Jude
Lords of Carnage MC
Daphne Loveling
Copyright 2021 Daphne Loveling
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Contents
Credits
Mailing List
Dedication
1. Jude
2. Lila
3. Jude
4. Lila
5. Jude
6. Lila
7. Jude
8. Lila
9. Jude
10. Lila
11. Jude
12. Lila
13. Lila
14. Jude
15. Lila
16. Lila
17. Jude
18. Jude
19. Jude
20. Lila
21. Jude
22. Lila
23. Jude
24. Lila
25. Lila
26. Jude
27. Lila
28. The Lords
29. Lila
30. Jude
Epilogue
Daphne Talks Out Her Ass About JUDE
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1
Jude
“How long since it happened?”
“Two years,” I answer, holding out my forearm to show the burn scars to Chance.
He squints, taking a moment to scrutinize the skin. “Yeah, the scarring is pretty extensive, so it might hurt more than your other ink did. But Stacia will fix you right up. She’s just finishing up with another customer, so have a seat and she’ll be out to get you.”
Chance says a couple words to the receptionist, then disappears down the hallway. I take a seat on one of the low leather couches in the small waiting area of Rebel Ink, the tattoo shop where the Lords get pretty much all our ink done. Chance is the owner, so the club knows him pretty well.
Stacia — who used to be known as Six — is the old lady of Bullet, one of my club brothers.
One of my club brothers.
Damn, feels like it’ll never get old to say that. Even though I’ve had the Lords of Carnage tattoo on my left pec for long enough that I feel like I’ve always had it, my pride at being a Lord is just as fresh as it was the day I was patched in.
The funny thing is, the reason I’m here today to get this tattoo and the reason I got patched into the MC are pretty closely connected.
Two years ago, I was nothing but a lowly prospect for the Lords of Carnage MC. Well, I say lowly, but that’s not exactly the case. When you’re the brother-in-law of the MC president, you’re not exactly the scum of the earth, prospect-wise. But that said, I never got special treatment from any of the Lords before I got patched. If anything, a lot of them were harder on me than they probably would have been otherwise. Hale especially. That motherfucker took sadistic pleasure in fucking with me from day one, that’s for sure. And I guess I expected it. He and I didn’t exactly hit it off on the right foot, back in the day. By the time I became a prospect, we were pretty copacetic, but he still rode me harder than the other prospects.
Hell, if I’m honest I probably deserved it. I was a cocky shit. Still am, I guess. But the club taught me a lot. It taught me how to be a man. How to live by my word. How to live for something larger than myself.
That’s not a lesson my biological family ever taught me, that’s for damn sure. Well, except for my sister, Jewel. She tried to teach me as best she could. But with parents like ours, she could only do so much. When she left home at seventeen, I was only ten. Left to my own defenses with a mother and father who barely tolerated each other and tolerated me even less, I felt abandoned by the only person who cared about me. I hated Jewel for years because of that. Or at least, that’s what I told myself. Then, when I was seventeen myself, I got in some pretty serious trouble, and our parents tossed me onto a bus to Tanner Springs to live with Jewel without a backward glance.
I snort softly to myself. Getting rid of me — giving up on me — was probably the best damn thing they ever did for me, in the end.
Coming to Tanner Springs was a bumpy damn landing. I made Jewel’s life hell. I almost got into some even more serious shit that could have ended me up in prison for a long damn time. Somehow, Jewel didn’t throw my ass out. And lucky for me, her job at the time was as a bartender for the local motorcycle club.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
I look down at the burn scars running up and down my left arm. In a couple of ink sessions, the twisted, puckered skin will be transformed into a sheath of flames.
Not because I want to forget. But because I want to remember the day I ran into a burning house, to try to save someone’s life.
The house belonged to Ember, the woman who would become my club brother Striker’s old lady.
The man trapped inside was her ex-husband.
I failed to save him, but that’s because he was already dead. It cost me some serious smoke inhalation, some second- and third-degree burns, and a couple surgeries to graft some skin from my inner thigh onto the most damaged burn sites. It sucked ass, to be honest.
But what it gained me was the unanimous vote by the Lords of Carnage to patch me in as a full member of the club.
Priceless.
I lean back into the worn leather of the couch, exhaling into the memory. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the young receptionist staring at me. She’s hot in that weird emo chick way — makeup that makes her seem like she’s never seen the sun, black hair with electric blue highlights in a severe bob with bangs cut straight across. Dark eye makeup, blood red lipstick. Not my type, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about the lipstick ring she’d leave around my cock…
“Hey, Jude!” Stacia greets me, breaking into my thoughts. She lets out a soft laugh and shakes her head, like practically everybody does when they greet me that way and then realize they’ve referenced the Beatles song. “Come on back!”
