Poet

by Juli Valenti

  “It’s Titan, let me in, damn it. I need to see Poet and I know she’s here,” came the Bishop’s voice, worried as his fist continued to beat on the door. He was hitting it so hard it wouldn’t shock her if the rattling busted the glass.

  “Go away, Titan,” Poet called over his loud knocking. When the sound ceased, his voice came again.

  “No, I won’t. You can’t push me away, Poet. I could love you one day, provided you weren’t such a pain in my ass. I’m not letting you just run me off when shots get fired or lives get lost. It’s part of you, hell, it’s a part of me. But none of that shit is going to make me leave this doorstep. So you can either let my ass in, come outside and talk to me, or just sit there and fucking listen,” he said, not yelling as he had been, but still talking loud enough she, as well as Norma and Eugene, could hear.

  “How could you possibly say something like that to me? You’re a fucking biker, who’s full of shit. I told you – we have it on camera. Your motherfucking prospect patch in the asshole’s back pocket after he beat the living shit out of me. And, imagine the wonder, you were there to pick up the damned pieces.”

  Tears tried to form in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. All of his words, all of his lies he’d told her over the past few days, had almost changed her mind of the world. She’d let a man in, a biker, which she’d sworn she’d never do, and now she was paying the price for it. All of them were the same and she’d known it, but given in for the promise of a good time.

  Having nothing left to say, she turned around to face Norma, whose face was soft and her lips turned into a small smile. Poet scowled at the woman who was more like a grandmother, and snatched the liquor from her hands. As she brought the bottle to her lips, forgoing the idea of a shot glass, the sound of the lock releasing had her spinning around.

  Mrs. Norma had opened the door, and there, standing there, framed by the light of the parking lot, was Titan. His face was red, his breathing heavy, his arms resting against the door jam. The man looked like he hadn’t slept in a week, though she knew he had, since it hadn’t been that long since he’d been in her bed.

  Meeting his gaze, it was like, for a moment, the world fell away; it simply crashed into the ocean and disappeared. Poet uncomfortably pulled her eyes away, shaking her head and stepping back into the room, trying to put as much distance between them as possible. It wasn’t enough, though. They needed a minimum mile rule – anything under ten miles was too close.

  “Thank you,” he nodded toward Mrs. Norma, who, even more surprisingly, reached up and patted his arm. He turned and caught sight of Eugene, his eyes widening slightly. “Foust.”

  Foust? Why the fuck did he call Genie ‘Foust?’ As soon as she asked herself, she understood – it must have been his road name. But how the hell did Titan know it, or him, for that matter?

  “Okay, seriously? Has everyone known who the hell you really were but me? I feel like the kid who was chosen last for dodgeball in school…”

  Titan ignored her, instead moving to stand in front of the older man, respect radiating from him. “Christ, man, everyone thought you were dead. Glad to see you’re not – you been here the whole time?”

  Genie nodded. “Yep. Haven’t been hidin’ or anything, just spendin’ the rest of my days quietly cooking instead of loudly ridin.’”

  “How the fuck did you know who he was, Titan? Even I didn’t know until about five freaking minutes ago. And I’ve come to this diner my entire life.”

  The Bishop merely shrugged as he faced her. “Everyone knew Foust. The man’s a legend – the fact that you haven’t heard of him, or know of him, is actually kind of sad.”

  “Whatever,” Poet said, frustrated. “I don’t have time for this. But I expect some answers later, Genie. I mean it.”

  The older man shot her a smile, one she knew meant he had probably been waiting a long time for her to grill him. Knowing him, he’d probably just been lying in wait for her to find out. When he shot her a small wink, she knew she was right.

  “Poet,” Titan said, drawing her attention back to him and his eyes locking with hers once more. “I had nothing to do with what happened to you in your room at the club. Every one of my men were accounted for; none of them did it either. Wait, where’s Gray?”

  The look on her face must’ve answered his question the moment he asked it because his expression morphed. Pain and sympathy filled his eyes and he took a step toward her, but she stepped back again. If he touched her, especially when talking about her prospect, she’d lose it, which was a luxury she couldn’t afford at the moment.

