by Deja Voss
Diamond in the Rough
RBMC, Pittsburgh PA
Deja Voss
Copyright © 2021 by Deja Voss
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Foreword
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Foreword
ROYAL BASTARDS CODE
* * *
PROTECT: The club and your brothers come before anything else, and must be protected at all costs. CLUB is FAMILY.
* * *
RESPECT: Earn it & Give it. Respect club law. Respect the patch. Respect your brothers. Disrespect a member and there will be hell to pay.
* * *
HONOR: Being patched in is an honor, not a right. Your colors are sacred, not to be left alone, and NEVER let them touch the ground.
* * *
OL’ LADIES: Never disrespect a member’s or brother’s Ol’Lady. PERIOD.
* * *
CHURCH is MANDATORY.
* * *
LOYALTY: Takes precedence over all, including well-being.
* * *
HONESTY: Never LIE, CHEAT, or STEAL from another member or the club.
* * *
TERRITORY: You are to respect your brother’s property and follow their Chapter’s club rules.
* * *
TRUST: Years to earn it...seconds to lose it.
* * *
NEVER RIDE OFF: Brothers do not abandon their family.
Prologue
Thirty Years Ago
* * *
The school bus doors squeal open and I keep my head down as I walk past the rows of kids shouting mean stuff at me. I didn’t have time to change my clothes after junior band practice, and my uniform makes me stand out like a sore thumb to the bullies. I might as well have tacked a kick me sign to my own back.
My mom is standing by the mailbox, and she waits for the bus to ride away before she gives me a hug. She doesn’t want the kids to tease me because I’m a mama’s boy.
“Well, don’t you just look like the most charming little man I’ve ever seen. So handsome. You’re going to make some woman very happy some day, Mike.”
I know I look like a dork. Heck, I know I am a dork. If you opened up the dictionary to the word dork, there’d be a picture of me in my blue and yellow junior band uniform holding my flute.
There’s only one woman in the world that I’ll ever make happy if my life keeps going in this direction, and that’s my mom. She’s the reason why I even joined junior marching band to begin with.
She thought it would be a good way for me to make friends. I don’t have the heart to tell her even the kids in band think I’m a loser.
I can’t help it I don’t really know how to talk to other kids. My mom thinks I’ll grow out of my shyness, but I don’t think I’m shy. I just don’t have anything to say.
My dad thinks it’s a good thing I don’t have any friends. He thinks it gives me more time to focus on my studies. He wants me to be a surgeon like him when I grow up, and I don’t think I really have any other choice in the matter.
Nobody tells my dad no - not unless they want bad things to happen. I know better than to stand up to him him when he hurts my mom because it only makes it worse for both of us. I wish I wasn’t such a wimpy little kid because I don’t like it when he beats on her and makes her cry.
We go inside and she hands me my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and pours me a nice cold cup of milk. I sit at the counter, and she watches me like a hawk, making sure I eat every bite. I know she worries about me not growing as fast as the other kids, and it always makes her really happy when I eat all my food.
“Do we have a gun?” I ask.
“Where did that come from?” She wrinkles her nose and makes a frown and I feel really bad inside. I never want to make my mom upset. She’s the best person in the whole wide world.
I look down at the floor but she grabs me and hugs me tight. Her hugs are the best hugs in the world, even though I can’t tell the bullies at school. I know that’s why she’s the best nurse in Pittsburgh. All she has to do is hug people and she makes them better.
“I get scared at night when dad is at work and we’re here by ourselves. If somebody broke into our house, what would you do?”
She brushes my hair out of my face and kisses me on the forehead. “That’s not something you need to think about. We have a very good security system.”
“I don’t think Rusty could hurt a fly, mama.” Our old basset hound Rusty is basically just a blob with fur. His legs are so short and his belly is so huge it drags on the ground when he walks. He’s a nice guy, though, and sometimes she takes him to the hospital with her to play with the sick kids. He doesn’t care when they tug on his ears or pick him up and squeeze him real tight. He knows they’re gonna be ghosts soon.
“We have an actual security system, sweetie. Now go change into your play clothes and you and me and Rusty will go visit the kids.”
I know my mom’s kids are gonna be ghosts soon, too. That’s why I don’t care that they get all her love and attention during the day. When she comes home from work, I’m her good little boy, the center of her world, and I don’t have to worry about getting killed by cancer like they do. My mom has enough love for all the kids in the world, and she still has time to pack my lunch and write me a note every day.
