Lucien's War

by Jenika Snow

  Kink exhaled, looked at the ground, and didn’t speak for several seconds. “Did he force you into anything, pressure you?” He glanced at her.

  She knitted her brows. “What?” She shook her head, so confused as to what he was getting at. “Why would you think he pressured me into anything?”

  He shook his head, took a swig of his liquor, and stared at her. “Callie, I’m trying to think of a good reason why I am not going back to that clubhouse and killing Lucien for putting his hands on you. Right now I am hanging on by a thread.” He turned from her, braced his hands on the counter, and she swore he started grinding his teeth. “Did he fucking force you to do anything?” Kink asked, and she curled her hands into fists at the thought.

  “I can’t believe you would think that after I told you I loved him.” She said it so softly she didn’t think he had heard, but when her dad lifted his head, this pained expression on his face, she knew he had heard her just fine.

  Before he could respond the sound of the front doors opening told her that Cookie was home. She came into the kitchen a few minutes later, the bags she carried moving against her legs with every step she took.

  “Kink, honey, can you get the rest of the bags from the car?”

  Callie looked over at Cookie as she entered the kitchen, her focus on the shopping bags in her hands. She stopped, glanced up, and when she looked between Kink and then Callie, the realization of what was happening moved across her face.

  “I take it because of the angry atmosphere and this weird, awkward intensity in here, that you know?” she said to Kink.

  “You knew about this, Cookie?” Kink said loudly, looking between her and Cookie. She could tell he was growing angrier by the second by the fact his face was red, his body was strung tight, and he looked ready to destroy something.

  “Dad, don’t yell at her, and don’t get pissed at Cookie. I just told her yesterday, kind of inadvertently.” Callie grabbed her hair, tugged gently on the strands, and wished that this weirdness were gone.

  “How long?” he asked in a low, deadly voice.

  “What do you mean?” Oh, Callie knew what he was talking about, but she was nervous by this situation.

  “You know what I’m talking about, Callie.”

  When she didn’t respond right away he exhaled roughly.

  “How long have you and Lucien been…” He didn’t finish his sentence.

  “Two weeks.”

  He bared his teeth and cursed out.

  “But he picked me up from a party three months ago.” She looked at Cookie, saw the uncomfortable expression on the other woman’s face, and knew she needed to just spit it out. “I was at a party, pretty drunk, not knowing how to get home, and I accidently called Lucien.”

  Kink said slowly, “You accidently called Lucien? Can you explain to me how in the fuck that happens.”

  “Kink, please watch your damn language.”

  Callie could have laughed at the fact Cookie told her dad to watch his language while cursing, but right now laughing would probably be taken the wrong way, and make this situation so much worse.

  “Yes, I accidently called him. I was drunk, didn’t want to call you, or Mom.” She swallowed past the lump of emotion in her throat at the mention of her mother. “I meant to call a friend, but I ended up calling Lucien instead.” She ran her hands over her thighs feeling her fingers shake, and her palms start to sweat. “He came and got me and took me to his place.”

  “He what?” Kink said so low, so menacingly, that Callie felt chills race up her spine. “And I guess you knew about this, too?” He directed the question at Cookie.

  Cookie glanced at Callie, but before Cookie could speak Kink was talking again.

  “What were you thinking?”

  Callie curled her hands into fists. “I was thinking that he was a member of The Brothers, that I trusted him, and that he would not let anything hurt me.” She swallowed, saw Cookie do the same as her throat worked, and then looked at her dad. “I slept in the spare bedroom, alone, and he was a gentleman. He wanted to call you right away, to tell you all of it, but I asked him not to. I wanted to tell you myself, and then I just never did it. Mom died, and then things got hectic.” She ran her hand on her thighs. “I know that’s not an excuse, but it’s the truth. Nothing happened until two weeks ago when he came up to campus to make sure I was okay after you told him I was going to a party.” She shrugged. “I guess he pictured me in the same situation as before.” Kink didn’t say anything at first, but then he grabbed the bottle of liquor and threw it against the wall. The amber colored alcohol slid to the ground, and pieces of glass littered the floor and wall. Cookie took a step back, and so did Callie. She had never seen this kind of anger in her father, not personally.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you guys,” he said softly, but his voice was still hard. He looked a Callie. “You slept with him,” he stated.

