by Karen Renee
“Watch it, big man,” Cal warned.
Volt’s eyes bulged. “It doesn’t fuckin’ matter, Roll! It damn sure looks that way. Besides, she’s Heathen’s property. Why would you need to see her? Hell, why would you even fuckin’ care about her?”
Roll loved being part of the Riot MC. His brothers stayed the hell out of each other’s business…most of the time. But times like these, the club felt like a family because they had to pull together to protect one another. Just like being part of a family, it meant Roll had to let his brothers into his business, even if deep down he really didn’t want to.
“She’s family, for fuck’s sake. Jesus, Volt! You, of all the brothers, should understand that shit. I got the chance to gain a sister. I don’t care how late in life that’s happening. She’s wanted out from under his damn thumb for the past three years. I’m gonna help her, come hell or high water.”
“Didn’t see that coming,” muttered Beast.
“No smart-ass remarks, transfer,” Cal said, with his fists clenched.
Roll never liked when Cal went all hard-ass during church because it really wasn’t like him. Cal was great with his fists, even better than Roll, not that he would admit that to Cal, but he really didn’t have the stick up his ass to be such a disciplinarian.
Major’s voice pulled Roll from his thoughts. “Let me get this straight. We’re gonna start a war because Heathen’s woman wants out?”
Blood swung an irate gaze at the older biker. “Fuckin’ with Trixie was outta line, man.”
Major shook his head. “Didn’t say it wasn’t. What I’m sayin’ is, any of you thought some asshole was movin’ in on your Ol’ Lady, you’d send a damn strong message.”
“To the asshole movin’ in on my woman, not anyone else,” Razor muttered.
Others at the table were beginning to murmur, but Volt gave a short, sharp whistle. “I see where you’re comin’ from, Major. This isn’t a matter of could get ugly; it absolutely will get ugly. Those of you with old ladies, make sure they’re bein’ extra-cautious. Roll, you need to talk with your sister. She needs to be one-hundred-percent on board with this shit. I’m not puttin’ brothers on the line for a woman who might waffle and go back to that asshole.”
Roll tamped down his bitterness at Volt insinuating his sister was wishy-washy about getting away from Heathen. Since he was only just getting to know her himself, he might be misreading her commitment level to starting fresh, so he nodded at Volt.
Volt called for a vote about retribution against the Devil Lancers for Trixie, and the decision was unanimous. When the gavel swung to adjourn the meeting, everyone filed out.
Roll caught Blood’s eye before the man left. “Abby workin’ right now?”
After a brief eyebrow arch, he muttered, “Nope.”
Roll lifted his chin. “She still orders the new cuts, right?”
A ghost of a smirk tipped Blood’s lips up. “Yeah.”
“Good. I’ll give her a call.”
Roll trudged to the door, but he still heard Blood’s muttered, “About fuckin’ damn time.”
***
Opening the door to his room, Roll panicked as he caught sight of the empty bed; but then he heard the sound of the shower. He locked the door to his room, and shoved into the bathroom, “Woman, you are not—”
The sight of Trixie’s round ass stopped his rant. She was in her panties, stooped over the tub, using the hand-held shower head to rinse suds from her hair. That lasted all of a second because his barging into the bathroom startled her and she yelped, dropping the shower head.
Turning to him, her eyes blazed with fear and one arm immediately covered her tits while her opposite hand covered her mound. He knew he needed to proceed cautiously, but this shit would not stand for him. No matter how uncommitted he had been to her, Trixie never had inhibitions about her body. Routinely, she sat in the kitchen or common areas in the mornings with a cup of coffee wearing nothing but her underwear and bra. Many times the bra was downright superfluous because the damn thing was sheer see-through material. So, for her to be startled and react to his presence with modesty forced him to take a step back.
“I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to startle you. I just didn’t want you gettin’ that bandage wet. If you need help, I’m more than—”
“No,” she snapped. She breathed deep and the movement of her chest seemed to alert her to her arm across her tits. Shaking her head, she dropped both arms and put her hands on her hips. “If you’ll just leave me be, I’ll be done in here soon.”
