by Ally Vance
“I don’t belong to the club,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Oh, you do. You’re mine, Harley! You’re a goddamn princess and you’re workin’ in this shit hole! Pack your shit, sweetheart, because you’re movin’ back to the clubhouse.”
“I’m twenty-one! You can’t make me do that!” I scream as he releases my throat and steps back.
“I can and I will. You think Brian findin’ you was a coincidence? If you believe that, you are as stupid as your mother was. Get your shit, you’re done workin’ here, too.”
Now I really protest. He can’t take my job away from me. He can’t do that!
“No.”
“No?” he mimics me.
“No. I’m not quitting my job. I like working here,” I tell him, standing my ground. Doesn’t matter to him. He doesn’t care. He’s a man on a mission, and as soon as I turn to start heading toward the back, two of his guys step out and grab me. One on each arm. I fight, of course I do, but it doesn’t do me any good. They’re stronger than me.
“Looks like you have a situation here,” he mocks as he steps closer to me. I ignore him, trying to look anywhere but at him. He grabs my chin in his hand roughly, forcing my gaze to his.
“Play time is over, Harley. I’ve got big plans for you.”
“What plans?” I hiss.
“None of your goddamn business but you’re gonna bring me a pretty penny when this is all over. Now shut up and don’t make them hurt you,” he says.
This monster is my father. This is what hell I lived in until I was able to get out and now I’m being forced back into his world. A world that I want nothing to do with.
Chapter Nine
Devious
“I said are you him!” the little girl screams again. I tried ignoring her, but she just won’t go away. Turning my head, I stare at her a long minute. It’s Angel. It’s Harley’s friend.
“Where is she?” I ask, nodding toward her window where the curtains have been closed for a week. A goddamn week of not seeing her has nearly sucked the air from my lungs. I’ve been there, but she isn’t there. I don’t know where the hell she is, and it’s got my nerves worn down.
“Are you him? The guy she always talks about?” Her questions could go a few ways and I’m not sure I want to answer them. I want to know where my girl is, but she could be helping the assholes hide her.
“Am I who?”
“Stop playing stupid! I know about you. She’s my best friend. She tells me everything. I just need to know that you can be trusted,” she nearly cries.
“I can be trusted.”
“But are you him?”
“Yeah, I’m him. Now where the fuck is she?”
Angel blows out a breath before walking closer and sitting on the edge of the roof.
“Her dad took her. I’m only allowed to see her once a week. I’m just another club member’s kid, I have no rights to anything, but I do know they are auctioning her off. I heard my dad,” she says, tears filling her eyes.
I shake my head and run my hand through my hair before moving to sit next to her on my rooftop.
“What do you mean, they’re auctionin’ her off?”
“I heard him say the highest club that bids on her gets her.”
No. Fucking. Way.
“Why the hell would he do that?”
“The club has nothing. They’re broke. They steal what they do have. Honestly they are about to be ruined without some kind of income.”
“So he uses his kid?”
“Can you get her back or not? I can get you in. I can get you whatever you need. Just please get her out of there. You don’t know the kind of people that will bid on her,” she begs.
I chuckle. She’s asking me, a rival MC, to save her goddamn friend from being sold to men just like me!
“I do know what they’re like. I’m one of them!” I roar. She jolts but doesn’t say another word. She sits there, staring up at me with wide begging eyes. How do I tell her no? How do I turn my back on something that I claimed a long time ago? This primal need seems to eat away at me until I’m nodding my goddamn head and agreeing to a fucking war over a girl.
“I’ll get her back.”
“What? You will?”
“She’s mine.”
“She’s not yours,” she snaps, crossing her arms over her chest. Oh, little does she know.
“Oh, she is mine, and after I get her back I’m claimin’ her ass. She’s gonna wear my goddamn patch all over her body. She’s gonna be my old lady. She. Is. Mine.” A slow, soft smile curls Angel’s lips as she peers up at me.
“What’s the plan?”
“There is no plan. I’ll wait ‘til the word goes out about the biddin’ and then we’ll bid.”
“You can’t do that. What if you don’t win.”
“I always win.”
“Are you really trusting that line of shit? You could lose!”
“You don’t know me, Angel. I got this,” I tell her as I walk past her and toward the door. She’s right behind me, trailing along like a lost puppy.
“You can’t be the richest MC if you live here,” she adds, taking in the hallway.
“You aren’t the brightest girl, are you?”
“What the fuck?” she snaps at me.
