by V. Theia
“Thanks, Ellie. The clinic doesn’t need you today?” She worked in a veterinarian’s office and she was dedicated to the animals. She often helped Lawless to rehome his cats.
“Nah, weekend off for once.” She looked sad, but he didn’t delve because he didn’t want to know about chick drama.
He let Hawk bash his fucking brains in because he’d woken from a vivid dream about a woman that wouldn’t leave him alone.
The woman he’d last had eight long months ago and she was still digging her talons into his psyche.
Owning him from a distance.
He’d climbed into the ring with the VP—a damn puppet, in hopes Hawk would knock the visions of her smiling and begging, with his name dripping off her acid tongue, from his head.
It didn’t work and now he was sore all over.
Eight months. And before that it was a year. Before that it was six months.
Constantly drawn to a woman he couldn’t have.
Not for any other reason other than he’d get killed if he ever attempted to make her belong to him.
She hated him because he didn’t try.
Butcher hated himself for the same reason.
But she had no idea.
Any fucking way.
The food was inhaled fast, as was the coffee. He poured himself a second one and took it with him in a to-go cup. There was no reason for him to be around, other than he liked being at the club more than anywhere else.
Back in the day, his dad was a biker. They still rode together when he headed home to Oklahoma. He enjoyed being around the smell and sounds of bikes and the rumbling feel of one under him. It’s why the life of an outlaw suited him. If he gets to fuck off the government by living the outlaw lifestyle, then all the better.
They never did him or his family any favors.
The healthcare system let his mom die on a fucking trolley in a hallway while they waited to transfer her cancer riddled body to a hospice. They didn’t call Butcher or his dad, so she died alone. And then a year later, his dad got caught up in a convenience store robbery. And because he stopped the maniac from shooting up the place by snapping the guy’s leg in two and beating him unconscious—saving a pregnant woman, the two young kids serving and himself, he got tossed in jail. Fuckers.
The law had always been wrong, more so these days. Butcher didn’t give a fuck if him and his club bent the rules. They made a lot of money doing things their way and now his dad didn’t need to worry about the stupid pension his former job paid out to him each month because Butcher made sure his old man was set.
It’s not money he’s thinking about as he lounges his long body on one of the banged up couches in the main area. SportsCenter as usual was playing on the mounted TV. Someone would have a shit fit if the channel changed. Luxe tried one time and almost caused a divorce between her and Grinder.
He’s not even thinking about the coffee as he drains his cup and sets it aside on the table. One of the obedient prospects will swing by soon and hook it up like the mess was never there. Good boys. They’ll need more soon when they patch in, because Butcher is not being a dogsbody around this place.
He’d volunteer Preacher first.
His head isn’t even in the idea of getting laid tonight at the party.
He never got how a party sprung up out of nowhere. But they did every weekend. Like magic, booze and food, music and a sea of bodies appear inside the clubhouse. Mostly it was so the prospects could get laid. Nearly all of the patched brothers had old lady’s now. Brothers from out of town sometimes turn up if it’s a special occasion. There was a riot of a celebration months back, toasting the death of the Russian and Rider’s recovery from being shot.
Eight months to be exact, if he was counting.
Around the time he fucked her—the one he needed out of his brain—like a mad man in their motel room. And then watched her drive away as always.
He knew more than most how hard it is to forget someone. To push those feelings to the cavern of his skull and let someone else in.
If only he fucking could.
There’s pussy on offer at the club.
Outside of the club.
He could get it anywhere he needed it and Butcher needed it.
In his mouth, on his fingers, wrapped tight as a goddamn fist around his dick.
Groaning as he rubbed a hand down his face, he did this to himself.
A goddamn weak simpleton or an addict. His OCD kicked in by allowing himself a moment to indulge before tucking it away neatly.
He let himself think about that cock-hungry girl and how Roux-starved he felt most days. And then he stopped.
He was good at it, after all.
