Shane (The Mallick Brothers Book 1)

by Jessica Gadziala

  “It’s blue,” Eli said, shrugging. “But I guess we all just think alike in some ways.”

  “How did you know it’s blue?” I asked, sure I had never consistently worn the color around them.

  “Eli just knows stupid shit like that,” Mark said, getting a glare from his brother for the ‘stupid shit’ comment.

  The shift changed an hour later, all of us scooting upward. That put Mark at the wheel with Eli asleep beside him. Charlie and Hunter were now in the far back, passed out. Ryan was still awake beside me, us right behind the front seat then.

  “Should we worry about Eli?” Mark asked, looking in the rearview at Ryan.

  Ryan didn’t answer for a long minute, staring at the window. Then he looked forward out the dash and gave an answer that was so full of meaning that I felt myself shiver. “Yes.”

  Mark nodded, accepting that as an answer. And I let the silence hang for a minute to see if they would elaborate. When they didn’t, I spoke up. “Why should we be worried about Eli?”

  “See, sweetheart,” Mark started, eyes on the road, but I watched his face in the mirror. “We are all violent. To some of us, it came naturally. With me and Shane especially. Ryan can tap into it too, in a detached kind of way. But this life was never meant for Hunt and Eli. Hunter got out and stayed out. Eli could never find the balls to do it. The thing is, he was softer than the rest of us. He was always curled up with books and crayons and paint as a kid. He never wanted to do the crazy shit we all got into. He was happy by himself, creating shit while we fell out of trees and came home fresh from fights almost daily. But being too soft, it wasn’t going to get him by in this family. So we all, I guess, ganged up on him, hardened him. Doing that, forcing him to be something he wasn’t, it made him into something the rest of us aren’t.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Uncontrollable,” Ryan answered.

  I glanced over at the sleeping Eli with his shaggy hair, his less pronounced jawline, his deep soul.

  “Can’t picture it, can you?” Mark asked, knowing what I was thinking.

  “No.”

  “It’s freaky as fuck to watch. It’s like he has this well of rage inside that, when he taps into, it fucking explodes outward and overtakes him. He is who Pops sends when he really wants to send a message. He’s the one who flies off the fucking handle when he sees a guy being shitty toward a chick in a bar. He’s the one who gave a concussion to some guy who kicked his dog in public. When he flips, he flips the fuck out. The Eli you think you know, he’s just not there when he’s raging out. It’s a whole different animal. And this,” he said gesturing at the GPS, “this shit will be personal to him. He’s keeping it together now because he doesn’t have a choice. But get him eye-to-eye with your ex, honey, and he will fucking blow.”

  “Well, he’s not going to get face-to-face with Ross,” I said with certainty. “That’s why we are going, to stop Shane before he can do anything stupid. We wouldn’t stop Shane and let Eli start trouble.”

  “Right,” Mark agreed.

  I didn’t know at the time that he was placating me.

  I also didn’t know that, in the middle of the second day, when I eventually passed out, my fried nerves making me do so like the dead, that the men in the car all woke up and agreed on something.

  That something was that they were going to detour.

  And let Shane get there ahead of us.

  I was also quite blithely unaware that they had even called Shane and hammered out the details, agreeing to show up and let him try to handle it before they went in. And that I would never be allowed anywhere near the entire situation.

  Which was why when I woke up, I woke up in a God damn hotel room twenty fucking miles from where the entire Mallick family was with no car, no cell, and no shoes.

  I was so disoriented for a long time that I scrambled up, heart thumping so hard that it made me feel nauseated, reaching for the remote on the nightstand and clicking on the TV so I could see the date and time. I put a hand to my chest, taking deep breaths and trying to calm down. I couldn’t focus if I was freaking out.

  Of course they left me. I really should have even seen that coming.

  Maybe they respected women and their ability to be badasses in their own right, but they were strong, alpha males. No way were they going to let a woman follow them into danger if they could prevent it.

  The thing that freaked me out the most was that one of them had managed to drag me out of a car, carry me into a hotel room, and tuck me into bed without me so much as gaining consciousness for a second. I knew without being able to know, that it had been Ryan to do it.

