by Levine, Nina
I wonder how he did get that.
And I wonder what he’s like in bed.
I bet he’s rough and demanding and bossy.
Oh, God.
Yes.
Oh, fuck.
No.
No, no, no.
Worst idea I’d had in a long time.
It was then I realised I really did need to get laid, because I was clearly losing my mind if I was imagining what it would be like to have sex with a rude man like King.
I had enough troubles in my life.
I didn’t need to add asshole to my list.
Chapter Nineteen
King
There was no love lost between Ghost and me. Jethro had seen to that. He’d played us off from the very beginning, but by the time I’d figured that out, too much water was under the bridge for us to ever go back. Ghost had always eyed the Storm presidency, believing it should have been his. Jethro had other ideas. He marked the position as mine early on, and once Ghost worked that out, he’d gone out of his way to fuck with me. Ivy and Jen had been caught in the crossfire, but again, I hadn’t learnt of that until it was too late.
Ghost had targeted them because Jethro told him to. Jethro had told a few club members to harass both of my women, but the difference with Ghost was that he’d taken it all a step further and tried to force himself on them simply because of his grudge against me. I’d never forgive him for that.
Sitting across from him at the jail later that day, it took a lot of fucking control not to reach across the damn table and choke the life out of him. After my last visit, I’d intended never to return.
“Spit it out, Ghost. Why are we here?” I demanded. “Have the feds come back?”
He shook his head. “No, not the feds.” He paused for a moment, almost as if he was still deciding whether to share his information with us. Finally he said, “Tony Romano paid me a visit, and since all he spoke about was you, I figured you’d want to know.”
“What the fuck?” Hyde muttered, leaning forward and resting his arms on the table.
I was as confused as Hyde. It made no sense. “What did he want?”
Ghost’s smile was one of victory. He squared his shoulders. “I thought you might ask that, but if you think I’ll just hand that kind of information over without getting something in return, you’re mistaken.”
Fucking Ghost. I’d known this was a fucking ambush when Hyde had said Ghost would only talk to me. “You wanna stay a member of Storm, you need to get that mouth moving, Ghost. That’s the only fucking thing up for negotiation here.”
Ghost’s smile disappeared and hatred blared from his eyes. “At this fucking point, King, I couldn’t give a fuck if you kick me out of the club. The only thing important to me is getting the fuck out of here. You make that happen and I’ll give you whatever information you want.”
“I’ve already got shit happening towards your release.”
“And we both know you could be doing more. Stop dragging your feet and make this happen within the next couple of weeks.”
He was right—I was dragging my feet. Helping Ghost get out of here was the last thing I wanted to do, but I’d given him my word, and I never went back on that. Not even when it was given to someone I despised.
“Done.” I leant forward, my eyes boring into his. “Now start fucking talking and don’t stop until you give me everything. I find out you skipped some shit, your release gets pushed back as far as I can make that happen.”
Ghost’s eyes flashed with the same hatred mine did. “And if you don’t get shit done in a few weeks, I’ll find a way to fuck you over.”
Jesus, the motherfucker had a death wish. “Talk!” I barked, coasting close to my threshold of control.
His lips pulled up in a snarl, but he finally spilt what he knew. “Romano wants you dead, and he wants Storm wiped off the map. He has a wealth of knowledge about Storm’s drug trade, who you buy weapons off, the shit Jethro was into…. Fuck, I don’t know how the hell he knows this shit, but I’m telling you, if he went to the cops with any of this, every member of the club would go to prison. He even knows about Moses.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Hyde said, echoing my own thoughts. We have a rat in the club. “What did he want with you?”
“He offered me half a mill to turn on the club. Wants me to go to the cops with what I know.”
“You expect us to believe you’d turn down that kind of cash? To help me?” I said.
“Not to help you, King, but to help the club.”
“Bullshit.”
