Diesel

by Tia Lewis

  “Right.”

  “And every time I’ve been to see him, I made it a point to talk to him about the way things are now. I wanted to ease him into it. I didn’t want him to be surprised.”

  Drake grunted. “What did you tell him?”

  “You know, about how we moved away from the guns and drugs. I had to use code words and shit, but he got the point.”

  “And?”

  I shook my head at the memory. “At first, he didn’t believe it. I don’t think he wanted to believe it, really. He kept asking me if I was putting him on. He couldn’t imagine why we would leave something that was bringing in so much money.”

  “And you told him that we’re making more than before, right? Now that we’re with the Vipers?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I told him about all that. He thought it was great that we were partnering up with them, but I think it was more because he loved the idea of visiting the girls at the brothels more than the idea of us going legit.”

  Drake rolled his eyes. “Great. Won’t he be surprised when he finds out Bobby doesn’t go for that shit—and neither do I.”

  “I told him that too, man. Believe me, I told him everything. I don’t want him starting shit the second he’s out, Drake. I want this to be as smooth as possible. He’s my brother.”

  Drake looked at me. “I know what it means to you for him to be getting out.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yeah, I do.” He stared at me. His eyes were hard, intense. “I do know.”

  It dawned on me. “Oh, great. Jack told you.”

  “Yeah, he told me. He told me years ago, back when he first got sick, and he knew I would be taking over for him.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “Because it’s not something I ever wanted to admit to anybody. It’s been eating me alive for eight years, brother.” Every day, too. But I wouldn’t tell him that part.

  “I understand.”

  “You can’t understand. You don’t have a brother, and you sure as hell never let somebody else take the rap for you.”

  “The way Jack told it, Gunner made you do it. He forced you to run away that night, after the explosion, when the cops were coming.”

  I nodded and stared out the windshield at the prison my brother had called home for eight years. Yeah, he had made me run away when we heard the sirens in the distance. I remembered it like it was yesterday. No, like it had happened only a minute earlier. I could still smell the smoke. I could feel the heat from the flames, so much more than we had ever planned on. None of us knew the Cobras were storing ammo in the warehouse we tossed explosives into that night. The explosion and the fire it caused burned down an entire block of warehouses—most of them were abandoned, but it had drawn a lot of attention to our war with the other club.

  I remembered hiding behind a row of abandoned cars further down the street, shocked that the place had gone up the way it had. My ears were ringing. I almost didn’t hear the sirens—they were faint, far away even though the cars themselves weren’t that far off. I saw their lights, red and blue, flashing in the distance.

  Gunner had turned to me with wide eyes. “Go!” he’d screamed as he dragged me to my bike. “Go! Now!”

  “You come, too!”

  “I will!” Only he didn’t. He’d waited for me to get away, then had drawn all the attention to himself. He had let them catch him so they wouldn’t keep driving and catch up to me. And he had told everybody who would listen that he was acting alone that night. He never mentioned my name. He never even mentioned the club, even though everybody knew he was a member of the Blood Riders. Back then, he was right up there with Drake when it came to who might fill Big Jack’s shoes one day. But he and Drake were different. Drake was smarter, he thought things out a lot better than Gunner did. Gunner was the one who was willing to get his hands dirty. He would fight anybody, run anybody down. He didn’t care. As long as it helped the club, he’d do whatever it took. Sometimes I thought the perfect President would be a mixture of the two of them.

  I hadn’t forgotten that night, not for a single day in the eight years since Gunner was sentenced. It would’ve been me behind bars if he wasn’t there that night. I would’ve just stood there and watched the warehouses burn, shocked, scared shitless. It was the first real job I had ever done as a member of the club, and look what happened. I owed him my life and then some.

  “So like I said, I know what this means to you. But if he’s not gonna play ball, I don’t know what I can do with him. I don’t want us to go back in that direction. We have too much at stake now.”

  I nodded. “Sure. If Bobby knew we were back on the wrong side of the law, he’d pull out of our partnership. Then where would we be?”

