“I know,” I replied in a soft voice.
“Well then, what the hell are we doing? We’re just sittin’ here talking shit. I pumped enough milk for the twins to last them all day and night—I wanna get my drink on! Come on, let’s go grab a few drinks. Poor Cell was a prospect for so long before he got patched in, he knows how to make a mean dirty martini. Let’s go have a couple or five—each!”
Gisela and I walked into the clubhouse and sat at the bar where Chantal and a very pregnant Lacey were also seated. The young woman looked miserable as she nursed a strawberry margarita on the rocks.
“Lacey, if you don’t stop drinking, you’re gonna end up having a baby with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome,” Gisela chastised coldly. “I know the last few months have been tough but drinking and smoking while you’re carrying another human being is not the way to handle it.”
She rolled her eyes. “What the fuck do you care, huh? This is my baby and I can do whatever the hell I want with my body. You fuckers dragged me away from Carlito—what the hell did you think would happen? I’d be happy and yell with joy about how I was ‘free at last?’ He wasn’t holding me against my will. I was with him because I wanted to be!”
Chantal wrapped an arm around her best friend. “She’s okay, Gisela. I promise I’ll make sure she gets some food into her. She’s just depressed, that’s all—”
“Depressed? I’m fucking miserable here, trapped on this shitty fucking compound while everyone else goes about their daily life like nothin’ happened! What about me? I’m stuck here, without a man, expecting a kid no one wants me to have. I’ve got no fiancé and no future! How the hell else am I supposed to feel?” she wailed dramatically.
Gisela rolled her eyes. “Boo-fuckin’-hoo, Lacey. Put your big girl panties on and grow the fuck up! You wanna be an adult and play Bonnie to your Latino Clyde? Own up to what you did and face the fact that you’ll soon have responsibilities. If you’re not gonna do that, then just leave. Call Carlito and tell him to come pick you the fuck up because no one here should have to deal with your shit!”
Lacey glared at Gisela in anger before she looked away and began to cry again.
I looked over at Cell, who’d taken a place behind the bar for our benefit. “Tell the prospect to cut this one off and can you make two dirty martinis for Gisela and me? To go.”
“No problem, ladies.” He smiled and got to work as I looked over my best friend’s shoulder. She looked through photos taken on a digital camera from the Baptism.
“They’re so beautiful, aren’t they? Look at Rori, she doesn’t look a damn thing like me. Those eyes are definitely her dad’s and that smile, she’s a female version of Cillian.”
“What about little Daire? He’s completely hairless and what color are his eyes?”
“Blue-green, the same color as my mother’s. He looks completely like her side of the family. My poor dad—he got shafted again. Neither one of the twins look like they share any genetics with him.”
I stared down at the little infants, fair-skinned and gorgeous, they were opposites in every way other than skin color. Rori had her father’s soft brown hair that would probably fall out, and go through a myriad of colors before she settled into her adolescent hair color. Daire didn’t look like either one of his parents with his angelic features and bow-shaped mouth.
“Life’s not fair.” I grabbed the digital camera and looked through the photos. “You have these absolutely beautiful children and I bet you anything, when I have my first kid with Trey, he or she will have my red hair, fair skin, and freckles. I’d like just one of my children to come out with his gorgeous hazel-green eyes. It would be nice to see a child I helped to create with an eye color other than blue, you know?”
“Mmm, when you have a child by Trey? I didn’t realize you two were trying but congrats. I’m glad to know you two are both ready for that.”
Cell whistled at us as he set down our dirty martinis. I handed the camera back to Gisela and she placed it in her Louis Vuitton handbag as we walked out of the clubhouse.
“Actually, we’re not trying for kids right now.” I sipped my dirty martini - it was pure heaven. “It only seems like yesterday I sold my condo and we moved into that huge house in Serenity Village together. Hell, that felt strange…purchasing a piece of property with a man. It’s so…final and grown up.”
My best friend laughed as she held up her martini glass in a toast. “Welcome to adulthood. You’ll like it here.”
“Ha-ha, very funny. I meant sometime in the near future, I do want children with him. We’re perfectly happy with each other at the moment. I still love exploring every inch of his gorgeous body. I’m not ready for diaper changes, chafed nipples, and two in the morning feedings just yet.”
Gisela and I walked side by side to the playground before we took a seat on a picnic bench.
“It’s not that scary, sweetie. God knows having a baby doesn’t destroy your sex life unless you allow it. At least it shouldn’t with you two. Cillian has been really patient with me and I appreciate it more than he knows. He hasn’t spent any extra time here at the club. He comes home every night and we fall asleep in each other’s arms. I can’t ask for more than that.”
“Do you trust him enough not to ever cheat again?”
Gisela glanced at me with a look I knew meant if anyone else had asked her that question, she’d cut a bitch. “I can only go with my instincts and they tell me my old man loves me more than life itself. He’d take a bullet for me. He loves his children and he would do whatever it took to keep them—to keep us—safe. That’s all I can ask from him. Everything else is just drama to feed the gossipmongers and, to be honest, I really don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks about our relationship. As long as we know how much we mean to each other, nothing else matters.”
