I reached over, my hand touching the bottom of her chin and lifting her face so she was looking at me again. “Hey,” I said and I watched as she forced a smile and pushed her previous dark thoughts away.
We were face to face, nose to nose, and I put my hands on her arms and leaned in. Because this was it. I couldn’t not kiss her then, no matter what the consequences would be, or who might walk in on us.
Her eyelids fluttered closed as I pressed my mouth to hers and kissed her with everything I had. She groaned and leaned into me, and I thought it was the best damn day in my whole sorry fucking life until I heard my father’s voice out in the clubhouse and the spell was broken.
She pulled out of the kiss first and we stood there looking at each other, both breathless, both taken aback by this thing that was growing between us. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips and my gaze followed it, staring at the glisten that it left behind. I leaned in, sucking her bottom lip into my mouth, and she moaned against.
My hands reached around, cupping her ass and pulling her crudely against me. And there was nothing soft or gentle about it. It was rough and urgent, almost desperate as I ground against her, squeezing her ass-cheeks and she panted against my mouth.
The sound of Hardy talking to Gauge stopped us both in our tracks and I pulled out of the kiss, feeling lost in the adrenaline of the moment. The door swung open and Silvie came in, making sure to kick the door closed behind her.
“You better go before he sees you in here, Jesse. He’s in a shitty mood today,” she said seriously. Her gaze washed over me and Laney, and I saw her mouth pulling into a smile. “Go on, get.”
I stepped back from Laney, unashamedly straightening my jeans as I walked away from her because of my raging hard-on. I didn’t even feel embarrassed as her hand covered her mouth and she tried to hold in her laugh.
“Young love,” Silvie laughed with a roll of her eyes.
I smiled wider because I knew she was right.
I was in love with Laney and I wasn’t letting her go, not for anything or anyone.
Even if it killed me, I would have her in my bed and on my bike.
Because that girl was gonna be my old lady one day.
Chapter Six:
present day
Jesse
I woke to the cold silence of an empty home, and even before I was fully awake, I knew that she was gone. But what was worse was that I knew I deserved it.
I lay on the floor, the smell of her still clinging to my skin like a taunt, and I stared up at the cracked ceiling and felt empty—dead and empty like there was no meaning for anything anymore. And there wasn’t, not without her. She was all I’d ever wanted, all I ever really needed, and now she was gone.
It was for the best, I tried to tell myself. It was for the best.
But it didn’t feel like it. Not even a little bit. It felt like acid, wrapped in hell and then shoved down my throat. My chest hurt with every breath I took, my lungs wanting to give up on life. And maybe I should have. Maybe that was it—the solution to the fucking pain and misery. But I knew I couldn’t.
Highwaymen weren’t made that way, though I wished we were. It’d be a hell of a lot easier than trying to survive.
I lay there for what must have been hours, listening to the occasional car door slam somewhere out on the street and the sound of voices fading and then disappearing completely. I lay there stewing in my own self-pity and wondering what I did to deserve such torment as the light of day faded into night. I wasn’t a good man, not even close, but I must have been real fucking bad in a previous life, because all this life had shown me was misery with the occasional splash of hope thrown it to tease me.
The sound of my cell ringing from somewhere in the living room roused me from my dark thoughts and I somehow found the energy to get up off the bedroom floor and go retrieve it. I grabbed my jeans and stepped into them as I walked down the hallway. It was the club phone so I knew I couldn’t just ignore it, no matter how much I might have wanted to, but I take my time, my thoughts still drowsy from my Laney hangover.
The sun had long since set, so everything was dark, barring the glowing of my cell on the coffee table. I picked it up and checked the screen, seeing that it was Hardy, and I took a deep breath before I took the call because it was never a good thing when Hardy called me.
“What?” I said, holding the cell to my ear and sitting down.
“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for hours! Where the fuck have you been?” he yelled down the phone at me.
“Must have been on silent, what do you need?” I replied, not having the energy to deal with him right then. I pushed my hair out of my eyes and sat down on the sofa, my body feeling almost drunk with weariness.
“What do I need? What I need, you little motherfucker, is for you to pick up the fucking phone when I call! That’s what I need! You hear me? I’m your president, and when I call you stop everything to take my call. If you’re in the middle of taking a shit, you answer your phone. If you’re fucking your woman—you take my damn call mid-thrust and tell that bitch of yours to hold off on the orgasm she’s got building until I say she can fucking have it, you got it?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and tried to control the rage I felt burning inside my chest. “You wanna tell me why you called, Hardy? Or you wanna keep riding my ass?” I growled out, the words almost sticking in my throat like razorblades. The line went silent for a moment and I could only imagine that he was working out which way he was going to kill me. “Can we just get on with it, Hardy?”
Finally, he went on speaking like I hadn’t even spoken. “Listen here, and you listen fucking good. There’s a deal going down in Atlanta tonight, and I need some eyes on the situation,” he said, and I could tell he hated asking me to do this for him. “As you know, Gauge and I are out of town dealing with the shitstorm that Skinny has caused, so I can’t do what needs to be done. And Rider took Axle down to Charleston to deal with the Blood Bastards situation.” He sighed heavily. “Shit is getting more fucked up by the second.”
