by K. J. Dahlen
The man gazed at me with warm eyes. “Don’t take any notice of those guys. I’m here if you need anything, honey.” He turned around and walked to the other end of the bar to take orders for drinks.
An instant later, a loud and aggressive voice shouted from a table behind me, “I’m gonna fucking kill ya!”
I jumped in my seat. Holy fuck! What the hell was that? I turned to see what the commotion was all about.
The high-pitched chink of glass smashing on the floor alerted the barman, and in what felt like seconds he was out from behind the bar and at the table. He grabbed the perpetrator’s collar—just as he had lunged across his table at another customer. “Oi! Calm the fuck down, or you’ll be out. Do you understand?” the barman shouted as he held the young man up close to his face, in a notably far less warm and friendly tone than he’d shown me a minute ago.
Begrudgingly, the man fell silent and sat back down. As the barman turned and started to walk back to his spot at the bar, the culprit exploded in anger again, as he jumped at his enemy who got swatted into the wall, smashing the plasterboard, and a fierce brawl kicked off…
“I don’t know what you’re fucking going on about!” the man smashed against the wall shouted.
“You owe me two-fucking-grand. That’s what I’m fucking talking about.”
The pair couldn’t be any older than I was; they were probably the youngest guys in the bar – and it showed. Baby-faced, slim builds, with scruffy unkempt hair. The angry rebuttal reminded me of why, even before I had so much as crossed the threshold of this place, I always detested and despised it.
“What did I fucking tell you?” the barman rasped, but the brawl continued.
“No, that wasn’t the fucking deal!”
“Fucking give me my money!” the first man barked as he grabbed the other by the collar of his jacket and tossed him onto the pool table behind him with a loud thud.
“I don’t know what you’re fucking talking about!” the second man insisted.
“I want my money now! Because I swear, I’ll rip your mouth off your face!” the first man sneered.
“You can’t talk to me like that! Fuck off! Fuck off, Zach,” the other snarled.
I watched the first man fly into a violent rage. “I could kill you right now for giving me the same bullshit answer! I swear to god.”
Oh shit, I can’t watch this. Between their violent threats and my dangerously close proximity to them, I was scared-silly.
“That’s it. You’re both out.” The barman, who was easily twice their size, raised his voice above the both of them and everyone around went quiet. There were two hits ‒ one as the barman’s fist hit the guy in stomach ‒ the other, as the man’s body hit the table.
Oh, Lord. What had I gotten myself into here? I lifted my legs to clear the path in case the guy fell off the table.
The barman dragged the pair of them out of the place, one of the two men’s arms in each hand, as they bellowed with rage at each other.
Holy Fuck! Was this normal? Or a special treat just for me?
The third of the bar that had been watching the action then carried on almost instantly, as though this was nothing out of the ordinary. The barman and the locals had clearly seen plenty of bar fights.
I, however, had been left even more noticeably shaken up by the experience. I had no stomach for violence. One drop of blood and I was done. I became instantly lightheaded and my stomach would turn. And my limits had already been tested enough for one day.
Left in peace with my glass of water, and with one little ray of hope of finding Jaxson, I cast an eye over the faces that I could see in the room. Nothing; just as I had expected.
A very cold feeling came over me….
I stared down at my glass with both hands cupped around it, and my mind began to reflect on the events of past hour. I could feel it all welling up inside me, and I wanted to slap myself across the face for being so ignorant.
“How had I not seen this coming?” I said, talking to myself like some sort of madwoman.
Stopping, taking a few minutes to think about what had actually happened, allowed my tears to settle and my anger to rise. It was the lies and betrayal of my mother that hit me the hardest. It wasn’t fair. And it was not right. I’d known my mom’s boyfriend, Roy Harris had always liked a drink, but nothing like I’d seen in the past week. The alcohol had to be the cause of his latest fuck up. I could never have imagined that when I left for college at the age of eighteen, things could have ever got this out of hand. But they had. I would have never left mom with a man like him if I had any such suspicion. It was enough to leave my faith in men ripped to shreds.