“You wanna go see the kids, Rusty?” I ask, bending down and patting him on the head. He gets about as excited as he can, wagging his tail and tilting his head to the side.
I run up the steps two by two to my bedroom. I stop right before my dad’s study. The door is open just a little bit, and I know I’m not supposed to go in there, but sometimes I just can’t control myself. He has lots of cool stuff in there like brains in jars and model cars, and I know if he let me bring this stuff in for show and tell, the kids would definitely like me.
He has a gun, too.
I’d never bring that in to show and tell, but I bet if I did, I’d be the most popular kid in school.
My mom must not know about it. Maybe she does and she’s just trying to protect me. I squeeze through the cracked door, trying not to make a sound. I walk over to the giant bookshelf, and pull down a biology book that probably weighs as much as I do. I figure if I get caught in here, I can just pretend like I was working on a science fair project.
I put the book back on the shelf and pick up one that’s a little bit lighter, just in case he’s gonna beat me with it. I might be tiny and a little bit ornery, but I’m not dumb.
I walk over to his desk, making sure I don’t so
much as breathe on anything, and very carefully, I open up the drawer where he keeps his gun. I’m not gonna touch it, but sometimes I just like to look at it. I like to think if somebody broke in our house I could run in here and grab it and save my mom and Rusty before anything could happen.
Sometimes my brain goes into a really bad place and I think about pointing it at my dad when he’s mean to my mom. I don’t think I could pull the trigger, but maybe it would scare him and make him stop. Maybe he’d realize he doesn’t have to beat on her to make her love him. My mom loves everyone.
My eyes open wide when I look down in the drawer and the gun is missing. I pull open the next drawer, thinking maybe I just forgot where he keeps it. I open all the drawers, but there’s no gun to be found.
Maybe my mom did find out about it and made him get rid of it. She probably made him lock it up.
A loud crash comes from downstairs, and I slam all the drawers shut as quick as possible and grab the book and run towards my bedroom. On the way there, I breathe a sigh of relief when I see through the cracks in the bannister my mom with the broom in her hand, sweeping up parts of a broken lamp off the floor.
Probably Rusty just got excited and knocked it down.
My heart starts to race when I see my dad standing behind her. He’s screaming about some award. Something about how she wasn’t supposed to even qualify for it. How was it going to look when his wife got a ceremony and he didn’t?
He looks pretty angry. He has a crumpled up paper in his hand and he’s waving it at her. She sets the broom down and walks over to him. She puts her arms around him and sets her head on his chest. He still looks angry, but he’s not yelling anymore.
My mom’s hugs make everything better. My mom’s hugs make everyone better.
I hurry down the hallway to my bedroom like my mom told me. I don’t need to make things worse. She knows how to make him better.
As I start to change into my play clothes, I hear a sound so loud, it scares me so much, I fall down on the ground.
I think it’s a gunshot.
It keeps going and going and I’m afraid to go out of my room and look. Maybe a bad guy broke in and my dad had to shoot him.
Rusty starts howling and the gun goes off again. I cover my ears because it’s so loud and I’m so scared.
I hide behind my door, waiting for my mom to come upstairs and tell me it’s okay and they got the criminal. It gets really quiet, and I start to cry, but I try to fight back my tears. I don’t want my mom to be upset. I want her to think I’m a brave boy, even though I am sitting in a wet puddle. I hope she finds me before my dad does, because if he knows I peed my pants, he’ll probably get extra mad.
I curl up in a ball and wait as patiently as possible, but nobody ever comes.
When it gets really dark, my stomach starts to growl. I feel really thirsty from all the tears that came out of me. I get up and tell myself to be a brave boy. I’m sure my mom and dad are downstairs waiting for me with dinner ready. I hope we’re having pizza. We usually get pizza after mom and dad fight.
I’m gonna tell them that even though I love pizza, I don’t ever need it again if it means they won’t argue anymore. That’s what a brave boy would do.
The house is mostly black except for the street lights shining through the windows. It’s so quiet, the sound of my footsteps echo through the long dark hallway. I listen for their voices. I listen for Rusty’s claws on the hardwood floors. I’ve never heard a silence like this before in all eight years of my life.
When I get to the bottom of the steps, I can’t believe what my eyes are seeing. There’s so much blood on the floor, I accidentally step in it when I walk across the room and it makes my sock all sticky.
Rusty looks like he’s sleeping but he has holes in his body, and he doesn’t move when I pet him.
I can’t see any holes in my mom, and her eyes are open, but they’re not blinking. She’s staring up at the ceiling.
