Sexy Bastards Anthology: Bad Boy, Biker, Alpha, Motorcycle Club, Contemporary Romance Collection

by Lexy Timms

  Ever.

  I drove the eight miles to the tiny house I shared with my brothers on surface streets, ignoring the looks I got as I cruised by. I pulled my bike into the garage and turned it off, then headed in the house.

  Eric greeted me in the kitchen. "Where you been?"

  "Sorry, I had business. Is he ok?"

  Eric's lips twisted. "Yeah, he's fine. But I think he's not gonna be fine soon if we don't get him a refill on his medication. His tics are coming back."

  Fuck.

  Our younger brother Greg was sixteen and had high-functioning autism and major OCD. I thought he would relapse when Mom kicked him and Eric out of the house two months ago, but so far he'd been doing great. He seemed happy even, something he'd never been at Mom's house. But then I'd tried to take him to his doctor for his annual exam and refill on all his medications and the doctor wouldn't see him or refill his meds without talking to our mother. Problem was, our mother had washed her hands of all of us, kicking me out years ago because I wouldn't follow her bullshit rules anymore, then kicking the younger boys out just recently because they were getting in the way of her prescription pill habit. Eric had flushed her Adderall and Xanax down the toilet in a fit of rage when she had made Greg cry just because she was feeling bitchy.

  I sat heavily in a chair at the table. "How much do we have left?"

  "Only enough for three more days if we keep giving him half doses."

  "Shit." I scrubbed my face with my hands. "Mom won't even talk to me. I don't know how to get her to write me a guardianship letter."

  Eric only stared at me, his expression carefully blank. I slammed my fist on the table and stood up. "Fine. I'll figure it out. I'll get him something by the day after tomorrow."

  Greg did pretty well when he was on all of his medications, but he was very unhappy when he was off of them, and if Greg was unhappy, we would all be unhappy.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and strode into the living room. I swiped the screen to see three missed calls from Crystal. No messages. I would have to call her, make sure she wasn't in trouble. The thought sent a pulse of pleasure through me and I stuffed it down. She always had been and always would be off-limits to me, especially now that I had probably killed her brother. The sour taste of my own stomach acid filled my mouth, killing any joy I had felt.

  I speed-dialed Rams.

  "'Lo."

  "Rams, I need something from you."

  "Shoots, man, anything."

  "I need you to get me Prozac and Ritalin. At least enough for a couple of months."

  "Ah, Talon, come on, man. You know I don't do that shit anymore."

  I curled my lips around my teeth and heard my voice go tight. "Bullshit, Rams. I ain't fucking stupid. It's for Greg, and it's an emergency. Will you fucking help us or not?"

  Rams was trying to reconcile with his bitch of an ex-wife and part of that meant going clean. No dealing, no partaking. He was only twenty-two, and already had an ex-wife and a three year old girl he loved more than anything but hardly ever got to see.

  I knew Rams was trying, but I also knew he was still dealing, mostly pills. As long as he didn't deal to my mother, I didn't give a shit.

  He didn't respond for a moment. I wasn't going to swear I wouldn't say anything. He should already fucking know that about me.

  I heard the background noise on the call change as Rams moved away from wherever he was. Probably still right where I had left him, the club.

  "Yeah man, I'll help you. But I don't have any. The Prozac will be cheap but harder to get, and the Ritalin is expensive."

  "How much?"

  "Could be $15 a pill."

  I did some calculations in my head. Greg took two pills a day. At that cost, just a month's worth would cost $900. Shit.

  "How soon can you get it?" I asked.

  "Ah, Talon, I'm kind of low on funds at the moment. I know a guy, but he won't give me credit."

  I'd never met a broke drug dealer, but I knew Rams wouldn't shit me. He had his own habits to support. "If I get you some money, how long will it take to get it?"

  "A day, maybe two."

  "You staying at the club today?"

  "Yeah man, I ain't going nowhere."

  "See you in a few."

  I hung up and stared hard at the phone, then went back in to where Eric was waiting at the kitchen table.

  "How much?" he asked.

  I gave him a hard look. He might only be seventeen, but he was smart. "$15 a pill."