Roy and his goddamn addictions deserved to be nothing but a bad memory. First, his obsession had been women, and mom forgave him —over and over again. Secondly, it’d been alcohol. Now, I supposed, it was both. Until I could figure out what to do, I felt confident that mom wasn’t in any immediate danger. I breathed in deep to try to calm my emotions. All I wanted to do was find a phone, call my mother, and tell her to expel that bastard from her life. But I knew I couldn’t do this. I pictured in my mind how happy mom could have been with my father instead.
After my father, Jessie Mariano of the Blood and Bones MC died tragically, a decade ago, Roy Harris stepped into my mother’s life two years later. Short-tempered and stubborn, Roy was far from ideal. But to my mother, he seemed a steady enough guy who gave her the companionship she’d been missing and more importantly, the financial support she so desperately needed. Not that he ever helped her out as much as he would promise. It always gave me a sickening feeling to know that my father had known the guy. Roy ran the automotive repair shop in Tijuana, where most of the guys from the Bloods would get their bikes fixed up. His business was a chilling, and bitter reminder of the MC club that had caused so much loss and pain to me and my mom.
My father had been a patch member of the Bloods MC of Tijuana from the age of 22. My mother had been with him from the start and had seen it all. MCs terrified her. She’d always hated the life but she loved my dad so she stayed in spite of it all. The irony of my father’s death was horrific. He spent his entire adult life protecting his club ‘brothers,’ displaying honor, loyalty and respect to his MC as its founders preached the importance of, so emphatically. Yet, his own club had left him for dead the night he passed. Even I knew that club members were supposed to defend and protect their brothers. But in the end, those guys didn’t know the importance of family.
The very same ‘brotherhood’ which my father was so dearly fond of, had sent him out on a job of an illicit nature, alone – on the night he died. With apparently, no backup, he’d been sent out to the old grain factory, ‘Askeys,’ near the docks. The factory had been derelict for many years, the building’s structure was in a state of decay and disrepair. Askey’s was known to be unstable and most certainly, unsafe. Though the Bloods MC never gave my mother any explanation as to why my father died, what we did know was that the death trap structure of the place caused his death. Part of the damn building collapsed, crushing him down to the basement, and he was gone – forever. The fire department deemed the place too unsafe to even attempt to winch his lifeless body out. In any case, the sheer weight and volume of materials that smashed down would have crushed him beyond recognition anyway. No body. No proper burial. No dignity.
Get a grip. Get a grip. Get a grip. I tried to suppress the horrible images that appeared in my mind of my father being crushed out of existence in less than a moment.
Shoving the horrific thoughts aside, I cast my mind back to my life directly after father’s death. My mother was of course, devastated. To compound her misery, with little prospects of gaining well paid employment, and a young daughter at home, she was forced to work long and exhausting hours at her brother-in laws diner, Mandy’s in Coronado. Two of her weekly shifts ran from 5:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. Back then, I could never understand why she didn’t at least
take financial compensation offered to her by the Bloods. Instead, she scrimped and saved to keep us afloat; refusing to take one dime of the Bloods cash, which my mom had termed as, ‘MC blood money.’
Growing up, my mother had warned me to stay away from bikers; but when you lived in Coronado that was nearly impossible. We had moved into town to get away from the Blood and Bones MC in Tijuana, and to be within walking distance of my mother’s job at Mandy’s. We hadn’t moved far, but we were hardly in a financial position to move any further away. At least, we’d managed to distance ourselves from my father’s club. What nobody knew, ten years ago, was that Coronado was about to become home to the Black Devil’s MC. The club would become the richest, most powerful, and most feared gang in America. It was formed and led by the infamous businessman and criminal, Bruno De Luca.
Over the past month, it had seemed like finally, things had taken a sharp turn for the better. I had just about gained my college degree, then Roy and mom – who’d been going steady for eight very long years were – engaged to be married. I could still hear the excitement in my mother’s voice when she’d called me at college to tell me the news. She’d squealed with a giddy-exhilaration as she told me that Roy had proposed the evening before. Mom was elated, and for the first time in a very long while, she seemed genuinely happy. Although, I remember a nagging doubt that crept into my brain like a snake—was it all too good to be true?
