by Deja Voss
Highest Sins
Mountain Misfits MC Book 2
Deja Voss
Copyright © 2018 by Deja Voss
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.
Created with Vellum
Contents
1. Fifteen Years Ago
2. Present Day
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
15. Fifteen Years Ago
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
22. Fifteen Years Ago
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
28. Fifteen Years Ago
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
46. Epilogue
Thank you so much for reading!
About the Author
Also by Deja Voss
1
Fifteen Years Ago
Esther:
I know I’m supposed to be strong today. My brother Gavin made me promise. I’m standing in the doorway of Brooks’s bedroom, watching him toss and turn, watching him cling to his pillow, his sleeping face unable to put on the tough guy smile that he’s always hiding behind.
My heart is broken for him. By him. The guy who always looked after me growing up. The guy who never made me feel like I was just the annoying kid sister that got in the way. It’s the one-year anniversary of the death of his father, and Gavin and I decided we’d be there for him from the moment he woke up. He’s our best friend and it’s the least we can do.
I don’t know what I’m thinking, watching him like this. Everything in me tells me to run away, to go downstairs in the kitchen and help Gavin make pancakes, but I can’t leave him like this. I crawl into bed with Brooks, the little boy who had to become a man way too quickly, and curl up next to him on top of the covers.
His blue eyes snap open and he shakes his head, startled. “Shit, Esther,” he mutters. “You scared me.”
“Sorry,” I whisper. “Go back to sleep.”
He smiles and throws his arm over my body, hugging me like a beloved teddy bear until he’s snoring in my ear. I stare up at the ceiling, not really sure how to feel right now. We might only be a year apart in age, but ever since his father died, he had to grow up really fast. He’s not the boy I’ve had a crush on my whole life. He’s a man now.
He might have just graduated high school with my brother, but he has his own house, the house he and his father lived in. Sure, everyone in the club pitches in and looks after him, makes sure he has food to eat and that the electric bill gets paid, but I can’t imagine having to be as responsible as he’s been. Every day, at 7:05 a.m. sharp, he’s waiting outside my house, honking the horn on his truck, making sure Gavin and I are up and ready for school. At night, he works on bikes for the other guys in the club.
The girls at our school think my brother and Brooks are gods. They’re constantly surrounded by pretty chicks, and I know some of the girls who I hang out with are only pretending to be friends with me so they can be around those two. I’ve learned to get used to it. It’s not like a lot of girls are allowed to hang out at my place, anyway. Their parents know who I am, where I live, and that I was born into the Mountain Misfits Motorcycle Club. I can pretend all I want that I’m a normal teenager, but I’ve definitely seen some shit.
The girls want nothing more than to be all over Gavin and Brooks, but the guys my age, they won’t come anywhere near me. Any guy that even asks me for homework advice has to get through those two first, and I don’t blame them for not wanting to risk their necks. It sucks. It sucks so badly. Especially now that I’m almost eighteen. I want what every girl my age wants. I want to feel love. I want to kiss boys.
Well, I want to kiss a boy.
A man.
A man who I’m lying in bed with, all innocent like we’re just two best buds.
I don’t know how much longer I can live this lie.
Brooks:
It’s supposed to be a hard day for me. It’s the one-year anniversary of my dad’s supposed suicide, and every day I find myself with more questions than answers. I don’t know how Esther got in my bed, but by the way she’s laying on top of my comforter fully clothed, at least I can breathe easy knowing I didn’t go and fuck up another good thing I have going for me. One of the only good things I have going for me.
Sure, I have my motorcycle club. I have the house I grew up in. I make pretty good money doing runs for the club and working on bikes, and now that it’s summer, I can start working on my father’s moonshine stills he left behind. I even have a high school diploma. But now, Gavin’s leaving for college and I don’t have a clue where the hell I fit into this world anymore. I’m supposed to be a man now, a real patched-in Mountain Misfit.
Esther and I stand on the ledge of the cliffs. It’s a giant rock formation the guys and I like to go to. There’s a ravine at the bottom, perfect for swimming in. She’s barefoot, her string bikini doing no favors in terms of hiding the fact that she’s not a little girl anymore. She’s not the kid sister Gavin and I used to chase around with garden snakes until we made her cry, not the little girl we’d throw mud at or kick out of our treehouse.
She’s beautiful, her red hair flowing down her shoulders, exotic green eyes that look like they can see right through you. Sure, she’s got an awesome body, but the thing that does it for me the most are the freckles on her shoulders. Something so innocent and weird, but when I look at them, I feel like I get lost in them, like they’re something that were put there just for me.
