by Jordan Marie
“No… of course not.”
“Has anyone got in this body, Beth?” He asks, his voice so cold it amplifies my fear. Before, I only suspected Colin thought of me in a way that was not sisterly. Now, I see ownership in his eyes. I see… jealousy.
“No, Colin. No. I was just curious. All the girls talk about kissing, and I wanted to… see what it was like. It wasn’t even that good. I think, maybe…”
His hold on me loosens, but the venom is there in his eyes and I know, like a snake, it wouldn’t take much for him to strike. I find my fear isn’t anything to do with me. No… I’m scared of what Colin might do to Skull now.
“Think what?” he asks, his eyes moving down my body. My stomach churns in revolt.
“I… didn’t see what they’re all so curious about. I… didn’t enjoy it,” I lie. “I think maybe I’m cold.”
“Cold?” Colin asks, and there’s something in his eyes I can’t describe. I’m lying through my teeth here, but I need something to discourage him, something to diffuse his anger. I’m scared for me, sure. But more importantly, I’m scared of what he might do if he gets Skull in his sights. I can’t let that happen. Skull doesn’t even know about my family. I haven’t wanted to tell him.
“Sister Puterbaugh says that some women are saved from earthly desires… that God has a higher purpose for them.”
Colin lets go of my hair and steps back. His eyes never leave mine and I do my best not to show fear while trying to inject sincerity in my lies. Maybe if Colin thinks I want to be a nun, then he will leave me alone. Maybe…
“Dear Beth, no one with a body like yours is made to be a nun.”
“If your faith—”
Before I can form a complete sentence, he pulls me from the chair and pushes me against his desk, his hand tight around my throat. I can’t get air. My fingers claw into his and panic threatens to engulf me. There will be more bruises there—if I live. I’m beginning to wonder if I will.
“You do not give your body to anyone, Beth. Not even your lips. Do I make myself clear?”
I can’t agree or disagree; the tight grip he has on my throat doesn’t allow it. Black spots are swimming in front of my eyes and I think I might pass out. Whether it’s from fear or lack of oxygen, I can’t say.
“I’ve been gentle with you because of your illness. Apparently too gentle. You are mine, Beth. No one will touch you except me. No one will stick his goddamn tongue in your mouth but me, and no one will get inside of your body except me. Do I make myself clear?”
His words make disgust boil inside of me. My eyes close, finally the panic and lack of oxygen combining to put me out of my misery. His hold on me loosens and I gasp for air, coughing and sputtering as my lungs try to take it in all at once. My legs are too weak to support myself and I sink to the floor.
“You will stay here the remainder of the week until I see that you have learned your lesson. Gerald, take her to her room.”
I hate having Gerald carry me. I want to argue, but I can’t, my whole body shaking at this point.
“Beth?”
Gerald stops and spins us around, my head lolling back, but I do my best to hold it up and look at the monster in front of me. We stand like that for a couple of minutes until finally I try to respond. “Yes?” I ask, my voice hoarse and raw. It sounds like I’ve screamed until I’ve lost a vocal cord.
Colin’s smile makes me shiver. “You will be dressed and down for dinner at six. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes,” I tell him, managing to hold my tears in until Gerald deposits me on the bed and leaves me alone in my room.
I cry until I can’t anymore. Exhausted, I fall asleep on the bed. My last thoughts are of Skull and what he must have thought when I didn’t show at the coffee shop… or when I never show again.
She’s late.
It’s an unusual feeling, waiting on a woman. It’s not something I can remember doing in all of my thirty years. I glance at the clock again. She’s exactly twenty minutes late. Each time the door opens, I feel tension coil inside of me, and each time it’s someone else, my anger spikes.
I can’t tell you if the anger is directed at her or at myself. I was stupid, playing the tease with her. I beat down the feelings inside of me that said to just take what I wanted. She just seemed so innocent. I wanted to give her time. Truthfully, it never occurred to me that she wouldn’t be here today. Women don’t usually turn me away. They never stand me the fuck up. As the door opens again, and it’s not her that walks through the door, I realize that I was way too smug.