“Okay,” he said, and quietly shut the door.
When the sound of the water changed to deeper sounds indicating more water was falling into the tub, he sat on his bed with his phone in hand. It was always better to get the shitty things out of the way quick, so he called Kim.
“This a good time?” he asked when she answered.
“Good a time as any. Heathen ain’t been home yet, so I may have to cut you off.”
Roll barely controlled his snort. “I’ll just bet he hasn’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Roll sighed. “It means, I want to make sure you’re okay. Nobody’s been by the house or anything that feels off to you?”
Kim gave a long, low groan that sounded wary. “No, but you’re scaring me. What’s the problem, Roll?”
“Someone connected to me was hurt yesterday. Badly. Wanna be sure that you’re keepin’ safe.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Trixie
Just after I wrapped up my wet hair with a bath towel, I heard Roll’s voice. The walls at the compound weren’t soundproof. If anything, I often thought they were made from the thinnest drywall ever. You could hear everything even if you were in the bathroom of the next room. So, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I heard him refer to me as someone ‘connected’ to him. Which was a bunch of fuckin’ bullshit.
This was just more proof of why I had to get the fuck away from this man. Jesus! Talk about toxic. Everything about our tangled interactions were poisonous to me. It was pathetic how long it took me to realize it.
I opened the door to the bathroom and lamented not taking my clothes in with me, but then again, I wasn’t real hip to wearing my clothes from yesterday. Hell, I’d probably have to pay for a replacement uniform vest if I couldn’t get the blood out of it. Nothing for it; Roll had seen me in any and all states of undress, so I put my hands on my hips, shooting daggers at him with my eyes.
“What’s the problem, woman?” he asked.
“Never, not once, did I think you were a blatant cheat!”
His huge mitt tore through his lank locks. “Jesus Christ, Trix! She’s my sister,” he thundered. Then in a quieter, but still stern, tone, “My momma’s had a stroke, and going through her shit, my brother Ray found some documents. Gave ‘em to me, I took it to…well, it doesn’t matter. Kim’s kin to me, and we’ve been tryin’ to get to know one another. Like I told you yesterday, it’s a misunderstanding, but them goin’ after you escalates things in a big-ass way.”
“Really?” I asked, making no effort to hide my skepticism.
“I’ve claimed you. So, yeah, really.”
My chest clenched and I held my breath. I wanted to be excited by this. It was like discovering an unwrapped gift by the tree on Christmas morning, that gift being the thing you wanted more than anything else in the world. But I knew better. I knew better. It was not in the cards for me to have the man I wanted. I would never have anyone I needed in my life, at least not in the way I needed them to be in my life. With those thoughts clouding my vision, I reverted to my default mode. Bitch.
“You know, I barely got my high school diploma, so you might say I’m not the brightest bulb in the socket. Especially since it took me so damn long to learn the lesson you’ve taught me so well, but one damn thing’s for sure. A woman can’t change a man. I realized it too late. My dumb nineteen-year-old ass heard you say you wouldn’t settle down, ‘won’t g
et my hooks into you’ and I foolishly thought…‘I can change that!’ Well, I was wrong. Damn wrong. We’re done, man.”
I stomped to my clothes on the floor and picked them up. My progress was halted when Roll’s arms wrapped around my waist. “You don’t mean that, Trix.”
His breath was warm on my ear. On the one hand he was dead right. I didn’t mean it, but on the other hand, I had to mean it.
“Didn’t lie yesterday, Roll. I ain’t gettin’ any damn younger. I may not know what I want from life exactly, but I know I want babies, or just a baby. You don’t want a woman to get her hooks into you, ain’t no way in hell you’d want to be tied down by a child.”
His arms loosened so his hands could turn me around to face him. The look on his face was one I had never seen from him before. If I were a more hopeful woman, I might have thought he looked at me with agreement. But there was no way that was right. No way this man I had loved for over nine years did a one-eighty on his way of thinking and treatment of the women in his life. Women. Christ, I had my head planted in the sand. That thought told me that even my damn subconscious knew I was never the only woman in his life.