  “I don’t just mean that. I mean I can’t run that risk now that some of us are settled down. We’re finally building a name in the community, too. The cops are finally off our asses, and whoever thought that would happen?”

  “That’s true,” I muttered, more to myself than to him. I would hate to see Gunner ruin what we had all worked so hard to build since he went away.

  “I don’t want another war,” Drake said.

  “You don’t have to tell me, Prez. Nobody does.”

  “Listen. Not that I want you to feel pressure or anything, but I’m gonna need you to talk him down if he has any big ideas.”

  “Oh, no pressure at all,” I smirked.

  “I know, it’s a lot to ask.”

  “You know my brother. It’s a hell of a lot to ask. He doesn’t listen worth a shit.”

  “Well, he’s gonna have to start listening if he wants to be part of this club. And if he wants to take it up with me, he’s more than welcome to do that.”

  I winced at the way he said it, and the tightness in his voice. He sounded like he was ready to kill somebody. “Don’t worry,” I said, hoping it would calm him down. “He won’t be a problem. I’ll make sure of it.”

  “I know you will.” He checked his phone. “It’s almost three. He’ll be out any minute.”

  I tried to let myself be excited to see my big brother again, but all I could do was worry about what would happen once he was out. It didn’t seem fair that I couldn’t just be happy to be with him again. There always had to be a little something to overshadow the good times. Life sucked that way.

  After a few more minutes, the gate opened. Three men walked out. One of them looked just like me—tall, dark blonde hair, deep-set brown eyes. He looked around at the cars in the parking lot, and when he caught sight of me climbing down from behind the wheel, he jogged toward me.

  “Son of a bitch!” He threw his arms around me, and we hugged for the first time in eight years. It felt good. Really good. He was like a father to me growing up, even though he was only three years older. Those three years meant a lot to a six-year-old kid whose actual father had just walked out. Nine seemed so old, so wise. As an adult, I knew he was just a kid himself back then. But he had always made me feel like I had somebody in my corner.

  “You look good,” I said, and I held him at arm’s length to look at him. “Orange jumpsuits don’t do a damn thing for you.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” he laughed. Then, he noticed that Drake was there. “Well, God damn! I didn’t know you were bringing company!” He and Drake hugged, slapping each other on the back.

  “Glad to see you out, brother. We’ve missed you.”

  “And I’ve missed the hell outta you all,” Gunner laughed. “You have no idea.”

  “I know Jack would’ve wanted to see this,” Drake said.

  Gunner’s smile faded a little. “I wish I could’ve been out to say goodbye to him. That hit me hard, brother.”

  “I know it did. He thought of you, too. And he was always proud that you stayed strong and protected all of us. He never forgot that, and neither have I.”

  “Good deal. I would never betray my club.” Gunner looked at me with a wide smile. “So, are we going home
, or what?”

  I knew what he meant by home, and I smiled back. “Hell, yes. There are a couple of things there I think you might want. But first…” I opened the truck and reached into the back seat. “I thought you might want this.”

  I held out his leather vest, which I had kept in my closet for eight years. He swallowed hard—emotion almost got the best of him for a second. “God damn,” he whispered as he turned around, and I held it up while he slid his arms through the holes. “It’s like I never took it off. And I’ll never take it off again.”

  3

  Violet

  “Where are they?” Tamara was busy behind the bar, making sure she had enough of everything. Butch and Harris took turns running up and down the cellar stairs to stock up the bottles of liquor, then back and forth from the kitchen to fill the well with ice. She shook her head. “I need to get the kegs hooked up, and Diesel has them in the truck.”

  “They should be back soon,” Nicole called out from where she stood on a step stool. She was hanging crepe paper from the ceiling while Darcy handed her strips of tape. “Drake texted a few minutes ago to say they were on their way.”

  “Do you remember Gunner?” Tamara asked me.

  I shook my head. “Barely. I had just started hanging around back when he got sentenced.”