  Poet took a deep breath. “Gray’s dead. On my kitchen floor. His throat was slit while I was upstairs … talking to you. I didn’t hear a fucking thing – there were no footprints in the massive pool of blood surrounding the kid, nothing. It’s like a fucking ghost cut him and let him bleed out on the tile. And I left him there.”

  Her words were simple, to the point, giving Titan the bulk of the story she was able to, but each one twisted her heart. The whole situation was just wrong – if someone had something against her, they should have come straight out and said it. She would have taken care of it quickly, without one of her men having to die. Or getting shot, she mentally added, thinking about Fallen in the hospital, having taken a slug meant for her.

  “Fuck,” the Bishop cursed, running a hand through his hair. He extended an arm toward her, obviously wanting to touch her or console her, but dropped it – knowing she wouldn’t take it. “I swear to God, Poet, the Bishops have nothing to do with this.”

  “I believe you,” she murmured, meaning it. People could say and do a lot of things, but the pain in his eyes could not be duplicated. If he had ordered her jumped or even dead, regardless of their tryst the past few days, no one was that good of an actor.

  Genie was right, her instincts had always been good – the gut reaction to trust or dislike people. And, deep down, she trusted Titan. She knew, if he had a problem with her, he would’ve come straight to the source – it was who he was and she should have realized that sooner, instead of jumping straight to accusing him, the video be damned.

  “Thank fuck,” he breathed, closing in the distance between them and snaking an arm around her waist. “I’m going to kiss you, Poet.”

  As his lips touched hers, she let herself get lost, even if for only the moment. He kept the touch soft, yet meaningful, his fingers gripping her skin and holding her tightly to him. The sound of a motorcycle engine out front had them pulling away before either of them was ready.

  “We have company – don’t know who the fuck it is,” Mrs. Norma called from the door, peering outside. “Got a cut on, but no patches I can see from here.”

  Instantly the lights inside, and outside, went out, leaving them in pitch darkness. Poet froze for a moment before dread coursed through her and she sprinted for the door, trusting her gut, and yelling for Norma to move at the same time. But she was too late. Gunshots rang out and glass shattered, throwing the older lady to the ground on her back. She threw herself down beside her, covering her body with hers as the sound continued, giving no reprieve.

  Distantly she heard echoing popping from around her, Titan and Eugene returning fire, but she couldn’t move yet. Please be okay. God damn it, be okay. You have to be okay.

  “I’m okay, dear girl, except that you’re crushing me,” Mrs. Norma wheezed from beneath her. Poet hadn’t realized she’d been speaking aloud, but as she lifted off her old friend, she watched her pull the button from her blouse aside.

  “A vest,” she breathed gratefully, relieved that Mrs. Norma hadn’t died because she’d lead the asshole straight to their door. Poet was swimming in enough guilt – the guilt of losing the woman who was more like a grandmother to her than anything would have been too much.

  “Go help the boys,” Mrs. Norma shooed her away, sitting up, and she nodded, taking her place beside Titan.

  “What do we have?”

  “Fucking fire
from every direction – but I only see one bike, shit isn’t making sense.”

  “There’s two! I can see the other cocksucker’s movement,” Genie called from the other side, the curse sounding odd coming from the usually calm-tempered man. He must’ve felt her eyes on him because he turned and winked before gazing out the window again.

  “This is ridiculous,” she muttered before raising her voice. “Hey, asshole! Confront me like a damned man – you clearly have some unresolved fucking issue with me, so why don’t you show yourself and talk.”

  “Are you crazy, Poet? Get your ass down!” Titan demanded but she ignored him, standing and moving toward the door, her Beretta in hand. She was done cowering and hiding like a pathetic worm. The fact that she’d allowed herself to do that for almost the entire week, fooling herself into believing it was better to lay low, only made her resolve more solid.

  This was going to end, and it was going to end tonight. If that meant she’d be on the pavement, bleeding out, then so fucking be it. But she wasn’t going to go down without taking him or them down with her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “If it isn’t Poet Butler, President of Hells Redemption,” a masculine voice called from the darkness, still hiding amongst the shadows as she stepped through what used to be the door to the restaurant.