Skinny was one of our nomad members. He drove trucks for us, moving shipments across the country—only the poor fucker got caught a few months back and he ended up in the DOC. If that weren’t bad enough, brother got mixed up with another club and their dealings while he served his time and ended up losing an eye in the process. Hardy and the others had gone to clear the air and try and sort some kind of truce out before Skinny found himself losing even more body parts.
My forehead scrunched up in confusion and I brushed my hair out of my eyes again, wondering what was going on. Hardy never asked me for anything—any orders I got came from Gauge or Rider—and it was obvious by his tone that asking this of me was definitely fucking painful for him.
“Intel good?” I asked, because for another club to try and cut us out of business was bad fucking news. For them, at least.
The sound of a motorbike in the background had Hardy cursing down the phone. “Yeah, the intel is solid. Look, I gotta go, I can’t get there in time myself and I’m pretty sure they knew that when they arranged the meeting. I need to know that the Highwaymen are getting their cut outta the deal and someone isn’t trying to screw us over. And if they are—”
“It’ll be the last thing they do,” I cut in, almost eager for the fight.
“Exactly. But I need this on the down low for now. Last thing the club needs is someone getting wind that another club is getting brave and trying to cut us out. Loyalties get tested, and brothers come out of this worse off. You hear me?”
“I hear you,” I replied. “Who’s the other club?”
“Not sure, but you’ll know when you get there, I’m told. I’ll be back tomorrow, and I’ll see you then. Remember, keep this shit quiet.”
“I’m on it,” I said, trying to wake my damn mind back up. Because if he was asking me to do this, then shit was serious and I needed to be ready to do what needed to be done, or risk getting killed. I stood up a
nd rolled my shoulders, the scratches on my back from the bitch in the bar last night reminding me that Laney was gone. And for good that time. It didn’t matter though; I could feel sorry for myself when this was done. Right then I needed to get my head in the game. “I’ll call you when it’s done,” I said, readying to hang up.
I heard Hardy sigh down the phone, and I was about to hang up when he said my name. “Jesse?”
“What?” I barked down the phone, my tone cold and hard.
He was silent for a moment before replying. “Thanks, son.” And then he hung up.
I pulled the cell away from my ear and stared at the screen that had gone black, even more confused than before. Hardy had just called me son, something he’d never done before. Just when I thought my life was fucked up enough, it went and got even weirder.
I swallowed, unsure what to do with that new development. On one hand I should have been glad; it was about fucking time he showed me something other than disdain.
But on the other hand, whatever relationship I ever could have had with my father was long since dead.
Or maybe I was reading too much into it. Could have just been a slip of the tongue. Maybe he forgot who he was talking to and thought I was Butch. Hardy fucking loved Butch. Brother couldn’t set a foot wrong in his eyes. It was my turn to sigh then, already wishing I could go get drunk in a hole somewhere because I was fucking over this day—this week—this month.
I pressed some buttons on my cell and called Casa. He picked up on the second ring and I heard him lighting a cigarette and the sound of Casa’s footsteps as he starts walking.
“What’s up, brother?” he said. “You get shit off Laney about last night?” he chuckled.
I shook my head, not wanting to go into details about how fucked my relationship was right then. Casa and Laney had never been each other’s fans—mainly because she thought he was a womanizing pig, and well, because Casa was in fact a womanizing pig. He couldn’t understand why a man would ever want to stay with the same woman for the rest of his life when there was so much pussy out there, but he was a good man. Reliable, loyal as hell, and he had an evil streak you could see from space. A pretty face didn’t mean he was pretty on the inside, that was for damn sure.
“Never mind that, we got business to take care of,” I snapped.
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“Someone’s pulling a meeting while Hardy is away. He wants me there to make sure the Highwaymen get their fair cut.”
“Well that’s…surprising,” he replied, and the sound of his footsteps stopped. He was either in as much shock as I was or he was sitting on his bike and ready to roll out.
“Ain’t it just, brother, ain’t it just.” I paced the room, my muscles feeling wound up tight. Something was definitely off about the whole thing, but I couldn’t figure out what.
“So who the fuck is it?” he asked.
“He doesn’t know. Intel only gave him so much, but he’s out of town dealing with the Skinny situation so he asked me to go check it out—keep it quiet too.” I grabbed one of the half-empty bottles of beer off the table and took a long drink of it. It tasted disgusting, the beer warm and flat, but I needed alcohol in my system regardless.
“I’ll reach out to Dom and Pipes, get them down there with us, okay?” Casa asked. “They’ll keep this shit quiet, and no one should be going into that meet alone.”
“I agree. Meet me at the Clubhouse—we’ll be rolling out in thirty.” I ended the call and slipped the cell into my pocket.
The house was quiet and far too empty without Laney filling the space. The sound of her feet padding over the carpet. Her humming coming from the kitchen. The sound of her calling my name as she walked into the bedroom, smiling at me because she knew exactly what I wanted.