It’s dangerous knowing she’s about to be eighteen. That’s just one less thing holding me back from ruining what we have going. Hell, probably ruining mine and Gavin’s friendship if he knew how I felt about his little sister. Her father would definitely kill me, like I think he killed my father.
“Are you gonna jump or what, you chicken shits?” Gavin shouts from the water below.
“You don’t have to,” I tell her. She’s gripping my hand to the point her knuckles are white. We’ve been here a million times over the years, but never once has she jumped. “We can just walk the trail down.”
“I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it,” she’s chanting over and over again. I don’t know if she is trying to convince me or trying to convince herself. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Count me down, Brooks,” she finally says, steadily, sturdily, assuredly.
I count to three and we throw ourselves off the cliff, falling forever, crashing into the cool water below. I open my eyes under the water and she’s just hanging there, motionless, not even trying to surface, just holding her breath with her eyes squeezed shut, slow
ly drifting upwards.
“That was amazing,” she finally screams, gasping for air as she treads towards me, splashing around without a care. “I feel like a new person!” It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. The way she’s looking at me like I’m the only person in the whole wide world, like our life is some sort of big inside joke and only the two of us get it, it was only made for the two of us, and the reality just hit us both over the head.
Gavin swims towards us, and for the first time ever, I realize I don’t care if he goes off to college in the fall. I’m going to be ok. We’re going to be ok. I wish he would go away right now. But instead, he’s grabbing his sister by the hair, shoving her underwater while she screams and thrashes, and they’re kicking and fighting like typical siblings.
All I can do is watch. Maybe the inside joke is on me, that Esther will never be mine alone. Esther will always be owned by the club, just like I am.
Esther:
“Hey, where are you going?” my dad asks as I walk through the clubhouse. He’s sitting at the bar with his usual glass of whiskey, puffing on a cigar while some lady is hanging all over him, trying to become my new stepmom.
“Over to Brooks’s. Him and Gavin are having a bonfire tonight.” We swam all day, rode four-wheelers, and by dinnertime, I was beat and had to come home and take a nap. Plus I wanted to look good for the party. I know there are going to be girls from our school there fighting for his attention, girls who are much prettier than I am. I might not be able to compete, but I can at least try. I’m wearing my favorite denim skirt with a plain green tank top. I know green is Brooks’s favorite color, because, duh, I’ve known him my whole life. I know everything about him. Maybe it doesn’t make a difference, but I’m going to stack the odds in my favor the best I can.
“I’m sorry, Esther, but I can’t let you do that,” he says to me, frowning, staring at me like he’s angry, and I’m trying to wrack my brain for anything I could’ve done out of the norm lately, but I’m coming up short.
“Since when do you care?” I whine. My dad has never given me rules. As long as I don’t openly judge him or question his choices, I can fly under the radar and do whatever I want. I turn my head the other way, he turns his. It’s our unspoken parent child relationship.
“Come talk to me in my office,” he says sternly, untangling himself from the drunk lady with the bleach blonde hair and putting his arm around me, escorting me to the office of the clubhouse. “You want a beer?” he asks, heading to the mini fridge.
I roll my eyes at him. If my dad is offering me alcohol, it means he’s going to lay some bad news on me, like when I was twelve and he finally told me Santa wasn’t real. Yeah, we’re kind of off like that up here on this mountain, and my dad isn’t necessarily the best at raising children. Thank goodness for people like Aunt Trixie, who looks after us like we’re her own, or I probably would’ve thought I was going to die when I got my period for the first time.
“No, I don’t want a beer. I want to go to Brooks’s.”
“Honey, sit down,” he says, motioning to the desk chair. “We need to have a talk. You’re growing up so fast, and I don’t think you understand what that means.”
“Dad, I know what sex is. If I open up this office door, I can probably see it in progress in front of me. But if you’re worried about me, I’m not doing it. Gavin won’t even let the guys at school talk to me, let alone bang me.”
The look on his face is priceless. I can see the wheels in his head turning behind his dark eyes, like he didn’t see that coming, like he has to be very careful about the next thing that comes out of his mouth. I must have outsmarted him. I do a little victory dance in my mind.
“Are we good?” I ask, getting up from the chair.
“You’re going to go live with your Aunt Mary in the Poconos. She’s coming to get you in the morning,” he says, point-blank.
