by Rose Briner
I sit on one of the picnic tables a little ways away and wait for the storm to end as he destroys the inside of what we just finished making our home.
“You know you can’t change him, right? I’ve told you this before, sweetie,” I look up to find Daisy in front of me, her eyes of Parker as he destroys the house.
“You don’t know shit, Daisy,” I tell her as I look her over in disgust. “He used you and threw you away; he’s been with me for a while now.”
I don’t need to be harsh to her, but that’s the reality.
“You don’t understand that darkness inside of him, what his past has done to him. I do,” she replies as another crash echoes in the distance.
“Liar,” I mumble as I look over at the house. But she knows things about him that I don’t. She does know what he needs; she’s clearly dealt with this before. I go to tell her to fuck off, but she beats me to it.
“Watch and learn,” she throws her head up in the air and saunters right up to the house and bravely walks inside.
Seconds later, the noise ceases, almost like there was never any to begin with.
Curious what’s going on in there, I walk over to where the door is ajar and look inside. What I find there, stops my heart.
He’s standing with his back to me, his arms wrapped around her as he sobs. He’s not moving to push her away.
“I understand your pain, Thunder, let it all out. Everything will be just fine,” he pulls away and looks down at her, but she’s looking over at me. “Won’t it, love?”
“Yes,” he replies softly before turning to see what she’s looking at.
Confusion turns to understanding as he sees me standing there.
He turns towards me, “Nat-”
Daisy’s voice stops him. “Why don’t you tell her why you two can’t be together?”
He shuts his eyes as he hugs Daisy into his side, “Because I went to prison for murder.”
I’ve suddenly had enough. My heart and head are so tired. He had ample opportunity to tell me this, but he never did. I’m hurt and need to get away, but not because of what he’s told me, but because now that Daisy is here, he feels obligated to tell me. He’s chosen her over me, and that’s a hard reality to swallow.
I shake my head, trying to let my situation sink in and try to awaken from the nightmare I’m in, only it doesn’t work, this isn’t a nightmare, it is reality slapping me in the face as he lets go of Daisy and takes a step in my direction.
I stumble as I back away, almost falling as I turn and run away from them.
When I get to the clubhouse, I look behind me, and the final nail hits the coffin when I see he’s not behind me. Guess he’s made his final choice, Daisy was right.
“Where’s Drag?” I choke out when all the men turn to stare at me.
“He’s in a meeting with Satch right now,” answers one of the prospects I’ve never met before. They seem to have a lot of men that come in and out of this place. I haven’t even had time to try and wrap my head around the way things work here.
Fig takes one look at my face and shoves the prospect out of the way.
“Dumb fuck, that’s his favorite girl and the VP’s Old Lady, you think he gives a flying fuck about discussing finances with Satch when she’s here asking for him?”
Seconds later Drag’s voice shouting my name has everyone putting their heads down quietly. I take off in the direction of his office without sparing them another glance.
“What happened, sweetie,” he starts even before the door shuts behind him. He must have seen the look on my face.
“Pop, why am I not enough for him?” he sits down in his chair and eyes me critically from the other side of the desk. He and I have gotten a lot closer over my time here; I only call him Pop now. I sometimes even do it in front of the others, he hasn’t stopped me and doesn’t seem to mind.
“What the hell you going on about, girl? You are the best thing that’s ever happened to that boy,” he knows me well enough to know exactly whom I’m referring to.
“Something dark is haunting him,” I reply sadly. “He’s a lot worse than he has been, he pushed me away. Literally.”
I watch his eyes darken marginally, “You mean to tell me that boy still hasn’t told you what is wrong with him?” He’s bracing the desk so hard his knuckles are white. I’m not scared he’s going to hurt me; his anger isn’t meant for me.
I shake my head no. “Daisy showed up too; she was with him when I left. I need a break, Pop.” I tell him as I remove the property patch and set it down on the corner of the desk. I hesitate as I watch him stare me down. “All he said is he went to prison for murder. He chose to stay with her, he didn’t explain or try to stop me from leaving.”
“Did he hurt you, Natalie?” I hear the edge in his tone.
“Not physically. I love him, Pop, and he doesn’t love me enough to let me in. I’d die for him, but he won’t tell me what haunts him late at night. I know this is bigger than him going to prison, I see it in his eyes. I love him so much I’ve given everything I have including a piece of myself,” he doesn’t miss the way my hands move to my stomach.
“You mean?” I nod in confirmation. “I’m going to be a grandpa?” he rounds the desk and picks me up.
“There’s more,” he lets me go and props himself on the top of his desk. He’ll probably kill me, but I don’t regret my decision. I turn away from him and pull my hair up, so my back is exposed.
“Show me,” he growls his patience of the brink of extinction.
I turn my head away once more and lift my shirt completely up so he can see. The club logo fills my back with Property of across the top and Thunder underneath the logo.
“That God damn ungrateful piece of fucking shit, I’ll kill him.” I hold my breath as the papers on the desk cascade around the room. “He’ll never hurt you again; I promise you that. I’m sending you somewhere safe; you stay there as long as you like.”
