Wild Poppy

by Victoria Johns

  But I made those people pay.

  She witnessed a man being tortured over an unpaid drug debt and made the mistake of telling the man she was fucking at the time, not realizing that he was in deep with the gang behind it. He sold her out.

  That motherfucker sold her out, only to realize that he couldn’t protect her.

  She came to me, but it was too late. Before I could get her out, she became the star of her very own movie.

  When the pathologist examined her body, what they found was the stuff of nightmares— more than just a simple warning to anyone thinking of ratting on the gang overlords. She’d been raped repeatedly, tortured and burned then beaten until her life’s breath left her body. Two men were charged, but the prosecution couldn’t land their case and get a conviction, but it was too late by then. I was set on my path of destruction. I sat in the gallery watching as they presented their case and heard how my precious sister had been found with a chain wrapped around her neck, twisted so tight it broke the skin before it cut off her oxygen, embedding itself like a deadly necklace that was part of her. She’d been raped with anything they could lay their hands on—a wine bottle, a baseball bat and the very jagged end of a sawn-off shotgun. There was a claw hammer still embedded under her remaining kneecap when they found her. They’d already removed one, and if that wasn’t bad enough, they’d poured neat bleach into those open wounds, just enough to cause her excruciating pain, not cleanse the wounds.

  It wasn’t just horrific, it was barbaric, and someone was going to pay.

  This place was everything I hated about myself.

  I had the chance to get out and I blew it because of the need to avenge her death.

  My hands were shaking. I had to get out of here. This trip down memory lane was supposed to remind me of how far I’d come, not suck me back into the murderous ways of my past. I pushed my helmet on my head, started up the motorcycle and screamed out of there, wishing I could burn it all behind me as I left.

  My bike found its way to the more recent love of my life.

  St. Teresa’s on Saracen Street.

  This place had saved my life. I came here one night to hide from a gang who were chasing me down, and found something else entirely—solace.

  I didn’t know what I was doing here right now, but it felt like a good idea and only time would tell.

  I parked the bike, grabbed my valuables from my paniers—I wasn’t stupid; this was still bandit country—and headed inside. The door squeaked and that same indescribable sense of calmness and serenity washed over me. It was just a shame that it was fighting with the evil that had also taken up residence.

  I walked to the side and lit a candle before sitting in the very back row.

  This place was life. What the fuck was I doing here?

  I’d become death. I learned during my training that to be a Catholic, to be a priest, you had to uphold standards. Me, though, I’d pushed those standards so far past any limits I might as well have ignored them in the first place. There was no way Christ could live inside me.

  I was supposed to give myself to others, as Christ had done for us, for me, but that was no longer me. When I chose to ignore the ten commandments and commit murder, I was too far gone.

  I was beyond reproach; Christ wouldn’t save me like he’d done in the past.

  I wasn’t just a simple sinner to my faith. I didn’t just skip mass; I burned my way through the whole thing like the devil himself lived within me.

  Was I repentant? No.

  Was I truly contrite? No.

  Did I seek forgiveness? No, I fucking did not.

  They’d earned their fate and I’d earned mine.

  When the wheels came off my faith, they really came off. I fucked anything that moved, another cardinal sin for a man training to become a vessel of God, a holy priest.

  They say that all humans are born sinful, and they are absolved of those sins once they are baptized, and I believed that, especially when I looked at my life before I found the church. It’s true if I look at my life now, it’s up to us whether we choose to remain sinful, and I definitely made that choice. Every damn day.

  I looked to the bag at my feet; I knew my rosary beads were in there. I carried them on all my travels, another reminder of my wrongdoings. I tried not to touch them, though. Contact with them felt like they seared my fingers, singed to touch. The last time I picked them up, I tried to pray for someone else, but I couldn’t even get the opening line out, and when I thought about the Hail Marys, I was ready to vomit.

  “Nice to see you come home, Fraser.” The voice of Father O’Farrall interrupted my thoughts, and I inwardly cursed myself for not seeing or hearing him creep up on me.

  “Come on. I will hear your confession.”

  No. That was the last thing I wanted; my body would explode into a ball of fire the minute the doors closed on that box.

  “Fraser,” he ordered. Exactly the same way he used to order us around as mischievous teens who he sensed were on the cusp of making bad decisions. And just like then, the need to not disappoint him—well, no more than I already had done—had me following him.

  The smell of old mahogany wood infused every corner of the small space, and the sound of the clasp on the lock closing caused a panic. This was a mistake. The panel between us slid to the side. “Sit down, my child.”

  My throat went dry; cotton balls had grown instantly, and he waited.

  I swallowed. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been…” Every living, breathing, beating cell inside me screamed. I could never regain the grace of God. There would be no healing for me. “I can’t do this.” I braced to stand up.

  “Sit back down. Try again.”

  Did he want me to say that it had been forever since I’d been to confession, that I’d killed five men in cold-blooded revenge? I couldn’t do that. He was a kind man. It didn’t matter that he was the man for the job; I would never burden him with that and I was reluctant to deepen his disappointment in me.