  “Kink, not appropriate—”

  “No, Cookie, it is really fucking appropriate. I have the right to know if the President of my club is sleeping with my daughter. My very young eighteen-year-old daughter.”

  “We really had planned on telling you everything yesterday, but then you dropped the baby bombshell, and we obviously didn’t think that saying we were in a … relationship … or whatever it is we are in, was the best thing at the moment.”

  She had never been in this kind of situation with her father before, and she hated it. Callie had the best relationship with him, had always been comfortable with being honest with anything she had going on, but with this she hadn’t said a thing, and because of that she had lost his trust and earned his disappointment.

  “Motherfucking hell.”

  “Kink,” Cookie gritted out, and Callie knew that the only person that could possibly, maybe, get through to her dad and have him seeing that this was her life and her decision was his old lady.

  He turned from them, ran his hand through his black hair, and messed up the short strands. The fact he was pacing told Callie that he was irritated, on edge, and that nothing would probably get solved or worked out today. And then he stopped and looked at her, his face a mask of indifference, and struggle.

  “I can’t talk about this right now, because I want to hate Lucien, want to go to the club and beat his fucking ass again. He’s my club President, the man I look at as a brother, and what he did with you, is doing with you…” He shook his head. “It goes against everything the club stands for. He knows better than to be with you, Callie. You’re too young for him.” He ground his teeth, his jaw getting hard from his rage. “He’s old enough to be your damn father.” He looked disgusted at the thought, and she was so mad at that comment that she knew she couldn’t stay quiet.

  “Dad, you have no room to talk. Cookie is only a few years older than me, and you’re as old as Lucien. Did you care what anyone thought?” She didn’t wait for him to respond. “No, because you love her, and isn’t that what matters?”

  He still didn’t respond, and when he cursed low and long, and stared between her and Cookie, Callie knew he wasn’t going to see her side just yet.

  “This is fucked up, and I can’t be here right now. I’m not just going to let it be okay, Callie. I can’t. I don’t know if I ever can be.” He grabbed his keys off the counter, and walked past them.

  Callie was going to go after him, but Cookie grabbed her hand and stopped her.

  “No, honey, just let him go right now. He needs to be alone.”

  Callie knew he needed sometime to process all of this, but what she worried about was that he wasn’t leaving to be alone, but to go finish what he had started with Lucien at the clubhouse. And the thing was, Lucien wouldn’t fight back, wouldn’t lay a hand on Kink, and therefore would get beyond fucked up.

  ****

  The whole club knew by now about him and Callie, and it had only been hours since all the shit with Kink had gone down. Lucien slammed back another drink, breathed out through the burn
, and looked around at the members that were winding down from their run earlier this week. The members had come back from the club run, their attitudes positive, and the back of the van filled with guns they had traded. But when they found out what the hell had happened, this eerie kind of tension filled the clubhouse. They hadn’t even needed to see Lucien’s busted lip and eye, or the bruises he was sporting to know what the hell had gone down. The prospects had filled them in. Not like they didn’t have a right to know, but this was an inside matter, one Lucien would have liked to tell the guys himself. But right now he didn’t care about anything aside from getting this matter straightened out so he could be with Callie. He loved Kink like family, but he wasn’t going to give up on Callie either. She had changed him for the better. He could feel it inside of him, and if that meant he was in a bad place right now with Kink, then he’d have to work through it. They would get through this, because they were family, bonded by a vow of brotherhood that went far beyond anything else.

  And you fucked that up.

  He slammed back another shot, feeling the alcohol burn the cut on his lip.