He kisses me on the forehead and flings the door open just seconds after I pull my shirt back down.
“Fig, bring her to the secure site, Satch you come with me,” he bellows as members fly out of his way.
“What happened, Pres?” asks a confused Satch.
Pops turns and gives me one last tender glance before his eyes harder, and he begins to pull his hair back, “He broke his fucking promise, and heads are about to roll in this motherfucker.”
He stomps out the door and out of sight.
“Get your bag from Thunder’s room,” Fig says, “make it quick, you have five minutes.”
I don’t argue as I hurry off to get my belongings. It won’t be much, but enough for now.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Parker
“Daisy, let me make this very clear to you,” I tell her the second Natalie is gone, I can’t believe she held me so I couldn’t chase her. “There will never be a you and me, I don’t care what the fuck you do, even if Natalie and I don’t work out, I’m over you, and you need to leave town before I force you out of it,” I tell her as I snarl at her.
“You sure?” she asks, searching my eyes to see if I’m lying. She probably thinks this is like so many of the other times before. I’m a different man, I’ve seen what my life can be like, and now I demand more for myself. “Once I leave, I’m never going to come back.”
“I’m sure, kick rocks,” I nod to the door pointedly.
I watch as she leaves and then I lean back against the dining room table and look around me at the destruction around me. “Fuck,” I say as I shake my head.
“Parker Lee Martinez, bring your fucking ass out here this instant,” I sigh loudly, I know that tone, I’m in deep shit, and I know the exact reason.
“Yes, Pops,” I call as I round the corner.
“Don’t Pops me, motherfucker, you broke your fucking promise,” I don’t miss the way his voice cracks at the end.
“I know I did,” I drop my head as I go to the couch and sink into it. This
shit is destroyed beyond repair. I winch when I realize Natalie probably thinks I’m a monster now.
“You know how much that girl loves you, right? Why won’t you let her in?” he asks as he takes the seat next to me. “Why didn’t you tell her sooner when you have the chance to tell her the entire truth?”
“I’m scared she won’t even look at me the same again if I do,” I admit. “That’s why I lost my shit tonight.”
His laugh has me leaning away from him.
“Whether you want to admit it to yourself or not, Parker, you love Natalie. They call you Thunder, the man who fears nothing, and yet that woman scares you. You care more about what that one woman thinks than the entire club. That son is love. You won’t ever find that again, and now you’ve gone and lost her for a piece of lame ass pussy, why?”
“I didn’t fuck her if that’s what you think,” I tell him. He eyes me cynically before finally looking away.
“You know, I knew about Nat before that day she met me? I’ve been watching that girl long before Jimbo even came into the picture. I saw something in her that day, I wasn’t sure at first, but all these years I knew she was meant to be a member of this family.”
“How did you know that?” I ask curiously.
“I saw Dorothy in her when she was her age. Young, strong, beautiful, tough enough to tame your ass. She’s your kindred spirit, Parker. That’s the reason I brought you along that day we picked her up in Port Angeles.”
“No, it isn’t,” I am in full on denial, I’ll never admit that I’ve loved her since the first time I laid eyes on her.
“You know it is, son. But now you’ll feel what it’s like to lose the one you love more than yourself. She said she’d die for you; she’d do anything to make that pain in your eyes go away, Park. When was the last time a woman said that to you? Women come and go from this place and from your bed, never -not once- has one of them cared about the man behind that mask you have in place. She cares about the man wearing the cut, not the one riding the Harley that pretends to be a badass without a care in the world.”
Shit, he’s right.
“Where is she?” I demand as Drag stands and walks to the door.
“Gone. You have bigger problems that need your attention right about now.”
He steps out of the doorway and reveals Satch standing there with a murderous gleam fixated right on my face.
I know I need to take my punishment like a man. After all, I broke one of the club bylaws, don’t hurt a member of the club, family included.
“I’m here,” I tell them as I step off the porch, arms out to my side.
The first punch to the face stings like a bitch, but I don’t fight back no matter how hard I want to. The second and third to the gut bring me to my knees, but not one time in the half an hour they beat the shit out of me do I raise a hand. My mind focuses on the woman I just lost and how long my road to recovery will take to get her back here by my side. I quickly realize that this isn’t worth losing her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Parker
Ten years ago…
Something doesn’t feel right tonight. Bear’s been acting funny the last couple of days, and my mom begged me not to go out tonight. My mother always wants me to stay home with her. She doesn’t like that I followed in my father’s footsteps and joined the Dragon Skulls. What did she think was going to happen? She’s the one who married the President and got knocked up.
The club is all I’ve known my entire life and the second I was old enough; I decided to prospect. She thinks I don’t know the club runs guns and sells drugs. Bear made sure I knew that years ago when I started hanging around the yard.
My house is completely dark tonight, another usual thing. My mother always told me she’d leave the light on for me. If the light outside is off, she told me to keep driving. I’ve already dismounted by the time I realize the light is off. I’m about to remount when my mother’s murderous scream breaks the night’s silence.
Without thinking, I run towards the front door, and it cracks as it gives way and pieces of wood fly around me as it falls to the floor.