  She nodded. “That’s right. You were new then. I remember him from way back. He’s…something.”

  “What do you mean?” Nicole asked.

  “I’m sure Drake told you all about him,” Tamara said.

  “Yeah, but you know how it is. You ask a man about somebody, and they tell you everything but the stuff that really matters.”

  We laughed. “Yeah, that’s true. I bet he told you he was good on a bike and was tougher than anybody else in the club, right?”

  “Not tougher than anybody—Drake would never say anybody was tougher than him,” Nicole giggled.

  “Oh, right. What am I thinking?” Tamara shook her head. “Hmm, let me think. Gunner. He was charming. Handsome. Handsy. A little too familiar. Then again, most men act that way when they’re drunk, and he was drunk most of the time. The club was always partying back in those days. There was always something to get tanked over. Usually when they stole a shipment of guns out from under somebody else, or when they scored a big drug deal or something. I don’t know—they never told me the exact details. Told me it would be better for me if I didn’t know, in case the cops ever asked questions.”

  I nodded. “I remember those days.”

  “I’m so glad things are easier now,” she confessed. “I don’t know what I would do if I always had to wonder what Creed was doing when he went out at night, you know?” She shuddered, and I knew she was thinking about Christopher. It mattered to her that her son had his daddy around, since she never had hers. “He’s a handful, that Gunner. I hope prison calmed him down a little bit.”

  I glanced over at Nicole, who turned away. I knew she was getting more desperate with every passing month. She and Drake had been trying unsuccessfully for almost two years to get pregnant—even though they both checked out with flying colors and the doctors had no idea why it wasn’t working. Meanwhile, Tam’s pregnancy had been an accident.

  “Anyway,” Tamara continued, “he’s a handful, that guy. I hope prison calmed him down a little bit.”

  “He’ll probably be just as bad at first—if not worse,” I mused. “He’ll have a lot of time he wants to make up for.”

  “That’s true. Well, at least I’m spoken for.” Tamara looked at me. “What’s your excuse when it comes time?”

  “Who knows? Maybe I’ll like him,” I winked.

  “Bullshit,” Nicole said through a cough like she was trying to cover it up. The girls laughed.

  “Not funny,” I warned.

  “Oh, come on. We all know who you really like.”

  Butch poked his head into the room. “Oh, please, say me,” he begged.

  “Don’t you have ice to fetch?” I asked as I threw a roll of crepe paper at him. When he was gone, I glared at the girls. “And that’s supposed to be a secret, thanks a lot.”

  “It’s not a secret. Not when you look at him the way you do.” Nicole grinned. “You’re crazy about him.”

  I froze in place. “You’re serious? I’m that obvious?”

  “To another woman, yeah,” Tamara said. “To a man? No. Men are idiots. They don’t see anything unless you spell it out for them. I’m sure he has no idea.”

  “I hope not. I would die of embarrassment.”

  “You would not die,” Darcy reminded me. “Besides, worse things have happened than a man finding out a woman has a crush on him. You never know, he might feel the same way about you.”

  My cheeks burned hot, and I couldn’t believe I was acting like a lovesick teenager over him. It was never a good idea to get sentimental over the guys in the club. I had known all of them for what felt like my entire life, ever since I was barely out of high school, and I knew I would only end up getting my heart broken if I wasn’t careful. “He doesn’t feel the same way about me,” I argued. “He likes having somebody to talk to. That’s all.”

  “That’s a big step,” Nicole reminded me. “When a man tells you things he wouldn’t even tell another man, especially when he’s as close to them as these guys are to each other, that’s huge.”

  “Agreed,” Tamara said. “That’s how Creed and I started off, you know. Friends.”

  “But we’re not you and Creed. He’s really not interested in me that way. If he were, wouldn’t he have made a move by now?” I looked from one of them to the other.

  “Hmm, she has a point.” Darcy looked me up and down, chewing her lip. “If he sees you as a friend for too long, he might stop seeing you as a potential girlfriend.”