The hatred in his eyes flared again. “It’s not bullshit. Fuck, think about it. Why would I call you here and tell you this shit if I was gonna take the cash? I’d just fucking take it, talk to the cops and never look back if that was my choice.”
My mind worked as fast as it could to come up with scenarios of how this could all play out, but with all the shit in there, it was a battle I was losing. Ghost had a point, but I still had my doubts.
“If I choose to believe you and you fuck us over, there’s no coming back from that, Ghost. Not for you and not for your sister.”
“Look,” he snapped, agitation getting the best of him, “I’ve always been loyal to the club and I don’t intend to change that. Best I can figure, Romano is fucking insane. I’ve got enough insanity to deal with in you. I don’t wanna get into bed with another crazy asshole.”
“What else did he say?” I pushed. “Nothing you’ve told us helps us in any way. We already knew Romano was coming after the club.”
He contemplated that for a moment. “Now who’s speaking shit?”
“What else?” Hyde almost bellowed. By the looks of him, he was as close to losing his shit as I was.
Ghost scowled at him. “Ivy is the key to all of this. He’s fucking obsessed with her. You get to her and you’ll get to Romano.”
“See now that’s where your info is fucked up, Ghost. We have her and she’s telling us jack,” I said.
Ghost’s eyes met mine again, a flicker of confusion in them now. “She’s with you? And Tony hasn’t turned up looking for her? I find that hard to believe.”
“He’s disappeared,” Hyde said. “Dropped off the radar to avoid the cops who raided him two days ago.”
“And Ivy has left Tony,” I added.
Ghost’s confusion grew, and he frowned. “I don’t see any of that happening. Not from what Tony said the other day. For one, I got the impression he’s in with the cops, and two, I don’t think he’d ever allow Ivy to leave him. I’m telling you, he’s consumed by her. If anyone could cause Tony Romano to fall, it’d be Ivy. She’d be enough for him to not go into hiding from the cops because all he’d be able to think about would be getting her back.”
Fuck.
I glanced at Hyde. “What do you make of all this, brother?”
“We need to head back to the clubhouse and go over it all. Pull Devil and Kick in on it and get their take on it. Bronze too.”
“You also need to work on my release,” Ghost said.
I eyed him. “I have a job for you before that happens.” I detailed the club’s problem with Marx and told Ghost to find someone to fix that problem.
He nodded. “I may already have someone in mind.”
I stood. “Good. Hyde’ll be in touch. Until then, sit tight and call us if you come across anything else.”
As we left the prison, Hyde looked at me with determination. “I’m going to talk to Ivy.”
My reaction surprised me. He’d wanted to talk to her the other day, too, but I didn’t want to inflict him on Ivy. It was a gut-deep response. Hyde interrogated people the same way he took to them with his fists—he was savage and ruthless in his quest to extract information. As much as my head screamed yes to this, every fibre of my being refused to agree.
“No.”
“You sure about that, brother? She could be our best bet to find Romano.”
“No.”
“You’re
too close to this. I might get more from her.”
Fuck. “No.”
“King, think with your head and not your dick.”
He was a stubborn fucking bastard. He wouldn’t let this go. “I’m not thinking with my fucking dick, brother.” Or was I? I scrubbed my hand over my face. Jesus fucking Christ. “Just don’t fucking hurt her.”
His stubborn side showed itself. “If she has info the club needs, I’ll go down swinging to get it.”
No fucking way would I allow him to harm her. “I want in that room.”
“King,” his voice hardened, “you’re not setting foot in that room. I don’t give a fuck if I have to knock you out, I’m questioning her, and I’ll do whatever it takes to save our club.”
Fuck.
Shit was spiralling.
And I couldn’t fucking stop it.
I felt ripped apart by my allegiances. I’d loved Ivy for a long time. Could I allow her to become caught up in this? Would I allow Hyde to do whatever it took to get her to talk?
Had I fallen that far down the fucking black hole that I no longer cared what happened to her?