“I mean it. Just because I live here, you think I don’t have money? You wanna know why I live here?” She shrugs her shoulders. “She’s why.” That shut her up. I had thought about moving a time or two but how the hell could I give someone else the satisfaction of seeing my girl every day? I couldn’t. She’s mine and has been since the day I first laid eyes on her. Something about Harley calls to me, and now I’m going to make her mine regardless of what it costs me.
“Are you sure about this?” she asks once more. I nod my head, open my apartment door, and head for the fridge to grab a beer. Angel follows me in. Popping the top off, I take a long pull before I turn and face my girl’s best friend.
“What about you? You need out too?”
She doesn’t answer, just sadly shrugs.
“I’m no one to fight over.”
“I got boys that would say differently. You don’t think she’s gonna want her best friend by her side when this shit goes down?” I ask.
“I’ll never leave her side. I don’t care what they say.”
I like that she holds her ground and her friendship to higher standards. She isn’t going to leave Harley and that makes it a little more difficult for me. Now I’ve got two girls to handle instead of one.
“You can hide out here until this is over. They won’t look here, or I have a few other places.”
“Where will she go first?”
“Here,” I tell her.
“Then I’m staying here.” With a quick nod, I pull my phone out and start making the call. This is going to be fun.
Chapter Ten
Harley
“You can’t do that! You can’t auction me off! Why would you do that to me?” I scream at my dad. I can’t believe he’d do this to me. Yes, actually I can. He doesn’t care about me and never really has. My life has always been this.
“I never wanted kids, Harley. Now you’re older and can handle yourself. Wasn’t much I could do about it back then.”
“So you sell me off to the highest bidder? What kind of man does that make you?” I ask angrily. He’s going to sell me. To another club!
“That makes me a smart man. You’ll bring in good money, Harley. The club is goin’ under. We need a boost,” he says, as if he’s talking about playing a game. I don’t care that the club is going under. I don’t care that they have nothing. They are nothing! I hate this club with everything I have in me.
“You’ll do it too, won’t you? You won’t even care what they’ll do to me?” I ask him. His VP, Splash, stands behind me, holding my arms behind my back so I can’t go after the asshole no matter how much I want to. And God help me do I want to.
“It isn’t personal, Harley. Ange
l is missin’ or she would have been goin’ too.” Now I gasp. Angel is missing? What the hell does that mean. “I see the wheels spinnin’. I don’t know where she is. I’ll find her though. Don’t worry,” he chuckles.
That bastard. How could he? Did I ever really know him? Did I ever even matter to him?
“I hate you! I hate you with every fiber of my being! I hope you rot in hell for this!” I scream before being yanked backward. Splash drags me from the room and down the hall of the dingy clubhouse and tosses me into the room where I’ve been held for a week. It’s dark, smells like urine, and is rundown like the rest of the place. I lie down and curl up on my cot, holding myself because there’s no one else to hold me now.
“What did I do wrong?” I question myself. I should have moved farther away. I should have run as far away and as fast as possible. There are so many things I should have done that I didn’t. I should have told him, my mystery man, how much I needed him and his strength, as weird as it sounds. Something about him just called to me and begged me to hold on, but now I’m here alone in the dark. Nothing and no one to hold onto.
Someone opens the door and a sliver of light flashes before its closed again. Then they’re creeping around the room, setting something I assume to be food on the small table. I want to move, to look, but I don’t. I don’t care what they do to me anymore. My sole objective is to figure out how to get out of here. I need to find a way to find Angel. Where could she be? Where would she run to?
“I brought you dinner,” her little voice says. Deb?
“Deb? Is that you?” Deb is a club whore around here. Poor sickly thing too. She’s so addicted to drugs she doesn’t usually know what day it is.
“Sorry, Harley. I made you soup. That was better than what he wanted me to feed you,” she says softly.
“Deb, help me. Please help me get out of here. I’ll give you anything you want. I can get you drugs,” I tell her knowing exactly what she wants. I feel sick for even offering it, but I also know that she’s an addict.
“I can’t. He’ll kill me.”
“Please, Deb. He’s going to kill me too.”
“It’s not the same, Harley. You know that.”
“I know he’s going to sell me. You have to help me. Please, Deb,” I beg her. The door whips open and one of my dad’s guys glares at us before Deb moves toward the door.
“I’ll be back,” she whispers before she’s leaves the room. My heart falls in my chest. He’s really going to do it. He’s going to sell me and there is nothing that I can do to stop him.
Reality is a hard pill to swallow. I close my eyes as the tears fall until I eventually fall asleep.
Chapter Eleven
Devious
My guns are ready. One in the back of my jeans, one in my boot, and the one in my hand. Angel was right. I couldn’t wait on those motherfuckers to sell her off. I need her now. I explained the situation to the guys, and surprisingly, they were all on board.