It’s disappointing. I wanted to learn more about this woman, and I most definitely wanted to get lost inside of her. I pull away from the wall I’ve been leaning on. I’m standing outside the damn coffee shop waiting like a fucking loser.
Screw this shit. Torch is over on his bike talking to some wanna-be muffler bunny, but he looks up and points to the fucking watch he wears. Mother-fucking-loser. What kind of fucking moron wears a watch these days? He wants to be a fucking smartass? I’ll remind him I’m his president the hard fucking way.
I walk towards my bike which is parked next to him.
“You stay here and don’t move. She shows up, you call my ass,” I growl, climbing on my girl.
“What?”
“You heard me, fucker,” I yell over the purr of my bike. Then I take off and don’t stop until I get to my damn club.
* * *
I stare at the empty shot glass. How many have I had? I can’t remember. It doesn’t fucking matter.
“Thanks for leaving me in town all day, Boss. Real fucking classy,” Torch says, coming to sit beside me at the bar. I glance at him before motioning for another drink. I down the shot and let the burn connect all the way down and then flip him off.
“Life’s a bitch,” I tell him.
“Yo, Skull man. Latch and Sabre just pulled up outside. They’re back from patrol,” Beast says, grabbing my attention. I’m a little buzzed, but still alert.
“Who told you to come home?” I ask Torch. I’ve been a bastard to him today and I shouldn’t have. I was upset over Beth and he got the brunt of it. Torch is a good brother. He’s the man I wish I could make my second. Unfortunately, Pistol was voted into that position before I even made president.
And I hate Pistol. He’s a sorry motherfucker, but I tolerate him. He challenged me when I first took over, replacing my tío. I beat him down and enjoyed every fucking moment of it. That was six years ago—a lifetime in the club world. Lately, he’s been making waves again. I don’t know what makes him think he can overtake me, but that shit isn’t about to happen. I beat his ass down once, and it appears I’m going to have to revisit that crap.
“No one,” answers Torch, “but I figured after three fucking hours, it was okay to give up the ghost and call her a no-show.”
Jesus. Three hours? I’ve been here drinking that long? I look at the still half-full bottle in front of me. I guess not. I apparently have just been staring at my drink and mooning over a fucking woman like a damn pussy.
“It’s about time we talk about club business instead of having our president sniffing after a piece of ass and ignoring shit that needs to be done,” Pistol barks.
Yeah, it’s time I visit that shit again. He’s asking for it. Not today though. Today, I’ve had more than enough, so I just give him a warning. It’s a warning I hope he heeds, but I’m not holding my damned breath.
“Sostenga la lengua or te la vas encontrar cortada,” I growl at him, using words only he and I will get the full effect of. I basically tell him to hold his tongue or else he’ll find it no longer there. He gives me a look filled with hatred, then walks off. I motion to Latch who just came in with Sabre. Latch nods and, after a few minutes, follows behind Pistol.
Pistol has a brother who is the leader of our Florida chapter. I may hate Pistol, but I do have respect for his brother, so I’m trying to contain this. Still, I’d be stupid to let Pistol out of my sight. A fight is
coming, but if the motherfucker is trying to cut my neck or shoot me in the back before then, I want to know.
“You’re gonna have to handle that soon,” Torch echoes my thoughts. I don’t comment. We both know that he is right. Instead, I give him a look of impatience and that is completely on the up and up. I don’t want to deal with business. I want to sit here and nurse my drink while remembering how soft Beth’s sweet lips were. Jesus Christ, I feel like I’m missing a hit from my favorite drug just thinking about her.
“Visor and a few others from the Chrome Saints have been in our town,” Sabre says when it becomes clear I’m not going to talk about the issues with Pistol.
This new piece of news does nothing to improve my mood. I’m going to have to blow that motherfucker off the face of the Earth. I would have already done it, but Visor’s a distant cousin to the Irish faction in the area—Matthew and Colin Donahue. In that fucking group, family is family. I have no wish to piss them off. The Donahues are not a group I want in my business. I’ve had to have a few dealings with them when their pipeline got too close to my territory. Since then, there has been a tentative truce with me overlooking the fact that they run their wares in the county over. I don’t want to get in a pissing match with them. I have big guns at my disposal, but so do they. Sometimes, the smartest thing to do is back away and keep an eye on the situation. So, Visor lives… for motherfucking now.