I tore free from his grip and bolted to Blood’s room. Before I could open the door, Blood opened it.
“Please, can I borrow a t-shirt? And while I’m begging, I need a ride. Can you do that for me? Please? Seriously, I’ll never ask for anything else of you or Abby again, Bledsoe. I just—”
Blood’s jaw clenched when I called him by his surname. Then he pulled me into his room, closing and locking the door behind me. He tossed a t-shirt at me from his dresser just before an angry pounding rattled the door.
“Trixie! Get your ass out here. We aren’t done. Blood. Get my woman the fuck outta your room…brother.”
I had never heard such rage from Roll. He was normally a brother who could be counted on in a fight because he kept his emotions in check. It took a helluva lot to make him see red, but the sound of his voice nearly made me see red.
“Go in the bathroom. Lock the door, and be ready.”
***
Over an hour later, I was sitting next to Mallory in her Camry. Her ride had the fancy hands-free hook-up for her cell phone. We had been gone from the compound for all of fifteen minutes, and her phone had rung no less than a dozen times. It was so annoying she finally powered off her phone, cranking the volume up on the tunes. The song “Superposition” by Young the Giant came on. I tried to tune it out, but couldn’t do it. I hit a button to change the channel.
Mallory glanced at me and back to the road. “What? You don’t like that—”
“Too close to home, woman.”
She thought about it for a moment, then said, “Oh. But he does want you.”
I glared at her profile. “Uh, no. He doesn’t.”
She looked at me and shrugged. Moments later, she zipped into a supermarket parking lot, and I looked at her askance.
“What’re you doin’?”
She tried to school her features, but I was onto her. “Don’t feed me any bullshit, Mal.”
Her head tilted dubiously. “I wasn’t going to do that, but you’re gonna need stuff. You know Blood and Cal. I don’t follow my marching orders, who knows what they’ll do to me. I won’t be long, you can stay here, and I’ll leave the car running. ‘Kay?”
I nodded and watched her go into the store. While she was gone, I called my boss, Becky, to tell her I had been in an accident.
“Trixie Baker, you do know you work for Walmart, right?” she asked me when I was finished.
I pressed my lips together, and then said, “Um, yes.”
“Yeah. And how often are local criminals shown on TV from surveillance footage provided by Walmart? Like every damn day, girl! Do not waste my time telling me you were in an accident when the security department already sent me the damn footage.”
“Becky—”
“Oh, no. Now is not the time for your ‘Becky’ bit. Those people kept their heads down, so it’s been hard to get a decent image of them, but I know good and well that you were attacked. Needless to say, you got the next week off.”
“Becky, I can’t—”
She cut me off with a ‘pshaw’ sound. “Didn’t say you’d be takin’ the time unpaid. You’ll get paid like normal. Now, get some rest. Drop by the store at the end of next week.”
By the end of the week, the swelling of my face had receded and I could take a deep breath without wincing. The last four days forced me to take stock of my life. Roll was never going to settle down, and I had wasted the best years of my life waiting for him. It put me in a foul mood, but the thing that nearly always shook my foul moods was getting my hair done, so I called Monica to find out when she had an opening.
She had a cancellation, so an hour later, I was in her chair and she had just snapped the cape around my neck. Her eyes met mine in the mirror. “Cut it off,” I ordered.
The look she gave me was questioning. “Cut what off?”
“The purple. I want it gone.”
“Okay, what color we goin’ with now?”
“Don’t have the money for color, I just want it gone.”
I noticed her eyes darted to my arm where the stitches put the ‘H’ in stark relief on my pale skin. “Fine, I’ll give you color on the house.”
I barely bit back my growl. “I don’t do charity.”
“It ain’t charity. It’s a gift.”
“Just cut it.”
“Nope, gonna color it. Get rid of the blonde. It’s been a while, but what was your original hair color.”
“Mousy-brown was my natural color. Now just cut it, no color. No charity,” I declared.