  “Hey, man,” Cain said and slipped into the seat beside him. Lucien lifted his shot glass to the man in response, but didn’t look at him. He tapped the bottom of the glass on the counter to get the attention of the prospect. Once he was refilled, he drank that one down, too.

  “You’re the first one to come talk to me. I think the others are afraid I’ll snap.”

  “Well, the prospects told us everything when the guys saw the state of the meeting room, and noticed the tire marks on the driveway. Hell, they practically beat the information out of them,” Cain said and started laughing. He took the beer from the prospect, took a sip from the bottle, and then set it down. “Want to talk about it, man?”

  The feeling of his cell vibrating had Lucien grabbing it out of the front of his cut and staring at the screen. It was a text from Callie, and it wasn’t good.

  Callie: Tried 2 talk 2 him…yeah, no go. He took off, and was really pissed. Not sure if he is heading there. God, I hate this, Lucien.

  Lucien: It’s okay, baby. I’ll make sure it’s okay. I love you.

  Fuck, he wanted to be there for her, to hold her, promise her everything would be okay, but he couldn’t make that kind of guarantee until he straightened things out with Kink.

  “Yo, Lucien. You want to talk about it?”

  He finished typing out the reply text and put his cell back in his cut. He faced Cain so the man could see his face full on, and then stared at him right in the eyes. “Does it look like I want to talk about it?” he said without any emotion.

  Cain lifted his hands in surrender, and then the sound of tires squealing, and of a Harley engine rumbling, had Lucien rising. All of the other members rose as well, and then through the clubhouse window, he saw Kink getting off his bike and all but charging toward the front of the clubhouse.

  “Shit,” Lucien said, grabbed his shot glass, and drank down the liquor. He’d need it for what was about to happen.

  Kink slammed open the front doors, searched around the room until he stopped his gaze right on Lucien, and then growled out like he was some kind of animal. Kink charged toward him, and when Lucien saw some of the members come forward, he held his hand out. “No, let him come.”

  Kink charged forward, slammed into Lucien, and the two of them fell to the ground. Lucien wasn’t going to fight Kink on this, because the other man had a right to vengeance, especially since he had been wronged. What he had with Callie, what Lucien felt for Callie, wasn’t wrong. It was the rightest fucking thing on this goddamned planet, but if it were the other way around Lucien would want to beat someone’s ass, too.

  Kink hit Lucien in the jaw, and the flavor of blood spilled across his tongue. “You motherfucker. You lied to me for three months.” Kink hit him again and again, and all Lucien did was lie there and take it.

  “Shit, this is screwed up,” one of the members said, but Lucien couldn’t tell who it was.

  “Hit me back. Fight me, Lucien.” Kink spat out, and hit him in the gut. He got off Lucien, hauled him up by the shirt, and pushed him up against the bar. “You have been seeing her for two fucking weeks, took her home months ago without calling and telling me.” Kink cracked his knuckles, wiped the spit from his mouth, and stared at Lucien with hatred. “I trusted you, and you went after my baby girl, preyed on her like some kind of fucking animal because you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants.”

  Lucien growled out, hating the fact Kink was spitting out these foul words, and although he told himself to shut his mouth and not go after Kink, he could only promise the latter. “Watch your damn mouth, Kink. She isn’t just a piece of ass to me. I want her as my old lady.”

  There was chorus of hushed murmurs from the men standing by, but Lucien kept his focus on his VP.

  Kink moved forward again, and they crashed against the bar as one entity. Glasses shattered to the ground, spilled beer littered the floor and counter, and Kink hit him right in the damn eye.

  “Out of all the fucking women in the world you went after one of my own.”

  Lucien went to roll out from under Kink, but the other man hit him in the right kidney, and then moved to the left kidney. Kink grabbed him by the collar, turned him around, and tossed him against the table. The wood fell to the ground, and so did Lucien.

  “We need to stop this,” Tuck said.

