I heard nothing except doors closing.
I waited some more.
When Hound didn’t come up, I went down.
My heart clenched then warmed when I saw that all the groceries had been put away.
My man, my biker, my Hound . . . always so good to me.
My heart just clenched when I saw the note on the kitchen table.
I went to it and picked it up.
In Hound’s messy scrawl it read,
Hitting the Compound, Keekee. Be home soon’s I can.
I closed my eyes, pressed the note to my chest and took in a huge breath.
Then I opened my eyes, dropped the note to the table and went to my phone.
First, I called Dutch.
After that, I called Jag.
And after that, I called Bev.
Gold-Plated Love
Hound
“This is bullshit and I’ll have no fuckin’ part of it,” Rush Allen spat at his father.
All the brothers were in the meeting room of the Compound, most of them sitting around the table with the Plexiglas in the middle, under which the first Chaos flag ever stitched lay.
Hound was not at the table.
Hound was where Hound usually was during meetings.
Standing at the back against the wall, one boot up against it, his arms crossed on his chest.
Standing down from him was Boz, and down from Boz was Brick.
The rest of the men sat at the table.
“Rush, you weren’t—” Tack, at the head of the table, started to say to his son.
“If you say I wasn’t a brother when Black got whacked, you know that don’t mean dick. He wasn’t like my favorite uncle. He was like my second father, and you fuckin’ know that shit so you know I sit here havin’ earned my patch and I sit here as a man who lost Black same’s the rest of you,” Rush fired back.
“Then maybe we’ll listen to you when you got a woman you give a shit about,” Arlo put in heatedly.
Rush’s attention turned to Arlo. “Is that what it takes, Arlo? ’Cause if you know how that goes, you show me the woman you gave a shit about for more than it took to find some new pussy to sink into.”
Arlo’s mouth got tight because Arlo had an old lady and had had her for a while. He’d also had his share of other pussy, before her, and since.
Rush looked back to his father. “Coulda gone a lotta ways, you walked through that gunfire to get to Tyra. Blood leakin’ out of her, ten more minutes, she’d have been gone. Would you keep your dick to yourself for the rest of your life if you lost the love of your life?”
“That’s not what we’re talkin’ about here,” Tack growled.
“So that happened, time passed and Lanie rubbed up against you, you wouldn’t think about it?” Rush pushed.
“This isn’t about Lanie,” Hopper bit, not happy his old lady was dragged into this discussion.
“I’m makin’ a point,” Rush bit back at Hop.
“We’re gettin’ your point and it’s not the same damned thing,” Hop returned.
“It fuckin’ is and you know it,” Rush shot back. “With those two women, sisters of their own kind of patch, you know it. And you also know, time went by, she wasn’t feelin’ you but she was feelin’ Dad, Dad felt like goin’ that way, he wouldn’t blink before he took what he wanted.”
Hop’s jaw bulged as he clenched his teeth, because Hop knew Tack found what he wanted in Lanie (even though he wouldn’t, she was slim, and Tack was a tits and ass man), and it meant something even with what she meant to Tyra, he wouldn’t blink.
Rush turned again to his old man. “And say a bullet tagged you and we lost you. Tyra didn’t even have your ring then and Chaos would still have moved in. We’d have taken her on. We’d have protected her forever like she was one of our own.”
“Yeah, you would and she’d have earned that by then, because ring or not, she was mine,” Tack ground out. “And bein’ mine, a brother moved in on that, I would not be down, Rush. Not ever. Not even close.”
Rush’s voice dipped when he said, “By then, Dad, you’re right, she was yours. She was also ours. Now tell me, who could look after her like we could?”
“No one,” Tack gritted.
“Yeah, and she made that play, that was what she wanted, Chaos was who she was and the only thing she could ever again be. If that was what she needed to make her happy, who could come after you but a brother?” Rush asked then kept at his old man. “Who would you want to come after you to give her what she needed to make her happy but a brother?”
Tack shut his mouth so fast Hound could swear he heard his teeth clack together.
