His Bold Heart: Her Stepbrother's Desire, a Death Lords MC (The Motorcycle Clubs Book 19)

by Ella Goode

  Junior stiffens. “Not my plan. I’m just along for the ride. Not all of us have custom chop shops we can rely on to pay our bills. Some of us got to take jobs where we can find them.”

  He’s not wrong. Calling this place a dump is insulting dumps everywhere. There’s yellowing on the ceiling and walls were water damage has seeped through the drywall and curdled the paint. The floors are hardwood but so worn through that in many places the plywood floor base is showing through.

  “How many of your members rely on club money?” It varies from club to club. Some of the established clubs whose sole purpose is running illegals from drugs to guns pay for every member in the club—their rides, their housing, extra spending cash. If you leave, everything is left with the club.

  Most everyone who belongs to the Death Lords has an outside job. The Death Lords money is enough to provide for the basics—basic food, basic housing but most everyone has a regular job. Dad implemented that rule way back when saying that it helped make the club look less like a gang and more like a recreational, weekend hobby even if it wasn’t.

  Men who went to bed with their bellies full and their bank accounts healthy were less likely to narc out the club for the less than above board activities.

  And that meant less bloodshed overall.

  Junior’s club—the one he inherited from his dad—is already a fraction of its previous size. The current membership is around eight.

  “Right now? Several. Economy is in the shitter. Riot just lost his job at 3M and Coffin moves snow in the winter but we haven’t had much snow.”

  “That sucks. You guys have families to support?”

  “Just Moose.”

  Abel and I exchange a look. Moose is the guy we caught meeting with Trainor, a local Fortune man whose wife was murdered. The Fortune police, led by Chief Schmidt, were trying to pin that murder on me.

  “He got a wife?”

  “Two sisters.” Junior’s mouth tightens. Again I can’t read his emotions. Something about those sisters bothers him.

  “Who has sisters? I want to meet them.” Chelsea pipes up. She must have finished with her shower and came downstairs while Junior and I were talking. Her hair is up in a high ponytail and her skin glows like she’s a fucking angel. She’s the cleanest, prettiest, nicest thing in this entire house and everyone notices. Junior actually licks his fucking lips like he’s going to get of taste of her. Never. Not even over my dead body.

  “Nothing, baby.” I rise and walk over to her. I grab that hank of hair in my hand and tilt her head back. Her cherry lips are glossy from some kind of product but I don’t give a damn. I plant a hard kiss on her lips, reminding everyone who she belongs to. Her nails dig into my biceps for a moment and then all too soon she pulls away.

  Her thumb brushes across my lips to clean off the lipstick I just ate off.

  “You need to get a coffee flavored lipstick.” I sneak a lick of her thumb and she shudders. Leaning over, I pull her down coat off the hook by the stairs and help her in it.

  Abel is standing by the door, ready to go.

  “What about the transport?” Junior calls out as we’re halfway through the doorway. “They’re going to want an answer.”

  “Later Junior,” I say. “We’ll talk about it after breakfast.”

  Chelsea raises her eyebrows but doesn’t say a word as we walk down the street. “Problems?”

  I rub the back of my neck. “Don’t know.”

  “That place doesn’t feel right,” she says. It’s not the first time she’s made a comment like that. When we first arrived, I figured it was because the place was falling down and there wasn’t a clean spot in the entire two story shambling building but I’m starting to think it might be something more.

  “What don’t feel right?”

  “It’s just…so filthy. I mean, even for a bunch of single guys. But Junior’s room? Impeccable? He’s a neat freak. Did you see he wiped his hands with a napkin after he was done eating the apple? A guy who lives in a house like that would wipe his hands on his shirt or jeans.”

  “She’s right,” Abel says. “There’s something off about how the older members of the club are gone. Have you or Judge checked up on them?”

  “No, I haven’t. Don’t know that Judge has. Are you saying that they might have been pushed out?” I let that thought roll around in my head. It seems like a big omission. We’d taken Junior at his word because he’s the son of one of Dad’s old friends.

