He shook his head at me as I sat on the stool. “Hook, line, and sinker,” he growled.
“What?”
A grimace stretched over Crash’s face. “She’s got you wrapped around her finger.”
“Nope,” I said, refusing to be baited, “but I enjoy having her lips wrapped around my cock.”
The bar exploded with laughter and Crash pounded his fist on the counter. I smiled at the bartender as she passed me a shot of whiskey.
“Listen,” he said when the laughter died off. “A few of those Tiger fucks trashed one of our pool halls. We need to retaliate. This shit has gone too far.”
Blood rushed in my ears. “I’m listening.”
Worried, brown eyes met mine. “I know you went into their territory yesterday, Cain. If you want to get yourself killed, go ahead, but if I find out about you bringing other members into Tiger territory, I’ll pull your head off. You’re my son, but I will do whatever it takes to protect this club.”
My nostrils flared as I caught the scent of a challenge. I will not back down on this. “You made me the way I am, Crash.”
I heard nothing but his finger tapping on the wood. He looked—conflicted. “Yeah, and I’ve always been proud of you, Cain.”
Until now.
“When you killed that kid—”
“That was an accident.” I put force behind the words, having learned long ago that murdering children was one line the MC didn’t cross. It didn’t make sense to me. None of their rules did.
It happened when I was sixteen at school. The children thought I was insane. When I got angry, I threw chairs and screamed filthy insults and stabbed them with sharpened pencils.
Mild irritation blazed into fury when a boy beat me at a basketball game. His gloating laughter made my mind ferment with all the things I wanted to do to him if I had him alone. Purpose flowed through my limbs when I stalked him to his house. Then I beat him until his legs stopped working in broad daylight. All I used was a glass paperweight I swiped from my teacher’s desk.
I caved his fucking skull in. It cracked like an eggshell. The small, red chunks of brain splattered over my shirt. The police dropped me in front of Crash’s house, my hands and elbows still stained with his blood. He paid them a shitload of money to keep it under wraps. He beat me until I was black and blue, threatening to “put me down like a dog” if I ever did that again.
I lied to Crash, I had to in order to save my ass. It wasn’t hard, telling him that the boy attacked me first and bullied me at school. He ate it up.
“It was no fucking accident. That was the one time I seriously thought about whether I made a mistake. And I’m feeling it again now. I need you to promise me that you’ll stay in line, Cain.”
I never understood that, either. “I promise.”
Most people took that phrase as if it was a sacred vow and breaking it was an unspeakable act of evil. Crash’s brown eyes met mine, which watered without blinking for so long.
I promise not to get caught. It meant nothing to me. I said whatever they wanted to hear to placate them. To make them do things I wanted them to do. When I was a boy, I had insurmountable respect for Crash, but to see him be so easily manipulated made my lips curl with contempt. He was a bug I longed to squash.
“Go to the Blackjack lounge. Bring someone with you.”
“Spike,” I said immediately.
“He’s a good kid.”
“Yeah, he shows a lot of promise.”
Crash gave a thoughtful sound and I slammed back the whiskey. Immediately, I wished for something stronger. I patted my jacket and felt the vial still stuck in my pocket. Julia bent over the pool table while being admired by Max.
Good, she’s already hustling. She straightened and gave me a dutiful kiss as I said goodbye.
“I’ll be back in a few hours. Max, keep an eye on her.”
“All right.”
Her lips pursed at the idea she needed to be watched, but she turned around and resumed the game anyway. My legs moved faster, taking me outside to that wild abandon on the road.
I spotted the curly haired prospect outside, playing soccer with one of the member’s kids. Another thing I didn’t get. Kids. I never had much patience for them.
“Spike! Stop fucking around and join me.”
He shot me a glare that would have earned him a swift kick if it had been anyone else. “Cain, watch it!”
He covered the little blonde boy’s ears as the child giggled. “Sorry, gotta go,” he whispered as he uncovered one ear.