The party that night at the RSMC wasn’t so much a wild one but it was loud and busy.
Brothers and their old ladies were in attendance, which meant people had to be on somewhat good behavior. No orgies. Not that he cared. He hadn’t been in a threesome since he was seventeen. He hated waiting for his turn, so he discovered early on it wasn’t for him.
Propped up against the bar, making his way through a platter of hot sauce wings and half listening to Snake and Grinder arguing about which was better; Gangs of London or Peaky Blinders, he caught sight of Arson in the corner. The moan traveled over the deafening sounds of music. He was holding a blonde chick up by the ass while her legs wound around him. They were doing some serious face sucking. Her teeny outfit looked painted on, her ass spilling out into Arson’s hands, her shirt already opened.
If he’d been in the mood to get his own pussy, seeing them going at it would have put lust in his body.
He slurped on his beer instead and took his eyes away.
It was four hours later, after a cutthroat game of pool with Reaper, that Butcher saw Arson again. This time throwing his guts up in the bathroom.
How the guy managed to stay standing was anyone’s guess.
Butcher grabbed him by the arms and helped him to his room.
The guy fell on the bed and sighed. “Fuck.”
“Buddy, why the fuck you keep doing this to yourself?”
As the medical man for the club, there wasn’t much Butcher could do for him other than put a bowl by his bed and hope Arson didn’t choke in his sleep. This wasn’t the first time he or the other brothers had put Arson to bed. Or dug him out of a mess due to booze.
It was getting out of hand a year ago, now it was worse.
Booze crept in and fucked a person up faster than anything else. Powder up the nose included. Butcher hoped it was only the liquor Arson was hammering because it’s a hole that kept digging deeper for him.
Looking like he was dead to the world sprawled face first on the bed, Butcher started to pull off Arson’s boots. As he dropped the last one on the floor, the guy rumbled a groan and turned his head, grinning like a drunk moron.
Arson was never aggressive when he was drunk. Quite the opposite, the guy loved everyone.
“Fuck, did we party, Tad?”
“Nah, buddy, but you’re gonna be feeling it tomorrow. Go to sleep.”
“Wicked good time, brother.” He slurred, grinning. “Hey you hear?”
Tossing the blanket over him, Butcher headed to the door. “Hear what?”
“Saw that idiot Chains the other day. Fuck, what day was it? What day is it today? Ah, fuck, doesn’t matter anyway.” He rambled and then became silent. Butcher thought he’d fallen back to sleep. Until. “Yeah, he was bleating on and on. Celebrating, you know.” It was only because Butcher could translate drunken slur that he even understood a mumbled word Arson was saying. Not that he gave a damn about Chains or any of the Diablo Disciples.
Butcher flipped off the light, plunging the bedroom into darkness. “Sleep it off, fire starter. Check on you later.”
“Engaged.” He garbled.
“What?” Butcher didn’t give a fuck if the DD VP was taking an old lady. Poor bitch to be handcuffed to a guy like him.
“He said she’s engaged.�
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It was then that Butcher stalled in the open doorway, his knuckles turned white from gripping the doorknob.
Soon as he processed those words, he fucking knew.
His gut knew.
His heart knew.
Arson, already half unconscious with an arm slung over his eyes. “Ah, fuck man, your little girl is engaged to some other bastard.”
There was no wind battering the windows from outside and yet Butcher would swear on his grave that a whirlpool started in that very fucking room.
Sucking him down.
Drowning him in grief.
Engaged.
“Shoulda been you, man. Fuck,” Arson went on and then rolled onto his stomach, an arm flopped over the side of the bed. “Too good for those Diablos anyway. Butcher’s too fucking good for her.”
He closed the door and got his feet moving down the hallway.
A tick in his jaw and a maelstrom riot in his head.
Nearing eight months since he’d seen her, and now she was engaged.
Damn.
It was the wakeup call Butcher needed. That was for damn sure.
Forget the burning in his soul.