I hoist myself up off the couch. Emo chick is still staring at me through her hair. I turn and give her a wink. Her face flames red through the makeup.
“Don’t torture the help, Jude,” Stacia mutters at me.
Snickering, I follow her to her room. Stacia’s the one who did my Lords tattoo, and a handful of others over the years, so I know my way back here. I flop onto the chair and wait as she reaches up and re-ties her tangle of blond hair into a knot at the top of her head to keep it out of her eyes. She asks me some questions about the tattoo she’s doing for me. We’ve already discussed it at the clubhouse a few times, so she shows me the designs she prepared for me, which look fucking awesome.
“This is gonna hurt, dude,” she warns me. “Scar tissue…”
“Yeah, I know,” I interrupt her. “Chance told me. Trust me, it ain’t gonna hurt nearly as much as the burns did.”
“True,” Stacia smiles. “Okay. Let’s get you prepped. I figure I might be able to get about a third of it done today. Maybe more, depending.”
Not that I’d admit it, but Stacia and Chance are right: it ends up hurting like a motherfucker. But I learned some Zen shit from one of the nurses in the burn unit while I was recovering, so I’m pretty good at dealing with discomfort by now. Pain without suffering, she called it. Kari — that was the nurse’s name — told me that there was a Buddhist practice that teaches you about the three dimensions to pain: the physical, emotional, and cognitive. In other words, the pain, how we feel about it, and the meaning we give it. Kari taught me to meditate as a way to separate the pain from my reaction to it. She called it acknowledging the pain without giving it a meaning or an emotional reaction. “Pain is inevitable,” she said. “Suffering is optional.”
Sounds like a lot of bullshit, I know. But the fucked-up thing is, it works.
Eventually, Stacia calls an end to the session after five hours — not because of me, but because she’s tiring out and doesn’t want to start making mistakes. She bandages me up, goes through her aftercare spiel, and then takes me out to the receptionist. “I’ll see you at the clubhouse, probably,” she says as she walks me out, “but let me know if you have any problems before the next session.”
“Will do.” I nod toward my arm. “Looks great so far.”
Stacia is pleased. “I think it’s going to be gorgeous when we’re done.”
Back outside, I sling a leg over my bike, and take out my cell to check my messages. There’s nothing from any of the Lords, but I missed a call from my sister. There’s also a text from her telling me to phone her ASAP. I punch in her contact and hit call.
“Hey, Jewel, what’s up?” I bark into the phone.
“Where are you?” she hisses into the phone.
“Rebel Ink.”
“You need to come to the house. Right now.”
“What —”
“Now!” Jewel hangs up before I can answer.
Fu-u-uck. I don’t know what’s up her ass, but Jewel’s about the most even-tempered person I know. Whatever it is that’s got her in a damn tizzy, I guess I better go see what I can do to help.
I fire up the bike, and within minutes I’m pulling into Angel and Jewel’s driveway. The garage door is open, revealing the familiar clutter of Angel’s workshop and TJ and Faith’s bikes and other outdoor toys. Angel’s bike is gone, so I guess whatever this is, Jewel’s dealing with it on her own. I go to the front door, knock on it a couple times, then twist the knob.
“Hello?” I call as I push the door open.
I step through, almost tripping over a couple of suitcases that are sitting by the door. What the hell? Is Jewel leaving Angel or something?
“Hello, Jurij.”
I freeze.
It’s like my body hopes that by not moving, I can prevent the next thing from happening.
My stomach feels hollow. My mouth goes sour.
Eventually, I drag my eyes toward the voice I’ve known my whole life. One of the only voices that ever calls me by my given name.
And there — sitting on Jewel’s living room couch — are two people I never expected to see again.
Our parents.
2
Lila
“Pecher?” I spit out, my stomach dropping to the ground. “You want me to deliver to Pecher?”
André plants his feet, crosses his arms. Gives me that mean, narrow-eyed stare that tells me the next step is him popping me across the mouth. “Problem?”
“No,” I insist anyway. “I won’t do it.”
“Like hell you won’t,” he hisses, jabbing a thick finger at me. “You don’t have a goddamn choice, Lila Mae.”
“Don’t call me that,” I murmur, turning away.
Only my mother called me that. No one else gets to use that name.
André grabs me by the shoulder, spins me around. I’m agile, and strong for my size, but he’s big. I know from experience he can hurt me, especially when he takes me by surprise. Ever since that first time, right around the time my mom got sick, I know what her boyfriend is capable of. The damage he can do.