  And leave it to the freaking Mallick family to get me a God damn gorgeous hotel room too, not some sleep-and-fuck motel off the highway.

  The sun was streaming through the sheers on the windows and I hopped up and made my way over to peel back the blinds and look out. Nothing was immediately familiar, California being huge and the fact that I had been asleep making it hard to tell which part of Cali I was in. I walked over toward the small desk and grabbed the brochure laying there, checking out the address with a small surge of relief.

  It wasn’t that far.

  They couldn’t be that far ahead of me.

  And the crazy thing was, after some sleep to smooth over my frazzled nerves, yeah, I lost all that victim mentality shit.

  The fear was gone.

  So was the worry.

  So was the guilt, the embarrassment, and the willingness to take back seat and let other people handle my problems.

  All that was left was a bone-deep kind of anger, the kind that made my blood boil, that made my skin itch.

  The kind that maybe Eli tapped into when he raged out.

  I was so done being on the run, jumping at shadows, not being able to fall asleep because of the stress.

  I was so fucking done.

  It was time to face up my demons.

  See, the Mallick men didn’t realize one thing. It wasn’t only the MC who I knew in Cali.

  I had friends. The kind that were willing to go twenty miles out of their way to see me and give me a bike. The kind who would give me illegal guns and a supply of bullets.

  Okay. So they were less friends and more some of my criminal exes. But whatever. In a pinch, you had to do what you had to do.

  I sat down on the side of the bed, raking a hand through my crazy hair as I reached for the phone. It was more than a little bit of a miracle that I could remember their numbers.

  “The fuck you got yourself into now, you crazy bitch?” the first asked as soon as he heard my voice. “I am not bailing your ass out again because you went streaking with a bunch of random fucks you met at a bar.”

  “Nice to talk to you too, Grig,” I said, smiling and shaking my head, time making his attitude funny where it used to rake over me like cat claws. “That’s not the kind of pinch I’m in this time.”

  “Alright, I’ll bite,” he said, moving away from the noise around him, surprising me. I swear to all that was holy, when we dated, he refused to ever turn down the fights when they were on, no matter how important what I was saying was. “What kind of pinch are you in then, LeLe?”

  God, I hated that nickname.

  “So remember the MC?”

  “You mean the fucks who wouldn’t let me step foot on the property when I came to pick you up? That MC?”

  “Yeah, well. The new president and I had a thing. He…”

  “He what?” he prompted, sounding like he expected me to say anything but what I did. When I was finished, there was a long pause. “What do you need from me?”

  “From you? A bike and helmet and a pair of boots.”

  “You got it. Give me the address and I will be there as soon as possible.”

  I gave him the address, hung up, then picked up the phone again, my stomach twisting a little. Grig and I, for all intents and purposes, had a relatively normal relationship, him being a mechanic and small-time underground
fighter. I knew, despite what he had said when I first said hello, he’d have come and bailed me out. But me and Leo, yeah, there was some weird history there. A big part of that might have had something to do with the fact that he sold guns to local gangs, a fact he never told me about and then we fought about when I found out on my own. But, being the guy with the guns, he was the guy I needed.

  “Leo, it’s Lea.”

  There was a pause. “Seriously?” he asked, exhaling hard. I had been the one to dump him. And it had been ugly. “What the fuck could you possibly have to say to me?”

  I laid it out quickly, each time telling it somehow making it easier. Like with Grig, there was a long pause. “And the reason you didn’t call me to put a fucking plug in him the first fucking time is…” he said, surprising me. He exhaled again. “Alright. So I’m assuming you’re not calling me because you want me to make you some chili,” he said, and I felt myself smile slightly. He really did make good chili. “So I’m assuming you need guns.”

  “You’d be right,” I agreed.

  About an hour later, I was opening the hotel room door to see two men standing side-by-side, both looking equally uncomfortable being near each other, but both sets of eyes on me.

  Really, I apparently had a type.