“OK, Dad,” I laugh, rolling my eyes at him.
“I can’t keep you safe here. This isn’t the place for a teenage girl to live.”
“Daddy,” I whine. “Aunt Mary’s house is so boring. She’s like eighty-five and she watches soap operas and talks to her cats all day. What about my friends? What about Gavin? It’s his last summer before college and I want to spend time with him!”
“I don’t know how to explain it to you, Esther. You have something valuable, just because of who you are, who your father is, who your grandfather is. Someday, you will understand. Someday soon. You’d do anything for the club, wouldn’t you?” he asks. “You are just as much of a Mountain Misfit as any of these guys patched in, right?”
I don’t know what he’s asking me to do, but I do know that when it comes to matters of the club, I would do anything. I would take a bullet for my big extended misfit family. I might not be able to ever be a true member because of my gender, but that wouldn’t stop me from acting like one, even though I’m still just a kid. It’s in my blood. It’s what we do.
I nod, feeling tears rolling down my face. I don’t know what he wants from me, I don’t have any idea what I have, but I’m sure whatever it is, I’m going to give it willingly, no matter how I actually feel about it.
“Go pack your things, Esther,” he says.
“How long am I going away for?”
“I don’t know yet, honey. I’ll make sure Aunt Mary has enough money to buy you whatever you need, though. You won’t have to worry about anything.”
In this moment, I’m worried about everything except my things. What’s going to happen when I’m gone? To my brothers? To Brooks? Surely by the time I get back, he’ll probably have a girlfriend. Hell, he might even get married! What’s going to happen to me? Why am I not fighting my dad about this? Why am I willingly walking off to some fate that I don’t yet understand.
“Can I at least go to the party and say goodbye?” I ask him.
“Do you really want to do that to yourself?”
I think about how hard it’s going to be to let go of the life I know. Maybe he’s right. Maybe it will just be easier if I disappear without a trace. I’m sure this situation isn’t permanent. I trust my father as the president of the club, and he wouldn’t even suggest this if it wasn’t of utmost importance. It’s time for me to grow up, just like my brother. Just like Brooks had to. It’s time for me to do what’s best for the club.
“I love you, baby,” he says. “You know this is for the greater good.”
Over the next year, I learned I would never have the chance to sell my soul. When I walked out that door, when I packed up my stuff like a good little soldier and left for my Aunt Mary’s, my soul was already sold. My life was about to change. When I finally came back to the mountain, everything was different. I was no longer princess Esther.
I was broken.
I was empty.
I was unrecognizable.
I was the queen.
2
Present Day
Brooks
“Can you hurry this shit along? You’re acting like we’re fucking prospects or something, Dad.” Gavin is pacing around the little office of the clubhouse, hands in his pockets while his father, Moses Boden, president of the Mountain Misfits MC, slowly counts the stacks of money, checking and double-checking each and every bill. I just stand in the corner, nursing my beer, not even slightly surprised by the scene playing out in front of me.
Moses is looking old, grayer than usual, the whites of his eyes damn near yellow in this light. He’s puffing away at his cigar and taking a long swig from his glass of whiskey after he counts each stack of cash and sorts it on the desk in front of him.
Keep up the good work, old man, I think. As many times as I’ve wanted to kill this guy, I think he’s doing an ok job of doing it to himself. The way his lungs rattle when he clears his throat to talk sounds like nothing short of imminent death.
“Last drop was short,” he says to Gavin.
“Not on my watch. Not on Brooks’s watch. You’re being a dick.”
/> It’s a power thing with Moses. It’s always a power thing. I don’t really say much because my silence pisses him off more than putting up a fight. He still wants to treat Gavin and I like we’re teenagers, and the way Gavin whines and argues with him constantly makes me think that maybe he still is.
I, on the other hand, am playing the long game.
Waiting him out.
He’ll die eventually, old, alone, with nothing to show for his legacy but a bunch of children who hate him and a handful of ex-wives who feel exactly the same way. Nothing to show for it but the fact that he killed my father to get where he is today. The ugly truth none of us talk about because fighting with Moses gets you nowhere in this club.
He’ll die, and Gavin and I will do what we need to do to get us back on top, to get the Mountain Misfits functioning like we’ve always wanted it to. A bunch of men and their old ladies living on this mountain, self-sufficient, free from society below. A bunch of men united by our love for motorcycles and our need to live life on our own terms.
“What’s your hurry, son?” he asks. “Why don’t you stay and have a drink with your old man?”