  I was such a disappointment.

  He saved me. I let him down.

  He was trying to redeem me and he was going to fail at that, too.

  He helped me find my faith and he’d failed at helping me keep it.

  “I had such hope for you, Fraser.”

  That burned. “And now you see no hope?”

  “You’ve lost your way.” He sounded defeated. “And when you find the right path, I fear it won’t be the path that leads you to Christ.”

  Father O’Farrall was finally seeing the light. I was too far gone.

  Chapter Nine

  Mac

  It should have felt good that someone had put an end to it.

  But it didn’t.

  I’d failed, and I needed to acknowledge that, let it take me whole and truly sink in.

  And I was doing that with the help of a bottle of whisky.

  After I left the church, I got back on my bike and did a repeat of when I left my lodge. I just rode away from the reminders, from the pain. I needed away from Glasgow, the past, the disappointment of the first man and father figure who had taken me under his wing and tried to help me become a better man.

  Instead, the great Fraser McPhee—one-time priest, now notorious murderer—pulled over at a hotel near Loch Lomond, paid for a room for the night and began the tedious process of losing myself in booze.

  How typically McPhee, drowning my sorrows and troubles in the bottom of a bottle.

  Everyone in the bar gave me a wide berth, apart from the barman. He rotated near me just in case I caused trouble. Maybe I should have left my MC jacket in the room. It wasn’t that I wanted company, but let’s just say wearing it never invited it. MAC, brother of the Black Sentinels MC was someone people naturally steered clear of.

  “Fill ‘er up.”

  “Think you’ve probably had enough, man.” The barman put his elbows on the wooden top. “You gotta ride tomorrow, and the weenies around here are brutal.”

/>   “Not had that much,” I grumbled.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way. We don’t see many bikers like yours around here. They’d pull you for sure and breath test you just to fuck with you.”

  The man wasn’t wrong, and if nothing else, I needed a clear head to think about what I would do next. Being a nomad was all well and good. I could ride and ride until the cows came home, but there was a difference between wandering just because, and running away from shit.

  “Thanks, man.” I dumped a load of twenties on the bar and shifted off the bar stool. God, I loved Scotch whisky. It was available in the States, but there was something about drinking it in the country where it was made.

  As I strolled back across the parking lot, my cell rang. I pulled it free of my pocket and recognized the number straight away. “Shadow,” I answered.

  “I was expecting you home by now.”

  “Yeah... well...”

  He went quiet for a moment until I heard a baby squealing the background. “Fuck, hang on.” Shadow covered the mouthpiece of his phone again, and muffled something about someone eating dirt again. I assumed he meant the baby, but with little Lila, anything was possible.

  I carried on walking in the direction of my room, but spotted my bike. The sun had nearly set and the remaining rays that beamed through the gaps in the clouds did wonderful things against the paintwork. Had I been in California, it would have been streaking off the chrome work of my Harley, but different country, different bike. My Harley was currently being babysat by a prospect at the club. No, out here the unpredictable weather, the state of Scotland’s roads and the need to be prepared meant my touring BMW was the bike of choice.

  “Yo!” I shouted. “Remember me?”

  “Sorry. These kids will be the death of me.” I heard the smile as he said it. Having a wife, kids and being legal guardian to his sister’s kids was probably the least likely way he saw his death coming about. “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Is everything okay over there?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” I replied.

  “You answering a question with a question isn’t a resounding, ‘yes, brother, all is good’.”

  I lowered my arse cheeks to my bike and crossed my legs over at the ankles. “What do you want me say? It’s not like I can ask this shit outright. I’m not supposed to know who she is.”

  “Does she seem to be struggling? You know, like... me?” He mumbled the word like there was some embarrassment and shame over suffering after all the stuff he’d been through.

  “By struggling do you mean, bitches a lot, doesn’t back down, and tried to stab me when I first met her?”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “No. She’s even managed to steal Bullet from me.”

  Shadow paused. “So, no danger of her returning home?”

  “Doesn’t seem to be on the cards at the moment.”

  I heard his sigh of relief. “When you coming back, then?”

  I couldn’t answer that.

  “You’re gonna take the long way around,” Shadow mumbled, and it wasn’t a question. “Stay safe on your travels… And thanks, brother.”

  “Any time,” I replied and ended the call, feeling grateful for avoiding his questions, but not quite sure why.

  Back in my room, I stripped off and climbed into the shower. The barman was right; I needed to do everything possible to purge myself of the alcohol I’d consumed. The police around here were hot on any form of drink driving. I stood under the water feeling more than a little irritated that the ride wasn’t having its usual effect and that whisky had also pretty much failed. I couldn’t put my finger on the restlessness, but for the first time when I thought about moving on, it didn’t have the same appeal as it usually did. The one thing I wanted to do was get back on my bike and head home.

  My mind drifted to my neighbor, the way her hair shone impossibly bright, even though it was a dark as the night. The way she challenged everything and didn’t just give in. I wanted to fuck her, definitely, but after all she’d been through, she was owed more than that. I just didn’t know how to do that, whether I was ready for more, whether I’d ever be ready.