It was time to purge Roux Tucker from his mind.
He’d been a pathetic, pining little bitch for too long.
She was someone else’s problem now.
THREE
“He wanted to go Sweeney Todd on her fiancé.” - Butcher
The burst of anger came as a shock to the other boys.
Butcher growled his frustration and hurled the punctured tire across the garage floor. The heavy thing crashed into the tool bench, bounced and took everything down to the cement floor with it.
Huffing out his anger, he scraped his hands through his hair before he strode the length of the auto shop to pick up his mess.
All eyes on him.
No surprise, seeing as how Butcher was rarely prone to outbursts.
“You okay, brother?” Preacher asked, wiping his oil coated hands on a rag. He tucked it into his back pocket and followed Butcher over where he hunkered down on the ground and helped him pick up the tools.
“Yeah.” he lied.
He was far from fucking okay.
Ever since Arson dropped that news bomb last night, he’d wanted to go tornado on everything and everyone, so he’d kept himself out of the way of people. Fixing one of the bikes queued up in the garage had been a bad fucking idea—intent on keeping his mind occupied—when all he wanted to do was smash the thing to pieces.
She was engaged.
His Roux was fucking engaged to someone else.
Butcher didn’t know if he was sad or murderous.
The frenzy of fury and hate tore up the lining of his guts.
Envy too.
So much fucking envy he felt sickened by it.
She should have a life. She should fall in love.
She needed to get away from that place and her father’s thumb more than anything, he’d always wanted happiness for Roux. Knowing it couldn’t be him fucking twisted him up inside.
But the resentment that it wasn’t his ring on her finger did a number on his mind.
He wanted to hurt something so he could stop hurting.
For a mad second he even thought about asking Hawk to spar with him again.
Engaged…
He’d purposefully stayed on the fringes of her life because he knew if he found out she was dating someone he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions and lack of control.
Where Roux Tucker was concerned, Butcher was not the patient man he was known for being. He was a ticking bomb, ready to explode his feelings all over.
He wanted her.
He needed her.
He craved her.
And yet he couldn’t have her without causing a war between two clubs.
Axel nearly killed Butcher the night he found out about them. Rider intervened. It wasn’t because the Souls were afraid of the Diablos, far from it. That club was a piss in the water compared to Butcher’s club.
It was a secret that had kept him away from claiming her as his old lady.
He loved her enough to give her freedom even when it was a veiled sense of it.
She wouldn’t hear the truth from him. Though it killed him.
“You don’t usually go wrecking ball.” Half-grinned Preacher, as he tossed wrenches up onto the workbench.
Butcher was too much in his own head to banter along.
He felt like an idiot for giving a fuck. For not realizing this day would come eventually. Roux was twenty-one, of course she’d want to fall in love with someone, to have that man be at her side. Be her everything.
She lived in the same cutthroat world as he did and yet, they were worlds apart. She knew and understood the rough standard of living more than any other female could. The few times they’d spent together, he loved that he didn’t have to dumb shit down for her or keep anything back. She got the way bikers lived and she lived it herself.
“Bad day,” he finally answered. Preacher never quit once he got his teeth into someone if he thought they had a problem. He’s worse than Snake. Thank god the bodyguard was in Wyoming visiting his prisoner BFF or Butcher would find his steps dogged by Snake.
“You wanna grab a beer?”
Butcher arched his brow. “At two in the afternoon? Nah, I’m good, Preach.”
“Tonight,” he persisted. “We’ll grab a beer at Otis’.”
He only answered to get Preacher off his back. “Sure, sounds good.”
“Yo, Doc.” A voice called out from the entryway and Butcher saw Reaper standing there. A burgundy beanie hat pulled low over the guy’s ears; his hands stuck down in the pockets of his leather jacket. “Get cleaned up, I need some help.”
Butcher shrugged; he was done fighting with the bike anyway.