  Grig and Leo were both tall, built, with tattoos and a certain roughness around their mouths and eyes. While Grig had brown eyes, Leo had green. But aside from that, they were both dark-haired, jean and tee-wearing, badasses.

  “That’s a look,” Grig said, and I noticed the boots in his hand, giving me what was an imitation of a smile, him obviously not looking at me quite the same after hearing my story. I noticed the same quality in Leo too, making me painfully aware and wholly thankful that I had found Shane who never looked at me differently.

  “Can we get off the street?” Leo said, obviously more anxious about holding illegal guns.

  I opened the door and they walked in in unison, sharing a look when they bumped shoulders. Grig eventually waved a hand and Leo walked in first.

  I almost wanted to laugh at the exchange.

  “Alright, here,” Leo said, obviously not caring about Grig knowing about his business as he pulled a gun from his waistband. “It’s loaded,” he said as I took the big, mean-looking gun from his hand, checking the clip like Rick, the former MC president, had taught me at a very young age. “And here’s an extra. Dunno what you’re going into, but you should always have too many bullets.”

  “Thanks, Leo. I appreciate it.”

  He shook his head, his face hard. “Don’t thank me. Use it. Get your shit handled. And don’t ever contact me again.”

  With that, he gave Grig a chin jerk and moved off toward the door, closing it a bit harder than was necessary.

  “He’s charming,” Grig said when we were alone, trying to look amused, and mostly failing. “Tell me the new one isn’t a fuck like that one and the other one,” he said, tossing me the boots he had in his hand.

  I felt myself smile a little wistfully. “He’s one of the good ones.”

  Grig’s head turned to the side. “You? With a good guy?” he asked, genuinely amused then. “I refuse to believe that.”

  “Okay. So he’s a loan shark enforcer,” I confided, smiling and he smiled too.

  “That’s more like you, you crazy bitch.”

  “Did you bring me a bike?” I asked, wanting to get things moving. There was a time for memory lane, this was not it.

  Grig reached into his pocket and produced a key. “It’s strapped down in my truck. I have the ramps but you’ll have to help me get it down. Got a helmet too and it’s all fueled up.”

  “Great. I really appreciate this, Grig. You didn’t have to…”

  “Yeah I did. You and me might have been oil and water, but no matter what history you have with someone, when they have a situation like you got going on, you help out.”

  “Thanks,” I said, meaning it, glad to see that there were people in my past who did give a shit about me. That was a nice thing to know. “So let’s get it done. I have some ground to cover.”

  So that put me on a bike riding down the back street toward the compound with a gun nestled in the back waistband of my jeans in a pair of men’s boots two sizes too big, ready to finally do what needed to be done

  Put an end to this shit, once and for all.

  SEVENTEEN

  Shane

  I wouldn’t say I was surprised when Ryan made the call. That wouldn’t be the right word. Pleased, was more like it. Because when Lea realized the shit hit the fan and there was some level of danger, she didn’t hide, she didn’t hole up and worry, she didn’t jump in a car and head off on her own to try to stop it.

  She went to my family.

  That was important to me.

  I think it went without saying that my family meant the world to me. So when I finally stopped horn-dogging around and found a girl I wanted to spend more than a night or weekend with, it followed that she would have to get along with them.

  It was clear immediately that she and Fee got on, both being somewhat opinionated, headstrong, stubborn women with hearts of gold and iffy pasts. And I could also tell she had a lot of respect for my parents after she made that comment about them raising good men.

  The night at Chaz’s also made it clear that she got on with each of my brothers. Mark and her were a good match, both quick and happy to one-up each other’s insults. Her and Eli had holed up in a corner for a long time, talking, tones hushed, eyes intense. The only one she didn’t really seem to make a connection with was Ryan. It was something that didn’t overly concern me because, well, Ryan didn’t make connections with anyone. If me and Mark made our determination to be uncommitted and unconnected with anyone seem like sport, he made it seem like a God damn way of life. While he hung out with all of us when we got together and participated in conversation, it was clear he was a loner, he was lost in his own head. And outside of family, he almost never fostered any kind of friendships and certainly not any relationships. That wasn’t the kind of man he was. So Lea not ‘getting’ him didn’t mean anything.