  The bigger problem wasn’t me, though, it was her.

  Thinking of her made me hard, and now I was fueled by more alcohol than usual, I was unable to resist. A few short tugs, followed by a couple of long, slow ones and I was well on my way. I could just see her hair as it fell around my thighs while she was on her knees letting me fuck her mouth. Hell, it was all so real in my head I could practically feel it, and my breathing sped up as I shot my load all over my stomach. The bad feelings crept in while I still had my dick in my hand. How could I do that? Imagine a vulnerable woman, who’d been through trauma and suffering, on her knees taking everything I could give her. What sort of person was I?

  This was why I wasn’t cut out to be a priest. It was too easy for sinful thoughts to invade me for my own benefit, and it didn’t matter who it was at the expense of.

  I’d planned to head north, north and then north again, but my bike had other ideas.

  Fuck.

  I was even blaming my bike.

  I parked up in Pitlochry, just trying to prolong the inevitable, and spotted her on the other side of the lot, climbing out of my car. My fucking car, using like it belonged to her. Fuck it. I knew I shouldn’t follow her, but I was doing it for Shadow, you know, just so I could fully report back about her frame of mind.

  First, she went to a bakery, although because I hung back I couldn’t see what she was like in there. After ten minutes, though, she came out with a sincere smile on her face.

  Next, she crossed the road, completely avoiding the main supermarket, and went to the deli on the corner. The one that been struggling ever since the corporate machine of Sainsbury’s had moved into town. I waited across the street and loitered by a tree trunk. This time I could see her. She talked to the ladies working the checkout, who then seemed to abandon their post and continue to follow her around the little store as she picked items from the shelves. Items that no doubt would have been a third of the price had she gone elsewhere.

  “Catch you tomorrow,” she threw the words over her shoulder with a smile in her voice as she exited the shop, laden down with tote bags full of stuff.

  Last but not least, she headed back toward the parking lot, making my objective of keeping out of sight a challenge. To watch her I needed to be behind her, and unfortunately I wasn’t. Keeping track of her in the reflection of the shop windows, I saw as she stopped and looked in the newsagent. For a minute, I thought she’d spotted me, but then when she ducked in at the last minute and came out with a magazine under her arm, I knew I’d gotten away with it. This time, though, her face wasn’t as carefree and smiley.

  Had someone said something to her in there?

  Her head was down now as she headed closer to me and she was walking with purpose. The petrol-shiny mane of hair beat back and to with her footfall and I hated how it hid her from me, how it cut me off from seeing what she was thinking. There were two shops left before she hit the parking lot, and one of them was the butchers. I hid around the side of the shop between a car and the door and listened to her. I’d missed what she’d asked for.

  “Here ya go, lassie?”

  “Oh, thank you so much. How much do I owe you?”

  “On the hoose,” Bunkle the butcher replied. “Saves me getting rid of them, and I know he’ll enjoy them.”

  “I really appreciate it. He’ll love them.”

  I heard the sound of footsteps, and then she appeared as I jumped out. “What ya got there then?”

  Penny didn’t jump.

  “You are the worst tracker ever,” she threw back.

  “Says who?”

  “Says me. Clocked you when you parked your bike earlier.”

  There was no way she’d let me follow her around just for the hell of it. “How?”

  The indecision to tell me tha
t she was trained and had skills—skills I knew my MC brother Shadow possessed—was on the tip of her tongue, but instead she covered it up. “There aren’t many around here who come out on a big loud motorcycle for a start.”

  Damn it! That was actually a good answer.

  “So, you heard a bike and thought of me?”

  “Yeah, it sounds the same as the noise I heard when you took off without telling me.”

  Well, that was a little odd. Had she missed me? “Did that bother you?” My heart rate spiked a little, waiting for the answer.

  “No. Your dog is better company.” She popped open the door to my car and put her bags on the passenger seat. I noticed she hadn’t unlocked it first.

  “That reminds me, stealing cars alright where you come from?”

  “I was borrowing it.”

  “So, stealing it then?”

  She looked at her feet. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get my groceries home.”

  Penny sat in the driver’s seat and leaned forward, while she was preoccupied, I opened the passenger door. “So, what did you get me from Bunkle’s? A nice piece of steak?”

  “Who says I got you anything?”

  “You did. I heard you.” I grabbed one of the bags, only for her to lean across and wrestle with it, too.

  “Let it go!” she huffed. “You’re a crazy person!”

  Penny grabbed one plastic handle, tugging and pulling, while I kept a grip on the other. “I only want to look.”

  Just then the bag gave way and something heavy wrapped in paper flew at me and then thumped to the floor. “You idiot! Give it back.”

  I picked it up. “Tell me you didn’t.”

  “Give it back!”

  I shook my head at the mad woman, who clearly had taken treats to a whole new meaning. Sat on the floor by my feet was a big meaty bone. “He’s not supposed to have treats.”