Kendall bit down on her lip and closed her eyes, thinking about Johnnie and how he seemed in control of all those around him. She considered going to him and confessing her original reason for showing up at the bachelor party. If she had, maybe, her mother would be alive and, maybe, Caroline wouldn’t have been getting fucked ten times a day.
She didn’t want to think and she didn’t want to hurt and she didn’t want to talk herself into the abortion she had no choice but to have. She wanted to just be. She wanted her baby. She was educated and she had a career. She could support a baby.
NO way in hell would she bring a baby into this sick situation. No. Way. So she’d do it a favor and get rid of it and—
“H-hey, babe,” she answered in as strong a voice as possible, still groggy and a little out of it.
“You need to get your ass back to the clubhouse today,” Spoon rasped.
Kendall blew hair out of her face, wondering where all the pretty, swirly colors were coming from. Whatever manufactured the dizzying kaleidoscope on the ceiling, Kendall didn’t care. It was the prettiest thing she’d seen in a while.
“Kendall!”
“Spoon?”
He blew out a noisy breath and Kendall squinted. “I’m levitating,” she whispered on a hysterical laugh.
“No, you’re still fucked up,” he snapped.
Yeah, that, too. But she was levitating. Wasn’t she? She was laying flat on her back and it felt like she hovered two feet above the bed.
“You have to get the fucking job?” he barked.
Job? She had a job. She was sure she did. “I have a job.”
“You fucking cow, focus. You didn’t get the job with the Dwellers, did you?”
Her face crumpled. “No,” she admitted, crashing back onto the bed and wanting to sleep.
“No,” he echoed. “Never did ask you what the fuck happened thanks to Logan.”
A second went by. Then, two and she remained silent.
“Kendall,” he said impatiently. “What the fuck happened?”
“They got distracted.” And Johnnie wanted to have sex with her, but she couldn’t do that with him. She could never do that with him or anyone else ever again. Sex was bad. Really, really bad.
“You’re such a stupid fucking cunt,” Spoon snapped. “How the fuck you allowed them to get distracted. I told you I don’t give a fuck if you have to fuck the entire club in one night. You get fucking in with them.”
“I-I thought you said I couldn’t have sex with anybody else.”
“Not unless I tell you to do it. Understand?”
“Johnnie wanted to have sex with me,” she said slowly.
“Listen to me.”
“’Kay,” she mumbled, the fog in her brain beginning to envelope her entire body. Soon, she’d been cocooned in blessed numbness. And she’d sleep. Her brain would shut down and stop working again. Her eyes slipped closed.
“KENDALL!” Spoon boomed, loud enough to burst her eardrum.
Startled, Kendall bolted upright. “I want to sleep.”
“You’re a miserable excuse for a sister. Caroline needs you and all you can think about is sleeping. If you don’t get this fucking right, she’s being auctioned off next week.”
Caroline. God, Caroline. The memory of her little sister broke through and Kendall forced a semblance of awareness into her brain. She had to concentrate on Spoon’s directions. “I-I’m listening,” she croaked, her head beginning to pound and her breasts sore and tender.
“You heard me?”
“Uh, yeah, Spoon. Everything you said.”
Spoon chortled a laugh. “You want me to visit you again tonight to make sure you pay attention to me when I talk to you?”
“No,” she whispered, pressing a hand against her belly.
“I rather enjoyed choking you with my dick. Thinking, maybe, we need to have that kind of fun again soon.”
“Will you give me Caroline back?”
“I don’t have Caroline anymore. Remember?”
Right. Kendall frowned. Logan did. A man who resembled a grandfather but was really a monster.
“Besides, I don’t have to give you anything to fuck you,” Spoon reminded her. “Not even respect. As I recall, you said you were mine and, as mine, I have the right to fuck you whenever the fuck I want. Get your ass back the fuck to that club now.”
“It’s late,” she said and she was exhausted. Drugged up exhausted and soul shattered exhausted. Besides, seeing Johnnie again had affected her down to her bones. Not because she had any real feelings for him, but because she carried his baby. Silly, yes, but she attributed that to her rioting hormones. “Spoon?”
