MALICE (A HOUNDS OF HELL MOTORCYCLE CLUB ROMANCE)

by Nikki Wild

  “Why the fuck did you do this?” I ask, baring my teeth.

  “I trusted you with my life, Landon. Always have. We’re brothers. This club is our family and you’ve been saying words about it. If I’m gonna ride with you again, I need to know you’re part of this family. I know you don’t mean the shit you’ve been saying. Mac thinks this might help you remember…”

  I don’t give him a response. I just turn heel and spot Boon as he hops up and down on the far side of the cage. Soon as that bell rings, he’s going to come for me looking for blood. He’d had his eyes on being enforcer for a long time now. This is his chance and I know it. Pit-bull versus pit-bull.

  I don’t know how I’m going to pull this off right now, not when my world has come crashing down in pieces again. I’m remembering more and more about Mia… That bitch. She had everyone wrapped round her little finger. Long as she was here, Mac wasn’t really the one running the club. All she had to do was have a “talk” with his cock, and he’d do anything she wanted just like everybody else.

  Except me.

  I was never with Mia when I went to Baddock, and I’m starting to remember exactly why I went looking for Lucy. I have more questions than answers, but for now, I need to put it all aside and win this fucking fight. I need to get back the respect of the club, of my brothers, and then I can set about making all this right again.

  Boon, skips around the ring, eyeing me out with wild eyes and laughing maniacally. He’s a goddamned viper fighter— He moves quick and strikes hard. All I need is to get him on the floor where I can use my strength advantage. I walk across the cage to meet him, holding out my fists and checking him at the center.

  DING! The round starts.

  I get low, blocking a kick that Boon tries to land on my head. My instincts and muscle memory seem to be saving me. My reactions aren’t too bad for now.

  Back and forth we go where I land a few solid hits and so does he, pummeling my ribcage.

  My head is starting to throb. I feel faint. I spit onto the floor and approach Boon again.

  I take my stance low and grapple Boon to the ground, finding a hold where I can pummel his fucking ugly face to a pulp. A tooth comes loose beneath his mouth guard. That riles him up enough. He rolls with me a while until I get him in a triangle, but he manages to find a space to send a sharp hook into my jaw. I back off, stand up and topple a little. I’m dizzy but I can shake it off.

  My eyesight gets darker.

  Boon’s looks hurt, tired.

  So am I.

  We’re eyeing each other out a while, catching our breath, circling the cage until he lunges again. I duck through to the other side and send a kick into his chest. He flips me, pinning me with a hard thud to the cardboard on the floor. I’m winded and gasp for some breath.

  He hits me a good few times. I escape, but only just.

  Beyond Boon’s shoulder, I can see Lucy standing there in the crowd…

  Or someone who looks like her… My eyes blur as a splash of blood rolls off my brow.

  Vision or not, it distracts me enough for Boon to swipe again. I duck another incoming jab then throw an upper cut. More blood stains the floor.

  I look beyond him again toward the crowd….

  That’s no concussed mirage I’m seeing. It’s her.

  “Lucy?” I mouth and trip backward.

  She can’t be here. She’s gonna get herself killed.

  She’s got her hands cupped over her mouth. I feel some cool blood trickling from my face. I skip around the floor but Boon gets another shot in. I crease inward as one of his kicks land into my ribs. He moves in to finish me but I burst up with a vicious uppercut, sending him flailing back into the cage. I follow, punishing him for every drop of blood I’ve spilled. I think of Lucy. I think of what we were once. I think of why I was running to find her. Left hook, right cross, then I plant one into Boon’s jawline and watch his eyes roll.

  He’s done.

  Boon crashes to the floor and I look up, watching as Lucy steps through the doors at the edge of the warehouse. The whole crowd is going crazy as I force my way out of the cage. Garrett is shoving my cut back into my bloody hands, the patches sewn back onto the leather.

  I take it, but I don’t stop.