It wrenched my very soul to imagine the pain my mom would feel in her heart if I told her what Roy had done. But it was also agony to know that Roy would get away with it. And he would get away with it, since I couldn’t break my mom’s heart. I could never be the one to destroy my own mother’s shot at true happiness. The woman had worked incredibly hard, sacrificing herself for me as I grew up, over the past decade. It was her time to finally enjoy life again. How could I be the one to take that away from her?
I felt a pang of guilt, wishing that I’d never come home to Coronado at all. If I’d taken a job fresh out of college like half of my friends had, I would have moved away and mom would have come to visit. I would’ve had no need to stay with her and Roy and none of this would have happened. I cursed the part of myself that was inherently lazy and wanted to put off getting a job in the spring, so I could have one, last long summer before I allowed the adult world to take me prisoner. Part of me wanted to be gone, or to rewind to a month earlier and make different decisions. Somehow, I would have to handle the fact that I could never tell mom what Roy had done.
I drew a deep breath and took another swig of my water. It enraged me to think back to the incident….I had only been home a week, and the shit head made a pass at me as I stepped out of my bedroom to grab a towel. Roy should have been at work. He thrust me against the wall in a violent attack while mom was out working to pay bills Roy should be paying half of, but never did.
I could still smell his foul alcoholic breath in my face me as he pressed his round, sweaty body against me, pinning me to the wall. Just thinking about it, a surge of adrenaline started to fire up within me as my chest began to tighten with greater and greater intensity as though I were in the early stages of a heart attack. I blinked my eyes repeatedly to try to suppress the tears welling up. I just wanted to go somewhere quiet to cry.
Stop it. Snap out of it. I told myself then Roy’s words rang in my head, ‘I’ll fucking kill you if you step foot in this place again!’
In a blink, I was startled out of my dismal thoughts… “Chloe, how are you? It’s been too long,” a deep male voice greeted me from my right.
God-damn it! Who was this clown? I pictured a middle-aged, drunken reveler; staggering from left to right and about to come onto me.
As I slowly raised my head, with a look of deep disinterest, it struck me as odd that the man had known my name. When I met his eyes, I didn’t need a double take to tell that it was him.
“Jax!” I exhaled heavily in relief. Oh, God, It’s about time! Where have you been?
Jaxson stared at me with his striking green eyes, looking a little perplexed at my appearance. I only hoped he hadn’t watched me humiliate myself in front the whole damn room when I’d first stepped into the bar. I stared back at him and for a split second, I was a little unsure…. How do you greet the best friend you haven’t seen in three years…who was now absolutely gorgeous, in a hard, outlaw biker kind of a way?
Jax was looking very good. His shoulders were broad, muscular and defined I could tell this even through his jacket. The leather jacket was unzipped, revealing a tight white t-shit beneath, which revealed the cascading ripple of his abs down his front. He wasn’t only bigger than I remembered, but he looked a little taller, around 6’2, if that were even possible at his age? Jax still had the same, long, dark-blonde, boyish hair which he swept back with his hand.
I started to lift my arms to hug him as he stepped forward and threw his solid, muscular arms around me. As we embraced, I shut my eyes over his shoulder and inhaled the smell of his cologne from the collar of his soft, leather jacket. His jacket smelled faintly of cigarettes and his own faint scent of sweat, but combined with his cologne in a breath-taking combination that was nearly impossible to describe. All I know is…it was hypnotic. If there were any question in my mind thirty seconds earlier, about whether I wanted a hug or to be left alone to cry, Jax had just shown me the answer.
We kept hold of each other, but when I opened my eyes, I saw the leggy, platinum-blonde barmaid who’d stood behind the bar when I came in, glaring daggers into my eyes as she passed with a tray of empty glasses. But I didn’t care. Jax and I went way back.