“Get to the club tomorrow. Get in with the Dwellers, Kendall. However you have to. Logan is obsessed with them. All of them, but especially their Prez and Veep. He wants…” Spoon sighed in real frustration. “I don’t know exactly. He keeps asking all kinds of fucking questions about them. We didn’t get you in bed with the president, so we have to get the Intel on the brothers and give it to him. He’s given us one week.”
Kendall scowled. Spoon really, really needed to shut the fuck up. He’d been going on and on without a breath and she’d barely been able to keep up. At least, she’d gotten the last part. “What information do you need first?”
“Give me the information and I’ll tell you if I need it or not after I relay it to Logan,” he countered. “Rest tonight. Go fuck one of the Dwellers. I don’t care. Just make sure you have what the fuck I need by the time I speak to you tomorrow evening.”
Leaning against the wall in his room, Johnnie sipped from a bottle of beer, the song on the radio one he’d have chosen as part of the soundtrack for his life. Say Something by Alex and Sierra.
Despite his best intentions, the words made him think of Megs, compelling him to pull out a photo of her. One of the ones they’d taken over the holidays almost two years ago when Christopher had left her with him. To torture him. Which him was debatable since Johnnie knew walking away from her had been one of the hardest things Christopher had ever done.
Tasting the beer again, he held it in his mouth a bit, then refocused on Megs as he swallowed. She’d been in a red lace dress, her gorgeous legs made longer by her sexy-as-fuck heels. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes, though. She’d looked…lost. Much like Johnnie felt right now.
As the song ended and another one began, he passed a thumb over Megs’s photo, smiling at her. The only girl to interest him since Megan, scampered in and out his life with no rhyme or reason, running out of the club, several hours ago, before he’d had a chance to get her alone.
Closing his eyes, he leaned against the headboard and scratched his chest. He hated that he couldn’t get past Megan. As with everything else in his life, he went all the way. No half-assing for him, ever. When he loved, he went the full Monty. When he killed, he now did it with no regrets. And when he kept secrets? He did it with the knowledge of holding everyone’s happiness—maybe the continued existence of the MC—in the palm of his hands.
Sometimes, key moments in his life flashed in his head and he’d remember how he came to be at this point in his life. The memories evoked a variety of reactions from him. Sometimes, nostalgia. Sometimes, laughter. Sometimes, anger. And every now and then grief that his perception of who he was had been so brutally stripped away.
Unfortunately, for him, almost all his memories centered around not only him, but Christopher, too. It was one of the most fucked up things within a bevy of fucked up things between the two of them. Because Johnnie knew what he was good at and running this fucking club wasn’t it. That was Christopher’s thing and if the club fell apart because of the constant cloud of one man, then all the secrets Johnnie had kept would be for naught.
One man. How could one man wield so much fucking power and he wasn’t even fucking around?
But Logan Donovan…tension dropped into Johnnie and his muscles bunched. He refused to think of Logan with the same determination he pus
hed away thoughts of Sebastian Caldwell and Joseph Foy. Though he might’ve more than succeeded in paying as much attention to Cee Cee’s former existence as he would a pile of horse shit, he wasn’t as lucky with Big Joe and Logan.
Rubbing his eyes, Johnnie wondered if Little Man was asleep. It amazed him how a club of big, bad-ass bikers catered to a baby. Of course, Christopher couldn’t wait to take his son on a motorcycle. He was already searching for earplugs…that he’d more than likely never use. Megs would kill Christopher if he took their son for a ride on Little Man’s first birthday.
On the other hand, all Christopher had to do was get her in bed and wring ten orgasms from her, and she’d be putty in the man’s hands. The sour thought made Johnnie’s brow crease. He didn’t like the envy surging up in him. Envy that had nothing to do with the way he felt about Megan. No. It was more the thought of wanting what Christopher had—his own family who loved him without condition.
Johnnie wanted a wife and a child, too, a woman he could confide in. He wanted to erase…everything….connected to him. No, them. Because, if he compared his grandfather and his father to one another, he’d find one was as bad as the other.