“Nooo! Don’t go!” The boy pouted and swung his fat fists as Spike walked towards his bike.
“We’ll play later.”
I climbed on my bike, the chrome burning my skin from the glare of the sun and felt that purposeful, murderous calm. I needed to amp myself up. Usually, I did that with coke, but I was sick to death of blow. I kept thinking about Julia’s crazy face when she was high on Red.
We blasted out of the gates and I led the way towards Blackjack lounge, a shitty dive bar in Northwest Victoria. I never really drove through Northwest Victoria, but whenever I did I reminded myself why I never went there.
The streets crumbled and plastic bags floated gracefully down the streets. Abandoned buildings stood like ghosts, their contents pilfered, copper wiring gutted, windows smashed, black graffiti covering their walls. They were so empty that they almost looked transparent. Gunshots punctuated the air occasionally. It was a violent place that I wanted to seize control of eventually.
Blackjack lounge stood like a dilapidated fortress among all the urban decay. Degenerates flocked inside its doors to waste the money they scraped together to get a drink. Ratty-looking bouncers kept the worst of the riffraff outside.
If I could, I would burn it down. What a shitty place.
“Jesus, what a depressing place,” Spike said as we passed by.
“Don’t let your guard down.” The place was rife with gangbangers eager to pop anyone wearing colors. Two Tigers stood guard with 20-gauge shotguns at the door. One blast at close range and I was dead.
I thought about the grenade stashed in my bike. I could easily lob it inside and speed away as it erupted in flames, killing everyone inside. But that was so impersonal. I liked savoring all the emotions on someone’s face as they died.
“This seems stupid. There are probably at least six or seven Tigers in there. How the fuck are we going to take them?”
“With this,” I said as I dangled Red from my pocket.
I made my decision as we parked our bikes a block down. Reckless, Crash’s voice said inside my head. Spike was silent as I dropped the liquid in my eyes. It burned slightly. I offered it to him, but he shook his head.
“I don’t do drugs.”
“Suit yourself.” Blinking away the redness, I grabbed the shotgun from my bike and strode into the sunlight.
Spike shouted something to me from behind, but I bounded forward. My legs seemed to move slowly. I jumped over a deep crack in the sidewalk and the man guarding the pool hall turned his head, his white body twisted, his shotgun swinging like the arm of a clock. I cocked my gun and blasted the motherfucker.
He flew backwards with red sprinkled on his flawless shirt. I wondered for a moment if my gun didn’t work. The ground exploded in front of me and shards of something sliced into my body.
“FUCK!”
A distorted blast exploded into my ears from behind me. I almost wanted to turn around and shoot, but then the other guard fell, and Spike ran across his body. Jesus, what the fuck was wrong with me? A sharp movement, I raised and pulled the trigger without thinking. Another white body fell outside.
Somehow, pain registered in my rat brain and my chest felt like a barrel of fury. It was so much more potent. Unfocused. I could shoot Spike if he looked at me the wrong way. It was crazy, but I was in awe of it. Is this what people feel all the time?
I felt oddly jumpy. A car roared past and the metallic gleam frightened me, remindi
ng me of explosions. I turned around and shot—hearing a woman scream as the passenger windows shattered. It blasted out of there.
I’m scared, I realized, my mind exploding with this revelation. I had no time to bask in it, to discover what I saw so many of the people I murdered feel, but seldom felt myself.
Still, the pain was aggravating and I wanted to kill all of them for what they did. I swung inside as Spike yelled at me, turning my gun on every person standing.
Male or female, unarmed or armed. It didn’t matter. The room was soon filled with pink mist. I laughed as I blasted them, one after the other. I got one man in the ribs. One lost his head. When the shells dropped out, I flung down the gun and grabbed my sidearm. Pop. Pop. Pop.
“You greedy bastard. You could have left some for me.” Spike glowered as he swept over the bloody floor, the dust finally settling.