“Girl, you take the color as the gift it is to you, and be happy. Otherwise I don’t do jack for your hair.”
Grr… “Fine.”
“Good. Now, ain’t no woman I know who’s got mousy-brown hair.”
“Yeah, well, I did. It’s why men thought they could run all over me until I started coloring it.”
“Well, you got spunk enough that ain’t nobody, man or woman gonna run all over you anymore. How about a nice burnt sienna.”
“What are you, fuckin’ Crayola?”
She giggled, “Well, they did pair up with Sally Hansen for their own line of nail polish. Maybe I’ll get in on that act.”
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about?”
“Go to Target, it’s a whole line of polish, tops look just like crayons.”
“I work at Walmart.”
“Well, I’m sure y’all got it too, then. Check the beauty department.”
“Whatever. Let’s get this shit done.”
Over an hour later, Monica swiveled the chair around and I felt my stomach drop. She’d done a fantastic job, but I hadn’t seen myself look like the old me since the first night I met Roll. It was comforting and alarming at the same time, which should not have been possible. I liked looking like my old self again, but I was alarmed because it seemed like I looked five years younger. Normally that sort of thing would make a woman feel great, but for whatever reason that scared me to death.
“It’s quite a change we made to you, Trixie-girl. What do you think?”
My smile was shaky. “It’s great, Monica. You’re right. It is quite a change.”
The other stylists in the salon complimented my hair as I made my way from the chair to the front desk to pay up. I debated swinging by to see my father on my way home, but realized that was a bad idea. My hair might look like a million bucks, but the bruising on my face was still bad. Plus, the smell of hair dye always bothered my dad. His Parkinson’s symptoms were getting worse, and I didn’t need to possibly add to that.
When I got home, I warmed up a frozen chicken pot pie for dinner. It was an exceptionally breezy day in late January, so I opened the windows to air out my place. One of the only things I liked about my shithole apartment was that it backed up to Governor’s Creek. After the microwave buzzed, I went to sit on my pa
tio with my food and a can of Natural Light. The breeze was steady and had a nip to it that was refreshing. Under other circumstances it would have been relaxing, but it wasn’t helping me to clear my mind. The weather was perfect, but my mentality was simply not.
Thoughts of Roll were messing with my head and the Devil Lancers had fucked me up. Expecting an early spring breeze to quiet my mind and soothe my soul was a tall order. I wandered inside, locked the door and closed my windows. It was one of the best times of the year because there was no real need for the air conditioner and, with enough covers, I could go without using the heat. Compliments of my attack, I had to keep everything locked up tight. One thing was certain; my ties with Riot were done. D-O-N-E. It was so done for me.
My cell phone rang and I saw it was Forrest. I wanted to ignore it, but something told me to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Trixie? It’s Forrest. You know, from work.”
With a name like Forrest, you would think he wouldn’t have to explain that; I quickly pushed that thought out of my mind because it really wasn’t nice and he didn’t deserve that.
“Hey, Forrest. How are you?”
“I’m…okay,” he hesitated. “Um, there’s a rumor that you were…hurt at the store?”
I bit back my chuckle. He was a sweet guy, but hell if he wasn’t trying to sugar-coat things. “Forrest, there’s a saying, ‘Never bull-shit a bull-shitter.’ Hate to break it to you, but I’m a bonafide bull-shitter, so tell it to me straight. People are saying I was attacked, right?”
His sigh communicated more discomfort than any words ever could. “Yeah. You could say that, but I called to find out if you’re okay? They didn’t…”
He let that trail off, so I attempted to fill in the blanks. “You tryin’ to ask if they raped me?”
“Yeah.” His voice was husky.
“No, Forrest. They didn’t rape me. Beat me bloody, black and blue, but what little virtue I have was left intact.”
I could hear his deep inhale and exhale on my behalf. He was sweet, in his strange way. There was a lengthy pause, but just before I was going to ask if he was still there, he spoke. “I’m glad to hear you’re okay, Trixie. Even though you turned me down the other day, are you sure you don’t want to grab a bite to eat with me?”