“Did they leave?” I ask.
“They’re held up in a ratty motel on the outskirts of town, the one beside the Flamingo.”
“We need to load up,” I growl. “I’m getting too old for this fucking shit.”
“Already ahead of you, Boss. I had some of the prospects fill our bikes up. We’re ready to head out anytime,” Torch says.
“I must be getting old if you already know what I’m going to do,” I grumble, getting up and walking towards the garage. I won’t be yanking my cock to the memory of Beth today. Damn it all to hell!
“Just being prepared, Boss, just being prepared,” says Torch, and I flip him the finger as we head out to our bikes. Maybe I’m wrong and this shit won’t take long.
We pull into the Flamingo an hour later. We went to the hotel first and found it deserted, so I decided to try the bar. There’s not a bike in the parking lot, so it’s probably worthless at this point. The roar of our bikes can be heard easily. We’re not trying to hide our presence. The bar is not club owned, but the owner and I have an understanding. Therefore, the fact the owner didn’t call and tell me the Chrome Saints were in town is something I need to address. I lead the way with Sabre on my right, and on my left is Beast. They’re two of the scariest motherfuckers on this side of the Mason-Dixon Line. Behind them is Torch, Briar, and K-Rex. It’s not all my firepower, but enough to show we’re not about to be fucked with.
What I see when opening the door sends my bad day from bad to fucking shit in about two point four seconds. Big Ray, the owner, is trussed up above the bar hanging from a chain, field dressed like a fucking side of beef in a meat locker awaiting a butcher. The other five customers have all been killed and the two waitresses have their throats slit.
It’s a fucking blood bath.
It’s all been done for a day or so because the rotting stench is already overwhelming. There’s nothing quite like the smell of death. It’s an odor that, once you’ve smelled it, you will never forget.
“Jesus H. Christ,” Sabre rumbles behind me.
“Do you think the Saints did this?” Torch asks, and he has a right to be skeptical. Visor and his crew are fucking bastards, but even they wouldn’t be this messy, unless he had a reason. That would mean the Chrome Saints’ presence here isn’t just an annoyance. It means something else, something else entirely.
“Fuck, this smells of Donahues,” Beast says, and he’s not wrong. The Donahue Gang are famous for leaving scenes like this.
Fuck me sideways. What caused them to do this? They’re bastards, sure, but to start a war and send a message this big without reason? It just doesn’t ring right. There’s more going on here.
I look around and my hand curls into a fist as I think of a way to deal with this shit. I’m going to have to meet with the Donahues. First, I need to clean this fucking mess up before my area comes under scrutiny from sources I can’t contain. Christ on crutches! I did not need this headache.
“Call Martinez,” I tell Torch, naming our main guy with the Calloway County police force. “Make sure this shit gets contained.”
“This isn’t exactly going to be easy to sweep under the rug, Boss,” Sabre speaks up, and I flip him off. I’m not stupid, and Sabre knows it. Martinez will know with one look who is responsible for this shit. He’ll know who to contact and where to sweep it.
I walk out of the bar and drink in the fresh air. This shit is going to get ugly. I can feel it. The only good point is, it might keep me from dreaming about Beth. I’ve got enough on my plate. This was a message tonight, and the message is clear. For whatever reason, my truce with the Donahues has ended. I need to keep my mind focused and my wits about me. There’s no time for Beth in my life. I need to keep remembering that.
It’s been a week since I’ve been under house arrest. One week with no one for company but Colin, Matthew, and the staff. One week in which Colin has been watching me like a hawk. He hasn’t laid hands on me again, but he has touched the bruises he inflicted, petting them and warning me that I should not make him do that again. The thing that has become clear though is, he likes the bruises. I get the feeling he wants more of them. Looking at him across the table makes my skin crawl.