  “No, don’t fucking interfere,” Cain said before Lucien could get the words out. “The prez said back off, and that is what we do.”

  “How could you, Lucien?” Kink said, and although his punches were pretty fucking powerful, his energy was waning.

  “I love you like my family, Kink, but I am in love with Callie, and I won’t let her go,” Lucien said, blood spilling into his eyes from the cut on his forehead and blurring his vision. “I’d kill for her, fucking die for her, Kink. I was in the wrong, so much in the wrong for keeping this from you, but I can’t stay away from her. I won’t stay away. If you beating the shit out of me gets us back where we were, then do it, brother, because I won’t fight you on this.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kink stopped throwing punches at the sound of Lucien’s words. Blood was everywhere, mainly from the President, but Kink’s knuckles were raw and spilt open, and bleeding like a bastard. He stared at Lucien, at the man he had known for years, would lay down his life for, and would kill for. This man had been with him during thick or thin, and when he had needed someone to talk to, or someone to handle business in any capacity, Lucien had been there. Kink looked around the room, at the men that stood in a circle staring at the violence that had erupted within their brotherhood walls. Their cuts showed their loyalty, spoke of their determination to have a tightly knit family of men who handled anything and everything that came their way. There were these horrified, shocked, and confused expressions on their faces. They had seen their VP and President going at it like enemies.

  He looked down at Lucien again, the man he had considered a brother even though the same blood didn’t run through their veins. His blood was everywhere, and his face beaten to shit, but he watched Kink with a hard, unbreakable expression. Kink got off Lucien, looked down at his hands, and saw the broken, bloody skin from punching his President.

  God, he had snapped, just let loose because he hadn’t been able to control himself. And here was Lucien, able to handle his own against anyone and anything that was a threat, but instead of fighting back he had taken it all. And for what, to prove that he knew he was in the wrong and that he deserved it all? Well he had, he had deserved all of that and more, but he had admitted to it all, taken it like a man, and how in the hell was Kink supposed to continue beating his ass when he just lay there surrendering?

  He held his hand out to Lucien, and after a second he grabbed it. Kink helped him off the ground, but he didn’t want to talk about shit right now, didn’t want to do this either. He stared at Lucien, and then turned and
headed out the front door. Once outside he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. There was the faint smell of exhaust in the air from a car that had just driven by, the sound of music in the distance from the prospects that had been helping repair a bike in the garage, and the silence yet strength that was ever-present from the clubhouse.

  Reaching inside of his cut, he cursed when he came up empty handed for some smokes. Yeah, he had quit, which was a good thing, but right now he needed some nicotine or even booze, or hell, a joint to help him calm the fuck down.

  “Need one of these?”

  Kink closed his eyes for a second when he heard Lucien’s voice behind him. He looked over his shoulder, saw the other man standing by the front doors lighting a cigarette of his own, and then he gave one short nod to the Brothers’ President. Lucien stepped closer, handed the pack to Kink, and the two of them stood side-by-side for several seconds, neither speaking. Lucien was still bloody, but it looked like he had taken a rag to his face and cleaned off a lot of the blood. His lip was fucked up and split, his eye nearly swollen shut, and the bruises were pretty fucking horrendous. Despite all of this, and the reason Kink had come here and laid his hands on Lucien, he felt bad for making the other man look like he had been run over by a Mack truck.

  For a few moments the only sound between them was of inhaling and exhaling. And then Lucien took one last hit, snubbed the cigarette out on the ground, and crossed his arms over his chest. Lucien was a big man, tall and muscular, and matching Kink in height and weight, but there had always been this strength that came from the leader of their club, this silence that spoke of his power. He led their club with an iron fist, knew when to stop, and when to move forward, and Kink had always been proud to call him a friend, a brother, and a leader. But then all of this shit had gone down, and Kink was lost in this limbo, not knowing how to proceed. A part of him wanted Callie to be happy, no matter who she chose to be with in life. But then another part of him said that this wasn’t okay, and how could he ever go along with it?