by Lane Hart
“Fuck, yes. Just like that,” I tell her as I cup the back of her bobbing head to speed her up. She sucks my cock so good for so long that her jaw has to be hurting, but Nikki doesn’t stop or complain.
I’m nowhere close to being able to come, not until her face appears on the television screen behind Nikki.
“Oh, fuck,” I groan, because I swear Sasha gets a little more stunning each day. She’s standing outside, so the wind gently picks up her long blonde hair, making it dance around her face.
I let out a growl when the camera zooms out and shows some asshole standing beside her, way too close. He’s a fucking cop on top of that.
Fingernails reach for my stomach, almost distracting me from the screen as they move up my abs and try to push up my shirt.
“No,” I say, and Nikki backs off of it right away.
I don’t take my shirt off around anyone. I can’t bear to hear them say her name aloud or ask me who she is when they see my ink.
Watching Sasha again, my eyes zero in on her right hand holding the microphone, but like usual, there’s not even a trace of my name on her wrist anymore. She erased every part of me from her life and it fucking kills me.
When Nikki’s moans vibrate around my cock, I realize that I’m probably pulling her hair a little too hard.
“Play with my balls and suck me faster,” I tell her since I’m losing my hard-on.
Looking back up at the screen, the news camera pans over behind Sasha to the wreckage that makes me cringe as it brings up the horrid memories of that night I was with her. When I was finally able to get the doctors to release me at hospital so I could see Sasha, she was still unconscious, getting prepped for surgery. Her face was covered in blood, and her knee was a nightmare, twisted in ways it should never go. The woman I loved was lying there in complete disarray, and it was all my fault.
When the screen zooms in on bullet holes in the side of a black SUV that’s totaled and half burnt, I get to my feet so fast, Nikki almost falls backward before she catches herself.
Reaching behind me for the remote on the mattress, I unmute it and rewind to hear the whole story.
And son of a fucking bitch.
It’s the wreck I caused, and now I know without a doubt that I killed at least one of those men and messed up the other two. So does everyone else up and down the coast.
Fuck.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Nikki asks.
“Get out,” I growl, without even sparing her a glance.
“But I didn’t finish you off yet. I can do better, I swear.”
“Later,” I tell her as I tuck my dick into my jeans and zip back up.
Finally, Nikki gets the hint and leaves without another word. I should’ve walked her back upstairs, but I can’t stop rewinding the news clip. One thing stands out each time – they know it was a member of the Savage Kings, but hopefully, they don’t know it was me.
We’re gonna need to get a lawyer who can hopefully find a way to keep my ass out of prison.
And whoever those guys were working for, I’m sure they’ve already reported that Torin’s brother didn’t want to hear their shit. Depending on who these guys are, the club and I could be in for some serious retribution.
I guess it’s time I finally have that talk with Torin.
Chapter Four
Chase
“Jesus fuck, people!” I grumble as I slap my palm over my eyes to shield them from the atrocities I just witnessed.
“Sorry, Chase,” Kennedy, Torin’s wife, giggles from underneath him, not the least bit ashamed that I walked up on Torin bending her over the MC’s table.
“You ever think of closing the damn door?” I ask while fumbling around behind me to find the doorknob and pull it shut while I wait for them to finish.
I get it — not many of us hang around downstairs until later on in the night, but fuck. I do not need to see my brother with his dick out.
Instead of listening to them outside the door, I go back to wait in my room. Of course, I sit down on the bed and continue watching the WBRL News, telling myself I want to see if there’s any additional information about the accident and that I’m not just hoping to see her face again.
Eventually, Kennedy sticks her head in my open door. “He’s all yours now,” she tells me with a grin, her cheeks still flushed from the fucking.
“I thought you had better manners, Kennedy,” I tease my sister-in-law when I get to my feet.
“Usually I do,” she replies as she rests her hands on her baby bump that’s now big enough to have its own area code, not that I would tell her that. “But I’m trying to get this baby out, which means getting it in whenever I can. The doctor says sex will sometimes put you into labor.”
“Any day now, right?” I ask with a grin, excited to meet my nephew.
“Any fucking day,” she replies with a heavy exhale. “I’m headed home. Try and get Torin out of here before midnight, if you can.”
“I’ll try,” I tell her before she leaves.
My brother doesn’t fuck around with any of the girls upstairs. He’d never cheat on Kennedy, because he knows how much it would hurt her, especially while she’s waddling around with his enormous spawn trying to kick its way out. But Torin does stay late most nights, dealing with the headache that comes with running about six different legit businesses as well as being the original charter for a growing MC.
Turning off my television, I stroll back out into the hallway and down to the chapel, the room where we hold our MC meetings. Like usual, Torin is back to work, sitting at the head of the table, reading through the stack of papers in front of him that a naked Kennedy recently occupied. I know it can’t be easy for him to oversee all of the MC’s legit shit and deal with our grow operation and distribution, but Torin never bitches. He’s a better man than me.
“Hey, what’s up?” he asks when he sees me come in. Leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head and a goofy grin on his face, he’s the epitome of a man who just got laid. I hate to say I’m jealous of him and what he has with Kennedy. Mostly because I had that once and I fucked it up.