I lay on the floor next to my mom’s bloody body and hug her and tell her to wake up. I tell her I’ll be brave and I’ll be good and I’ll play my flute every day if it’ll make her better. Her body is cold. She doesn’t have any breath in her. She doesn’t even move.
Rusty is a ghost now. My mom is a ghost now, and my dad is disappeared. He probably went to get help. He’s probably chasing the murderer so he can’t come back and hurt me.
I curl up next to my mom and put my tiny arms around her lifeless body, wishing I had her magic ability to make everything all better with just a hug.
Chapter One
Present Day:
Brass:
* * *
I have no idea what kind of condition I’m gonna find Barney in. Him and his old lady have been holed up for the last week, not answering their phones, not showing up for church, nothing. Rowdy sent me over to scare some sense into him, but honestly, every time I have to check on Barney on a bender, I’m halfway scared of what I’m gonna find.
It’s not uncommon for him, running off like this, but Jewel is another story. Aside from her shit taste in men, the girl has her act together. Ever since she started bartending for the club, things have gone from pitiful to profitable. She’s never missed a shift so far, and usually covers for the other girls when they want off. I know she likes to party, but she’s a sturdy woman. A reliable woman. As I get off my bike and start walking towards the house, I can’t seem to shake the feeling something bad is going on in there.
They don’t exactly live in the best neighborhood, but you can get a whole lot of house here for pretty cheap rent. The place needs some serious work, the paint is peeling off the siding and the sidewalk out front is so chipped you have to watch where you’re walking.
Back in the heyday of the city, this party of town was probably a beautiful place to live, but now these row houses look like everybody who cared moved out, and feral cats and meth heads let themselves in to take up space.
I walk up the old wooden steps onto the front porch. The front door is hanging wide open. Heavy metal is blaring from the attic, and for a brief second I feel a sense of relief thinking maybe Barney’s just up there playing video games. His addictive personality doesn’t just stop with drugs and alcohol and pussy. You give Barney anything that provides a little dopamine hit, and he turns into a full blown fiend. The man doesn’t do anything recreationally. It wouldn’t be the first time he went missing for a week to play Call of Duty, pissing in jars and blowing rails of coke so he could stay up all night long to keep getting his fix.
“Barney!” I shout, letting myself in. The smell of vanilla hits my nose as soon as I walk in the door. It’s so overwhelming it almost makes me puke. There’s candles lit on pretty much every empty surface in the house, and I wonder if this is what it’s like living full time with a bitch. She’s got the place decorated up all “pretty” with crystals and candles and twinkling lights, like she’s trying to make this place feel more like a home. It’s kinda sad and kinda nice.
“Barney!” I shout again, but the music is so loud and the house is so big, I doubt anybody can hear me. I take the steps two by two, figuring I’ll find him glued to the TV screen with his headset on.
There’s a light coming from one of the rooms on the second floor, and I walk down the hallway to find Jewel standing there in front of the mirror, dabbing make up on her nose. As soon as she catches a glimpse of me, she looks over like she saw a ghost.
“Brass! What are you doing here?” she shouts, reaching out to push the bathroom door shut. As soon as I notice the shape her face is in, I wedge my arm in the doorway so she can’t close it all the way.
I don’t think it matters how much makeup she puts on, nothing’s gonna hide the big black bruise around her eye or the red scrapes all over her chin. Her arm looks even worse, peppered with dark fingerprints of varying shades of purple and yellow.
“The fuck happened to you?” It’s a stupid question. I know exactly what happened, and I feel like a piece of shit for d
oing nothing to stop it before it could happen. It ain’t the first time Barney got violent with a woman, but Jewel never came across as the type of girl who would take any shit from anybody.
“You know how it goes,” she muses with a fake laugh. “We were out drinking and I blacked out, and I think I fell down the steps. Feels like I got hit with a bus.”
Sadly, I do know how it goes. I grew up with a father who tossed my mom around like a rag doll every chance he got. I heard all the excuses in the book out of her mouth. She fell. She tripped. She slipped on ice. I believed it until I witnessed it with my own two eyes, and by then it was too late.
“Steps don’t leave fingerprints, darlin’.”
“Are you here to fire me? I swear I was on my way as soon as I got this all covered up. Didn’t figure you guys wanted me around the customers like this.”
I hate the look on her face right now. She’s more afraid of me, my brothers, and getting her job taken away than the fact that she lives under the same roof as a man who would do this to her. I know that look too well. I saw it in my mom’s eyes before when her supervisor sent her home from work one day for the hand marks around her neck.