Jax’s warm and comforting embrace had calmed me a little but I was still upset and angry at Roy.
“Holy shit, you’re shaking like a leaf Chloe!” Jax exclaimed.
I felt his chest heave against my body as his breathing picked up in deep concern. Jax pulled back from me a little to look down at my face but I kept my arms tightly around him. He looked into my glazed, red eyes just as they started to well into tears. Tears of fear, tears of anger, of relief and of emotional exhaustion all mixed up in one.
I had nothing left—I was physically and mentally drained. A tear rolled down my cheek, and I saw a glint of fury in Jax’s eyes at the sight of it. He’d always been protective and I had learned to hide my emotions at times when I hadn’t wanted him to get involved. This time however, Jax was all I had and I was too fatigued to conceal how I felt. I pursed my lips then exhaled and inhaled deeply, steadily, trying to hold back from descending into full blown tears in ‒ front of the many bikers surrounding us ‒ at the tables and at the bar whose seats were packed into the place.
I rested my head onto his pec and my face touched the inside of his jacket. “I’m so glad I found you here,” I said, my voice muffled by the leather and barley above a whisper through my sobs.
I looked up at Jax and saw the moment when he caught sight of the scratches and bruises on my arms that Roy had given to me. His eyes narrowed, and he looked instantly enraged. He even scared me for a moment. I wasn’t seriously injured, but Jax wouldn’t stand for any man laying a hand on a woman like that. It was just how he was.
“Holy shit Chloe, what the hell happened to you? Was it somebody in this bar?” Jax asked. The fiery a glint of fury still in his eyes.
I wanted to burst into tears, but I wasn’t about to give in to them. The whole emotional episode I was having wasn’t like me at all.
I wanted to tell Jax everything, but I felt overwhelmed. We broke our hold, but I still clutched my right hand around his as though I was scared that he would leave me. Jax squinted is eyes at my lips as I tried to say something. Anything. But still, not sound escaped my lips as they moved.
“You’re safe now, Chloe,” Jax said reassuringly and planted a kiss on my forehead. “It’s ok. I’ve got you. I’ll protect you from who or whatever it was.”
I felt grateful to have Jax around as backup. But it was a bizarre and frigh
tening experience to watch myself become so helpless and dependent on a man. I’d spent the past three years earning my degree and working part time to pay for it myself, so I had achieved the complete opposite of this. Roy’s attack had rendered me weak and powerless, or so I felt.
With my hand in his, he practically had to drag me over to the table next to the radiator. Two thirty-something looking guys jumped up sharply, as we approached the table. It felt wrong, but it was hardly surprising seeing as Jax’s MC owned the joint.
Jax circled the table and took a seat opposite me. I sat down turned in my chair slightly to lean my back against the warmth of the radiator. I took a few more deep breaths and tried to pull myself together enough to speak.
“If you want, we can get out of here?” he asked as he eyed my wet hair and clothes.
I cleared my throat. “No. I’m fine here,” I finally spat out. All I wanted to do was tell Jaxson everything, to tell someone. “H-he tried t-to.” My words caught in my throat. I leaned forward towards him.
Jax leaned forward too.
With one massive breath, I spilled everything in a confidential whisper—worried that if I didn’t tell him now I would lose my courage and never tell a soul, “He came home from work early, and drunk. Again. Mom was out. The next second, he had me pinned against the wall with my arms between his hands. I couldn’t stop it. At least I thought I couldn’t.” I took another breath. “Then, panic took over. It saved me. I kneed him in the balls before he could get my clothes off; soon as he started to double over, I tore myself out of his grasp and flew out of the house, crying as I ran out. I ran and ran, not stopping until I reached the bar. He screamed, yelled, and swore at me. He said he would kill me if I returned. The last thing I saw of him he was still holding his sore balls in his hand.”
“What! Who’s ‘he’? Who did this to you, Chloe? Tell me. Not that guy who’s shacked up with your old lady?” Jaxson’s eyes sparkled with anger as they narrowed on mine. A fire raged in his eyes, as his expression instantly looked fierce and possessive.