Without Consequence

by Victoria L. James

  “And what exactly has just happened?” My head rolled to the side lazily, the movement so small and so half-assed that I wasn’t even sure if he saw the shift in my position or not as I turned to study the look on his face. Harry generally didn’t speak to me that way – not before my stint, anyway. Maybe that was what I would have to get used to from now on – people not having the same respect that they once had for me. Maybe that would be something I would have to correct the second my eyes opened up to a brand new day that wasn’t tinged with the fuzz of alcohol in my bloodstream.

  “What do you mean?” I pushed out through gritted teeth.

  Harry’s eyes twitched to look down at me before he quickly faced back out to the open road and curled his fingers tighter around the wheel until his fat, stubby knuckles turned white. “Don’t make me say it.”

  “Bro, I’m too tired for riddles. I’ve spent too long trying to understand my own unspoken thoughts. Don’t make me try figure out yours, too.”

  “Fine,” he grumbled, his head glancing out of the driver side window before looking forward again. “What would you have done to a guy you found in your room five years ago?”

  I didn't even have to think about that one as I blinked and answered without thought. “A man? Ended him. A boy? Exactly what I just did back there.”

  “Really?”

  “You don't think I would have let him go?”

  Harry's mouth turned down at the corners before it straightened back out into a thin line and he shrugged a shoulder. “Not without some kind of shit going down first.”

  I knew what that shit he was talking about was, too. We both did. And I guess a part of what he was saying was right, but I was only a kid back then myself, and quite honestly, that version of Drew Tucker died the first time he took a gang beating in jail.

  “Maybe I'm not that man anymore,” I sighed back over at him before staring back up at the roof again. “And that's what worries you, isn't it?”

  “You're damn fucking right it does.”

  “Don't let it.”

  “Just like that, Tucker?”

  “Just like that,” I repeated in a whisper as I closed my eyes and tuned him out. If he expected me to give him a world full of answers tonight, then he was even more damn stupid than I thought he was. Considering the amount of whiskey that was in my blood, it was a miracle I could move my lips at all, never mind psychoanalyze myself.

  He didn't say anything the whole way back after that. I didn’t speak either. Tomorrow was going to be a brand new day for me and my resurrection into MC life. When the time was right, and when they all least expected it, I would show them who I was in that moment and I would show them what I stood for. Each and every man would be able to look into my eyes and see nothing but fire and certainty there, while I looked down on them with nothing but pity for the ones who ever doubted or questioned me at all.

  When the wheels hit the gravel of the parking bays outside the hut, my body rocked to life again as my shoulders bounced all over the place, forcing my eyes to flicker open. The porch light was still on, but more importantly, a few of the men were waiting for us outside the front door. No doubt each one of them had their own questions to ask.

  Jedd could have dealt with that shit, Tucker.

  Why didn't you let him nail his ass to the wall and teach him a lesson?

  Did you deal with him in private?

  Did you show him what this club stands for?

  There were those who hated the violence and there were those who craved it. It was part of the reason I’d introduced the underground boxing club as a huge part of our business, all those years ago. It kept the ones who craved blood sated, for the most part.

  Only I paid the price for that one in the end, too.

  We all did in our own way.

  I couldn’t put it off any longer. Turning away from Harry, I pushed myself out of the door, jumped down onto the earth beneath us and started to walk over towards the hut.

  “Everything okay, Drew?” asked Jedd as he looked down the stairs at me before I began to climb them and met him on a level.

  “Peachy.”

  “What did you do?” He folded his arms across his chest again and widened his stance as he watched me. A few of the fellas behind were approaching us to listen in on it, and the memory of their faces as I launched myself at that kid, just an hour or so ago, flashed through my mind, forcing me to tense my jaw and swallow quietly.

  “CLOSE ALL THE FUCKING DOORS, NOW!”

  And then everything went silent.

  Everything except the sound of a young voice crying out as his body was slammed up against the wall by none other than Jedd Thomas himself.

  We had him.

  Bingo.

  “Well, well, well. Look what we have here…” Jedd snarled in the kid’s face, curling his fists tighter into the t-shirt on his chest before he pulled him away from the wall, just to slam him back harder against it.

  My feet moved across the floor like I was on fucking skates, sliding this way and that way as I felt the fire erupt in my stomach and pushed past every single man that was in my way. I hadn’t gotten a good look at the guy yet, but when I did, I wanted him to stare straight into my eyes and see who the fuck he’d just messed with.

  “Fancied yourself a little party at the club’s expense, did you?” Jedd growled as I finally made my way over. He’d gotten such a good hook and hold on the kid’s t-shirt, he was able to press his fists into the central point of his chest and push him so far up the wall, his feet were barely touching the floor.

  “Who the FUCK are you?” I snapped, falling in line behind my brother and setting my face to crazy bastard mode. My jaw was working double time and my nostrils were flared as I tried to take in enough breaths to stop me from seeing so much red, so soon out of prison.

  “I… I… Please. Don’t. I didn’t mean to… I wasn’t going to…”

  “How did you get in?” Jedd asked. I could see the twitching fury in the shaking of his forearms as he held him in place.