  He gives a small shrug, a tiny roll of his shoulders. “I’m thinking that Junior may have cleaned house.”

  “You get that from Big?” When Abel went to take care of the Misery MC who crossed me, he went with a Misery biker named Big.

  Abel gives me a half smile. “No. Big’s a good member. Close mouthed, efficient.”

  “Where does he work?” I ask.

  Abel nods. “A rubber and plastics refinery on the north side. They melt down and recycle old and used rubber that’s then extruded through big-ass machines to make other shit. They’ve got ovens there that can incinerate shit in about thirty seconds.”

  “Useful guy,” I muse. That must be where the Misery MC gets rid of all its trash. Hard to come after a person for wrongdoing when all you can find is ash. “He must keep his nose pretty clean because I’d think he’d have to pass a background check.”

  “He’s good at his job.” Abel replies. What he means is that Big doesn’t get caught.

  At the cafe, we place our orders and find a booth in the back corner. We can’t talk club business here so I turn to the other important task of the moment—finding a place to live other than the Misery clubhouse.

  “You find anything?” I ask Chelsea, who is in charge of that.

  “I haven’t found a decent rental. Everything’s either too expensive or too small.”

  “I can find a place of my own.” Abel shift in the seat across from us as if he’s some kind of fucking burden.

  “Yeah, not happening man. We’re sticking together.”

  “Just thought maybe you two would like a little privacy.”

  Chelsea turns bright red. “Um, no, we like having you around.”

  “Yeah. I’ll make Chelsea scream into the pillows next time.”

  “I hate you,” she says and Abel laughs.

  “Okay. Sound good.”

  “What you need is to make your own noise,” I add.

  Chelsea, desperate to change the subject, narrows in on Abel. “Why don’t you have a girlfriend? There’s always a half dozen girls at the Cut-n-Curl who talk about how hot you are but that you don’t give them the time of day. If I wasn’t completely gone over Grant, I’d be all over you. The club girls are always fighting over you but you don't take many of them up on their offers.”

  It’s Abel’s turn to redden. “I’m not it really into relationships. It never really worked out for me. Screwing around here and there is fine, but long term? I don’t see it.”

  Chelsea opens her mouth to further her interrogation when the food arrives. Abel thanks the waitress a little too enthusiastically and she lingers.

  “Anything else you need?” her smile is overly friendly but either Abel doesn’t notice or he doesn’t care. He sticks a fork into his stack of pancakes and just shakes his head.

  Chelsea gives the waitress a look of sympathy before saying, “We’re fine.”

  The arrival of the food doesn’t stop Chelsea from pressing Abel. “Are you looking for something in particular? A girl who likes dogs or maybe one who plays video games.”

  Abel swallows his pancakes and wipes his mouth—the sort of thing Junior does before answering me. Maybe Junior’s just worried about saying the wrong thing because I can see Abel trying to pick the right words to satisfy Chelsea. What he should know by now is that Chels will hammer this topic until she gets an answer that makes sense to her. Then the side of his mouth quirks up in defeat.

  “I had a girlfriend in high school. We were going to get married. During m
y second deployment, I came home and found out that she’d got tired of waiting for me and decided my brother would be a better bet.”

  “Holy shit!” Chelsea exclaims. “Did you walk in on them or something?”

  “Not exactly. They didn’t say anything but I could tell by the way they acted around each other that they were fucking. He’d touch her waist or she’d put her hand on his knee when they thought I wasn’t looking.”

  “Did you confront them?” I try to imagine what I’d do if I came home after my three years in prison and saw Chelsea with another Death Lord brother. It wouldn’t have been pretty.

  Abel shakes his head. “Nah, I figured they’d deny it since they were trying to hide what was going on. I told my brother that my leave was for a week when it was ten days. I packed my shit after the week was up and pretended to leave. Later that night I let myself back into the house, turned off the lights and waited for them.

  “They went out to dinner, came back, and when they were undressing in his bedroom, I chambered my gun. My brother screamed like the little dickless boy that he was and flicked the lights on.”