He did a fast wash up of his hands at the sink, pushed the coveralls down his legs and grabbed his jacket.
“I don’t need a babysitter, you know, Reap. You never need any help on your rounds.” He got into step with the other guy and strode over to where their motorcycles were lined up.
“Maybe not, but you look like you could do with a break before you snap.”
There was a time not so long ago, Reaper was the quietest man any of the Souls had ever met. He ghosted around the club, barely opening his mouth to anyone. He did his job, he pitched in, he was one of them but was apart from everyone at the same time. No one pushed him to be who he wasn’t. Reaper was accepted for himself, idiosyncrasies, and all. It was a whole different story now that Reaper had his wife back. He was the poster boy for how having an old lady was the making or breaking of a man.
Butcher felt his spine snapping with tension with each step he took. Relief came when he lifted his leg over his bike, roared the beast to life, the rumbling vibrations going through his bones.
Unlike Reaper’s story, this was no fairy tale. He didn’t get the girl in the end.
Roux was out of his reach for good now.
If she was engaged, if she was … in love with someone else, he had to stay away, for his own sake and for hers.
“Where we headed?” He asked, finding his voice, pushing this shit to the back of his mind where it belonged.
“Gotta do some collecting. Hitting up the gambling first.”
Sure thing. The job was monotonous, and Butcher could handle that kind of shit right now. The pair rode out of the compound and headed into town.
No one ever suspected that there was an illegal gambling den under the flower shop run by a sweet old lady. Both men smiled at her as she opened the counter hatch and let them through, closing it behind them. She went back to arranging a bouquet of flowers as though she hadn’t opened the door to two hardened criminals.
Chicks loved flowers, he thought.
But not Roux.
If he ever had a wild hair to send her something like that, she’d probably rip them to shreds and scatter them on his grave.
&nbs
p; She’d prefer food. Or a game for the PS4. Even a set of tires for her car would be a better gift than flowers.
She was as beautiful as she was wild. Feminine and tough at the same time, so fucking beautiful his teeth ached … but she was not a flowers kind of woman.
Shit. He shook his head. He was supposed to be keeping her at bay, not entertaining stupid thoughts of sending her gifts.
It was far too late for that.
He might win her back with a pet tiger but never with a bunch of daisies.
The gambling den as always was over crowded. Each table filled to capacity.
This was Reaper’s deal, seeing to the addicts and the ones losing their houses because they just couldn’t say no to a card game.
He ambled slowly behind Reaper; half listened as he exchanged words with Marcel.
“It’s down.” Marcel informed. A thin cigar hanging from his lips, disguising his usual halitosis stench.
“By how much?”
“10k so far. There’s a bitch in the other room, can’t tell if she’s counting cards. I got a man watching her. But she’s cleaning up, only been here two hours.”
The Souls were not in the habit of allowing someone to walk in off the street and start to empty their piggy bank. The aim of gambling was to drain the coffers of every idiot schmuck out there, not fatten their pockets. The house always wins, in the case of the Souls anyway. They were not and never would be philanthropists.
Butcher, while watching a game of Black Jack, listened to Reaper bitch at Marcel before he shuffled through to the other room to survey the moneybags winning big. If she was cheating, then Butcher felt sorry for her.
She’d get blacklisted from every Souls racket across the country. And for an addict who liked to get their kicks that was a harsh punishment.
Once a person got on the shit list to the RSMC, it was a mark that carried far and wide.
“You sitting in?” Marcel asked. “We can make room.”
“Nah, not today. Where did this woman come from, she a regular?”
Marcel and his neck full of gold bling didn’t look too fazed so Butcher wasn’t either. Wasn’t like any of the Souls were hurting for money, no one was going hungry tonight, put it that way. Butcher could afford three motorcycles, a sweet Raptor, a whole fucking mansion across the river, if he wanted it. But he preferred the simpler life. He liked having a nest egg, for those in case moments. One day he’d get a family and his old lady and kids would be set.