“You will go back to school today, Beth.”
Joy spreads through me at the announcement. I was beginning to think he wouldn’t ever let me go back.
“Thank you, Col,” I say, hoping I sound suitably remorseful. My time here has been hell. I have this plan slowly percolating in the back of my mind. I think I might try to run away on a bus, if I can make it to the Greyhound station. I’ll just start riding until Georgia is nothing but a bad, bad memory. I won’t miss anyone unless you count Skull. Then again, I can’t have him anyway.
“Gerald will drive you. Do not disappoint me again, Beth. There will be consequences if you do.”
“I understand.”
“I will also expect you back home every weekend. We need to start getting to know each other.”
“We do?”
“We do. You have a future and a place in our family. The biker does not fit into that. Do not forget, or I’ll show you in a way you won’t be able to forget.”
I can’t answer. My voice has fled once again. I just nod in agreement and walk towards the front door. My body stiffens when Gerald’s hand touches my back, and he guides me to the car.
* * *
I never thought I’d be glad to see SPH, but as it comes into my line of sight, I’m nearly jumping for joy. When the limo comes to a stop, I don’t wait. I open the door and jump outside. I don’t turn around when I hear Gerald call my name—I just keep going. I don’t take a breath until I make it behind the locked gate. Even then, I keep going. Friends try to stop and talk to me, but I don’t answer them. I walk past everyone, my mind on only one thing. I walk down the stairs and into the basement. I don’t have my cell because Colin took it, and even though I got it back, I left it in the hall when I first entered the building. I don’t know if he did anything to it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he put some kind of tracker on it.
I go through to the door that Ryan always leaves unlocked for us girls to sneak out of. It’s probably sacrilege, but I offer up a prayer of thanks when the door pushes open. The backyard is more like a thin strip of land; if I lay flat in it, one hand could touch the building and the other could touch the fence. Because it’s so small and fenced off from the front, the nuns apparently don’t think us girls use it. The back fence is nothing like the cold black iron bars of the front. The back is cement blocks and, while definitely tall, they still are only a
bout four and a half feet. Ryan has brought out some more blocks for us to stand on, and once I climb on those, I can jump over the fence.
It’s crazy, and I shouldn’t be tempting fate this soon, but I’m not running away to Bantam. I won’t see Skull again. I don’t want to put his life in danger. No. This time, I’m just having a meltdown. So I go to the one place that makes me feel real.
Gethsemane Gardens Cemetery. It’s a huge local cemetery that you can’t walk by without seeing several tents up of people that have passed on and are being buried. I go here once a week, but not to visit my mom or Edmund. Their plots are on the other end far away from the small grave I visit. I walk by the manmade pond, which has swans swimming in it, then go to the third grave on the left. It’s a seemingly unimportant grave marked only by a small nondescript gravestone, yet it means everything to me.
Katie Benson. Daughter and Sister.
“Bethie? Do you ever wonder if we’ll marry someone like our dad someday?”
“Not me. I’m never going to marry someone like our dad. The guy I marry will be kind and sweet. He’ll have pretty green eyes that sparkle and he will laugh. He’ll like rainbows and ponies and, most of all, he’ll like me. And when he has a little girl, he’ll make sure he hugs her and plays with her. What about you, Katie?”
“I’m not getting married. I’ll use a man for sex and that’s it.”
“Katie!”
“What? That’s what mom says men are only good for.”
“What’s sex?”
“I think it’s where you hug and kiss and watch movies together.”
“Oh. Well, then… I’m just using a man for sex, too!”
“It’s a deal then. Let’s pinky swear…”
I play over the memories in my mind, hearing our voices just like it was yesterday. God, I miss her. Would she be disappointed in the person I am now? We were so close when we were younger. Then our parents divorced. Somehow they got it in their heads that, because we were twins, dad would take one of us and mom would take the other. I still wonder which of us got the better deal. In truth, neither Katie nor I won the parent lottery on either side. The last time I saw my sister, we were ten years old and Roger, my dad, let Katie come visit for a week before he took her to Scotland to visit his relatives there.