  “What happened then?” Chelsea and my food is getting cold but we are both mesmerized by Abel’s story. Abel, though? He’s making his way through the stack of pancakes like they’re nothing more than a pile of whipped cream. The fucked up tale of his girl and his brother wasn’t bad enough that it affected his appetite.

  “I told him that he needed to sell the house and send me my half of the funds and that if I ever heard from either of them again, the bullet wouldn’t stay in my chamber. I got on my bike and went back to base. A month later I get a check for forty grand which was my share of the house and I haven’t been back. I heard that he proposed and then found her screwing around with someone else. I don’t keep in touch.”

  He shovels the rest of the cakes into his mouth and then drains his glass of milk.

  “That’s really shitty of both of them but it sounds like you dodged a bullet.”

  Abel shrugs lightly. “Best thing that could have ever happened to me. I didn’t marry a cheating cunt, found out that blood doesn’t mean shit when it comes to families, and got a nice little nest egg that I keep tucked away in case I need it.”

  “She was a real bitch.” Chelsea’s mouth is screwed up and I can tell by the way she’s gripping the fork that if Abel’s ex was standing in front of us, Chelsea’s fork would be in the bitch’s forehead.

  “Plus you got new brothers now and not one of them is going to stick their dick into pussy you’ve claimed.”

  “Not interested,” Abel replies.

  Beside me Chelsea gives a tiny sniff of disbelief. She thinks he wants an old lady but doesn’t trust one enough to let himself care but I can see Abel’s done with this topic.

  “”Let’s talk about the Misery crew and what the fuck we’re going to do with them,” I say.

  “I vote for firebombing them,” Chelsea offers, “Or maybe not firebombing them but the house at least.”

  “I like Big. He’s a good guy and I don’t think he’d back someone who wasn’t worth following.” Abel waves his hand for the check. “Junior’s hiding something but I don’t think he’s the type of person to stab you when you’re not looking.”

  “But he will knife you when he’s looking you in the face. That’s not very comforting,” Chelsea says.

  “We’re all a little feral, baby.” I plant a hard kiss against her temple. “Even you.”

  The night I was hauled in for questioning over the murder of a local Fortune woman, Jessica Trainor, Chelsea looked ready to bring every one of those dirty cops down.

  She rolls her eyes but doesn’t argue because I’m right.

  “Back to the hellhole?” Abel says after paying the bill. This little trip is funded by the Death Lords so we don’t worry about splitting meals.

  “I’d like to register for classes this morning. The next set of courses starts in two weeks.”

  “How about I drop you off and then when you’re done I’ll pick you back up.” I don’t want Abel being stuck with the Misery crew without backup. “Then we can go look for someplace to live.”

  “Sounds good.”

  The beauty school that Chelsea is going to attend while we’re in Minneapolis is in a nice brick building in St. Louis Park. I tell her to wait while I go around and open the door for her. After I help her out, she gives me a weak tongueless kiss goodbye. Using my body, I shove hers against the side of the truck and pull her head back by the ponytail to show her exactly how we’re going to be saying goodbye when she goes to classes.

  When she’s flushed, panting and pressing her sweet hips up against me, I release her. “You can go now.”

  She scrunches up her nose and scowls. “Thanks a lot. Now my panties are wet and all my lipstick is on your face.”

  I thumb her plump, rosy lower lip. “Like I said. You need to invent coffee flavored lipstick.”

  Her hand comes down and cups me between my legs. Expertly she rolls my balls and rubs a firm palm against my growing stiffy. It’s almost too cold out here to get a hard on but my dick knows whose hand that is and he eagerly stands at attention.

  I growl but she dances out of my embrace.

  “You can go now,” she laughs and waves as she runs up the steps to the entrance. I mock chase after her and she squeals loudly before disappearing inside.

  I watch as the blonde ponytail sways as she disappears from sight. I’d like nothing better than to follow her inside, find a small deserted closet and fuck her until it’s hard for her to stand but duty calls.

