all those who had already sacrificed so much.
We find you guilty of the crime of murder. We know what you did on the night of November 4, 2011 in Kuwait with your comrades, Lieutenant Holmes. Your price is $3,000 USD to be dropped off…
The letters were all the same.
We know what you did.
No signature, followed by the picture, followed by a letter with the crime—dates and vague written knowledge—along with a demand for money.
“This is fucked up,” Rover yelled, cursing aloud in Spanish before continuing. “Some of these fucking ‘charges’ were incidents of war. This other woman…her family was low on money. She probably wanted to keep it from her husband that she had to strip while he was away at war to make ends meet.” He spat out some of his chewing tobacco and Lee saw that he held Eagle’s eyes steadily. “Ain’t no shame in what she did for her family. Ain’t no shame in what the men and women of the service have had to do to make sure our home is safe. Ain’t no shame, Prez,” he added, succinctly stating what they’d most likely all been thinking. “The infidelity I get, though it still isn’t right to bring that shit up and blackmail our families.”
Our families.
That was the truth, wasn’t it?
These were their people, the other survivors of war.
No matter what went on in life, everyone had their crosses to bear. Not one person was above another in Lee’s opinion, but certain things brought people together. War, sacrifice, friendship… Veterans and their families became comrades indebted to each other for life, in a way most civilians just didn’t fucking understand. Not their fault. It just was.
“How do they know all this shit, Davis?” Stealth asked, the only one to use Eagle’s given name. She leaned back in her chair, arms crossed against her chest, the chair’s front legs lifting off the floor and the back of the chair resting against the wall while she rocked back and forth, steadily.
Eagle cricked his neck to one side then the other and the unfettered leader showed why he was indeed their president. While everyone else was showing their anger, giving away tells, and exposing their ruffled feathers, Eagle didn’t even flinch. “We don’t know how they’re getting the intel.” His gaze met every other person’s in the room before finally landing back on his sister, Stealth. She stopped her rocking, letting the chair’s front legs hang back as the chair finally rested against the wall for good. “But we’ll find out, and none of you is to go vigilante on this,” he added, meeting everyone’s gaze once more. “We do this right. We do this smart. And we help our family.”
The group nodded at this. Eagle had hit his fortieth year just that past June, and although younger than some of the men and women who were there to help, he’d served more tours than any of them. He’d also sacrificed quite a bit more than anyone else in the room.
When he’d retired from the Marines two years earlier, he’d retired less one right eye, one left calf cut off right below the knee, and a pinky finger on his right hand. He often said at least it had just been the pinky, and then added, “Fucking useless finger anyway.” Eagle was uncharacteristically open and honest in a way most weren’t, and he wasn’t one to pull any punches either.
At their President’s conclusion of the meeting, Lee and the others stood to make their way out of the room.
“Rover, Renegade, Danger, Lee, Hammond, Beast, and Stealth,” Eagle called out. “Hold the fuck up. I need you all to stay.” He spoke calmly when the core group was all who remained, grabbing the attention of the room. “I don’t know how to say this...shit.” He sat in his seat and motioned for them to take their usual seats. “I need y’all to be straight with each other.” His Texas drawl got stronger when he was agitated. “The letters are goin’ out to many of the families and vets in this area, which means—”
“Which means,” Hammond interrupted, his voice gruff, “that any of us could be targets, too.” He was like Lee when he was nervous, running his hands through his hair and up and down his face as though it might clear his mind. Lee knew; the action sometimes helped, but most of the time it didn’t. “Fuck!”
Lee’s older brother exploded from his chair and Hammond’s gaze briefly met Kit’s, whose eyes were wide with so much fear Lee couldn’t stop himself from going to her side.
He knelt by her chair, and he tried to take her shaking hands in his own. She snatched them back and stood as though in a trance, making her way to the window and staring outside with such bleakness in her gaze. Lee felt his heart breaking.
And then a new feeling was sparked in his gut as he watched Hammond move toward the window and, inevitably, to Kit herself.
Rage.
He felt a fire in his belly that was only half jealousy.
“What the fuck, Summer?” Lee asked angrily, standing from his kneeling position and stepping between her Hammond—
“It’s Kit!” she screamed, her face twisted in anguish when she pushed Lee so fiercely he almost stumbled. His back hit the wall, and the fiery blonde who’d once loved him looked at him with such fear and anger and hatred, he didn’t know which emotion was reserved for him anymore. He had his own anger though. She didn’t corner the market on rage. “It’s not Summer. It hasn’t been Summer for ten years, Leland,” she spat out. Kit rounded on Eagle. “Let them, Eagle. Let them come after us. I’ll fucking take them on. They aren’t getting any secrets from me.”
She hit her chest in challenge, and Lee’s anger died suddenly. He didn’t know why. He should have still been pissed. His brother and Kit were keeping things from him, long buried secrets. Kit had just cussed him out in front of everyone. And there were vets and families being blackmailed. But he just didn’t have enough ego left in him. Ten years ago, when he’d been a roughshod kid, fuck yeah. He’d had enough ego for ten men. Now, he just didn’t have it in him.
But still, he added an extra layer of protection against Kit in that moment.
He’d given so much. Too much, maybe.
He’d tried so hard to reach her.
And that was when it truly hit him: The Summer she’d once been and this woman she’d become weren’t his. He got the pieces, not the whole. He got the
parts she chose to show, not the comfort and understanding she afforded Casper or even Hammond in rare moments such as this.
“Kit,” Eagle warned, stepping closer to her and taking a stance right at her side. “Be smart.” He then turned and addressed the rest of the room. “This is what we can’t have, and I need you all to take lead. No vigilantes.” His face grew even more serious, and his deep brown eyes seemed sadder than they ever had. “And I need all you warriors to remember that it isn’t just sticks and stones and bombs that try to break us. It’s the first thing we forget in war, but it’s truth none-the-fucking-less...and that’s that words do too. They break us just as harshly. Words hold power. And confession is not only cathartic, but it’s also necessary for healing, for moving the fuck forward.” He paused, exhaled, and plowed ahead. “So, I’m asking all of you to tell me if you get a letter, and I’m also asking that you share some of your sins with those you feel you’ve wronged. You can’t be a victim to these cowards if you can’t be victimized by your secrets.” Eagle put his hand on Kit’s shoulder and squeezed before doing the same to everyone in the room.
Kit had immediately moved away from Lee when Eagle had started making his way around the room.
“Kit,” Lee prompted, gruffly, “you need a ride back to the hardware store?”
Kit wasn’t facing him, but he saw her shoulders tense.
“I’ve got our second,” Stealth interjected quickly, and Lee held his position as they headed toward the door. “Her bike’s all fixed up and purring like a kitten again, and I’ve gotta get back to the shop anyhow.”
Kitten. The name jarred something in him and he remembered the few times Casper had commented on Kit’s claws, that she’d earned her name and to always remember the fierce kitten underneath. Since she wasn’t all that open, Lee’d asked Hammond once what the nickname Kit meant, how she’d earned it. A nickname was earned, some in jest or for shits and giggles, some to show you’d achieved your status in a particular unit or designation, but other nicknames were earned through struggle.
A Terrible Beauty Page 2