I smirked at my best friend. “You didn’t exactly answer my question.”
“Yeah, I did.” She stared off into the distance while a serious expression settled over her gorgeous features. “I don’t know what the future holds, Kyra. I can’t say anything’s for certain because I’m not a mind reader or a fortune-teller. I honestly hope he’ll remain faithful but he’s been his own person for a long time and people make mistakes. I’m not perfect and I don’t expect him to be. What I’m saying is as long as he’s safe and I never hear about it, I honestly don’t care.”
“Really?” I asked, genuinely surprised. “You can judge me if you like but infidelity has never been a hot button issue with me. Sometimes men need to let off some steam. It doesn’t mean they don’t love the woman they have at home. Hell, shit happens. This life isn’t all butterflies, unicorns, and fucking rainbows—I’m old enough to understand that. You, of all people, should be able to comprehend that.
“Sometimes, sex is just sex. Nothing more, nothing less. No emotional ties, no commitments—just two human beings getting each other off, and, at the end of the day, it means nothing to either party involved,” Gisela explained philosophically.
I shook my head, amazed at how logical she could be about an emotional, hot button issue for me. “Sorry, but if another woman fucked Trey, I’d cut a bitch—no ifs, ands, or buts. He wouldn’t be too far behind. I can’t play that game. My emotions won’t allow me to be that…detached… about a man I deeply care about sleeping with another woman. I would definitely cut his dick off—”
“Yeah, I’m extremely partial to Cillian’s cock so I couldn’t actually go through with that,” she mused before sipping her dirty martini. “I stopped threatening him ages ago. He should let his conscience be his guide—not empty ultimatums from me. If he ever does fuck around on me, I hope the guilt would eat him alive. It’s not only a betrayal to me but the children we share, and the vows we’ve taken to each other. I refuse to play nursemaid though and follow him around everywhere he goes just to make sure he’ll remain faithful. I can’t do that—it would drive me insane.”
“What are you two talking about?” Trey questioned, s
tartling the shit out of me.
Gisela and I looked at one another before we replied in unison, “Handbags.”
Cillian wrapped his arms around his old lady and kissed her neck. “I wish I could complain how you love to take the credit cards for shoppin’ sprees. That’s kinda hard to do when it’s you who has the Centurion American Express card, not me.”
“Oh, please!” She rolled her eyes in mock-annoyance. “I was grandfathered in, so to speak. My parents added me to their account so it’s not like I got one in my own right. I had a lowly platinum card before they surprised me with it for my thirty-first birthday.”
“Hey, you.” Trey grabbed my hand and held it in his own as he wrapped his other arm around my waist. “You don’t look so hot. Is the heat gettin’ to you already?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s nothing like that. I’m just a little on edge, that’s all. How did chapel go?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Chapel is chapel. Everything is up in the air right now. We can’t seem to come to any sort of consensus as to what to do about anything at the moment. It’s hard and the wear and tear on the club—our way of life—is startin’ to show, babe. We just gotta keep ourselves sharp and aware of what’s goin’ on around us. More than that, we have to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.”
“Shit, I was afraid you’d say somethin’ like that.” I leaned into him and sighed. “It’s all just so…fucked up. Lacey is determined to drink herself to death and kill her baby in the process. Gisela and I can’t go anywhere without security from the club. I hate living like this. Why can’t it be simple like on television or in the books? Someone is abducted, there’s a shootout, all the bad guys are taken down in one go and life continues as it always has.”
“Because it’s war, babe.” Trey kissed my temple, his warm lips lingering against my soft skin. “What war only lasted a couple weeks or months? World War I raged on four years, so did the American Civil War. World War II lasted six years and one day—”
“Actually, it only lasted three years for us. We didn’t get involved until December seventh, nineteen-forty-one, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.”
“Yeah but Hitler’s military forces invaded Poland on September first, nineteen thirty-nine and that’s what prompted Great Britain and France to declare war on the Axis powers. That was the start of the war—not when the States decided to get their hands dirty.”
“Fuck,” I muttered. “Sometimes I hate being in a relationship with a man who knows as much—if not more—about world events than I do.”
Trey laughed out loud. “What? ’Cause I happen to belong to an outlaw MC, I should be a dumb racist redneck? A bit contradictory since my mother is Creole.”
“Kinda like you being the future VP of an all-white MC?”
“Irish, babe—there is a difference. Dizzy’s a lot of things but he’s an equal opportunity offender. He’d talk trash about a group of Italians or Russians as quickly as he would Mexicans. The man is pro-Irish and anti-everything else.”
I turned around to face him and met those gorgeous hazel-green eyes again. “So, Trey Lennon, what does Dizzy think about his favorite son hookin’ up with an All-American girl of Welsh origin with a smattering of Irish and Scottish in her family gene pool?”
“He’s glad you’re not English. ‘At least she’s Celtic,’ he told me.”
“And this comes from a man who dipped his wick in pretty much anything that moved back in the day?”
Trey kissed my lips. “When are you gonna learn pussy has no color? When a man is horny, he’ll take what he can get.”
“And when he’s in love?” I whispered.