I exhaled a harsh breath and met Hyde’s gaze. “Just get it done. I don’t want to fucking know the details.”
Chapter Twenty
King
I met Jen three years after I pushed Ivy away. I hadn’t been looking for a woman to share my bed with, but she’d forced her way into my life and then into my heart. We’d met at a party thrown by a club member. She was drunk and had tried to fuck me in the bathroom. I was a lot of things, but I wasn’t a man who took advantage of drunk women. I’d said no and left, but not before I’d found someone to get her home so some other asshole couldn’t force himself on her. A week later, she’d turned up at the clubhouse to thank me for it. She’d called me a gentleman, and I’d laughed for the first time in a long fucking time. That had been the start of our journey down a dark, fucked-up path of jealousy, raging arguments, destructive behaviour, and resentments we never found our way through.
Sex had been our glue; Jen liked it brutal, and she quickly worked out that it kept me coming back for more. She understood that after a long day taking care of club shit, all I’d wanted to come home to was a woman who’d let me lose myself in her so I could wipe the day from my mind. She’d saved the fights for the daytime and the sex for the nights. It worked until she figured out I’d never love her the way she wanted. I’d loved her, but I’d never hand every last piece of myself over to anyone again, and Jen wanted to collect those pieces like fucking trophies. In the end, she’d cheated on me, and I’d walked away. The betrayal had stung because they always did, but I couldn’t find it in me to hate her. I’d known the cheating was because I refused to give her everything I’d given Ivy. I could hardly fault her for my shortcomings.
I’d felt guilt more than anger.
I’d ruined another woman, another relationship.
Kick had found a place for her out by the creek she’d loved to visit. As I’d said goodbye, memories had rushed at me of the times I’d taken her there. Fuck, memories always carved jagged grooves deep in me. If I could have avoided it, I wouldn’t have visited her grave. But I owed her that. I fucking owed her a lot more than that, but since I could never pay those debts, this was all I had to give.
I’d sat with her for an hour, and when I was done, I’d headed back to the clubhouse and spent the night obliterating every memory from my mind. Turned out Jen had been hell alive, and she was still hell for me dead. Kick dropped me at the hospital just after midnight. “No fucking way am I letting you on the road in this state,” he’d said. What he didn’t know was that there was no fucking way I’d ever allow myself on the roads in this state.
“King,” Skylar mumbled early the next morning, prodding my arm. “When did you get here? And God, you smell like a brewery.”
I was only half asleep in the chair by her bed. The night had been long and the ghosts had refused to leave me alone. I sat up and rested my elbows on my knees, stretching the kinks out of my neck. Sleeping in a hospital chair fucking blew. So did the headache pounding my skull. “We buried Jen yesterday afternoon.” It didn’t answer her question, but it told her everything she wanted to know.
Her face softened. “Oh.”
I stood so I could also stretch my back. I felt like hell, but I was more interested in how Skylar was feeling. “How’s the pain?”
“It’s okay. The drugs are working.” She paused for a moment before saying, “You know I wasn’t a huge fan of Jen’s, but I hate that she died like this. No one deserves that.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, but I didn’t want to get into it. Didn’t want to be having this conversation with anyone, because that meant I’d have to face the guilt again. “I’m going for a smoke. You want anything when I come back?”
The look she gave me told me she knew what I was doing. Skylar knew me better than anyone. It was one of the reasons we argued so damn much. She liked to see how far she could push me. Always had. But today, she let that shit slide. Nodding, she said, “Yeah, a coffee. I can’t do the stuff they serve here.”
When I stepped outside five minutes later, I lit a smoke and stared up at the dark morning sky. The colour of the clouds matched my mood. And the rolling thunder added to the symphony playing in my head. A symphony of fucked-up thoughts that wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone.
For one mad moment, I wondered whether my father’s mind had been as chaotic as mine. Was this how he crossed the line into insanity? Did the thoughts become too much to deal with that his mind cracked into so many pieces that he could no longer figure out right from wrong?