  He did the math quicker than I had. "$900 just for one month? You got that?"

  I fell into a chair. "No. I've got rent, but I don't have enough for both."

  Eric scratched his chin where his face was just starting to sprout some dark hair. I grunted and mirrored him, rubbing my fingers through my neatly trimmed, short beard. I could take the beard or leave it, but the ladies seemed to love it, so I wore it. Keeping it short meant the ones who didn't like beards were still into me too. I was still getting used to it though, after my three year stint in the Army with their shave-every-day rule.

  "I could get a job," Eric said.

  I blew out a breath in frustration. "You could. So could I. But neither of us are gonna get paid in the next three days."

  "Can you borrow money from the president of your club? That Whip guy?"

  "Maybe," I said slowly, doubting it. "Maybe not. Whip's in deep with some private shit right now." I leaned back and tried to adopt an attitude of encouragement. I liked to see Eric think on his feet, try to work through this problem like a man. Neither of us had ever had a father figure in our lives, well, not till Whip took me in when Mom kicked me out. Whip had done it for me, and now I would try to do it for Eric and Greg.

  "Too bad you spent all your disability money on the surgery."

  I smiled. "Yeah, too bad, but totally worth it," I reminded him. The army had pulled some bullshit after I'd had about half of my knee and lower leg blown away in the sandbox. They should have just amputated me above the knee. I might even have been able to stay on active duty if they had. Instead, they fucked around and decided to try some experimental bone replacement on me. It didn't work, so they cut me a check and said adi-fucking-os, don't call us, we won't call you. Oh, and I cold-cocked the surgeon who had fucked me up with a bedpan. That hadn't helped my case any.

  I had some money put away for rent, but with almost no income coming in it wouldn't last long. I'd been bouncing at one of the club bars but had only been able to do it sporadically since my surgery. My entire one-time disability payment from Uncle Sam had been spent in the last year on more surgery in Mexico and the resulting physical therapy. Now all I had was my bike and my brothers.

  Fuck. I needed a job that paid more than minimum wage. Whip sometimes offered underground jobs that paid big bonuses, like teaching guys lessons, or pulling security on the shadier shit he and Whitey were into, but Whip was thigh-deep in shit right now, trying to find Jaze or at least figure out what happened to him.

  Plus I hadn't decided how ok I was with jobs like that. I was only twenty-three years old. I'd had my goals set on becoming the youngest general the United States Army had ever seen. Was I really going to trade that all in to be a common street criminal?

  Eric pressed his lips together. "If the Army would have done the job right in the first place you wouldn't have had to pay for it yourself." His voice began to raise. "You shouldn't have done it. You should have sued them!"

  I held up a hand. We had been round and round this many times. I didn't want Eric to poison his mind with blame and disillusionment like I had. It had taken me over a year to even be able to look at the fucking flag again or be able to walk into an Army hospital without beating the shit out of every doctor I saw. Blame and anger hadn't killed me, but they sure as shit had stolen my soul. I was only now getting pieces of it back. I hadn't made my peace with the government yet, but at least I wasn't still in an active war with it either.

  "We've gone over this bef
ore, Eric. If the Army had followed protocol, I wouldn't have my lower leg right now. And if I were still enlisted, where would you two be living? Even if everything doesn't happen for a reason, we still can't know that things would be better if they were different." I could play armchair fucking philosopher with the best of them.

  Eric put his forearms on the table and dropped his head onto them. "You could still sue," he said, a grumpy tone in his voice.

  "I could. If I ever decide to, you'll be the first to know."

  We sat that way for a while, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I heard Greg cackle madly from a back bedroom, probably watching one of his shows.

  Eric lifted his head. "What about that guy, that rich guy?"

  "Knox Rosesson?"

  "Yeah, he could give you money."

  "He's your half-brother, Eric. Not just some rich guy. I wish you would go with me to meet him. You would like him."

  Eric crossed his arms and looked away. "Bullshit," he said at the wall.

  "You would," I said, standing up. I was almost at my limit. "He's a nice guy. It's not his fault his father never wanted anything to do with us."

