Inflamed: A Shadow Riders MC

by Kiki Leach

  "I can't deal with this shit right now, Mia, I've gotta get off to this motherfucker before more damage is done." He threw a leg over his bike and fell down to the seat.

  "No." I moved in front of his bike and grabbed onto the handlebars.

  "Jesus fuckin' Christ." He dropped back and shifted his eyes. "You've got no goddamn idea what the fuck this son of a bitch has made me do over the years, Mia. Got no single fuckin’ clue."

  "Enlighten me then,” I told him. “Isn’t that what you told me once?”

  "This shit is different!” he shot back. "And I can’t tell you a goddamn fuckin’ thing about it.”

  “Why not?” I stood back and folded my arms, shrugging. “Why. Not?”

  He took a deep breath in, aggravated as hell, and lowered his eyes to the ground. “I've gotta get the fuck outta here and make sure that this crazy ass son of a bitch ain't knocked a goddamn wall into side of Verna's fuckin' head."

  "And what exactly do you plan on doing to him in return once you get down there, Jacob?” I asked him. He turned away from me and continued shaking his head. "I just want you to think about what you're about to do to this man. No matter what he's done, no matter the kind of person he is, he's still your father and whether you like it or not, he helped raise you."

  “Is that the kinda shit you plan on tellin’ Avery someday? That the son of a bitch who got you pregnant and left you for dead right outside of my goddamn club wasn’t as fuckin’ bad as he’d been made out to be?”

  I scowled. “That’s not fair.”

  “No darlin’, it sure the fuck ain’t fair. Just like this shit you’re doin’ to me right the fuck now ain’t too goddamn fair either.”

  “I just want you to think about the consequences of your actions! Is that so damn hard?!”

  “I AM THINKIN’ ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES OF MY GODDAMN ACTIONS!” he hollered back. “I told you that you’ve got no goddamn clue, Mia. Not a single fuckin’ goddamn clue, babe, as to what the fuck that son of a bitch did to me as a kid, the way he warped my fuckin’ mind and continued to fuck me up even as I got older and became a fuckin’ man and member of his goddamn club. You don’t know the shit he put into my head, the kinda shit that turned me into the monster I fuckin’ became.”

  "You’re anything but a monster,” I said, my voice now calm. “Anything but.”

  Trucker quickly eased out of driveway, breaking up the growing tension between us, and headed inside the house with Jolene.

  I turned back to River and moved to the side of his bike.

  He dropped his hands to his lap and exhaled. “If you knew me as fuckin’ well as you think you did, babe, you wouldn’t say that kinda shit about me not bein’ some kinda goddamn monster.”

  “Then like I said,” I told him, “enlighten me.”

  He lifted his head to me and stared directly into my eyes. Then hesitantly, opened his mouth to speak. "My initiation into the club wasn’t like the other motherfuckers who joined up,” he said. “Just like I told you once before, my shit was different.”

  “How?”

  He paused and lowered his eyes. “I was forced to beat a motherfucker to death."

  I gulped and took in a deep breath. “And did you?"

  "Yeah, darlin', I sure in the fuck did. I beat this asshole, motherfucker ‘til he was goddamn unrecognizable in the face and then I gleefully dumped his body into a shallow fuckin' grave across town. And I was proud of that shit, damn near too fuckin' proud of it; so much that I wore his blood on my clothes like a goddamn badge of honor for weeks on end, then didn't wash that shit out for another few goddamn months. Wolf patched me in that same night and promised me that within the next two years I’d be made his VP."

  "So to earn your patch, he forced you to attack a random stranger--?”

  "No, darlin'," he interjected. "This motherfucker wasn't a goddamn stranger to me at all. He was somebody I’d known about since I was a goddamn kid, somebody I’d been watchin’ right alongside Wolf for years, even before I’d planned to join up with him at the club. That old man let me know from day fuckin’ one that this motherfucker was the enemy, and that he needed to be watched and eventually taken out because of who the fuck he was, and what the fuck he had done to my mother that day on her way home from work…”

  I drew my hand up to my lips and frowned. “Oh my God.”