Could I fucking figure out right from wrong anymore? I wasn’t sure. Most days I didn’t give a fuck, but every now and then, someone came along and tested that attitude. Ivy reappearing in my life was one big fucking test.
She and Jen had played on my mind all night, and my dreams had tortured me. It had been a long time since I’d had dreams like this. After I’d pushed Ivy away years ago, I’d spent a year dreaming of her, my father, my mother, and Margreet. The dreams had become nightmares I couldn’t escape. I’d avoided sleep that year, and insomnia had plagued me ever since, but the dreams had disappeared.
Until last night.
Last night I dreamt of Margreet and the disappointment she felt over the choices I’d made in my life. Ivy and Jen had shown up in my dream, too, and told me I was going to hell after I was finished with this life.
Fuck.
I’d woken in a cold sweat, thoughts of hell still on my mind. I knew the only place I’d be going after this life was straight to hell. My father had made sure of that the first time he’d forced me to help him with his sick and perverted crimes. Usually it was my mother who helped him, but not that night. She’d been sick and unable to do what he wanted, so he’d dragged me out of bed and used me to lure the blonde teenager into his car. What girl wouldn’t want to stop and help a nine-year-old who was alone on a street in the middle of the night? She’d never stood a chance between my sad eyes begging for help and my father’s brute strength when he pulled her into the car.
He’d kept her locked up in our house for a week before he ended her suffering. I’d endured seven nights of her screams and his grunts. But that was only the beginning of it all.
I had the blood of five girls on my hands by the time I was ten. Three days before my tenth birthday, my father was arrested for assaulting a man at the pub he frequented. My early birthday present that year was my mother abandoning me at a hospital because she decided she couldn’t raise me on her own. It was the best birthday present I ever received.
Jesus, would this shit ever go away? Would I ever stop thinking about my father? Would Margreet linger in my mind forever?
I took a long drag of my smoke, closing my eyes as it worked its way into my lungs. Why the fuck was I turning my actions over in my head? Questioning myself in ways I tried never to question myself. There was a lot of shit to
deal with today. Thinking about this wasn’t doing me any favours. All it did was fuck with my thinking. And that wasn’t fucking useful. Not to me and not to my club.
I opened my eyes, took one last drag of my smoke before stubbing it out, and turned to go back inside. Another round of thunder cracked overhead, but I barely heard it. Thunder didn’t come close to the noise of my mind.
“Good morning.”
I’d been so lost in my thoughts I hadn’t seen Skylar’s physiotherapist standing in my path to the front door of the hospital. I’d almost run into her.
I nodded at the smoke between her lips. “If the way you’re sucking that smoke back is any indication, your morning is as shit as mine.”
“Yeah, that about sums it up. Kids.”
My gaze dropped to her body. She wore the tightest fucking jeans I’d ever seen with a white T-shirt and black leather jacket. It seemed an odd outfit for a hospital employee to wear, but what the fuck did I know? Finding her eyes again, I asked, “How many you got?”
“Do you really care?”
She had me there. And yet, I was engaging in small talk, which I rarely bothered with, so there was some interest. “How many?”
A smile ghosted across her lips as she drew more smoke deep into her lungs. “I knew you weren’t as big of an asshole as they told me. I’ve got three. Two teens and an eight-year-old. It’s mostly my fourteen-year-old daughter who keeps my nicotine addiction fed.”
I narrowed my eyes, assessing her more closely. “You don’t look old enough to have a fourteen-year-old.”
Her smile grew larger. “Well, now I like you even more. I’m old enough to have a sixteen-year-old.”
“Daughter?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck, I wish you well.”
Her brows lifted. “You have daughters?”
“No, but I’ve got experience raising girls.” I jerked my chin at her smoke. “That’s not gonna be anywhere near strong enough soon.”