  Eric's cheeks reddened. I knew that shit burned him. It burned me too, but we had to face it. Felix Rosesson was a rich, old fuck who'd kept our mother as a side chick and never gave a shit about any of us. Never even spoke a word to us, even though he had to know, or at least suspect that we were his.

  "If he's a nice guy," Eric said, "Ask him for money. Easy."

  "No way," I said softly. Eric didn't understand yet, but he would. "I don't ask for handouts, Eric."

  "A loan then!" Eric said, standing up also and locking eyes with me. "Look, I'm glad we aren't living with Mom anymore, but I wouldn't mind a few groceries every once in a while, and if Greg doesn't get his pills, he's gonna start breaking shit and then we're gonna get kicked out of here. Then what? You don't understand, Tom, you haven't been around enough lately to know how bad he can get."

  Eric was right. I hadn't been around. But I was here now. I needed to get out of the house before my temper got the better of me. Eric didn't know when to quit sometimes, and if he was calling me by the name my mother gave me, that meant he was close to losing it too. "I'll get the pills, I'll pay the rent, and I'll get some fucking groceries. That make you happy?"

  Eric just stared, like he'd believe it when he saw it. Time to make it real. I headed back to the garage. "I'll be back later," I said and pushed out the door.

  My phone rang as I threw a leg over my bike. I almost ignored it, then thought better of it.

  Whip.

  I swiped it on and spoke eagerly. "You found anything?"

  "Not now, Talon. You gotta go get Crystal."

  "What?" I said, confused for a moment.

  "She was attacked on campus. I'm still out of state and can't go get her."

  Crystal was attacked? Black anger rose up inside me as I contemplated getting my hands around the throat of the bastard who did it.

  Nobody touched Crystal.

  Nobody.

  Chapter 6

  Talon

  "Where is she?"

  "She's at the campus police station. I told her not to leave until you get there."

  "What in the hell happened?"

  "Some guy attacked her while she was jogging. She stabbed him in the eye with her keys and ran."

  Fierce pride filled me. That was my Crystal. "They catch him?"

  "No."

  "What was it, just some nut?"

  Whip's voice was heavy, deceptive. "They don't know."

  Fuck. I stuck my hand in my pocket and pulled out the misshapen coin there to work between my fingers. "You sending me out there on a seek and destroy mission but not giving me any fucking intel, Whip?"

  He sighed into the phone. "Look, I don't know, Talon. Maybe it's related to ... you know. Maybe it's not."

  "Related to Jaze? Are you fucking kidding me, man? Enough with your secrets old man, you gotta tell me what the fuck is going on."

  Whip sighed again and I bit my tongue and worked my coin. It was a good thing he wasn't in front of me right now. He was the fucking president but that didn't mean I wouldn't beat his ass if he didn't come clean. I'd had enough.

  "There's not a lot to tell. There were threats against Jaze and me. There weren't any against Crystal. I thought she was safe."

  "Threats by who?"

  "I don't know. I got some strange letters in the mail. No postmark. They're in my bottom desk drawer. You can look at them. They said shit like 'Your time has come' and 'Revenge trumps regret'. One of them showed pictures of Jaze locking up the bar at night and getting on his hog. I put another man with him at night and I had him start wearing a vest."

  "Are you fucking serious? And you didn't tell me?" Jaze hadn't told me either. My best friend.

  "You were away on an overnight when they started coming in. It only took a week from when the first one came till Jaze disappeared."

  I snarled into the phone, all my patience completely gone. "You didn't tell me when we had that fucking incident at the warehouse either," I said remembering Whip's insistence that he didn't know what was going on.

  Whip didn't talk for a few moments. I held the phone up to my ear and looked around for something to destroy, but all the shelves in the garage were empty.

  "And the cops? Was that a lie too?"

  "No, the cops know. They know it all. I made several reports. But they don't even have a lead. That's why I'm out here in Bumfuck, Nowhere, following my own leads. Don't ask though, there's nothing to tell yet."

  I knew how Whip felt about cops, and it made me wonder if he was feeding me a lie.