  “When the time was right, he took me straight up to that fucker’s front door at his own goddamn house that he shared with his wife and two kids. I knocked once and as soon as he answered, I started swingin' on him. I didn’t give a fuck if his wife and kids were there or not, I just started swingin’ on him. And I didn't fuckin' stop ‘til he fell at my goddamn feet and was no longer fuckin’ breathin'.” He leaned away from me and sniffed. “That son of a bitch taught me to hate people just like that motherfucker, Mia. Told me that people who looked like him didn’t deserve to fuckin’ live ‘cause of the kinda pain and sufferin’ they could inflict on other fuckin’ people who looked just like me, and my mother. I had no goddamn clue that old man was one of ‘em, doll. No goddamn clue he was just like that motherfucker, only different.” He allowed a beat to pass before going on. “He fucked me up in a way I never thought I’d get past ‘til you came back around to me, darlin’. ‘Til you showed me that shit didn’t have to be like that, that people were who they were and whatever the fuck they looked like didn’t fuckin’ matter. I didn’t understand that shit back then; didn’t fuckin’ want to, not ‘til I was forced to face just how the fuck I felt about you. And that shit scared the absolute fuckin’ shit outta me before I finally fuckin’ realized that bein’ with you was worth more than every goddamn thing I ever fuckin’ believed in before now. But I didn’t wanna hurt you babe, because of the kinda man I was back then and the kinda shit I’d done… the kinda people I’d done it to,” he told me, his eyes filling with guilt and fear. “I didn’t want you to look at me and see that same lowlife motherfucker I used to be.”

  “You weren’t a lowlife back then. You’re still not.” I stepped forward, shaking my head at him in fury that he continued to be so down on himself. "What you did to the man who attacked your mother doesn’t define who you are as a person, Jacob Hawkins. It didn’t then and it doesn’t now.”

  “Babe, I--”

  “Stop,” I said. “You were tricked into becoming someone that you never truly were in the first place by a man you looked up to and trusted. If what he tried to make you into was the person that you always were, there’s no way in hell you would’ve helped me eight years ago, and no way in hell you would’ve helped me now.” I brushed my fingers across his jaw and he tightened it. “He taught you to hate for selfish reasons. But you realized that you were capable of a hell of a lot more than that with me, and with yourself. You shouldn’t let what happened back then continue to define who you are as a person anymore, because I see you clearly, baby, and who you are to me is absolutely beautiful.”

  He stared up at me for a long time before jumping up from his bike and taking my face in his hands. Slowly, he tilted my head back and bent his face down to kiss me as he always had; deeply, softly, and so sensually that every thought in my brain suddenly turned to absolute mush.

  "Jesus Christ,” he murmured, pulling back and licking me from his lips. “My life would be nothin’ but a goddamn pile of sin and ashes without you in it.”

  "That's not true. You'd still have Madison and your club."

  "A club run by a worthless motherfucker who couldn't even cop to bein' my old man."

  "The Shadow Riders is your club, River. You're the one that's been more determined than anyone else to get it back on track.” I looked down at his jacket, at his labels and insignia, and wrapped my hands around the lapels. “When you go there tonight, you take the crown and your place on that throne,” I said. “If I'm your queen that makes you their king. Own that. And then you come back here, to me, with absolutely no more blood on your hands."

  "If I could promise you tha
t, babe, I’d also buy you a goddamn house in Tahiti. But I can’t.”

  "Okay," I muttered. "Then you make sure that not a single drop of that blood has come from your own damn body."

  He nodded his head, rubbed his thumbs across my cheeks and kissed me deeply again before throwing his leg back over his bike. He ripped his keys from his pocket and gave me one last look before revving up the engine and speeding off into the early morning sunrise.

  Jolene rushed outside then and snaked her fingers through her wild, black hair as she watched him zigzagging through the neighborhood and out into the public streets.

  And then she turned to me with a question in her eyes and asked, "Do you think he'll kill him?"

  I folded my arms and rattled my head. "No. But I think he's going to make damn sure that he tries.”

