Unattainable

by Madeline Sheehan

  Deuce closed his eyes. Fuck. Tegen hadn’t snuck out. He’d pushed her out the damn door.

  “I gotta get home, Prez. See you tomorrow?”

  “Yeah.”

  He watched as Mick headed out and when he was alone, other than Blue passed out on the bar, he placed his elbows on the counter and dropped his head in his hands.

  He’d fucked up. Again. In the midst of his rage, thinking he was about to lose his son, he’d placed all that blame on Tegen, told her to get the fuck out, and stay the fuck away.

  Except none of that shit had been her fault. It was ZZ’s fault for pulling the trigger, it was Cage’s fault for pulling his piece in the first place, and it was his own fault for not realizing that whatever was between his son and Tegen went deeper than he’d thought.

  Now what?

  Dorothy had told Eva she wanted nothing to do with the club, Tegen hadn’t even tried to see Cage, and Cage was a fucking wreck.

  So, yeah, now fucking what?

  “Old man,” he barked, tossing a coaster in Blue’s direction. It hit the top of the man’s head and bounced off. “Could use some of that wiseass wisdom of yours right about now.”

  Nothing.

  “BLUE!” Deuce bellowed. “Wake the fuck up!”

  Nothing.

  Cursing, Deuce got up out of his seat and walked the few feet between them. Grabbing Blue’s arm, he pulled and shook. “Motherfucker,” he growled. “How much did you have today?”

  Nothing.

  When he let go of Blue’s arm, the limb fell limp and heavy at his side, and all at once the old man’s body began to slump. Deuce grabbed him before he could slide to the floor and heaved him up in his seat. As Blue’s head rolled back, panic rose in Deuce’s gut.

  The fucker’s eyes were wide open.

  “Blue!” he yelled, hauling him off the seat and laying him out flat on the floor. He bent his head over Blue’s mouth and nose and went still. He wasn’t breathing.

  Panic turned to fear and Deuce’s chest locked up like a vice.

  “Blue! Dammit, Blue!”

  Pinching the man’s nose closed, Deuce covered Blue’s mouth with his own and breathed into it. Chest compressions were next. More breathing.

  And, nothing.

  “Blue!” he bellowed, his fists clenching. “Wake the motherfuck up!”

  Tears pricked his eyes and his clenched fists came crashing down on Blue’s chest. “Wake up, you stupid old fuck! Wake the fuck up!”

  Breathing hard, his chest aching, Deuce staggered to his feet. With shaking hands, he reached inside his cut for his cell phone when suddenly sharp pain sliced up his left arm and straight into his chest. His cell phone dropped to the floor and both his hands flew to his chest.

  More pain followed and his throat tightened.

  “Jesus,” he gasped, clawing at the center of his chest. The pain was so great, dizzying, that his legs gave out and he dropped to his knees.

  Desperate, he reached out, searching blindly for his phone, but the pain was everywhere now. In his chest and neck, in both of his arms. It felt like he was being squeezed from the inside out with a rope made of razor blades.

  Unable to find his phone, he called out to his son but his words were garbled and heavy with pain.

  Quickly weakening and light-headed, he slumped to his side. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be fucking dying. Not yet. At least, not now. Not when he had kids who still needed him, Ivy and Damon, his eight-month-old son. He had a grandbaby he adored, and a wife, goddammit, a wife he hadn’t had nearly enough time with on this earth to fucking satisfy him. He couldn’t go yet. He couldn’t leave them yet, not when his oldest son was in the middle of throwing his whole damn life away.

  “Cage,” he choked out, the word barely a whisper.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Mark,” Ellie said, pointing to one of her students in the second row. “How about you? What’s your take on Mr. Poe’s ‘The Raven’? What is the underlying message?”

  The blond, blue-eyed, cocky high school athlete grinned and shook his head. “I have no idea.”

  Ellie rolled her eyes. “Anyone else?”

  Two students raised their hands, both female, as was typical. High school English didn’t seem to interest any of the males.

  “Vanessa,” she said.

  “Everlasting love,” the girl said. “And loss.”