  I barge as best I can through the crowd, pushing people aside as I make my way toward the doors. I have to find her. I have to stop her… My head throbs and my muscles ache, but with every step the dots are connecting inside my skull. I’m piecing together the brief stills I’d been gathering the last few days into what really happened. My past… My time with Lucy…

  I remember.

  I remember everything.

  Six years ago…

  I showed up outside Lucy’s house at Mac’s request. I saw him with Retch, the old vice president as they were carrying out Lucy’s distraught mother. Mac was holding his leather glove over her mouth to make sure she didn’t make a lot of noise.

  That was my cue.

  I walked inside.

  I won’t lie. My body went into shock when I saw him.

  I’d seen a lot in my eighteen years on this earth but never a fucking dead body with its life freshly taken. I found him right where Retch told me they’d leave him— On the floor of the kitchen with a tea towel covering his face. I lifted the towel to stare evil in the face. I thought it’d bring me some kind of sick happiness to know this bastard was gone, but that’s not what I felt. Daryl’s face was purple, his eyes wide open, slightly protruding from his skull. Mac had made it a quick job, pressing a blade into the prick’s lung until he’d taken his last breath in this world.

  I gagged loudly, a new sickly smell creeping in, but I carried on with what I’d promised. I would bury Daryl, and Lucy would be free…

  All I had to do was remove him without waking the neighbors.

  The van was pulled up the side of the house ready to be loaded. It took me some time but I got Daryl and his weight down the back porch stairs. That’s about when everything went sideways…

  “What…What happened?” Her voice prickled in my ears.

  I looked up to see her standing there: Young Lucy, dressed in her short nightgown, sleepy eyed and in shock.

  She stood still, expressionless at first then burst into tears and followed down the steps and outside to stand over her father’s corpse. I wiped sweat from my brow and backed away.

  “You…you killed him?” she breathed.

  In that moment, Lucy was pulled into the strong orbit of the club. Mac loved doing that— Getting people trapped in the web to manipulate them to his advantage. She wasn’t supposed to be here tonight. Mac made it clear she was going to be gone…

  Now she was a witness.

  “I…I had to. I had to.”

  She stared at me a while and in that moment, I thought she hated me for good. That was the first moment I thought I’d lost her and it crushed me. But none of that mattered because I knew she would be safe now. She didn’t have to hide bruises anymore. She didn’t have to hide any of the horrible shit this man had done to her.

  After some heavy silence between us, she stepped forward and hugged me. I wanted to collapse in relief but I knew I had to keep pushing through.

  “I’ll help you,” she said and wouldn’t let me argue otherwise.

  Then it was done.

  We buried the monster, and we lost ourselves.

  Sending her away was the biggest mistake of my life.

  I wasn’t going to lose her again.

  Twenty-Six

  It’s almost pitch black outside except the light of the moon. Rows of hogs lined up outside the warehouse but I can’t see her anywhere.

  A low grumble makes me turn my head to the left.

  Some red rear lights illuminate the asphalt. I sprint as fast as my sprained hamstring will allow. “Lucy!” my voice yells as loud as it can over the hog’s rumbling engine. It’s Mac’s bike. The crazy girl stole Mac’s ride!

  Over my shoulder I can hear someone cal
ling me back to celebrate but I ignore it all. Lucy is backing out and I make it close enough to leap and grab onto one of the handlebars.

  “Don’t you dare fucking leave. I’m not letting you go this time. Not after all of this.”

  “Fuck you! Fuck the lot of you. You all deserve this hellhole,” she’s so upset, her hands tremble as she tries to clip her helmet on.

  “Lucy, don’t do this.”

  “You will always be a Dragon. You will always pick them over me and I get it, you want a family you never had. But that, what I saw in there, that’s not the Landon I remember. Landon wouldn’t fucking dog fight for some old motherfucker who tried…” She trails off.

  I hold tightly onto Lucy’s clammy hands as she climbs off the bike and stamps the gravel beneath her.

  “I’m not your priority anymore,” her voice quietens. “I get that. So let me go.”