  “See? This is what I was afraid of.” I sat on the couch, folding my arms. I didn’t want to fall into the trap of being permanently friend zoned. What a mess. “It’s better if I just move on, I think.”

  “Right. Because it’s that easy.” Nicole finished and hopped down to the floor. She came over and wrapped her arms around my neck from behind the couch. “Don’t worry about it. Just let it happen if it’s going to happen, but don’t try to force it. And maybe try to look a little extra cute tonight. A little cleavage goes a long way.”

  “Thanks,” I smirked.

  “Hey, he’ll be in an extra good mood now that his brother’s out. I’m just saying, maybe you can take advantage.” She squeezed. “Give it some thought.”

  An hour later, after I took a quick shower and changed into the t-shirt and leather skirt I had brought over to wear for the party, I went back downstairs. My hair was arranged in waves down my back, and the knee-high boots I was wearing gave me the illusion of height. I was always trying to look taller than I really was—I barely scratched five feet when barefoot.

  I heard male voices as I walked down the stairs, and I saw a bunch of them grouped around the bar. Gunner was at the center of the group—I recognized him right away. He looked so much like Diesel. I had forgotten how much they looked alike. Drake was there, and Creed and Ace and Phil and another dozen guys. Even Harris and Butch. They looked proud to be drinking with patched members.

  Diesel raised his glass in a toast and caught my eye just as he was about to speak. “Hey,” he said with a smile. I could feel myself practically glowing. He had singled me out.

  “Hey. Don’t stop because of me,” I smiled.

  “I was just gonna say, to my brother. Here’s hoping he makes up for some lost time tonight.” The room just about exploded with raucous laughter that had a definite raunchy edge. Yes, there would be a lot of drinking and humping going on in Gunner’s world that night.

  After he had thrown back the shot Tamara had poured, Gunner looked in my direction. “Well, well. Who’s this?” He looked me up and down, taking his time when he reached my chest. I felt a little embarrassed by the time he finished eyeing up what my low-cut shirt revealed.


  Diesel cleared his throat. “This is Violet. You remember her. She was here for a while before you went.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Were you always a blonde?”

  I shook my head. “Only recently.”

  “That must be why I don’t remember because there’s no way I would ever forget a woman like you otherwise.” He held out a hand, and I went to him feeling even more embarrassed than ever. The rest of the guys glanced at each other and chuckled.

  Except for Diesel. I looked up at him and saw the way his face froze into a blank mask. What was he thinking? I wanted him to want me, but I didn’t dare imagine he did.

  Gunner kissed my knuckles and pulled me just a little closer. He already reeked of whiskey, and it wasn’t even five o’clock yet. I could just imagine how fall-down drunk he’d be by the time the party really kicked off. “I am so very glad to see you, Violet,” he said. “I can’t wait to get to know you better.” He opened his legs and pulled me between them. I laughed lightly even as I tried to wriggle away.

  “I’d love to hang around and catch up, but if you boys want anything to eat tonight, I’d better get in the kitchen and help out.” I managed to pull away from him, but when I turned around, he slapped my butt hard enough to make me squeal in surprise. The men roared, even Drake.

  But not Diesel. I made it a point to look at him, just trying to get a feel for how I should react—it was his brother, after all, and he was my friend. His face was still a blank mask. I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking at all.

  I hurried into the kitchen. My butt was really smarting. Tamara wasn’t kidding when she called Gunner ‘handsy’.

  4

  Diesel

  I didn’t expect that at all. The rush of rage I felt when my brother put his hands on Violet.

  The rest of the club thought it was hilarious when he smacked her ass like that. As for me, it was all I could do to keep from breaking his hand for touching her at all. What the hell was wrong with him? She was a club girl, not some slut on the street. We treated our girls with respect. Sure, we’d sleep with them, too. They were a lot of fun. But they weren’t there for us to smack around and rub our cocks on whenever we felt like it. At least, that wasn’t how I saw Violet.