Hawke

by R. J. Lewis

“Let’s go inside.”

  But before Hawke could turn, Borden moved to him abruptly and slammed his fist against Hawke’s face, causing his head to jerk to the side and ringing to explode in his ears.

  “That’s for fucking leaving me,” Borden growled.

  Hawke wasn’t going to argue because, yeah, he fucking deserved it.

  thirty-six

  Hawke

  Borden wanted to talk alone with him, so Hawke took him to the meeting room and shut the door behind them. Borden threw a file on the table and turned to him, his mouth set in a hard line, his eyes cold and angry.

  “First of all,” he started, nose flaring, “you could have fucking told me a long time ago that this was what you wanted.”

  Hawke crossed his arms and leaned back against the door, retorting, “I didn’t know I wanted it.”

  “You don’t just wake up and want to be president again.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “So what happened then? You can’t possibly be doing all this for pussy.”

  A sliver of anger tore through Hawke’s chest, and he ground his teeth together, trying to keep it together. “Isn’t it funny how the tables turn?” he asked, sardonically. “If I recall, I was in your shoes asking you the same fucking question once upon a time.”

  “This is different. Emma was a struggling waitress that carried a cheap as shit switchblade. Your girl lives with bikers who are pleading for you to come back.”

  “And I’m back now.”

  “What about all those talks we had about you being on my side instead of theirs.”

  “We’re on the same fucking side.”

  “We’ll be business partners, and you wanna know how many times shit like that deteriorates between two parties, Hawke? Do you see my reluctance right now?”

  “It’s justified.”

  “Damn fucking straight it’s justified!” Borden hollered, losing his cool in a way Hawke wasn’t familiar with. “You don’t seem to fucking realize that outside of you and Emma and my family, I got nothing. I can’t have us be at odds with one another.”

  Hawke moved to the chair and collapsed into it, rubbing his face in exasperation. “Christ, Borden, you think I would ever want to be at odds with you? That shit won’t happen.”

  “Give me your fucking word.”

  Hawke looked at him, his eyes firm and unwavering as he said, “I give you my fucking word.”

  Borden didn’t look any less tense. He was fuming, his face cracking with anger as he said, “You haven’t thought this through. You’re blinded by your affections –”

  “I’m not giving her up.”

  “Can you go to war? See your men die all over again? We lost someone too, and how difficult was that to move on from? You don’t want the death of people you care about on your conscience.”

  “No one’s dying on my watch.”

  “Not until you fucking read what I have to show you.”

  Hawke hesitated, glancing at the file on the table and then at Borden. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you can’t knock out threats when you don’t even know who they are, and Hawke, you didn’t see this one coming.”

  Hawke stilled, feeling a wave of trepidation run through him as he eyeballed that file again. Horrible thoughts flashed in his head, of all the his doubts, of all the shit he’d heard.

  Were the rumors true? Was Hector behind it? That was his nightmare, and the answer was sitting feet from him.

  “How bad?” he asked tightly.

  Borden frowned, looking bothered for a moment before replying, “Very fucking bad.”

  *

  For a few minutes, Hawke watched Tyler conversing with Jesse. He was making her laugh, which was a welcoming sight. The boys really did treat Tyler like she was part of the family. He’d seen it a lot, the love and respect they had for her.

  But Jesse was shirtless again, the asshole. Probably trying to get her to salivate or some shit, only she was barely paying attention to his torso the way Holly was as she distributed beers to the boys sitting in their chairs out front. When she went to hand one to Hector, he shook his head stiffly and she seemed pleased.

  Hector looked around and caught sight of Hawke standing by the window, looking out at them. He narrowed his eyes in question, and Hawke looked away, not ready to speak of what he’d learned in that room.

  He thought he’d lose his shit after reading that file, but…strangely, a calm wave swept into him. He felt numb, and he supposed that was better than rage.

  Maybe, if he’d been around, he’d have figured it out a long time ago.

  Maybe…he could have stopped so much heartache.

  The monster within twitched, longing for action now instead of later, but…Hawke needed to process first.

  Just then Tyler looked up, catching sight of his cold stare. Her smile faded away, and there it was again, that look she was trying hard not to show. Unfortunately, Hawke didn’t want to see it. He didn’t want this fucking numbness to wear off. He needed it. It was armor. It was the only way he could mentally formulate a plan of attack.

  He turned his head and walked away.

  *

  He ended up sitting alone in his room, his face buried in the palm of his hands. The lights were off, and the silence was deafening. This is different. He tried telling himself. There’s a door that opens. The lights are off. You can’t hear those…those screams.

  But it wasn’t enough, and the monster within stirred as the walls closed in on him.

  In an instant, Hawke was back there again.

  In solitary confinement.

  Bloody pictures on the walls.

  A piece of shit fluorescent light over top of him, his only light, the symbol of timelessness as it never changed, never wavered, never even went out.

  Screams – fucking hell, he could still hear them echoing inside his skull.

  It was a fucking pit. One that made him want to dig his fingers into his throat and rip his lungs out.

  He should have done it. Should have died in a puddle of his own blood.

  Then he wouldn’t be back here.