Back then — after it was over, and I was nursing my cuts and bruises locked in the bathroom — I sniffed back my tears and my running nose and told myself I was lucky he didn’t do worse to me. There was a glint in his eyes back then — a leering, sexual glint — that told me he wouldn’t hesitate to do other things, things I didn’t even want to think about.
A glint that told me I’d be smart not to push him too far.
I’m older now — bigger and stronger than I was then — but I still don’t like my odds when André’s got the mean in him.
“What am I taking him?” I half-whisper, swallowing back the angry, defeated tears that spring to my eyes.
André huffs in satisfaction, then goes to a drawer, takes something out. It’s about the size of a brick, wrapped in wrinkled paper bag. “Here.” He shoves it at me. “You know what to do. Don’t come back here right away after you make the drop-off. Wait for a while. Make sure you’re in the clear first.”
Sure. Make sure that if anyone gets caught, it’s me, not André.
“Like where?” I challenge. “Where am I supposed to go?”
His lips curl back over his teeth. “What the hell do I care? Long as you’re back by the morning.”
I’m numb as I take the brick from him and stuff it into my messenger bag, then slide the strap over my shoulder. I try like hell not to think too hard about what happened the last time André sent me on a delivery to Pecher. How he grabbed at me, groped me until one of his men interrupted us and I was able to slip out. Numbly, I scrape my keys off the table where I last threw them, then push past André, who’s still barking instructions at me.
Outside, I take a few steps on the crumbling front walk, then slow to a halt as I think I hear something. I turn around and sure enough, a familiar low mew comes to me from the far end of the house. I catch the glimpse of a gray tail, and in spite of my low mood, I can’t help but smile.
“Hey, there, Spike,” I croon, walking toward the sound. As soon as I’ve rounded the corner to the side of the house, I see him: a dirty gray and white cat, the stray that I’ve been feeding from a bag of dry food hidden in a corner of the garage. Spike lets out another chirrup and takes a step toward me. As soon as I kneel, he’s there, doing a funny sort of dance where he has to evade my hand by a few inches a couple of times before he finally lets me pet him.
“There’s a boy,” I murmur, scruffing him behind one ear. He closes his eyes and leans into my hand, beginning to purr noisily. “How are you doing? You’re a good baby, aren’t you?” I check the aluminum pie tin I’ve been using as his food bowl, and notice it’s almost empty. “I’ll make sure to feed you as soon as I get back, I promise,” I tell him, and give him one final scruff before I stand up, knees crackling.
I turn and walk back around the front of the house, glancing back as I do, but fortunately Spike doesn’t follow me. With the warm feel of his fur still on the tips of my fingers, I trudge over to the car and climb in, hoisting my messenger bag into the passenger seat. I sit there for a few moments, trying to collect myself before I go see Pecher.
The car belongs to André, like pretty much everything else in my life except the clothes on my back. It’s a piece of shit, the smell of stale cigarettes permanently baked into the upholstery. I only ever get to use it when I’m doing a run for him, either to get him groceries or beer from his buddy’s liquor store up the road, or a delivery like this one. André’s been using me to do his dirty work for a couple years now. He started sending me on deliveries because I was young and innocent enough to fly under the radar. As I turn the key in the ignition, it occurs to me that since today is my eighteenth birthday, I’ll be old enough to be tri
ed as an adult if the cops catch me with whatever is in this bag,
“Happy birthday to me,” I murmur under my breath.
I notice my voice is quaking.
Pecher runs his operation — or at least what I see of it — hiding almost in plain sight. He’s the silent owner of a small chain of Italian restaurants in the region. The main one is not far from the campus town of Ohio University in Athens. That’s where I’m driving today, a trip that takes me a little over an hour and a half. When I get inside the restaurant, I tell the hostess, a hard-looking woman around forty years old, that I have an appointment with him. She’s seen me before, but she must not recognize me. She eyes me up and down, painted-on brows meeting in the center of her furrowed forehead.
“I’m here to give him a sample of some tiramisu,” I add.
Tiramisu. That’s the magic code word. Her wrinkled face clears, and she picks up the phone and murmurs a few words into it. “Come with me,” she barks when she hangs up, then turns and hustles away, not waiting to see if I’m following.
The hostess leads me through a door and up a narrow stairwell to the second floor. There, she goes to another door, knocks once, and pushes it open. With a brusque gesture, she indicates I should go in.
JUDE: Lords of Carnage MC Page 1