“He’ll protect her, regardless the cost.” His fingers caressed my jaw line. “I love you, Kyra. Always have, now that I think about it. Even back in the day…when I shoulda known better. I loved Keri—don’t get me wrong—but I’m in love with you. Only you. You’re the one who’s on the back of my bike, holdin’ me tight. You’re the only woman I wanna ride when I get that urge and I need some sexual healin’. I’m in love with you ’cause you get me, you understand this life, and you love this fuckin’ club as much as I do. You’re my heart, what keeps blood beatin’ through my body. You’re the reason I didn’t give up on life. Without you, baby, I’m nothin’. Not. A. Goddamn. Thing.”
Tears fell from my eyes as I embraced the man I could honestly say I loved with all my heart. “Make me feel less hormonal and girly after a proclamation like that. Will you dance with me?”
Trey stood, grabbed my hand as I set my martini glass on the picnic table, and we walked over to the dance floor. A few couples, including Gisela and Cillian, Miranda and Kink, along with Dizzy and Bronaugh, slow-danced to “Wild Horses.” We joined them eagerly as I wrapped my arms around his neck; he slid his arms around my waist and pulled me in closer to him until our bodies touched.
“I love this version by Alicia Keys and Adam Levine. I’m actually kinda shocked Dizzy doesn’t have the original by the Rolling Stones,” I murmured into his ear.
“Believe me, he does, but Kink, Cillian, and I were put in charge of the music and we decided to change it up a bit. Hell, we even added some Chris Brown with his crazy ass,” Trey explained before kissing the tender spot behind my ear.
“Oh my God. Are you three tryin’ to give your Prez a heart attack? You know what these parties are like. Only classic rock is to be played. It’s a rule…or something.”
“Or somethin,’ my ass,” he muttered into my ear. “They shouldn’t put us in charge then ’cause as much as I love classic rock, I also like contemporary music too. There are some kick ass artists from our generation—everything we make doesn’t suck. Just because we tend to ‘sample’ doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there who are complete and utter visionaries.”
“I agree. I listen to a lot of contemporary music.” I laid my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes.
“I know that, babe. We live together, remember?”
“Wild Horses” faded and Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” began to play with a quiet country twang from the guitar.
I pulled back to look into Trey’s eyes and smiled appreciatively. “How did you know this was one of my favorite songs?”
“Because, it’s one of my favorite songs too…of all time.” He kissed my lips softly as the music played with a hauntingly beautiful melody about love and loss. The totality of falling in the merciless claws of love’s death grip; no matter how great love made us feel, love could never love, it only existed simply to be. Yet as we danced, I felt like we were the only two people in the world.
The moment, absolutely flawless, and timeless in its poignant lyrics couldn’t have happened at a better time.
Trey held me in his arms and I felt safe, content, and free from harm.
I glanced toward the compound gates and glanced a deep purple, old school Chevy Impala. An early 70s model, it was in mint condition. Laying my head against Trey’s shoulder, I closed my eyes.
I ignored every signal inside me flashing neon lights something was wrong. The dirty martini had started to do its job and all I desired was dance after dance with Trey’s arms wrapped around me.
Sudden and quick, popping sounds from fireworks began to go off in rapid succession. The whole passage of time felt surreal since the display wasn’t set up to go off until after dark.
In hindsight, I should have known our fragile peace wouldn’t last.
The smell drifted in the air first; then I remembered what weapons of mass destruction sounded like. The harsh scent of gunpowder, high powered automatic Uzis, AK-47s, and Steyr AUGs overheating from constant use.
The sounds I heard weren’t fireworks.
They were a hail of bullets.
Chapter Eleven
Trey
The moment of truth happened so fast; Trey’s memory failed to recall the actual timeline.
One moment, he danced with the love of his life and the next, the compound was
involved in a full-fledged, drive-by shooting.
All of his brothers on the scene herded everyone who could safely be transferred into the clubhouse while those on the dance floor and near the kid’s playground area were too far away. They would certainly risk getting shot if they tried to make a run to safety.
He quickly pulled Kyra to the ground and covered her body with his as two prospects at the gate were shot in cold blood as they tried to seek refuge but the actual compound remained free from infiltration. Not that the bastards were planning to invade; no, they drove three low-riders in a row, each with gunmen holding fully automatic weapons. The heartless pricks sprayed the asphalt, buildings, and everywhere else they could aim with a rain of bullets.
It seemed to go on forever, the sound of Trey’s heartbeat thundering louder in his ears than the gunshots. He zoned out yet at the same time, felt hyper-aware of his surroundings. Shooting and correctly aiming at moving targets or inside a moving vehicle was harder than most people realized. They would do a shit-load of damage to the compound façade but the actual chance they would kill a bunch of people was slim to none.
Once the firing stopped, noise returned with a vengeance. All around him, women and children cried, brothers cursed and those who could, slowly stood up.
He scrambled to stand and quickly helped a shaken Kyra to her feet. She looked frightened, disoriented, and downright shell-shocked. He pushed her disheveled hair out of her face, smudged with dirt from the ground, and palmed her grime-covered cheeks.
“Babe, I need you to go the clubhouse now with Gisela and the rest of the women. This is serious—”
Naked Dirty Love Page 14