  “You are my only priority, Luce. Everything in my life, everything I’ve done… I did it to protect you from all of this darkness.”

  “It hasn’t worked.”

  “But I remember…”

  “Y—you remember?” She doesn’t believe me.

  “I think…I think I do…”

  “No…NO!” Lucy throws her hands in the air and backs away. “I—I can’t fucking do this.” She turns on her heel but I catch her wrist.

  “I wouldn’t have brought you back here if I knew it would hurt you this much.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Look at me, Luce. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what this town was but you have nothing to be afraid of.”

  She mumbles some frustrated gibberish then grabs at air, probably wishing it could be my own throat.

  I run my fingers through my hair and bite my lip, feeling myself choking up at her current state. I want to hold her but I don’t know if she wants me to.

  “I do remember,” I find the courage to say. Because I hope whatever I can remember is the actual truth and I’m not missing anything, any details that might hurt her.

  “What? What do you remember?”

  “I remember that night. I remember us.”

  It’s a long silent vacuum we stand in together, the lull of the crowd behind us but a distant and insignificant hum. The world spinning around us like it does. Nothing matters but this, us.

  “We buried Daryl Palermo and I said we could never be together again.”

  Finally, Lucy’s hands rest on my folded arms. We stand there, unable to look each other in the eye a moment, cautiously optimistic of what this connection means. She’s not alone to shoulder that burden again. I’m here with her.

  I pull her into me. I feel tears stinging at my eyes but I don’t let them fall. She holds me tighter.

  “You didn’t kill him though,” she says quietly.

  I retreat a little bit. “How do you know that?”

  “Why did you say you did it? Why did you have me believing that for all these years?”

  “I…Shit…”

  “We could’ve been together. If you were honest and told me that old piece of shit did it, we could’ve…”

  “It’s not that simple, Luce. You were a witness. Mac would’ve used you. He would have blackmailed us both… You think I wanted you dancing in Big Sal’s just so we could be together? Fuck no. I didn’t want to pull you into the club’s business and despite every effort, I fucking did anyway. I wanted you to see me as a monster so it’d be easier to forget me.”

  She falls against the bike and bends half over, unable to breath steadily. I hold her a while, letting it all sink in.

  She’s dead silent.

  “My hand grips her neck and I kiss her forehead. “You don’t need to bear the weight of this. If I could take it all from you, I would find a way.”

  “You were looking for me when you crashed your bike, weren’t you?”

  “You were the last good memory left in my life. I’ve thought about you every single fucking day since you left,” I said. “I couldn’t just leave the club… Not with my head still on my shoulders. I wanted to see you one more time…”

  “Why did you make me leave? I would have stayed with you Landon…”

  “I’d made my choice to be an outlaw and I couldn’t put that on you. You deserve the best of everything, Lucy. Everything. Daryl wasn’t the father you deserved and I wasn’t the boyfriend…”

  “You were. And you were the boyfriend I wanted, too. You were everything to me, Landon. My whole world. Every happy memory, every laugh, every good time. What the fuck?”

  She backs away from me to take a stroll and a breather.

  “Lucy…”

  “Mac tried to rape me at the motel. Gagged me with a rag. Drew his knife.” She says it clearly, straightly, powerfully.

  “W—What?”

  “He’s probably on his way here to kill us both and then what do we have? All I want is to just fucking be with YOU!” She’s talking to the Gods more than me but I’m with her every word. “Is that too much to ask? To just be with the person I fucking love?!”

  Any pain I felt post-fight drifts into pure, unadulterated rage. My raw fists clench.

  “He threatened me, said he’d go to the cops and tell them where we buried Daryl. I…I ca…” She trails off.

  I embrace her tightly as if to squeeze her fears from her to take them for myself. “Hey, hey. You don’t cry. That fucker doesn’t even know where he’s buried. I chose the spot. He has nothing on you. Nothing. Luce.”

  “I…I’m so scared.”

  “Boys!” I yell to the crowd, knowing my next move I have to make.