  President.

  In love with a woman who currently hated him.

  Having to kill all over again.

  Having to make the world fear him when all he’d done the last five years was hide, purposeless and void of life.

  And now this.

  He could see himself, pacing in circles in that pit of misery, then collapsing to the ground, that fucking fluorescent light blinding his eyes as two words chanted all around him.

  Don’t trust.

  Don’t trust.

  thirty-seven

  Tyler

  Borden had said something very bad to Hawke, because when he emerged out of the room after Borden had left, he was different.

  His eyes were blank, his movements stiff, his gaze guarded.

  If I thought Hawke was terrifying before, I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

  He distanced himself from everyone, including Hector, and he sat alone in the far back of the room, wheels spinning as he glanced at every single face in the bar with this blatant look of suspicion and distrust.

  It was the first time I ever thought of leaving. Not permanently or anything, just until he was back to normal. Because with eyes like those, I knew he was planning something bad.

  Over the next few days, he didn’t slide into bed with me. In fact, he was riding around a lot with the guys, knocking on doors, forcing businesses to pay their cut they’d avoided for far too long.

  At some point, he ended up burning a barber shop down when the owner refused. Of course, the second the guys started breaking shit, he relented and offered Hawke more.

  Hawke refused.

  Jesse told me what Hawke had said to that man. “You say no once and that’s it. No chances.”

  Hawke was not to be fucked with.

  Then, over the following days, he proceeded to kick out three guys who were barely around but
carrying the patch, and then he burnt their patches out front for everyone to see.

  The guys started pulling in their weight after that.

  He never mentioned the attack on the clubhouse. Never made orders to figure out who was behind it. He’d just abandoned it like it mattered to him no more, and then he’d given Jesse the go about me returning to work.

  I was surprised, but it was a welcoming release. I needed to be away from Hawke’s chaos. I knew this was what needed to be done, but knowing it and seeing it were two very different things.

  Hawke was going back to his roots.

  He was showing me that to be perceived as bad, he had to do very, very bad things.

  *

  Everything came to head between us a few days after I’d returned to work. Jesse had driven me back home because apparently Hawke refused to allow him to give me a ride on the back of his bike anymore. Which I understood.

  We were stepping out of the car and I was gathering my things from the seat when I noticed Jesse stiffen, his gaze locked on something.

  “What?” I asked him.

  He didn’t respond, but he gestured his head in front of him. I stopped beside him and followed his line of sight to Kirk’s red pick-up truck parked at the far end of the parking lot. I stilled immediately when I saw it, and it took a moment for the shock to pass.

  Shay was on the ground, her back against the wheel, her arms behind her chained to the chassis. She was in nothing but her bra and panties. I could tell the sun had been beating down on her all day. Her skin looked like a strip of leather, browned and red and cracked all over. I didn’t know if she was conscious until she turned her head a tad in our direction.

  My jaw dropped. “What. The. Fuck.”

  “You’re tellin’ me.”

  I made to walk in her direction, when Jesse grabbed me by the arm and forced me still. “Don’t,” he said in a hard voice. “If she’s been bound like that, there’s a reason for it.”

  “She looks like she’s been baking under the sun all day.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s fucked up.”

  “I agree.”

  I let out a breath. “We can’t just leave her like that.”

  “You know your place here, Tyler,” he retorted sharply. “This isn’t your business. Leave her alone.”

  He let go of my arm and moved past me. When he made it to the entrance of the clubhouse, he stopped and turned to me, waiting for me to follow. I could see the warning in his eyes, and I knew he wasn’t being a dick about it. He didn’t want me involved because he was concerned for the consequences if I was. I didn’t listen and go to him. What the hell consequences could Hawke possibly throw at me? Instead, I focused back on Shay, at her matted blonde hair and slicked skin. Then I moved to her quickly.

  “Tyler!” Jesse called, already frustrated. “Don’t you dare!”

  I ignored him. When I approached her, I knelt down to her level and looked her over. Her face was a fucking mess. Mascara ran down her cheeks, her eyes were puffy from crying, her lips chapped and white. Jesus Christ, she was in bad shape. I reached out and touched her shoulder, and she flinched in pain.

  “Sorry,” I said quietly, my voice thick with remorse. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  She didn’t respond, but her lips quivered as she blinked slowly at me. I didn’t ask her what happened, or who had done this. Jesse was right when he said it wasn’t my place. This sort of shit was what came with the territory living in the club, and I wasn’t allowed to question it.

  But I wasn’t going to lie, it was fucking hard at times. This was cruel, and I hated pretending I had the stomach to handle it. I’d seen some bad punishments in the past – once they’d glassed a prospect in the face for stealing money from the cash register – and every time shit like this happened, I cringed on the inside and distanced myself.

  Only this was confronting, and I couldn’t entirely look away without wanting to help in whatever way I could.