And Hound stood against the wall, shaken, because he’d never thought of it that way.
But Rush was right.
Keely was Chaos.
If he’d thought about it, there could be no one else for her but a man whose blood ran wind, fire, ride and free.
“This is fuckin’ insane. I can’t even fuckin’ believe I’m hearin’ this shit,” Dog growled.
Rush stood, his focus on Dog. “There’s love and there’s love. My father taught me the right kind of love. It’s unrelenting and selfless. There’s nothing you won’t give up to show it. There’s nothing you won’t do to protect it.” Keeping his eyes on Dog, Rush speared a finger at his father. “Dad taught me that.” He speared a finger at Dog. “Black taught you that.” Without looking Hound’s way, Rush speared a finger at Hound. “And Hound’s spent two decades showin’ us all he’s got that.”
He moved free of his chair and trained his eyes on Shy sitting to Tack’s left.
“You got my proxy. The vote comes up to make Hound stand the gauntlet, my vote is no. But I’m not gonna sit here and be a party to this shit.” He finally turned to Hound. “They make you stand, brother, and you fall, I’ll be there not to pick you up but to stand in your place.” He swept his gaze along the table. “You take your fists to him and bring him low, next up you’re taking your fists to me. Now you get done with this bullshit, I’ll be at the bar. I need some fuckin’ tequila.”
Delivering that, he slammed out of the room.
Tack watched his son leave with an intensity that beat even his most intense, and the man could be intense.
Then he drew in an audible breath.
“Shy, you got my proxy too,” Brick said, and Hound looked his way. “And it’s a no.”
“Are you fuckin’ serious?” Arlo asked.
“Yeah,” Brick clipped. “I don’t know where you been for the last two decades but most a’ the time I’ve been here seein’ Hound step up for Keely, for those boys, for Black. But I was in that room, Arlo, and so were you, so we both knew just how far Hound went to step up for Black.”
“To earn himself brother pussy,” Arlo retorted, and that, only that made Hound’s neck start itching.
“You know that ain’t right,” Brick whispered. “You know it.”
Arlo moved his head in an awkward way that got Hound’s full attention.
“We all know it,” High put in. “Whatever we got here, don’t go there, brother.”
Arlo turned his eyes to the table, looking uncomfortable, and kept his mouth shut.
“We all know Black too,” Brick went on.
“And he’d not be down with this shit at all,” Dog said.
“You sure about that?” Brick asked.
“Fuck yes, I’m sure,” Dog answered furiously.
“Well I’m not,” Brick returned. “He loved her. I spent years chasin’ that kinda love, brother. That gold-plated love that’s so fuckin’ rare it’s almost like it doesn’t exist, even when you can see it right in front of you. Love that shines so bright, blinds you but it’s so fuckin’ beautiful, you can’t take your eyes away. Black felt that for Keely. And lookin’ back, what I see now is, Hound felt that same thing.”
Brick pushed away from the wall and kept at the men at the table.
“What I know about my brother Black is he�
�d take that blade along his throat again and again and again if somehow doin’ it meant he could stop the pain that’s been crippling his woman now for years. Black would do anything, give anything, once she suffered that blow, to see her happy again.”
“He wouldn’t give this,” Arlo hissed.
“We all kicked in but it wasn’t me and it wasn’t you who took those boys trick or treatin’, Arlo. It wasn’t me and it wasn’t you who was the rock of Chaos Keely and those boys could lay their hands on to keep them steady. It also wasn’t me and it wasn’t you that was the guiding light that led both Black’s boys to our Club. And I’ll say this, and you can argue it until you’re sick but you’d be wrong. All that would mean everything to Black because the love behind it given to his family would mean everything to Black. Now I don’t know and you can’t know if that would make Black feel Hound earned the place he’s now got with that family. What I know is, it’s not for me to say it’s right or wrong. Black, Hound and Keely’ll have to deal with that in another life.”
He swung an arm with his finger pointed Hound’s way and kept going.