  “Be nice if I had a name to go with the prick behind it,” she answered back, her filter broken. A small part of her brain told her she’d probably get further if she wasn’t such a bitch, but she didn’t have the patience to hear any of it.

  The man laughed, his chuckle echoing loudly through the deserted parking lot. “Good to know you’ve found your balls, so to speak.”

  There was something familiar about the voice, but she couldn’t place it. Her mind was running a mile a minute, trying to figure out where she’d heard him, or where. Behind her, Titan was talking to Eugene, but his words were too low for her to catch. She turned toward the two of them.

  “Whatever the fuck you two are planning, you can stop. This shit ends, and I don’t need either of you thinking I need a knight in shining armor,” she said softly, sending a hard look in the direction she knew Titan was perched. It was in his nature, to protect, and she knew he wanted to charge out and start shooting, but she was a big girl. She’d somehow caused this mess, and only she could finish it.

  “I’ve found a lot of things,” she called back to the unknown attacker.

  “So I can see … including finding your way into the bed of a Bishop,” he spat back, clearly unhappy with her sexual choices.

  “Jealous?” Poet asked, before she could stop herself. Great, Poet. Let’s piss him off even more. No, you just can’t play the hot girly blonde, for once, can you? Nope. Instead you have to have balls the size of fucking Texas.

  “Can’t be jealous of something you’ve already had … more than once.”

  The blood drained out her body as her heart sunk. Despite her age, the list of men she’d slept with wasn’t all that long – she could count the lovers she’d had on one hand, with only a little help of the second.

  Footsteps sounded before the man appeared about ten feet in front of her. Poet stared at him, waiting for her eyes to adjust to give her some sort of inclination of who he was. Tall, dark hair, strong face. In the dark she couldn’t make out eye color or much else, but when he smirked, realization dawned on her.

  “Braeden? Are you fucking kidding me? What the hell is this?”

  “Oh, Poet. Naïve, yet beautiful, Poet,” he said, shaking his head.

  “I don’t understand,” she murmured, truly confused. They’d never had anything serious; she’d kept her club and private life as far from him as possible. As much as she’d known, he didn’t have a clue what she even did when she wasn’t sharing his bed. The same was said for him. She didn’t know how he spent his days, how he earned money, or anything else. Only sex had been between them, a mutual itch to be scratched when the need arose – no strings, no complications, it had been simple.

  “It was all too easy, beautiful girl. You see, when we met, I knew immediately how to deal with you,” he said, the tone of his voice making her stomach churn. “No strings, no personal details, nothing to raise suspicion, right?

  “I knew who you were the moment I saw you. How could I not? You’re infamous, the only female club member, let alone President, in the history of the world. People who don’t even live in this Podunk town would know who you are. But, the roots go even deeper with us, Poet. It hurts that you didn’t remember me, though it gave me the perfect in to get back in your life. And the sex was better than ever, even decades later.”

  Oh shit, she groaned mentally, knowing exactly who ‘Braeden’ was. And he was right, she was naïve as fuck. The hair had changed, tattoos removed, but she should have noticed. Had she been so desperate for even the smallest bit of companionship that she let herself be blind to what was right in front of her?

  “Roman,” she breathed, needing to say it aloud. From behind her, Titan shifted, his immediate anger at the man’s name filling the room, becoming palpable.

  “Ah, now she’s got it,” her former lover, the man who made her swear off bikers for life, said, smiling broadly. “I’m glad you remember me, even if you didn’t know the real me when we were making love.”

  “We were fucking, never making love. Not recently and not decades ago,” Poet said stiffly, anger and old hurts surfacing. She hadn’t heard from him since the day he’d ridden from her life, her club, and had never wanted to. “So what the hell do you want?”

  “Well, at first, I wanted you. After all, you were the best bitch to ever ride on the back of my bike. The hottest ass I ever had,” he said, taking a step toward her.