  She still respected him and in no way shied away from him.

  My family mattered to her. And not only because they were part of the me-package. I think she found things in them that she missed with her own family, even if she didn’t really see it. She looked up to Charlie because he was everything a father should be. She felt safe around my brothers because they were everything her brother wasn’t. And she bonded with Fee and my mom because they were the mother and sister she didn’t get to have.

  When she ran to them, it meant something.

  “What?” I barked into the speaker in my radio when the call came in.

  “We’re guessing we’re ahead of you by at least an hour at this point,” he greeted me. And, sure enough, when we rambled off the nearest towns, they were. “Thing is, we changed our minds. We aren’t going to stop you from what you need to do, what needs to be done. But we are going to make sure you aren’t walking into a death trap.”

  I nodded to myself, letting out a breath. If I knew anything about my family, it was that they damn sure could stop me if they wanted to. Five against one was no fight. Even if Pops was older, he was every bit as spry in a fight as the rest of us.

  “She can’t come here,” I heard myself saying, knowing she would hate me, would be pissed-as-vinegar at me for making the decision for her.

  “We know,” Ryan agreed. “She’s not handling this well. First leg of the trip, she was rocking the whole time.”

  “Fuck,” I snapped, cracking my neck to try to release some tension. A big part of me, maybe just as big a part of me that wanted to get my hands on her ex, wanted me to turn around, go meet them somewhere, and take whatever worry she had going on inside her to make a pretty badass bitch go all soft like that. “And the current leg?”

  “She’s passed out,” Eli supplied. “Been out for hours now. Sleeps like the dead.”


  “She kick any of you yet?” I asked, smiling a little at the idea.

  “Only about a dozen times,” Ryan said and it was clear by his tone that he was the one who got kicked.

  “So here’s what we’re thinking,” Hunter went on, me obviously being on speaker and none of them overly concerned that she might hear. “We will cross into Cali and drop her in a hotel. That way, she’s close when this is all done so she doesn’t freak too bad. And then we can all come and make sure shit doesn’t get too crazy with you.”

  I paused at that, really not fond of the idea of her alone in a hotel room, especially if she got up with no idea of how she got put there. But she was sharp, she would put it together quick enough. And, if I knew Lea at all… and I fucking did, she wouldn’t freak. She would get pissed.

  But that was okay. I could handle pissed Lea.

  “Sounds good,” I agreed.

  “We’ll see you in a couple,” Pops said and the call ended.

  As much as it killed me to admit it, I liked that I had backup. Adrenaline having a fair amount of time to get reabsorbed into my system, I could see how storming off on my own to confront a fucking MC president was perhaps not my brightest plan. Granted, this shit was between me and this Ross fuck. But I knew my family would be there to make sure it stayed between me and the Ross fuck and the rest of the chapter didn’t come barreling in and find inventive ways of torturing and killing me.

  It wasn’t hard to find the clubhouse of the Satan’s Sinners MC. It was out on a deserted end of a highway, set so far back from the road that it almost looked like it melted into the landscape and that your eyes were playing tricks on you by making you think it was an actual building. But the sunlight flashing off the several dozen Harleys was a pretty big X marks the spot.

  I turned back around at the dead end and went back to the nearest parking lot, about a mile and a half down the road. It was a hole in the wall dive bar that looked like it had been built in the fifties and hadn’t seen repairs or upgrades since then. Perfect place for bikers. It was closed in the early morning light, though several cars and trucks were there from the night before from patrons who found other ways home. I jumped out and pulled off my plates, sticking them under the driver’s seat, slipping a piece of paper over the VIN number in my dash, covering all my bases in case someone got suspicious. My thinking was, whoever owned a shit place like that which was likely the watering hole of bikers who not only threw back a few, but handed out heroin to happy customers, wouldn’t be too quick to call the cops about an unknown car in the lot. But I wasn’t taking chances.