  “Just from what I said?”

  “Not exactly,” I told her. “Did he ever tell you how he was officially made VP of the club? What he had to do in order to earn that patch?” She shook her head. “Hm. Come on.” I slinked my arm inside hers and dragged her back toward the house. “We need to have a longggg ass talk.”

  Chapter Fifty

  After shutting off the engine and hopping off of his bike, River removed his helmet and strolled through the parking lot of the club, only to walk inside and see the man he had now learned was his father sitting at the bar and tossing back a few shots of whiskey, one right after the other. His grey hair was disheveled, his pale face was red from anger, and he was still wearing his cut, something that seemed to piss off River more than every other goddamn thing he had learned about him from his mother that morning.

  The minute he saw the smirk inching up the corners of his mouth, with Wolf finally realizing he had been standing there, he wanted to walk straight over and pummel the shit out of that motherfucker without stopping; pummel him the same way he had been forced to pummel that other man all those years ago because of who he had thought him to be, because of who he had been told he was by his own goddamn father, and not for the truth of who he had really turned out to be.

  He moved his eyes around the club and saw the broken bottles, pool sticks, chairs, tables and blood left behind by the Dragons, as well as the pile left behind by Tiny and their fight. He looked near the pool table, just slightly underneath it, and saw that old man's jacket, shirt, jeans and even his underwear laying on the floor soaking into it. A mixture of pride and revulsion burned in his chest like the whiskey Wolf threw back before he slammed his empty glass back down on top of the bar and reached for another.

  River reached behind himself to close the door of the club, then walked over and stood right beside him. He took a deep breath and wrapped his hand around the neck of the chair to keep from swinging it and stared down at him as he kept his eyes straight ahead. "Verna called me up about an hour or so ago and said you were down here pretty fucked up. Is she losin' her goddamn mind again, or is it you, motherfucker?"

  Wolf glanced over at River with that smirk still plastered across his face and slurred, "Ain't lost shit I can't gain back, son." Son. That goddamn word had a whole new meaning to River now, but he knew that despite it, he still didn't want the old man referring to him as such. Wolf tossed back his shot and then laughed. "That crazy fuckin' bitch is always up to no good. Always talkin' 'bout shit and me bein' so goddamn fucked up."

  "Well you sure as fuck ain't lookin' too goddamn sane right about now, old man."

  "Says the motherfucker who nearly beat Tiny to death last night."

  "Says the motherfucker who taught me how to fuckin' do it in the first goddamn place when I was a fuckin' kid, asshole," snapped River. He grit his teeth again if only to hold himself back from saying more than he knew he shouldn't, at least not right then, not at that time.

  Wolf turned his dark grey eyes up to his son and squint. "You always were better at usin' those goddamn fists than your fuckin' mouth when it came to dealin' with shit."

  "Yeah, it's too fuckin' bad I never got the chance, huh?"

  "The chance for what?"

  "To really live out my dream to be a fighter. Get paid to kick ass insteada always doin' that shit for free inside the goddamn club, and for you."

  Wolf bellowed and poured himself another shot of whiskey. "Inside the goddamn club is right where the fuck you need to be," he said. "Where you always needed to fuckin' be. No matter how the fuck you got here, from the very fuckin' start of it all, you ain't needed to be no place else but here."

  "Yeah," replied River through a clipped response, though he was sure to make it sound as if that single word held a hell of a lot more meaning to him, and his old man, than just those four letters. He swallowed hard and shot his eyes around the club again, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Where the fuck is your wife?"

  Wolf leaned his head aside and pointed around the bar. "In the back where she always fuckin' is," he said. "Bitch never stays where the fuck she belongs. This time she's got me locked outta my own goddamn office." He threw back his shot and poured another.

  River stopped himself from wrapping a hand around the front of his neck and choking him out, and bypassed him to head off in search of Verna. He made his way down one hallway and then another until he finally reached the door to Wolf's office. He saw 'PREZ' the same as he always did plastered across the front, but this time, he had to stop himself from damn near putting his fist right through it.