  I looked over at Jesse and he was crossing his arms now, pissed as hell at my disobedience. I mouthed “water” to him and then motioned to the entrance. His face darkened even more, but I stared at him harder, not backing down at all and mouthed it again. He gritted his teeth and disappeared inside. Not a minute passed when he reappeared carrying an ice cold water bottle in his hand. He stopped when he got to me and handed me the bottle, looking in a completely different direction. I took the bottle from his hand, unscrewed the cap, and pressed it against Shay’s dried mouth. She went suddenly alive and parted her lips, drinking feverishly as I poured it down her throat. All the while, I examined her; there were no bruises or marks, so I knew she wasn’t beaten, but her skin looked thoroughly fucked.

  “That’s enough now, Tyler,” Jesse told me gravely, still not staring at us. “Unless you want me to get my ass kicked by the guys for letting you do this shit.”

  “Then leave me to it,” I hissed back at him. “I’m not asking you to stand here.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because you’re my fuckin’ friend, Tyler, and I’d rather be one blamed than you, even if she might deserve this.”

  My stomach turned. What the hell could she possibly have done for this?

  Feeling on pins and needles, I let her finish the bottle and then I stood back up. “Thanks,” I muttered to him, my voice softer now. “I really appreciate it, Jesse.”

  His face gentled and he nodded. “It’s alright.”

  Shay brought her knees to her chest and rested her face against them, looking dead once more. Jesse took me by the arm again and led me away. We walked to the entrance door, and he threw a glance at her over his shoulder. With a smirk, he said, “There’s a positive to all this, you know.”

  I threw him a dubious look as he opened the door for me. “And what’s that?”

  “At least the rest of her body will finally match the color of her face.”

  “Too soon, Jesse,” I replied, disapproving. “Way too soon.”

  *

  I heard about what Shay did the second I stepped into the bar.

  Apparently she’d gone absolutely nuclear this morning after waking up to Hector kicking her out of the room. She lost her shit like never before and went off on him. She told him she wasn’t a doormat and that it was time to make her his woman.

  Of course Hector said no. Or, more accurately, he’d said, “Bitch, get the fuck out of my face. You don’t tell me what to fucking do.”

  Aaaaand that was when she lost it. Like, off the reservoir and into the fucking hellfire kind of lost it. She’d stormed downstairs and attacked Holly, breaking a part a beer bottle and swinging the sharp ends at her as Holly screamed in terror. Apparently, she’d cut her on the chest, and even Kirk, in his deteriorated state, had roared for her to stop.

  Jonny and Marshall were the first to physically intervene. They’d dragged her back upstairs to Hector. Then… it got worse.

  She screamed at him, told him she’d start talking about shit she’d been seeing around the club (oh boy). Even claimed she heard everything and knew what Hawke had done to Yuri. She threatened to sell him out to the “cockroaches at the police station” without realizing the club owned every fucking cockroach at the police station.

  I had to pick my jaw off the ground when they finished telling me the story. Shay had lost her damn mind!

  What she’d done would have normally earned her a death sentence, and Hector was already carrying his gun, about to pop her before Hawke intervened, telling him, “No more death under this roof.” She was still in her bra and panties, standing her ground in the hallway and screaming like a banshee, when Hawke grabbed her banshee screaming ass by the arm, led her outside and chained her to the truck to teach her a lesson. By the time I’d showed up, she’d been chained to it for six whole hours.

  And it was a hot day. I’m talking about the kind of hot day so motherfucking hot you could see time.<
br />
  What she did was horrible. I got that. But…Christ, she was going to die of a heat stroke if she wasn’t let go anytime soon.

  I sought Hawke out and found him alone in the meeting room, seated and staring blankly ahead. His chest was rising and falling at an unnatural pace, and I paused in my step, wondering if it was the adrenaline over what he’d done that was still coursing through him.

  I shut the door behind me and turned to him.

  “Hawke,” I started carefully, “you gotta let Shay go.”

  His eyes flickered to mine, and a moment of warmth flashed in his eyes before he hid it and retorted, “It ain’t up to me.”

  “It is.”

  “She threatened the club. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the club’s decision.”

  “But you got to decide what happens to her in the first place.”

  “I didn’t want another murder scene in the clubhouse.”

  “She’s in really bad shape.”

  “I don’t care, Tyler.”

  My eyes glistened as I stared at him in shock. “You would never have done something this like to a woman before! It’s evil.”

  He chuckled dryly. “Are you fucking dense, Tyler? I’m letting her have her LIFE!” he roared on the last word.

  “She won’t have it for long out there in the heat!”

  He suddenly shot out of the chair and moved to me, his anger strong in his eyes as he growled, “She was going to hurt Holly. She threatened the club’s secrets. As far as I’m concerned, if she was a fucking man she’d have died the second she opened her fucking mouth.”

  “Hector has been stringing her along –”

  “Stop defending her!”

  “Would you do that to me, Hawke?” I asked him bitterly. “You know, I gave her water. So what’re you gonna do? Chain me up to a truck and leave me to bake in the sun too? Are you all that fucking unfeeling?”

  He jerked his chin around us. “Where do you think you are right now, Tyler? Because just as I’m convincing myself you’re startin’ to understand things, you ask me a really stupid question. Don’t plead that girl’s case like she did nothing wrong. If she had, she wouldn’t be where she is right now. If you’re looking for saints, you’re in the wrong place, darlin’.”