  It took every inch of self-taught self-control she had to not back up, allowing him to get closer to her, her gun held at her side. If it wasn’t for Genie having seen a partner, who she still couldn’t see, she would’ve shot the bastard already. Hell, if she’d known Braeden was Roman months ago, she would have put two slugs in him merely for breathing the same New Mexico air.

  “And now?” she asked, biting her lip to keep from telling him he’d never have her again. That he’d had her again at all was a fluke, a flaw in the master plan of the world, and if she could she’d take a shower with bleach to remove any and all remnants of him.

  “Now, I just want you dead. You ruined everything – I was on my way to great things in HR, but your dumb bitch ass got that all taken from me. I was stripped of my cut and patches, stripped of everything I wanted.”

  “Roman,” she said with a sigh, “that was years ago. Why is that even coming into play now? I mean, Jesus, we fucked several times over the last year – so what changed in the last week or so?”

  “I got an offer I couldn’t refuse. You see, Poet, you piss off an awful lot of men, not just me. And your tight pussy just can’t make up for it all,” he told her, advancing even closer. “So when I finish with you, I’ll be after the Bishop as well – who’s conveniently behind that wall there.”

  Pieces of the puzzle started coming together, falling into place like magic. Dirk, Titan’s son and VP, trying to screw her out of the drug deal without higher consent, his attitude toward women. The blue prospect patch.

  “You’re the one who jumped me,” she told him, a statement not a question. “Dirk’s going to patch you in if you kill me and Titan.”

  “Ding ding ding, we have a fucking winner. You’re a lot smarter than you look, Poet, I’ll give you that. And strong, though not as strong as I thought. Didn’t expect you to lay low after I beat the fuck out of you at the clubhouse – thought for sure you’d be riding the poker run.”

  “And you didn’t have the fucking balls to try to carry out the hit yourself, huh? So instead you hire a fucking Diablo to do it for you?”

  “Well, I was thinking terms of the bigger picture. After all, we didn’t want a war with HR once I’m a Bishop. If DH took your hot ass out, our clubs would band to
gether to take the dirty fucks out. It was win-win,” Roman told her, his voice sure.

  “Too fucking late, you twat waffle,” Poet seethed, beyond angry. “You have a serious fucking flaw in your plan – the fact that Shakespeare’s a fucking god when it comes to intel and security. We had your blue prospect patch before we had you, asshole.”

  “Either way, war or not, you’ll be dead,” he said, raising his Glock level with her face. “Goodbye, Poet. Wish I could say it was fun, but it wasn’t. Though, no pussy will ever be as sweet as yours.”

  Time seemed to slow around her as his finger slowly pulled at the trigger. She raised her own Beretta but knew she wouldn’t have time to shoot before he did. Just as the gun sounded, something heavy hit her, leaving her sprawling across the pavement, pain radiating up her arm where she landed. Another shot sounded, followed by a loud thumping, and Poet mentally surveyed herself, trying to find the hit.

  Poet couldn’t find anything, other than the scrapings on her arm as she sat up. When she looked beside her, she found where the slug had gone and what had hit her. There, on the ground, his free arm clutching at his ribs and his breathing heavy, lay Titan. Looking beyond him, she saw Roman, unmoving, his gun no longer in his hand and his face slack.

  “Norma! Genie! Help me move him!” she yelled loudly, flinching as her voice echoed several times. She stood and put her arms underneath Titan’s, trying to tug him away, but he didn’t move. She pulled again, this time with Eugene’s help, and inch by slow inch they got him back inside the restaurant and laid him down on the tile.

  “Get me some towels,” she demanded, lifting the blood-soaked shirt to see the wound. There, at the bottom of his rib cage, was a clean entrance wound, circular and gushing more of the red liquid. Mrs. Norma wasn’t moving fast enough. Poet slipped her cut off and shrugged out of her holster, pulling her T-shirt over her head and pressing it against the hole.

  “Babe,” Titan rasped and tears filled her eyes. She blinked to clear them so she could see him, but more followed, trailing down her face. “Babe. You’re still not safe. My son,” he continued coughing, the sound an inhuman-like gurgle from his chest. “He’s still out there.”