It was hard to hear. Everything was brighter and angrier and strange. I holstered my gun. Spike found the owner blubbering in the bathroom, his sobs echoing off the tiles. His fat face reminded me of a baby as he sobbed. Spike made him kneel on the tiles.
“Please! Please, don’t kill me.”
“You decided to fuck with our club, we fuck with you.”
“Please, I’m not even with the Tigers. Don’t kill me!”
His pathetic, quivering face enraged me. He wasn’t fit to survive in this world and it was my duty to extinguish him.
Natural selection.
I seized a fistful of his hair and he screamed. Yanking him hard, I positioned him over the disgusting toilet and shoved his face inside. The greasy, fat man struggled hard, but I pushed his fucking face in the piss-stained bowl and dug my pistol at the back of his head. I shot him five or six times, the yellow water shooting up and drenching the back of his head.
Covered in blood, I woke up to myself, shaking with the aftermaths of frenzied rage. I looked at the back of his skull, peppered with gunshots and the filth spilling onto the floor. Spike gave me an unreadable look as I swept beside him.
The drug seized control of my body. I was not a fool who acted on impulse, and yet, I acted foolishly, taking risks I normally would have never taken. I stood in the bar and admired my handiwork. Messy, but effective.
“Jesus Christ. I need a cigarette after that.”
Spike crossed his arms and leaned against one of the few areas free of blood splatters.
The energy was already leaving me, draining out of my limbs like blood. I wanted more but instead I dropped it on the floor and crushed the vial with my foot.
That’s six hundred dollars you’re wasting. I lifted my boot and picked the vial back up, shoving it deep in my pocket.
“Spike, go through their office. See if there’s anything worth taking.”
The lanky man gave me a mutinous look before he pushed off and ambled into the back. The carnage in the bar was incredible. I could feel the blood in the air saturating my skin and bringing me calm. The beast inside me was appeased, but now I had to fight a roaring urge to fly back to the clubhouse and fuck Julia senseless.
A rattling, glass sound caught my attention. Spike held a toaster-oven sized box, grinning widely.
“Looks like they were holding a bit of product in the back.”
I peeked inside and soared as I saw the little red vials. “We need to find out who is their distributor.”
“Let’s leave, then?”
“Yeah.”
We stepped over broken bodies and pools of blood. I stopped at the threshold. “We need to leave a sign.”
Spike balanced the box on his hip. “We could arrange their bodies to spell out something.”
I ignored the lilt in his voice. “Too much trouble.”
I walked back inside and knelt down, sinking my palm in a deep red pool. The blood was silky around my hand. I could almost feel it absorbing into my skin, strengthening me. Standing up, I rejoined Spike outside and slapped my blood-soaked palm on the glass window.
* * *
“You brought me back more of this shit?”
I sighed, growing bored of Crash’s shitty attitude. My old lady stood outside and every so often I caught a glimpse of her laughing at something Spike said. My guts twisted as I watched them.
“It’s thousands of dollars worth of Red. We voted to distribute.”
He muttered something indistinct as he took the box from me.
“I also think we should vote on whether Spike should become a member.” Not liking the look he gave me, I continued on. “He’s valuable. He could be a real asset to our team.”
“Fine,” he said bitterly. “We’ll vote.”
He’s such a pain in the ass lately.
I gathered them all in the boardroom and sat at Crash’s left. “We’re here to vote a new member into the club. Spike. He’s proven himself to be an asset. I think he’ll be very valuable for the club.”
“Yeah, he’s a good kid. He washed my bike the other day.”
I let their laughs wash over my ears. The votes were unanimous. Spike was in.
“Spike!” I yelled as I opened the door. “Get the fuck in here!”
The others grinned as I sat back in my chair. They assumed grim faces as Spike opened the door.
“You rang, boss?”
“Sit down,” I snapped.
Bewildered, he found a seat before Tank ordered him upright to rip off his leather jacket. With an irritated look on his face, he flung the jacket on the table. Spike crossed his arms and glared at us, a shit-eating grin on his face. The bastard was immune to hazing.