The gorgeous redhead popped into Johnnie’s mind and his chest tightened a little more. He’d intended to have her followed, but then all the other bullshit had started. She’d acted so different from the night he’d met her. The question was why. Had she come as friend or foe? If it was foe and she was trying to spy on the club, either amateurs had sent her or dickheads. Either scenario could get her killed. He was only happy he’d have free time on his hands the next few days. Not anticipating any problems in the foreseeable future, he could devote hours to discovering her secrets and enjoying her body.
He’d find out if she needed his protection, which he’d be more than happy to give her. The thought was surprising but uplifting. It meant he was getting control of his emotions again after months of hell.
Unrequited love was good for nothing but the shithouse.
A hard rap sounded on his door before it opened and Val stepped in.
“John Boy,” he greeted, walking forward.
A frown creased his brow and Johnnie knew he was either in pain from his barely healed wound or he’d had a run-in with Zoann. Or both.
Val zeroed in on the photo in Johnnie’s hand and snorted.
Johnnie finished his beer, then slammed it on the nightstand. “Don’t. I know what the fuck I’m doing.”
“So do I, brother,” Val said flatly, “and sitting in here licking your balls not getting you Meggie. She’s with Outlaw.” He glanced at his watch. “Probably under him or on him or sucking him right about now.”
Reminding himself he really liked Val so he didn’t want to kill him, he threw him a dirty look. “What do you want, fuckhead?”
Val shrugged. “Don’t feel like being out there. Thought I’d see what you were doing.”
“Where’s Mortician?”
“In worse shape than you. I think he’s in deep shit with Bailey and K-P gonna enjoy slicing his dick off piece-by-piece.” Flipping off the radio, Val walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. He held out his hand. “Give me her photo, John Boy,” he demanded quietly. “You’ve come enough times looking at it. Time to fucking stop.”
Instead of handing the photo over—or responding to Val’s accurate speculations—Johnnie leaned over and opened his drawer, dropping the photo there. It was one of the only photos he’d saved of her from that time with the exception of Aunt Patricia. Before slamming the drawer shut, he pulled out his baggie and cigarette paper. “I’m going to be generous tonight, Val. Roll one for each of us.”
Val didn’t respond and Johnnie finished his task with the ease of long practice before passing Val a joint. Once they’d both lit up and taken hits, Johnnie sighed. “What’s going on, dude? Are you in pain?”
“Nope. Pills help.”
No comment, so he sucked on his roll again. The man had just been released from the hospital, so, maybe, it was reasonable that he took so many pain pills. “How’s Ryan?” Johnnie asked, referring to Val’s son.
“Don’t know.” He took another puff. “I’m sick of Zoann’s bullshit, so I didn’t call her after I was released.”
Zoann’s bullshit wore Johnnie out, too, and he wasn’t even in the relationship with her. Or whatever the fuck Val had with Zoann. “Do you need anything in particular?”
Mortician appeared in the doorway and walked in without invitation.
Johnnie blew out a noisy breath. “It’s a good thing I like you motherfuckers,” he grumbled, shifting to the left when Val moved up so Mortician could take a seat. He really needed to bring some chairs in here. “What do you want?”
“Don’t get all pissy, John Boy,” Mortician said with a knowing smile. “Til Outlaw comes back, you our Prez, so we coming here to talk like we always do with him.”
“All the fuck I want to do is not kill anyone in Christopher’s absence. Not have any major fucking problems arise. And not lose fucking money. Is that so fucking hard to ask?
The longer Christopher stayed away, the more Johnnie recognized how much of himself his cousin gave to the club and the membership. The brothers came to Johnnie for everything and he knew this hadn’t just begun. He remembered Big Joe complaining that grown ass men needed to learn to take their dicks in hand and leave him the fuck alone with bullshit. That wasn’t about to happen and Johnnie knew it.
Pussy problems? Depending on whose pussy the problem was with, they needed advice on how to a.) fuck it; b.) stop fucking it; c.)protect it; d.)buy it…the fucking list was an endless pain in the ass. He had his own fucking pussy problems, how could he tell another man what to do about a woman?