“What I will say is, my brother finally found his old lady and he’s got my support. You bring him down, it won’t be Rush you raise your fists to next, it’ll be,” he jerked his thumb to himself, “me. And that’s the last I’ll say. I’m done talkin’. You know my vote. And now I’m gettin’ a beer with a chaser of a bottle of vodka.”
He didn’t wait for anyone to say anything else. Brick walked out with a lot less heat than Rush but he didn’t waste time leaving the room.
“Fuck,” Dog muttered angrily.
“You love her, son?” Big Petey asked Hound.
Hound looked to Pete. He said nothing. And he said nothing because he was standing there, ready to face whatever they decided, so it was the stupidest question he’d ever heard.
“You love her,” Big Petey muttered.
“You went there, you knew it wouldn’t stand,” Tack said, and Hound looked to him.
He jerked up his chin in assent.
“You knew it’d come down to this,” Tack went on.
Hound nodded once.
“You think of Black even once?” Arlo rapped out.
Hound looked to Arlo.
“For eighteen years, almost nothin’ else on my mind but him,” Hound answered.
“And her,” Arlo countered.
“Yeah,” Hound said low. “Definitely her.”
“He was your brother,” Dog gritted.
“He wasn’t. He just is,” Hound returned to Dog then looked to Tack. “I knew I’d be right here. You don’t need to call the fuckin’ vote. Even a single brother needs me to prove how much what I got with Keely means to me, he can take his shot at takin’ my blood. They need me to prove I understand what it means I’m movin’ in after Black, he can take that shot to take my blood. If they want to tie my hand behind my back and have a go at me every week for twenty years, I’ll stand through it if it means in the end I’ll still have her and I’ll still have my brothers. But it’s not gonna take that. It’s gonna take whatever comes from this. So let’s just fuckin’ get on with it so we can get past this and I can get back to my woman.”
“You’ll take my fists,” Arlo told him something he knew.
“Bring it,” Hound invited him.
“Mine too,” Dog bit out.
Hound nodded.
No one said anything until Tack called, “Boz?”
Hound turned his head Boz’s way and he saw a look on his brother’s face he’d never seen in his life.
It was fierce at the same time it was broken.
“I think my brother has taken enough of a beating spending years lovin’ her and not havin’ her, so I’ll not add my fists to it,” Boz said, and Hound stared at him, for once not able to hide his reaction and that reaction was staggered.
He had not known Boz had caught on to the feelings he had for Keely.
He had not expected that reaction to what was happening right there in that room.
He had thought Boz’s loyalty would be to Black.
Not Hound.
“Right,” Tack murmured then louder, “Run it down, men.”
“Out,” Shy stated immediately.
“That’s not a surprise,” Arlo muttered irritably.
“No, it isn’t. Can’t chose who you love, Arlo. You fall in love someday in a way that means you got the skirt you want and you’re not chasin’ more, brother, you’ll get that,” Shy replied. “Not me who’s gonna make any man pay for somethin’ that important that he gets in a way that’s outta his control.”
“Out,” Snapper put in before Arlo could form a reply, but he wasn’t done. “And just sayin’, I get what this means and that it’s important. Especially to the brothers who knew the man that was lost. But we got shit happening. Bounty’s pissed at us, probably gearing up for payback and I’m not sure it’s in his job description that their vigilante brother is gonna give us a heads up on any of that. Valenzuela’s either dead or in the wind and neither are good for us right now. And we got a renegade ex-brother who’s got it out for us. We might not have found any surveillance equipment anywhere that’s Chaos but there’s a woman out there who knows sensitive information about our Club she should not know and she didn’t get that knowledge in a vision. This means there’s a very real threat out there. So I’m not real certain why we’re spendin’ so much time on something that’s divisive in the Club when we need to be spending time comin’ together and getting ourselves and our women safe.”
Instinct made Hound look to Arlo while Snapper was speaking and he felt his neck start itching again at the studied way Arlo was staring at the table, the tight in his fame, the hard in his jaw.
“Whatever happens from this meet, Snap, it’ll be done tonight and we’ll move on,” Tack told Snapper, regaining Hound’s attention.