I blink, trying to see through the darkness around me. I step out of the doorway and into the shadows, so any intruders won’t see me and the little light outside from the street lamps can filter inside.
I fight the urge to turn the lights on as I make my way further into the house. I stop every few feet, trying to sense where the intruders are, but the house is completely silent as I pull my knife out as I round the corner and make my way into the living room.
My knife clatters to the floor next to me when I spot my mother and Bear tied up in the chairs furthest away from me, next to the kitchen table.
Without thinking, I cross the room and run to my mother’s side to untie her.
Laughter behind me stops me. “Finally, the guest of honor is here,” a gruff voice states from behind me.
I try to stand, but a blow to the back of my head lands me flat on the floor. I attempt to reach up and touch my throbbing head, but my body won’t cooperate as my world suddenly turns black.
My mother’s screams and someone’s grunts of pleasure fill my mind even before my eyes open and fill with horror. There’s a man wearing a cut raping my mother right in front of us. Bear is begging him to stop as he struggles against the rope binding his arms and legs to the chair. I try to do the same, only to discover I’m tied to a chair as well.
We’re forced to watch as he repeatedly rapes my mother over and over again.
When he’s done and satisfied, he reaches into the back of his pants and pulls out a gun, points it at her face, and pulls the trigger.
My mother’s lifeless face turns in our direction, her eyes unseeing as she stares back at us.
My father’s screams of agony fill the air as he stares back at her unmoving form. My mother was the only thing he loved more than his club. He doesn’t even love me the way he loves her.
I fight against the urge to vomit as I use the little light in the room to my advantage as I struggle to remove the Swiss Army Knife from my back pocket. Once I have it out, I use it to work my binds as the man approaches Bear and hits him across the face with the butt of his gun.
“Where the fuck are my drugs, Bear? You still owe me twenty more kilos of coke,” my father doesn’t respond as he spits blood right into the man’s face.
“I don’t owe you shit, Viper,” he states as he looks past him and over at my mother. Tears fill his eyes, I’ve never seen him cry before.
I hear a gun go off from behind me and blood flows out of the back of Bear’s head when it falls forward.
“I told you not to intervene,” growls Viper as he looks past me and at another figure. “Get out and go search for the drugs before I make you next,” he states as he cocks his gun and points it at someone behind me.
I hear footsteps retreating and take advantage of the distraction to remove the rope from my hands and roar as I pounce on Viper.
His gun goes off, hitting me in the left shoulder as I reach him. I ignore the pain as I repeatedly pound on him. I laugh as his gun jams, and with one final, satisfying crunch, he goes limp beneath me.
I stand and go to Bear and then my mother, both are dead. I knew this, but some stupid part of me hoped they were still alive.
A creak behind me alerts me that someone is in the room. When I turn, I find a masked figure behind me.
“Who are you?” I ask as they stop before me. “What do you want from me?”
“Your slow death,” he cryptically replies as he tilts his head to the side and examines me. “We always agreed that Bear’s son would die slowly.”
He catches me off guard when he wrestles me to the ground and inserts his knife into my left peck, aiming right for my heart.
Sirens in the distance have him running through the back of the house. The last image I remember from that night was the blood all over my hands.
I almost died that day; he narrowly missed m
y heart. I’ll always have the scars to remind me of that day; it scarred me just like the memories from that night scarred my mind.
I woke up in the hospital a few days later, then went to prison for murder. I was so distraught that I didn’t even care what they were sending me to prison for. Luckily our lawyer got me a reduced sentence, and I served five years, and another received another five years of probation. If it weren't for Andrews, I’d still be in there.
I never did find out who that man was. To this day, there’s been no trace of him. Viper was a Nomad, so I never got to exact my revenge against that man, or whoever sent them. Bear didn’t owe them drugs, or at least that’s what Drag told me. He said Bear gave him the drugs and wanted to kill him anyways. Drag took over after that day, and I became his second in command. We still make runs, but I cut most of the drugs out of the equation. Drag didn’t fight me on the decision; he probably was thinking of what could happen to Dorothy. He was just as upset as I was when they killed my mother. My mother was separated from my father for a while; they had just gotten back together days before Viper killed her.
Memories of that night still haunt me to this very day.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Natalie
Three months I’ve been stuck in this fucking cabin in the middle of nowheresville. In reality, I’m thirty minutes outside of Maple Valley, but I might as well be lightyears away from civilizations because there’s no one out here but me and Tim. Some of the other guys come and bring supplies, and Dorothy has come once or twice to see me.
I’m lonely, horny as fuck, and miss Parker. The only company I have is the lake outside. I spend most of my time down there, and Drag got me a puppy to keep me company, so at least I get exercise. I guess I can’t complain, but I feel helpless out here. Sometimes I think they brought me out here to punish me and not Parker. Parker gets to be back with his brothers at the compound, and he has access to Daisy and the other club whores. Drag and Dorothy insist Daisy is gone, that she left town right after her falling out with Parker, but they could just be telling me that shit, so I don’t flip out and lose the baby.