“You know the layout in there?” Bend asks as we watch the clubhouse. It isn’t much but I know she’s in there and that’s the part that bothers me the most. I need to make sure she’s safe while this goes down.
“Angel gave me the basics. Two side doors, one on each end, and the one right there. No basement but there’s a shit ton of rooms set up in there. We shoot whatever has a cut on. I don’t give a fuck about any of them. Watch for women. Angel said no kids are allowed inside, so we should be good there,” I tell them.
“And you trust this girl?” I nod my head.
“She’s her best friend. She wouldn’t send us in there if she wasn’t worried herself. We move in, grab her, and get the fuck out, yeah?” I gave them all a description of Harley, so they know what they’re looking for. I was going to wait on the auction to get ready to make my move, but the more I thought about it the more I knew that Angel was right. I couldn’t risk someone else getting their hands on her. I don’t know these clubs that he works with, and I sure as hell don’t know what they are like. I don’t like not knowing. That was enough ammo for me to get this shit rolling sooner rather than later.
“We move on three,” I say, keeping my voice down. Raising my hand in the air, I count us down. We move around the building with stealth-like precision. No one will hear us coming.
One of the guys comes out the front door and I move quickly. Snapping his neck, I lower his body to the ground before motioning for the guys to move. Half move around back, the others around the side to the other doors. I’m ready, focused on the objective: Get my girl and get the fuck out.
Kicking the front door open, we move in. When we’re spotted, shots are fired. My guys move in from all sides, taking their positions. I don’t want her hurt and I have no fucking idea where she is. Slinking along the wall, I keep my eyes open and listen intently. I peek around the corner, and when I don’t see anyone, I move. I creep along the hallway and open each door, ready to fire. The first few rooms are empty, but when I get to the last, I shove it open and find her. Curled up in the corner, she looks up at me with tears in her eyes.
“Miss me, darlin’?”
“You’re here?” she asks confused.
I nod my head and walk over, kneeling in front of her. A few shots are fired in the main room, but I ignore them all. She’s here and she looks to be okay to me. She reaches up and slowly pulls the bandana from my face, leaving it hanging around my neck. Harley studies my face a long minute before leaning in and pressing her lips to mine. Explosions rocket through my body as I sweep my arms around her and hold her close to me. Our tongues fight for dominance, but in the end, I win. Pulling back, I brush my fingers through her hair, keeping the other hand tucked behind her back with my gun.
“We gotta get outta here,” I tell her. She nods her head and stands quickly, taking me with her.
“I can’t find Angel. She’s gone. I don’t know if she’s here or not,” she rambles as I move her toward the door.
“I got her. She’s fine,” I tell her quickly before peeking out of the room. One of the guys motions for me to go ahead. I step out of the room cautiously and move down the hall until we reach the main room. That’s where I see him. On his knees in the middle of the room is her dad.
“Well look at that. On your fuckin’ knees where you belong,” I say, aiming my gun at his head. I keep Harley under my other arm, close to my side as he looks between the two of us. Then Harley bursts into laughter that startles everyone in the room.
“You were going to sell me, you piece of shit!” she screams hysterically. She pulls away from me and moves toward him, kicking and punching. His hands are zip tied behind his back, so I don’t worry about him touching her again. Instead, I watch my girl do her thing. I let her take out her frustration and anger on the man who wanted her dead. The man who was going to sell her to be used and abused. I watch her release all that anger on him and then she walks slowly back over to my side. Harley looks up at me and smiles the sweetest smile I’ve ever seen in my life.
“You feel better, baby girl?”
“A lot better now that you’re here.”
She wraps her arms around me as I raise my gun and fire. She doesn’t look back and I’m grateful for that.
With her tucked under my arm, we both turn and walk out of the place that was trying to break her and into the world of which I live.
The End.
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Always Second Best
S. Firecox
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Always Second Best
Copyright © 2021 S. Firecox
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This book may not be redistributed to others for commercial or noncommercial purposes.
Editing by: A.S. Grayson
Published by: Sin Cave Publishing
Digital Edition
Blurb
A world of sin and depravity where villains never apologize and knights don’t survive…
I’ve wanted Camilla Graves since the day she walked down the aisle and said “I do” to another man. It was an arranged marriage to the wrong brother.
She should have been mine from the beginning. An issue I’ve since rectified. Because I’m done playing in the shadows, waiting for my chance.
With my brother’s blood fresh on my hands, I took her.
My new toy. My plaything. My infatuation.
There’s nowhere for her to run. Nowhere for her to hide. She’s mine now. To have and to hold. To cherish and to devour. To fuck and to own.