  Ellie smiled and nodded. Whenever a student clicked with a literary work, she felt a surge of pride.

  “Do you want to elaborate further?” Ellie asked.

  The girl opened her mouth just as the buzzer went off, signaling the end of class as well as the end of the day.

  The entire class simultaneously looked to her for confirmation that it was okay to leave.

  “Yes,” she said, waving her hands in the direction of the door. “Go, go, go. Have a great weekend.”

  The mad rush to the door always amused her. Reminded her of her own high school days when she was the lone person loath to leave. She loved school, always had; that had never changed.

  Sitting down at her desk, she began shuffling through papers in an attempt to organize the mess.

  “Ms. Tate?”

  Glancing toward the doorway, she found the principal, Adele, standing there looking uncomfortable, and she fought the urge to giggle.

  “Yes?”

  “Just wanted to check in and see how your first week went.”

  Ellie gave her a genuine smile. “Amazing,” she answered honestly. “I really love it here.”

  The woman shifted uncomfortably. “I, uh, er…will your boyfriend be picking you up every day?”

  Now Ellie was really holding in her laughter. Whatever Dirty had said to her that had convinced her to offer Ellie the open position, it obviously hadn’t been very pleasant. The woman was downright terrified of him.

  It wasn’t that Ellie had approved of his methods, but she was sure grateful for them. Her mother had taken another turn for the worse and Ellie wanted to stay by her side, rather than leave and miss out on much-needed time, as well as help her father out with the hospital bills that were quickly piling up.

  It hadn’t been easy, adjusting to living in the same town as the man who’d tried to rape her. But whatever Deuce had said to him, whatever deal had been worked out, Daniel hadn’t come near her. At first, on the rare occasion that she’d gone anywhere without Dirty by her side and would spot Daniel somewhere in town, she immediately retreated, rushed home and straight into the shower where she would turn up the hot water until her skin was scalded.

  But sometimes it wasn’t enough to erase the feeling of his hands on her. It was those days that Dirty would take her out on his bike and they would just ride, no destination, until Ellie felt clean again, in charge of her own body and free of the filth Daniel had brought to her life.

  As for Dirty, in the past year he’d come so far from where he’d been emotionally.

  Seated on the back of his bike, she could wrap her arms around his waist now, lean her head against his back and hold tightly to him, he allowed her that much. He still needed a few moments to adjust to her touch, would flinch every time, but it was progress.

  There had even been a few instances while watching a movie together that Ellie would scoot closer to him on the couch and rest her head on his shoulder. Once, he’d even held her hand.

  For the most part, life was very good. Better than she’d ever expected it to be after what had happened. She hadn’t realized how much she missed having friends until she had Danny back in her life, or how much better it was to surround yourself with people instead of books.

  There was only one problem. And it was growing increasingly unbearable as more time passed.

  She was desperately horny.

  Lately, she spent her nights alone in her bedroom, thinking of Dirty, knowing she couldn’t do anything about it. Still, her resolve grew weaker and weaker.

  They’d grown so close. He refused to l
et her out of his sight; he took her to work every morning and picked her up every afternoon. Some days they would eat dinner at his place, other times at her parents’ house, and on the rare occasion, they would go out.

  Every day she was faced with his beautiful face, his long, lean, sculpted body, and his personality, so damaged, so fragile, she couldn’t help but want to fix him. He was a woman’s worst nightmare—beautiful on the outside, ravaged on the inside. A deadly combination.

  Yet she wanted him. Fiercely.

  She had never thought of herself as a typical woman, attracted to bad boys, but it was different with Dirty. She couldn’t pinpoint what it was, and if she were being completely honest with herself, she didn’t really care. She hadn’t felt this way about a man…

  Ever.

  Whatever he’d done, his life at the club, it didn’t matter. He was so good to her; he protected her, took care of her, and not once since the morning he’d inadvertently attacked her had he ever given her a reason to think she couldn’t trust him implicitly.

  And now, oh dear God, her hormones went into overdrive every time she was close to him. Especially when he smiled. Those rare smiles were so few and far between that when they appeared, my God, she melted.