It sucks, but now I’m gonna have to burst my brother’s happy little bubble.
Shutting the door behind me to make sure we’re not interrupted or overheard, I tell him, “I need to talk to you.”
“Okay?” he says as he lowers his arms and rests them on the table in front of him to get serious. I take my usual seat on his right.
“Abe and I got pulled over today,” I start. “Not by blue lights, but by a gun barrel.”
“What the fuck?” he exclaims.
I fill Torin in on the rest, the exact words the men told me to tell him about the Friday deadline, along with my pursuit that left at least one of the fuckers dead.
“Goddammit, Chase!” Torin roars as he pushes his chair away from the table and gets up to pace. Both of his hands threaten to pull all of his short, dirty blond hair out. “What were you even doing at the Aces' bar?”
“Goddamn me?” I reply definsively as I lean back in my chair. “You know why I paid a visit to the Aces – they’ve been branching out and slinging some hard drugs. We’ve had at least three ODs in town that we know they’re behind. I warned them to stop and made them cough up money for the funerals. There’s fifteen grand in the safe to pay for them. You’re fucking welcome. Now, how about you back the fuck up and tell me what the hell is going on with you? Who do you owe money to, Torin?”
“None of your fucking business,” he snaps, just like I did at Abe earlier when he wanted to know what I do every night at six o’clock. My shit with Sasha is personal, so whatever is going on with Torin must hit close to home with his old lady.
“None of my business? Really?” I reply. “I think it suddenly became my business when Abe and I got pulled over at gunpoint by some rat pack assholes.”
“Just stay out of it,” Torin says while his size fourteen boots continue to burn holes in the carpet with his pacing.
“And don’t give the Aces any more shit unless I tell you to.”
“Someone saw me on the highway gunning the fuckers down! It was on the news. How can I stay out of it now?”
“Any attorney worth their shit can get you out of some vague ass witness description. Besides, we don’t own the market on leather cuts with bearded skull patches. Any Kings wannabe could make their own. The cops don’t have shit.”
“Well, we need to get an attorney locked down in case it comes back on me. And we need to call the Wilmington charter and warn them. I probably should’ve already given them a heads-up. They’re the closest to the scene of the accident, so the cops will hit them up first.”
“Do it. Now,” Torin orders. I take care of it, getting the charter’s VP on the line and summarizing shit for him. Thank fuck Charlie says they haven’t had any LEOs busting down their doors yet in Wilmington, which makes me think Torin is right – they don’t have enough probable cause to get an arrest warrant for anyone. Yet.
“Are we gonna bring this to the table?” I ask Torin when I end the phone call, wanting to know if he’s gonna try and keep this shit from his brothers.
“Not tonight,” he says.
“Tomorrow?” I ask, because I don’t like keeping secrets from our boys, especially if there could be heat coming down on the whole MC with the police investigating. Our stepsister Jade just moved back to town and took over the sheriff’s department, so she can keep our asses out of trouble here in Carteret County, but that doesn’t mean every other cop in the surrounding counties won’t be watching us like hawks.
“Tomorrow,” Torin reluctantly agrees. “I’ll talk to Jade and ask her to see what she can find out.”
“Good,” I agree as I get to my feet. Realizing Torin still hasn’t told me what the hell he’s gotten himself into, I ask, “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. Don’t worry, and don’t you dare get Kennedy riled up about this fucking mess. She doesn’t need any stress on her right now with the baby coming any day.”
“Yeah, got it,” I agree, even though now I’m certain my brother is into some bad shit. He talks to Kennedy about every fucking thing, so the fact that he doesn’t want me to say anything to her means he’s intentionally keeping her in the dark.
That’s a really bad fucking sign.
Chapter Five
Sasha
“Hi, this is Sasha Sheridan calling from WBRL News with a few quick questions for the sheriff,” I say into my cell phone while I wait in a plastic chair at the terminal for my flight.
“Just a moment,” the woman replies before putting me on hold.
Finally, after all this time, I’m going to D.C. to interview for an international correspondent position. I’m running out of time and not getting any younger, so it’s now or never on applying to a job that lets me travel the world instead of keeping me in the small coastal county that’s boring ten out of twelve months a year. The most exciting two months are right now during the summer when there are enough tourists around to spark headlines with shark attacks and other horrible water accidents.
“Jade speaking,” a woman’s authoritative voice comes over the line.
“Hi, Jade. I’m Sasha Sher– ”
“You’re a reporter. I know. What’s up?” she asks, making me smile when she cuts to the chase. Speaking of, I know she’s Chase’s stepsister and she probably doesn’t remember me, but we all went to high school together. I think she was one year younger than us.
“I just had a few questions for you. Off the record,” I reply.
“Shoot.”
“Are you aware that the Savage Kings are dealing meth?” I come right out and ask. After staying up late last night researching the names of the three victims of the fatal wreck, I saw one fairly common denominator – methamphetamine convictions. Throw that in with the fact that there have been three overdoses on the stuff in the last week up in Carteret County where the original Savage Kings charter is located, and well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the Kings could be involved in the drug business. Again, I don’t want to believe that’s true, but I need to know. Their stepsister, the sheriff, seemed like a good place to start.