I turned in a circle, looking at our things: the furniture that we’d picked out together, the cushion covers she’d chosen to match the rug—or was it the curtains? Fuck, I couldn’t remember. It hadn’t seemed important at the time, yet now it seemed like the most important thing in the world. I pinched the bridge of my nose again, thinking of her face and letting the scent of her fill my lungs.
She’d squealed when she saw the cushion covers—that was what I remembered—and then she’d thrown her arms around my shoulders and kissed me long and hard before telling me how perfect everything was. And then we’d fucked for what felt like days, right here on this fucking floor. And in-between the fucking, we’d talked about us.
How we would be happy forever.
Always together.
She was my old lady and we were going to start a family together.
Everything was fucking perfect, just like she’d said.
But neither of us had a fucking clue that months later our whole lives would be fucked up forever, and I would be here all alone after pushing her away.
The now empty bottle of beer was in my hand, my palm wrapped around it tightly, and I let out a guttural roar and launched it across the room. It smashed into the wall above the fireplace, and splinters of glass littered the carpet.
I didn’t know how I was going to cope without her. She was the only thing keeping me grounded, holding me in place when all I wanted to do was float away into misery. My life had been a series of horrors and misfortunes, and Laney had been the only good thing in it. Now she was gone and that left me with nothing. What would anchor me in place now? What would keep me from spiraling down the tunnel to hell and ending up like my own fucking mother?
I needed to get the fuck out of there before I tore the place up, or burned it to the fucking ground. I reached for my T-shirt on the floor, pulling it over my head, and then I put on my cut and rolled my shoulders. I stalked to the front door, catching sight of my reflection in the hallway mirror. I was a fearful fucking sight. Built like a tank, thick muscular arms covered in tattoos, with shoulder-length dirty blond hair, and a scraggly beard that was two days past needing shaving. But it was my eyes that held the true darkness. Where normally they were a clear dark blue, they were instead red-rimmed and looked almost black, as if my very fucking soul had been sucked out of me and replaced with the devil himself.
I pulled open the front door and stepped outside before slamming it closed behind me. The echoing silence taunted me. I walked to my bike and straddled it before pulling on my helmet and setting off for the clubhouse.
Regardless of what was happening in my personal life, I needed to pull my shit together for that meeting. If not, I probably wouldn’t make it out of the meeting alive, because if there was a meeting being held without the Highwaymen, that meant someone was trying to cut out the middleman. And when he saw us pull up, expecting our cut of the action, it could likely start a war.
A war that Hardy was sending me right into.
I arrived at the clubhouse ten minutes later. Casa and Pipe weren’t there yet, but Dom was. I’d mostly avoided him the last couple of months, making sure there was never any time for us to talk, but sooner or later we’d have to—that much I knew.
He nodded at me as I walked inside, and I nodded back.
“Casa fill you in?” I asked, sliding onto the stool next to him.
“Yeah, he called and it doesn’t sound good,” he replied.
The club was pretty empty, since most of the brothers were down either dealing with the Skinny situation or in Charleston trying to sort out a deal with the Bloody Bastards MC. They’d had offers coming in from other clubs to supply them with product for a fraction of what we charged, and Hardy had decided that the threat of losing their business was big enough to warrant him going down there and dealing with that shit directly. It wasn’t just the loss of money that bothered him, but the fact the new product wouldn’t be half as pure as they shit we supplied.
And a dirty product meant dead bodies.
And dead bodies always meant heat from the cops.
Being the Mother Chapter of The Devil’s Highwaymen, it always made our lives easier to keep the cops out of our busi
ness—even the ones on the payroll.
A couple of the newer prospects were lingering, clearly looking for something to do other than just hold their dicks in their hands while they waited for Hardy to get back.
I stood up, making a decision that Hardy might not like, but making it all the same. I nodded for the two young prospects to get over to me, and they did, both of them eager to help.
“What’s your orders while Hardy’s away?” I asked, feeling Dom stand up behind me.
“Watch the clubhouse, watch the warehouse, and watch the bikes,” the eldest of the two replied, sounding deeply pissed off at having to wait around while everyone else had important shit to do. “You need some help with something?” he asked eagerly.
“Cutter, right?” I asked and he nodded. I looked to the other guy, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember his name. The kid barely looked seventeen and had only been with us for a month or two, but I’d seen him around, and just like Cutter he was a hard worker and eager to please. “There’s a meeting going down tonight, caught everyone by surprise.”
“You think it was purposeful?” Cutter asked.
“Sure as shit it was. Could get messy.”
“I’m in,” Cutter replied, barely letting me finish my sentence.
We both looked at the other kid, but it was Cutter that asked him.
“Max?”
Max nodded and cracked his knuckles. “Yeah, I’m down for that.”
I wasn’t sure he was ready for it, but decided it was the best way for him to learn. Besides, it was better to go down with a crew than just me and Casa, so the more people I got on board, the better. Hopefully the other club would see us as a big enough threat and not try to kill us.
“All right, we’re rolling out as soon as Casa and Pipes get here. Get your shit together, and make sure you’re carrying. This ain’t a party we were invited to.” I held out my hand and they both took turns in shaking it before stalking away to gather their things.
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