  “T-the…”

  “Answer faster,” Jedd warned him quietly.

  “The window, sir.”

  “You break into my hut and now you wanna call me sir?”

  Even though my eyes were narrowed and my fists were balled down by my side, the sound of the kid’s stuttering voice forced my shoulders to drop just a fraction of a fucking inch, as though I was almost going soft for him. He couldn’t be any more than fifteen - sixteen at best. His shaggy hair hung over his face and he hadn’t a mark on his perfect white skin. The clothes he wore looked a little on the small side for him. His muscles were pressed too tightly against his t-shirt, but other than that, he didn’t look any different to any other teenage boy out there.

  “I’m sorry. I-I wasn’t thinking. I don’t know what to call you. I would never… my sister, she…”

  My hand reached up to rest on Jedd’s shoulder as I looked behind me nervously and spoke through the small gap in my mouth. “Put him on his feet,” I said quietly.

  Jedd didn’t answer at first as his fists shook and kept him in place. But when he slowly turned his face to look at mine, I saw the flash of disbelief in his eyes. “What?”

  “You heard me. Put him on his feet.”

  I waited for him to argue. I guess I should have known better. He wouldn’t do that in front of the whole pack. It would only show disrespect and get their tongues wagging so soon after I’d been let free. Dropping him down on the ground, he kept a hold of his shirt and just stared at me. “You wanna handle this?”

  “I guess I do.” I groaned and sighed, moving into Jedd’s place in front of the kid. My hands found the belt of my jeans as I slid my thumbs around both sides of my waist and began to re-dress myself and fasten up my trousers. “Here’s how it’s gonna work, kid.” My chin rose higher as I widened my stance, looking down on him and sniffing up. “You’re going to give me a very specific and very quick reason as to why you were in my room
, and then you’re going to give me one very specific and very good reason why I shouldn’t take you out into that yard and beat the living shit out of you. Ready…”

  The other guys in the room drew closer and the air around us grew thicker and tighter with every silent second that passed us by.

  The kid’s eyes eventually lifted back up to mine, and any fool could have seen the innocence that they held as a layer of tears coated them. He rubbed his lips in worry before eventually clearing his throat to speak.

  “I’m a fifteen-year-old boy that is being brought up by his sister, sir. She struggles. She needed money. I got drunk and walked the streets to try and find a way to get some to her quick. When I saw all the bikes gone, I…” he paused and, bold as shit, pushed himself off the wall to take a step closer to me. “I made a mistake, Mr. Tucker. I know you don’t do second chances as a rule, but I won’t let this happen again… if you just let me go…”

  And that’s when it hit me. Here I was, a man who was staring at the world for the first time in so many years, looking for it to give him a second chance himself, and this wannabe was telling me I couldn’t even hand that shit out myself.

  I stared at him for some time before my mouth opened and yelled out without any thought of the consequences what-so-fucking-ever.

  “Harry, grab the keys to the van. We’re going for a drive.”

  Jedd was staring at me now, waiting for an explanation as I held his gaze and sniffed up to buy myself time. Eventually folding my arms, just like his, I let one hand rise up to the end of my chin and rubbed my scruff as though in thought. “I took him home.”

  “No consequences?” someone shouted from behind me. I couldn’t be bothered to look around and take them in.

  “Not tonight.”

  “You’ve got that look on your face, Drew.” Jedd’s chin lowered even further and his eyes narrowed. “What do you mean not tonight?”

  “I mean that things are going to be run a little differently around here from now on and it’s about time all the questions stopped.” I paused, holding his glare as if to challenge him before I spoke again. “In the morning, I’m going to need all the information you can find on a Tate Michael Hanagan. I want to know about his family, his parents and most importantly, his sister.”

  “His sister?” Jedd asked quietly. “She have a name?”

  “Yeah, she did.” I closed my eyes briefly before opening them and letting my mouth curl up to one side. “Ayda Hanagan.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Ayda

  “You have to talk to me sometime, Ayda.”

  No, I didn’t. I made that clear by slamming the cereal in front of Tate with a pointed look. I was late for work, but by some grace¸ I’d managed to pick up a double to cover the hours I’d lost at the Roller Freeze.

  I’m not sure you could call what I’d done sleeping. I’d been in my bed, it had been dark, and I’d forced my eyes to close, but the majority of that time had been spent thinking about how we were going to get ourselves out from under the magnifying glass my idiot brother had put us under.

  Drew fucking Tucker.

  I might as well have signed a death warrant talking to him the way I had. The longer I thought about it, the more I felt numb and the more I blamed myself. I don’t know what I was thinking, telling Tate what happened with my job. I should have known he’d want to help in some way. It was just unfortunate that the some way came in the form of breaking and entering along with attempted theft.

  “Just tell me something, Tate. Why? How on God’s green earth could you have thought that stealing from those thugs would have helped a goddamn thing? You could have got yourself killed. You could have got both of us killed.” I folded my arms, leaning back against the counter as I watched him push the quickly softening flakes around his bowl.

  “I was desperate.”

  “Enough to get yourself killed?”

  “Ayda…”

  “No. Answer the question.”