Money problems? They’d stop at the club for more either through a.)a loan…which wasn’t fucking happening; b.)a transfer from one of their businesses to another…which only took place if you were a member in good-standing and had been with the club over five years; c.)a run…which was a waste of fucking breath because Val was in fucking charge of arranging the runs and choosing who the fuck he wanted with him.
Johnnie supposed they wanted to test him and see what they could get away with on his watch.
He’d heard it all in the past, few days, right down to an idiot calling and asking how to bake wieners because his old lady had left him. While he agreed some of it was serious and club business, the rest of it was a heap of bullshit that had served no purpose in telling him. Other than to annoy the fuck out of him.
“Johnnie in fucking wonderland,” Mortician called, snapping him back to the present, “you mind rolling me one?”
Johnnie smirked at his friend and took a long drag just to piss him off. “Only if you tell me what in hell you’re doing with Bailey.”
“Not open for discussion,” he bit out. “And, for your information, I didn’t come in here to bitch and complain like a bitch. I came to tell you we have some chicks out there we haven’t seen in a while. Thought your dicks might be happy at a change of pussy. Mine is.”
“You know, Mort. You have an unhealthy fascination with your dick,” Val observed. “That shit’s a little scary.”
Johnnie snickered but jostled Val aside, so he could stand.
Mortician hooted with laughter. “You have malfunctioning dick radar, Valentine. I don’t.”
Val glowered at the other man. “Fuck. Off.”
“Mortician has a point, Val,” Johnnie pointed out, pinching the end of his roll to extinguish it. “Unfortunately, my dick radar always points to the wrong girl as much as yours does.”
Chapter 5
24 years earlier
“Christopher, where are you going?” Johnnie ran behind his ten-year-old cousin, not caring he left behind the other guests at his birthday party. Grandda had called Christopher all kinds of horrible names in front of everyone. It even hurt Johnnie’s feelings. He loved both his cousin and his grandfather and couldn’t understand why Grandda insisted on being s
o mean to Christopher, his oldest grandson. Although Christopher was only six months older than Johnnie, Johnnie still looked up to him. “Christopher!”
A small figure in a pink dress with a head of long chestnut colored hair bounded past Johnnie as fast as her little legs could carry her.
“Christy!” Three-year-old Zoann screamed behind her brother.
“Wait, Zoann,” Johnnie yelled. Christopher liked to go to the edge of the river and he didn’t want his little cousin propelling herself right into the water in an attempt to get to her big brother.
The little girl skidded to a halt and turned to Johnnie, her brown eyes filled with tears. He went down on one knee and thumbed them away.
“Christy leaving,” she said around sniffles. She launched herself into Johnnie’s arms, her small body shuddering. “If he potties right, can he stay?”
Johnnie cringed at the question because he didn’t know how to answer her. He knew, though, Grandda calling Christopher a filthy piece of shit had nothing to do with going to the bathroom. He hugged her tighter and swallowed, rising to his feet as he lifted her into his arms. “Let’s go find him. We’ll think of something so Christy can stay. You and me. Okay? We’re Grandda’s favorites. He’ll listen to us.”
With grave and teary eyes, Zoann stared at him and nodded. As Johnnie suspected, Christopher sat on a sandbar of the Columbia, contemplating the water as if he considered jumping in.
“Christy!” Zoann squealed, squirming in Johnnie’s arms in an attempt to wiggle free.
Christopher’s shoulders stiffened and Johnnie picked his way closer. As the days went on, his cousin grew more and more reckless. Less interested in school when he’d always done so well, too. He turned a narrowed gaze to Johnnie and Zoann. “Leave me alone,” he ordered.
Zoann’s face crumpled. “Christy?”
Christopher got to his feet and Johnnie took a step back. In the last, few weeks, his cousin had gotten taller and he looked like he was real old. At least thirteen or fourteen. He dusted off his jeans and stomped to them, yanking Zoann out of Johnnie’s arms and hugging her.
Death Dwellers Motorcycle Club:: Fifteen Bad Boy Biker Books Page 59