No one spoke as Tank ripped the prospect patch off the leather cut before slicing the stitches with his knife. Spike stared at it, his ears slowly turning a deep shade of red. His anxious eyes spotted me and shrugged in a what-the-fuck-did-I-do expression.
“Replace it with this.”
Tank slapped the member patch on the leather jacket and Spike stared at in for a few seconds in apparent disbelief.
“Shit, thanks guys.” He leapt out of his seat to give Tank a huge hug.
“While everyone agrees you’re a pain in the ass, we thought that you should be rewarded for your countless hours cleaning our bikes,” I quipped.
Everyone roared with laughter at that and even Spike grinned. I watched them slap his back. Even Crash had a smile for Spike.
“Thanks guys. I’m honored.”
He slapped me on the back when the others filtered out of the boardroom. “Thanks, man. I know it was all down to you, but if you think that this means I’m going to be your bitch, think again.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what it means.”
JULIA
“So, what’s it going to be?” I asked the poor bastard. He alternated between glancing at me and the wallet pinched between his fingers. “You’re going to give up already?”
Hours earlier in the pool hall (where I dragged Cain and Spike to hustle) the middle-aged man slid behind me and grabbed my ass to introduce himself. I turned around with a smile on my face and asked the drunken idiot if he wanted to play a game. He played so horribly that it hardly mattered whether I was a competent player. I sent him on five trips to the ATM to withdraw money. Finally, it looked like the booze wore off and he stammered something about “my wife” as he replaced his pool cue and exited the bar, the back of his neck burning with shame.
God damn it.
The rising disappointment was quickly replaced by dread as another man with shoulder-length, blonde hair dressed in a charcoal-grey suit approached me with a demanding look in his eyes.
“How much?” he growled in my ear.
On my advice, Cain and Spike changed clothes before we headed out to the most upscale bar in town. If they identified themselves as Dragons, it would give the whole game away.
I wore a red dress that clung to my curves, which was a magnet for the marks flocking my way. I could feel Cain's eyes stabbing me from across the room when my marks slid their arms around my waist or leaned in t
o give me a kiss, which I usually dodged.
It was all part of the act. He knew that, but he hated it. Any guy would. I tried to soothe him by pulling his head down by his tie, reassuring him that I was his with a steamy, quick kiss. I pulled back and was disappointed to see that his face was still tense.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw men glancing at him jealously. “You look very handsome in a suit,” I said, tugging his tie.
My antics pushed him to his limit. He trapped my hand in his and squeezed uncomfortably, as if he wanted to punish me for all the men who ran their hands down my sides.
“Stop stalling. How much?”
I sighed and acted like I was embracing him, slipping the hundreds of dollars into his jacket pocket. “Cain, you’re scaring all the men away. You need to trust me and stay away.”
His eyes burned at that remark and his fingers grabbed a fistful of my flesh, pinching hard until tears welled in my eyes. “Careful, Julia. Remember who you belong to.”
Fear and relief mingled together as he walked away from me to sulk across the room. I knew that I would pay for it later. Yes, he reminded me constantly that I was his.
I’ve fucking got it. The only release I had was in those white, powdery lines. There was nothing to fill the gaping emptiness in the middle of my chest.
Hugging him was like embracing a rock. What would happen when I couldn’t bring home the money he wanted? What then? I could be fine with a life with him if I received an iota of affection from time to time.
“Come challenge me if you think you’re hard enough!” Spike bellowed to the coterie of uptight, rich patrons.
I giggled behind my hand as Spike’s drink slopped on the floor, his cue waving madly in the air. We already paid off the bouncer and the owner to prevent them from kicking him out. When I told him what to do, he assumed his role with enthusiasm. It turned out that Spike was quite a good shot.
But not as good as me.
I challenged anyone in the bar who would play a game against me, beating them all as I slowly established a reputation of being a great player as Spike did the same.
Ruthless (Dark MC Romance) Page 8