  When Whip spoke again, his voice was strained, but strong. "Look, Talon, I have some suspicions who it might be, and if I'm right, we're in big fucking trouble. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I'll rectify that shit as soon as I see you in person. But until then, you haul your ass out to Stanford and you get my daughter. She has a final tomorrow so keep her there overnight. Keep her safe. Follow her to that final. Don't let her out of your sight. Then bring her straight home. Keep her in the clubhouse till I get back. Don't leave her side. That's an order."

  I shook my head and stared at the phone in my hand like it had sliced me. I didn't need that order. Even though Whip was like a father to me, and Jaze, like a brother, Crystal meant more to me than both of them put together, even though none of them would ever know it.

  "Got it?" Whip barked into the phone.

  "Got it," I said, and hung up, my blood beating relentlessly at my temples.

  I pulled up one of Crystal's missed calls to call her back. When she answered, she sounded breathless and anxious, but her voice soothed me as much as the roar of my bike did.

  "Talon? Thank God."

  "Hey Gidget, I heard you kicked some ass."

  She swallowed a giggle. "Not really, I don't know."

  "Where are you?"

  "I'm still in the cop shop, waiting for you."

  "Good, stay there. I'll be there in two hours."

  "No, I was just about to go, one of them said he'd drive me back to the dorm. You can meet me there."

  "Gidge, stop, listen to me. Don't fucking leave, you hear me?"

  Her voice became annoyed, like she thought I was teasing her. "Talon, you know I don't like it when you call me Gidget. And I'm a big girl. I took care of myself, didn't I?"

  "Gidge—Crystal, sorry. Look. Didn't your father tell you anything?"

  "Tell me what?" she said and I could hear the bewilderment in her voice. That fucking cocksucker, she was completely in the dark.

  "You're in danger. This might be some sort of retaliation against your dad. You have to stay with the cops and let me come get you."

  She went silent then. We both knew that Whip had been involved in some really shady shit in the twenty or so years between when he'd founded the MMMC and when he'd had his first kid. Something about Jaze and then Crystal, and then the flood of fosters
he had taken in over the years had turned him, changed him, made him a better man—one determined to clean up his act, but his past still came back to haunt him every once in a while, and his present never seemed to stay as clean as he wanted. Until now, it had never touched his kids, but he'd always warned them it could.

  "Ok," she said, her voice small. "I'll stay here."

  "Good girl. Don't you leave for anyone. And keep your phone out. If any kind of trouble goes down, call me right away, got it?"

  "Yeah."

  "I'll be right there, Gidge, two hours. No more."

  "I'll knit you a coat."

  I smirked at her smart-ass mouth, then hung up and cranked my bike to life, backing quickly out of the garage. Every cell in my body screamed for me to go to her, but I had a ten minute errand to run first. Rent money could wait, but Greg's pills couldn't.

  Especially if I was going to be gone for a few days.

  ***

  I rode to my bank and went through the ATM drive-through, swiping my card and inputting my pin. A flashing box popped up, obscuring the letters and numbers on the screen.

  "What fucking now?" I muttered.

  I read the message. Account flagged. Please see bank specialist.

  "Good Goddamn," I swore, scaring a gasp out of the lady in the car next to me. I smiled real big at her, showing all my teeth, then cranked my throttle and shot through the drive-through. I pulled to the front of the building and parked. Someone was going to get their asshole reamed out. I didn't have the time or patience for this bullshit. I knew how much I had in that account. $802. It was all I had left from my one-time government disability payment. I was going to walk out with that much cash one way or another.

  I parked my bike and strode through the front door, ignoring the Please take off your hat and sunglasses sign. I'd played the good boy for a long time. It didn't get me anywhere but in a hospital bed with people taking advantage of me. That wouldn't ever happen again.

  Three women stood behind the counter, the one on the far left was with a customer and didn't look up at me. The one on the far right put her hands under the counter. She wouldn't be that fucking stupid, would she? I wasn't going to rob anyone. The cute blonde in the middle eyed me, then smiled and lowered her gaze, her expression saying she might take me in the bathroom and blow me if I said the word. I angled my stride to end up in front of her, my anger already leaking away a little. I was sure she hadn't had anything to do with my account being fucked, and getting sucked off would certainly help my demeanor.