  “W—What’re you going to do?” Lucy says, taking my hands probably worried I’ll do some more damage that will keep us apart.

  “I’m going to make this alright again. Where is he, darlin’?”

  “Th—the motel was where I left him.”

  “And you stole his bike?”

  We smile at each other as she nods. “Good girl,” I tell her with a kiss on her head. “He’s probably back at the club. That’s walking distance from the motel…”

  “What do you need, brother?” Garrett says from behind me.

  “We need Mac gone. Tonight. I want him out of this club. We need a vote of no confidence and I want you all with me.”

  They look at each other nervously. “The fuck is this coming from? You get hit in the head too many times?” Rev says. “We don’t discuss this shit outside church.”

  “Then let’s go to church.” I take Lucy’s hand in mine and pull her into me. “That prick thinks he can get away with anymore of this psychopathic, manipulative bullshit with me, he’s got another thing coming. He put his hands on my girl tonight and he’s going to fucking pay.”

  I see Mia’s face in the distance. Her lips draw tight as she moves in behind Rev.

  “Will you stand with me?” I say to my brothers.

  Slowly, more members move closer to hear what the commotion’s about. Lucy tucks in further behind me and clamps my hand tighter. I feel this urgency, we have to do this tonight or that’s the end of us.

  “I need a vote of no confidence! Mac just tried to rape Lucy, and I’m not fucking standing for that.”

  Mia squeaks. “You can’t get rid of Mac. We had an agreement.”

  “You had an agreement with his dick. There is no fucking agreement. Not anymore.”

  “F—Fine, fuck you. I’m outta this. Best be believing my daddy’s gonna have something to say. Kiss our fucking deal goodbye.”

  “I’m sure we’ll get through it.”

  “Don’t,” Rev catches her arm. “Don’t go.”

  “Why not? Seems like I’m not welcome with the new meat in town.”

  “Stay,” Rev orders. “You don’t need Landon and you don’t need Mac. You can ride with me.”

  I see it all over Rev’s face. He’s had his sights on this girl the whole time. I don’t have time for this right now…

  “Find Mac. It’s time for church.”
>
  Twenty-Seven

  Lucy wraps her arms tightly around my torso as we cruise up the back roads toward the clubhouse. I’ve never felt so powerful. I don’t feel an urge to run from my problems. With Lucy here, I’m whole again. I have a plan. I’ll see it through.

  My heart is racing. I can’t let go of Lucy… I can’t let go of her ever again. I can keep her safe, but not so long as Mac is part of my fucking life.

  Maybe it won’t even make it to a vote… All I know is the darkness ends here. Tonight.

  The club is with me. I’ll speak my mind and they’ll vote with me. I’m sure of it. Most of the club fears Mac more than they respect him. I ride with the Dragons, and they ride with me. The roar of our engines falls silent as we park outside the club.

  “He’s here,” I tell Lucy as we step off the bike.

  “How do you know?” she asks.

  “I could smell his shitty cigars half a mile out.”

  I nod to Rev and Garret and they wave the rest of the club inside. Crossing the threshold feels different this time. A wave of dread flows inside its silent walls. The girls have went home, the club is dark. Mac is waiting here, he knows what’s coming… He’s ready for me.

  I find him right where I expect him to be… At the head of the table.

  He’s not wearing his most recent cut. I can see he’s wearing his originals. They were retired years ago, the tattered leather showing a decade of the worst kind of abuse. A bullet hole in the side, a knife wound, blood and beer spilled on its flanks. Normally originals only come out on special occasions.

  I guess this qualified.

  “We have to talk,” I say, gripping Lucy’s hand tightly.

  Mac stands up, looking first to Lucy then back at me. “You sure you wanna do this in front of the girl?”

  He’s not as collected as usual. His voice is a little shakier.

  “I think I can handle it, Mac,” she says.

  “Then you won’t mind me beating the life out of your lover boy here, will you?”

  “We’re not here to fight. We’re here for church,” I say, stepping up to Mac.