  Abel doesn’t say much as we drive back toward the Misery MC’s clubhouse. About ten minutes out, he breaks the silence. “You really love her.”

  “Yeah.” His statement’s full of wonder—as if it’s impossible for him to imagine loving anyone like I love Chels. “Can’t live without her. Worst part of being in prison was not seeing her. I made her stay away. Wouldn’t let her visit me because it was too fucking painful.”

  “The other night…with Big. Why’d you pick him?”

  The other night he’s referring to is the night we arrived at the Misery MC. Someone from the Misery MC insulted Chelsea and Big, the efficient killer who burns the evidence for Misery, offered up apologies in the form of eating Chelsea while I fingered her. She came like a bottle rocket. It was hot as hell, but probably not something we’d repeat.

  “Because Chelsea mentioned something off hand about wondering what it’d be like being Annie—two guys getting off on bringing her to a happy place.”

  “Why not a Death Lord?”

  Why not a—? Oh shit. I kick myself for not recognizing earlier what Abel was hinting at when we were talking about our housing situation. Abel wondered why I’d picked a stranger and not someone I trusted.

  “Shit man. The offense was from the Misery boys, not you. We got no problem with you.”

  Able doesn’t look convinced.

  “It’s Chelsea.” I’m not running her down here, just laying out her feelings. I think she’d do the same if she were here. She likes Abel. “She told me that it’d have to be a stranger. Someone she wouldn’t see on a regular basis because it’d be too embarrassing. She gets off on watching but she’s not into the showing off.”

  Abel processes this explanation through his bullshit meter. “Okay. I’ll buy that. For the record, I’m not into the sharing either but I admit that I didn’t want to be somewhere if I was making people feel uncomfortable.”

  “You’ve never given Chelsea an extra look so I guess I didn’t think you’d even be interested.”

  He gives me a hard stare. “You’re kidding right?”

  “No.”

  “Wrecker, man, you start growling the minute another guy shows Chelsea even the slightest bit of interest. Plus, there’s Judge. There are easier and less painful ways to kill myself than step on the toes of the Death Lords’ president and his son.”

  I am possessive of Chelsea b
ut I also like making her happy. If she told me that having sex on the baseball field in front of sixty thousand fans would burn her up like tinder on a hot day, I’d do it because I get off on her getting off. “Okay, maybe once but I swear on my mother’s grave that the Big thing was spur of the moment and never to be repeated. Chelsea still blushes whenever she walks past him.”

  “True. Big finds that funny, you know.”

  “I know and so does Chelsea which makes her even more embarrassed.”

  My phone buzzes. I toss it to Abel since I’m driving.

  “Your attorney wants you to call her when you have time.”

  “Great.” I’m still a person of interest in the Jessica Trainor shooting plus I have a year left of parole. She’s probably calling about that. “Ignore that and give Judge a call. Let’s find out if he knows what happened to any of the older members.”

  Abel dials up Judge.

  “No one over the age of forty is left in the club?”

  “That’s right. The only guy even remotely older is Moose—the one dealing the meth. He’s thirty-five. Has two sisters. About six feet and wiry. Brown hair.”

  “Moose. Moose. Yes I think I remember him. He seemed decent. Rough around the edges. Didn’t like authority but loved his sisters something fierce. Would do anything for them. Those girls must be in their twenties. What else is going on? “

  I explained the insult to Chelsea and how it led to one of the guy’s turning in his cut rather than apologizing.

  “Abel took care of that for us.”

  “Junior okayed that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Doesn’t sound good. Funny thing is that after we moved that shit for Junior, there was a break in at one of the hideaways.”

  “I didn’t remember that.”

  “Storage unit was empty so never thought anything of it. Shit happens, you know? Thought it was a vagrant trying to find someplace warm in the winter.”

  “Junior might have followed us and sent someone to break in?”

  “I’m guessing that might be the case. Shit, now I’m gonna have to send Easy and Michigan down to rip apart what Junior had us store.”