“Wow,” Jade says after a fairly long pause. “You don’t pull any punches, do you, Sasha? Were you this feisty when you were dating my stepbrother?”
Now it’s my turn to go speechless. “You, ah, remember that?” I ask.
“You were Chase’s high school sweetheart. How could I forget? Especially when he has your name plastered across his chest.”
“He still has that tattoo?” I ask before I can stop myself. “Does he have a beard now too?”
“Yes, as far as I know, and yes, unless he shaved it off in the last few days,” Jade tells me, making my chest tighten knowing it was him. It had to be. “So are you calling to check up on Chase or what?”
“I think he was the shooter involved in the wreck on highway seventeen yesterday,” I tell her in a rush, my voice shaking as I say the words aloud for the first time. “The witness gave a description matching him and saw the MC’s logo.”
“Holy shit,” Jade mutters. Then, “The witness could’ve been mistaken. The Savage Kings have a rather distinguishing patch. Maybe she’s just seen it before and thought that’s what she saw yesterday. Eye-witnesses are notoriously wrong about what they think they see after the fact.”
“I know, that does happen. But the three victims, Keith Washington, Derek Sutton, and Malcolm Butner are all known meth dealers. Do you think it’s a coincidence that they’re attacked the same week as three overdoses killed people in Emerald Isle?”
“I-I didn’t know that,” Jade says, sounding surprised.
“Look, I’m not trying to make the Kings out to be something they’re not. Believe me, I would prefer to live in my naïve little world and not know if the man I used to love is now a drug dealer and murderer, but I also need answers about this.”
“For a story, or for yourself?” Jade asks.
“Both.”
“Look, you know I’m not aware of what my stepbrothers do in the MC, and I never will be. But I really don’t think they’re bad guys. Torin is incredibly strict with the members. He keeps them in line –”
“Torin met with Hector Cruz this morning,” I blurt out, saving the best newsflash for last. “So maybe you don’t want to see what’s going on, but why else would the president of the MC be meeting with a known meth kingpin unless they were in business together?” I ask.
“There’s no way…” Jade starts. “Torin was probably telling him to stay away…”
“I have photos of them having a very casual talk together. If you give me your cell number, I’ll send you copies.”
Jade’s silent a second before she calls out the seven digits. I scramble to find my pen and tiny notepad from my purse so I can jot them down before I forget.
“Got it. I’ll send the photos over soon.”
“Thanks,” Jade replies. “And you know I’m gonna have to go to Torin and Chase about this, right?”
“Yeah. I hope you do and that you’re able to get explanations that are better than the ones I’m putting together,” I tell her honestly even if I’m a little nervous about her talking to Chase about me. “I’m on my way out of town, but I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon if you find out anything.”
“Okay. I can’t make any promises that I’ll be able to share with you, though.”
“Understood,” I say. “Thanks, Jade.”
Ending the call, I pull up my camera roll and then forward the photos I took outside of Hector’s pool hall. Once I compiled the three victim’s records and realized they were into the meth game, Hector’s was my first stop on the way to the airport this morning. Honestly, I didn’t expect to even see him there, much less Chase’s brother Torin, because the place was closed. But as soon as I spotted them together in the parking lot, I knew I was on to something big.
The locals up and do
wn the coast love the Savage Kings for all that they’ve done turning the economy around for Carteret County and bringing more tourists through the state. They’ve provided a ton of jobs with their new businesses. The other charters are known to keep the violence and drugs out of their towns too. The public deserves to know if their beloved Kings are actually poisoning the area with drugs.
And I plan to find out exactly what they’re up to. If that means getting closer to the man who broke my heart into a million pieces, so be it.
Chapter Six
Chase
I’m still yawning the next morning when I’m standing outside the chapel, holding the bucket to collect my brothers’ phones as they enter our meeting. Torin’s already in there; and from the looks of him, I’m not certain he didn’t sleep on the table last night.
Sax, our MC’s secretary, wanders in first, his perpetual half-grin lighting up his face. He’s the only man I’ve ever seen with a resting laugh face, and I’ve never known him to be in a bad mood. Hell, he even got his jaw broken once in a fight down in Wilmington, and the son-of-a-bitch was at the bar the next day drinking beer through a straw, smiling ear to ear with his jaw wired shut.
I see Abe towering behind Sax, and give him a nod to thank him for keeping quiet as he drops his flip phone in the bucket. He winks back, then instinctively ducks his head to go through the door to the chapel. The arched doorway is high enough to accommodate the giant brute, but I guess years of bashing his skull on ‘normal’ doors took a toll on him.
Dalton, our money man, comes in next, stopping just long enough to show me a picture of his latest conquest on his phone. The pretty little blond bastard pulls in more tail than the rest of the club combined, and I just snort and wave him on as he starts to go through his camera roll for the last few days. I check Cooper in after him, and then have to wait while our tech guy, Reece, digs through his pockets, dropping two phones and what looks like a game console into the bucket.