  She didn’t have the first clue how to go about acting on it. She was terrified that if she did, she would drive him away.

  “Yes,” Ellie told Adele. “Is that going to be a problem?”

  The two women stared at each other until the older woman finally caved. “Not at all,” Adele said shortly and abruptly left.

  Shaking her head, Ellie went back to her papers and before she knew it, an hour had passed. She had just started to clean up when she heard heavy footsteps in the hallway. Knowing Dirty was here, she quickly pushed everything into a neat pile and bent down to grab her purse. Grabbing her cell phone off her desk, she headed for the door, scrolling through her messages as she walked.

  One new message.

  Michael: Running late.

  Confused, she glanced up and came face-to-face with the chief of police, Daniel Mooresville.

  “Ellie.” He sneered and she caught the strong scent of liquor on his breath and immediately backed away. “Been waiting a long time to get you without your fucking babysitter.”

  Stepping inside the classroom, he closed the door behind him. “You’ll give it up to biker scum, but not to me?”

  Fear shot up from her stomach, curled around her quickly beating heart, and lodged itself in her throat. She had nowhere to run. She was on the second floor, and Daniel was blocking her only exit. She was trapped.

  “Daniel,” she said, her voice shaking as she continued backing away. “Please don’t do this.”

  “SHUT UP!” he roared, whipping his gun out of its holster and pointing it at her. “You made a fool out of me! Do you know who I am? How many women in this town would have killed to be in your position?”

  A violent shudder wracked through Ellie’s body. She was too terrified to speak.

  “Get on the floor,” he demanded.

  No. Oh God, no. Please God, please don’t let this happen. This couldn’t be happening.

  “DID YOU HEAR ME?” he yelled. “Get on the fucking floor!”

  Ellie felt the whispers of defeat begin to settle heavily in the pit of her stomach. Swallowing hard, she set her purse and phone on her desk and then slowly made her way to the floor.

  “Lay down,” he commanded as he walked toward her, and she did as he asked.

  Towering over her, his weapon still trained on her, Daniel reached for his pants, and pulled open his belt.

  Ellie’s vision began to swim and she tried desperately to suck in much-needed air.

  “Pull up your dress.”

  Trembling, sweating, yet cold with fear, Ellie reached down and pulled up her dress. As Daniel knelt in between her legs, his pants sagging off his hips, his erection already freed of his boxers, Ellie turned her head away and squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

  She wouldn’t fight him this time, she told herself. She would lie here and take it and then maybe it wouldn’t hurt, maybe he would let her live, maybe…

  She winced as Daniel gripped one of her breasts tightly and twisted hard. His hand was between her legs now, pushing her underwear to the side and, oh my God, no, no, no…

  Her teeth ground together, her jaw locked.

  It hurt. She wasn’t ready for him, not at all. Her body was tense, so tightly strung, if he did manage to get inside of her, it was going to be painful.

  Ellie held her breath and began to pray. She prayed to every god, in every religion she could think of. She prayed for her life, she prayed to be able to see her family again, she just continued to pray, focusing solely on prayer while Daniel cursed as he tried to push inside of her.

  A loud crash sounded and her eyes flew open. Daniel’s head whipped around and the next thing she knew Daniel was no longer on top of her but flying across the classroom, taking out an entire row of desks as he went. Dirty stood above her, staring down at her, his eyes wide, his features tight, causing the veins in his neck to bulge.

  “Did he?” he asked through clenched teeth. Already pushing herself up and her dress down, Ellie shook her head frantically. “No,” she said, scrambling to her feet.

  He nodded. “Go,” he said darkly. “Grab your shit and go straight to my place. Right now.”

  Ellie glanced over at Daniel, who was lying on the floor across the room, holding his head and groaning.

  “Go!” Dirty yelled, spurring Ellie into action. She grabbed her purse and phone and ran from the room. She ran through the empty hallways, down the stairs, and burst out the front door. She ran the entire way to Dirty’s apartment.

  Then she crawled in his bed, pulled the covers up over her head, and burst into tears.