  "Vern." He knocked once and wiggled the handle. "Verna," he called out again. Seconds later, he heard the lock twist left to right and saw the knob fumbling. When she pulled back the door and looked up at him, tears streaming her cheeks, her face as red as the sunrise, he immediately placed a hand over her mouth before she could speak and took the gun from her hand. After checking the barrel for bullets and spinning it once until it stopped, he slid it behind the rim of his pants and nodded. Her jaw rattled as she tried to keep herself from crying in front of him anymore than she had already, and he took her into his arms and stroked her hair, holding her tight to his chest in the same manner she had often held him as a child. She draped her arms around him in reaction, clawed her fingers into the leather of his jacket and sobbed more silent tears. And he let her. He just fucking let her get out as much of the pain and hurt and anger that she needed to because he felt that shit, he felt it just as much if not more than she did in that very moment; he had felt that shit about that old man for most of his entire fucking life, and now he had a goddamn reason to feel even more. Once she finally pulled back from him, he leaned his head to the right. "Go," he told her.

  "I can't leave you here alone with him," she said in a panic. "Not after he's been on a goddamn binge all night--"

  "I can handle this motherfucker. You get the hell outta here and head back to my house with Mia and Jolene. You're stayin' there with us tonight."

  "River, I--"

  "Go," he told her again, his voice harder this time.

  She reached a hand up and cupped his cheek; without saying a single goddamn word, it was clear to her that he finally knew the truth about everything regarding Wolf and his mother, and more importantly how he truly came to be involved with the club. She apologized with her eyes as much as she knew her words would do no good for him, then eased out from the office and headed down the hall to the back door of the club.

  River sucked in a load of air and clutched the lapels of his jacket in the same place that Mia had before. 'Take the crown' played on loop inside his head as he shut his eyes and turned from the office door.

  He headed back down the hall, rounded one corner after another, and then made his way back to the front of the club. After taking back another shot, this time of tequila, Wolf slightly hunched over the bar and combed his fingers through his thick head of solid white hair. River looked at him; he stared hard while wondering if this is how the fuck he would turn out in another fifteen or twenty goddamn years, with his wife hating him for being such a goddamn fucking, two-timing prick and having nothing but the club, his broth
ers and random pussy to keep him warm at night anytime she chose not to. He didn't want that kind of life. He didn't want to end up like this old man in any way, shape or fucking form.

  When Wolf turned his eyes to him, he picked up his shot glass to toast him and smirked. Then he placed it back down on top of the bar and sighed. "She call you down here?" he asked.

  River walked back over to the bar and rested his hand against the edge of it. He glared at Wolf for a few seconds longer as so many thoughts sped throughout his mind like a goddamn freight truck going ninety fucking miles an hour that he couldn't get them all sorted the fuck out no matter how much he tried.

  "Riv," Wolf called again. "Did she fuckin' call you out here?"

  River nodded. "Yeah," he told him. "Told you that shit when I first walked in and asked where the fuck she was."

  Wolf grunted and threw back another shot.

  River removed his Shadow Riders jacket and placed it around the head of the first stool, then made his way down the bar and stared down at Wolf again before taking a seat right beside him. He leaned over for the bottle of whiskey and placed it between them, then reached over the bar and grabbed himself a clean shot glass. He cracked the lid of the whiskey and poured a shot for himself. But before taking it back, he looked over at Wolf again and raised his glass to him. Wolf poured himself another drink and raised his glass as well. Each man threw their shot back at the same fucking time, then slammed the glasses down on top of the bar and looked straight ahead. River folded his hands while Wolf reached for the whiskey bottle again.

  "What the fuck were you two arguing about?" asked River. "Why'd the fuck she call me down here to tell me that you were damn near close to fuckin' her up like before? What the fuck is before, asshole?"

  "Before," he said. "When I smacked her around once for lyin' to me about some shit to do with the goddamn club." He threw the shot back. "Shit's why none of these bitches need to be involved so goddamn much in the business of it."

  "So attackin' women is the way you continue gettin' shit out of 'em?"