Snapper stared at Tack then looked to Hound. When Hound gave him a chin lift confirming what Tack said, Snap looked back to Tack.
“Right, so I’ll repeat, I’m out,” he declared.
“No fuckin’ way I’m in,” Speck said. “Because a’ what Rush and Brick said, but also because Hound could still beat my ass with one hand tied behind his back even if I’m his third go.”
Shy and Big Petey grinned at the table.
No one else found anything funny.
“Roscoe?” Tack called.
“Out,” Roscoe answered. “It was a year, two, even five after we lost a brother and another brother moved in, yeah. I get that. Totally. But eighteen years? No fuckin’ way.”
“Jesus Christ,” Arlo clipped.
“It goes that way, I’ll let Black kick his ass in the afterlife,” Pete put in. “I’m out.”
“Joke?” Tack prompted, and Hound looked to his brother who used to fight the underground circuit, bare fists. Hound would go and watch and Joke rarely lost because Joker was a machine.
He was also more than ten years younger than Hound, but that wasn’t the reason Joke could beat the absolute crap out of him.
“You need this to feel clean and clear, man?” Joker asked quietly.
The man had never met Black but more than any of the new ones at that table, not including Shy and Rush, Joke was more Chaos than any of them, this before he even joined the Club, so he got it.
“I need you to do what your gut tells you to do,” Hound answered.
“Dutch and Jag, been watchin’, brother, and you’re a third of their world,” Joke told him something he knew, but even knowing it, it felt good hearing it.
Hound said nothing.
Joker shook his head. “I’m out.”
“High? Hop?” Tack asked, making it clear he wanted this done, but probably more, he didn’t want Arlo clapping his trap any more than he already had.
“In,” High grunted.
“Out,” Hop said.
“Christ, Hop, seriously?” Dog asked.
Hop lifted his eyes from the table to Dog.
“Seriously,” he replied.
“I watched Black give you a cigar when Dutch came into this world and another when Jag hit it,” Arlo reminded Hop.
“And I watched his woman mourn him for longer than she should. She’s ready to find good again, I’m not gonna be any part of makin’ it harder for her to grab hold,” Hop returned. “I said that for Keely. For my brother Black, I’ll say this. He wouldn’t put his fists to any brother for any reason, Arlo. Whatever was going down, he’d find his way to understanding.”
When Arlo opened his mouth to speak, Hop swiftly went on.
“Yeah, even this. Keely wouldn’t stray. Hound would never move in. So if he’d lived, we wouldn’t be right here. But he didn’t live and I knew him, Arlo, even better than you, and the man I knew would want his woman happy and he’d find a way no matter how deep down he’d have to dig to grab hold of the loyalty he needed to give to his brother.”
Hop had been tighter with Black so Arlo kept his mouth shut.
But Hop wasn’t finished.
“Last, I’ll say I want this for Hound. I do know what it’s like to have a good one and that one bein’ all I need in a way I know that’s all I’ll need until the day I die.” Hop turned to Hound. “Glad for you that you found that, man. It’s about time.”
Now that wasn’t a surprise. If anyone had the spirit of tolerance that Black had, it was Hop.
And it was Hound’s observation, and now experience, when you found that gold-plated love, it did shit to you.
Hound dipped his chin at Hop.
“Tack?” Dog called.
Hound looked at Tack to find Tack watching him.
The room fell silent.
It was Tack who broke it.
“You need this to feel clean and clear,” he repeated Joker’s words but in a statement.
Hound didn’t respond.
Making that a statement, Tack knew it to be true.
“How long will it take her to get over this?” Tack asked.
Tack also knew Keely.
“You put your fists to me, she’ll find a way to deal but she’ll never look at you with the same eyes,” Hound told him the truth. “Me, I get it. That’s not from me. Her, you’ll lose her in a way you’ll never get her back. She’ll be Chaos, she’ll be that through and through and she’ll be that for me, for her sons. But she’ll never again be yours.”
Wild Like the Wind Page 37