  “But–”

  “I honestly thought that you were a smart guy, T. I thought, damn I’m lucky. He’s smart, he’s sweet and kind. At least I was blessed with that. Then you go and pull this shit. Do you realize how disappointed I am in you right now?”

  For the first time in my life, I heard my brother growl in contention. Dropping his spoon, he slapped his palms on the surface of the breakfast table and looked over at me. Pain radiated from his eyes. I knew I wasn’t going to like what I heard next.

  “I don’t give a fuck, Ayda. You’re what matters to me and you’re fucking miserable. You work between sixteen and twenty hours a day, every day, for peanuts and we’re barely scraping by. You don’t have friends anymore, you don’t ever do anything for yourself, you can’t even come to the games on Friday nights and when was the last time you got laid?”

  I recoiled as though I’d been slapped, and in reality, I had been. He hadn’t raised a hand, but his words had done more than a right hook ever could have. I didn’t have an answer for what he’d just said to me, and I knew that if I tried to find one, I’d just end up regretting what I said. So I did the only thing I could. I raised my hands in exasperation and left the room, not giving him a chance to add to the insult.

  Grabbing my things, I left the house and slammed the front door closed behind me. Looking out over the sprawling lawn to the house across the street, I planted my hands on my hips and let my head fall back on my shoulders. The fluffy white clouds were sprinkled with the myriad of colors the rising sun offered. Just a few short years ago, I would have seen a sight like this and been in awe of this world that was so much bigger than me, but now… Now, all I saw was another shitty day of my shittier life starting and I hated it. Tate was right. I wasn’t living, but if he thought for even a second that I was going to let him suffer for things out of our control, he had another thing coming.

  I had a rare night off from the food mart and no shifts to pick up anywhere else, so I was going to spend it with my brother after the game, sans Sloane Sutton, and actually talk to him – hopefully, God willing, without losing my temper too much or smacking the little shit around the ear. He did a stupid thing, but his intentions were honorable. He just didn’t have many options open to him and, though it wasn’t an excuse, he was drunk. I just needed to cool off and get a level head to deal with the situation. Unfortunately, a double at Rusty’s didn’t look promising for lightening my mood.

  “You’re late again, Hanagan.”

  “And you’re an idiot, Rusty,” Janette said, rolling her eyes as she swept her arm around my waist and towed me into the back office, leaving Rusty waving his spatula at us. The moment the door was closed, she pressed herself against it, her hands on her hips, her wise eyes boring into me. “Talk.”

  “About?” I asked, pushing my hands into my apron pockets.

  “Oh, sweetie, don’t you even try that with me. I may not have kids, but I’ve seen enough of you girls go through here over the years. We’re family, and though the old coot out there can be a pain in the ass, he loves every one of you. Now, you want to try that again?”

  My shoulders dropped, and all of the control I had disappeared as the tears welled in my eyes. Janette stepped forward, gripping my shoulders and pushing me back so I was leaned against the desk. Her arms folded around me, and for the first time since my mom died, I let myself go, rested my cheek on her shoulder and just allowed the weight of the emotion to slam against me.

  I was a fool to think I could do any of it alone. I was making a mess of it all. Tate had been a good kid and my blundering attempt at parenthood was turning him sour. For the last three years, all we’d succeeded in doing was struggling: struggling for money, for time, for affection and to live. Part of that had been my pride; the rest was the suddenness of our parents’ deaths and how quickly I’d become a guardian. There was no preparing for that. I hadn’t even known they named me guardian or the executor of their will.

  “Tate got upset about me losing my job and did
something really fucking stupid, Jan.”

  “On a scale of one to ten, how stupid we talking?”

  “Fifty.”

  “Hell’s bells. He turn over the convenience store?”

  “Worse,” I said, looking up and blinking away the tears as she dabbed the ones on my cheeks with a tissue. “He tried to turn over the MC.”

  “Jesus. That kid got a death wish?”

  “Drew Tucker brought him to the house, all arrogant and belligerent. I didn’t know who he was, Jan. I tore strips off him.”

  Janette stood there, staring at me in complete horror. I knew how she felt. Every time I thought back to the confrontation with him, I shriveled in my boots and willed the ground to open up and swallow me whole. I wasn’t entirely sure I could have handled it any other way. The man had an air about him that made it impossible to back down. Every word, every action felt as though he was goading me into a confrontation. It was infuriating. If nothing else, I had to make it a point to stay away from him. I had a feeling I would only get myself into more trouble if I didn’t.

  “I know,” I finally said when her silence became deafening. “I think we were graced with him in a forgiving mood or something.”

  “Baby doll, they don’t let things like this go.”

  “Then I have to find a way to do penance, to make good for the mistake. There’s got to be something I can do.”

  The hammering at the door made us both jump, our sighs of relief coming only when Rusty growled that we had customers.

  I’d known what a dire mistake Tate had made the night before. I hadn’t needed any more confirmation than that, but the look Janette had given me told me that even I’d underestimated the trouble we were in. This was bigger than me being pissed off at my kid brother.

  I couldn’t believe my life had come to this. I was twenty-five and considering making a will. It was all a little surreal, made all the more dramatic by my lack of sleep.