  Dirty was going to kill him and as awful as that was, she honestly didn’t care. What she cared about was what was going to happen to Dirty after the fact.

  • • •

  “I fuckin’ hate this place,” Ripper muttered, glancing at the rundown condos at the edge of town. Dirty glanced up from the ground where Daniel lay unconscious, and looked at Ripper. “We took care of everything?”

  Ripper shrugged. “I cleaned up the classroom, Anger’s choppin’ the police car as we speak, and the only other motherfucker inside that school was one of the secretaries and she didn’t even bat a fuckin’ eyelash when I told her she didn’t hear nothin’, didn’t see nothin’, and didn’t know nothin’.”

  “How much did you give her?”

  Ripper snorted. “Too much.”

  “Blowback?”

  Ripper shrugged again. “Maybe. But we ain’t ever spilled local blood before. We protect our town, they know that.”

  “Thanks for doin’ this,” he said, and Ripper’s gaze shot to him.

  Ripper shook his head. “Brother,” he said, “if that was my old lady that fucker tried to rape, he’d already be eatin’ dirt.”

  “I’m givin’ it to him slow,” Dirty gritted out. “Least I can do.”

  Ripper smiled grimly and held out his fist. “You do what you gotta do, dude. Call Cox if you need help with the body. I’m gonna swing by the club a little later and let the prez know what’s up anyway.”

  Dirty’s fist met Ripper’s and he nodded.

  Dirty waited until he could no longer see the taillights of Ripper’s pickup before turning back to Mooresville. Cocking his leg back, he sent his booted foot straight into the asshole’s ribs.

  “Wake up, fucker!” he yelled.

  Air exploded from the man’s lungs in the form of a gasping groan and Mooresville’s eyes blinked open. Coughing and sputtering, he tried to turn away from Dirty, but Dirty didn’t give him a chance and immediately sent his boot again into his ribs. The fucker bounced a few feet forward and then went still.

  Crossing the small distance, Dirty stepped over him and reached down to grab his shirt collar. “Open your eyes!” he demanded an
d Mooresville’s eyelids fluttered before finally opening.

  “You gonna die now, fucker,” Dirty growled. “But first you’re gonna lie there like a fuckin’ bitch and take everything I’m gonna give you. And fucker, I’m gonna do you dirty.”

  Yanking him up by his shirt, Dirty sent his fist straight into the man’s mouth. It hurt for sure, the fucker’s teeth cut through his knuckles, but it was efficient in knocking out nearly all of Mooresville’s front teeth.

  Letting him fall back to the ground, Dirty sat down hard on his injured ribs, pinning him in place.

  “Please,” Mooresville rasped brokenly. “Please…”

  “What’s that?” Dirty said, sneering. “I can’t fuckin’ hear you?”

  “Please!” the man screamed.

  “Fuck you,” Dirty spat and sent his fist flying into the side of Mooresville’s face. Over and over again, he punched him as hard as he could, beating on him until he was covered in the man’s blood, unable to see straight. Until it was no longer Mooresville he was beating on.

  It was himself.

  Because as much as he hated comparing himself to a dirtbag like Daniel Mooresville, he didn’t have much of a choice. He was just as big of a dirtbag. He’d never spared a female who wasn’t part of his family a second thought; he hadn’t given a fuck what kind of pain he’d caused, instead he’d rationalized it. Justified it, even.

  He was the worst kind of dirtbag, thinking he had a right to inflict pain on other people just because pain had been inflicted on him.

  The world didn’t owe him shit. Nobody did.

  He didn’t deserve a second chance. He deserved nothing. Worse than nothing. He deserved every inch of what he had and what he was going to put this motherfucker through.

  “You think you got a right to hurt people?” he yelled as he dragged the chief of police’s broken body toward the row of condominiums. “What gives you the motherfuckin’ right?”

  Dropping him on his stomach, Dirty yanked down the man’s pants and boxers, then took inventory of his own possessions. Yeah, no way was he going to use his gun. Or his phone. He grabbed the next best thing. His blade. It wasn’t a sissy knife either; it was a serrated hunting blade, made especially for death.