by Jenika Snow
It wasn’t so much about the couple hundred dollars John gave them a week, but about keeping face and their reputation, and letting others know that when they did business with the Vicious Bastards, you didn’t just back out.
“Booshie and Tank, head over to O’Henry’s after six. That’s when John will be in.” A hard look covered Scars’s face. “Remind him that if he welches on a deal, then the MC won’t back him in anything again, and also remind him that if he wants out of our agreement, he’ll have to fork over a year’s worth of fees.” What Scars didn’t say, but what they all knew, was that John would also get a fucking beating for fucking over the Bastards.
It wasn’t like the club went around kicking people’s asses. They put themselves and their club on the line when they helped someone out, especially concerning a gang that dealt in violence of their own. When they agreed to handle John’s problem, they should have just kicked out the adolescent vandals, but a good ass-kicking and a “talking to” on what happened if they pulled that kind of shit in their town again went a long way.
Besides, they didn’t kill people, least of all some punk-ass kids who thought breaking other people’s shit was a good time. But they needed to uphold their image, or they wouldn’t be feared and respected, and any mediocre gang or club could move in on their territory. Not fucking going to happen, so that meant they would be busting balls at O’Henry’s.
3
Naggie pulled her SUV onto the driveway and cut the engine. When she bought the Honda Pilot, she had gotten so much shit from Cadeon and Ziggy. Them saying she looked like a little kid in the front seat of such a big vehicle only made her flip them off, fling a string of profanities their way, and enjoy her ride that much more.
They were jealous that she looked so good in this massive vehicle, and sure, she was small in stature and might look slightly funny trying to climb into it, but fuck them all. But she loved those two guys like they were her family. In fact, they were her only family and the only ones who gave two shits about her.
She saw Rob’s truck in the driveway and grabbed her phone from her bag. She was almost two hours early getting off from the shop, but after doing that tattoo for the Marine and not having another client, she called it a night. Rob wasn’t supposed to be home until after eight—another three hours away—but she grinned, thinking maybe he had something special planned, since their anniversary was tomorrow.
Hey, a year of being with the same person might not have been such a big deal, but it was the longest relationship she had been involved in.
She grabbed her shit and made her way out of the car and toward the front door. A dog started barking, and she stopped and glanced over her shoulder. The house was Rob’s, and it was in a rundown and older part of the town. It was on a cul-de-sac, but it was nice living with someone and not having to feel like she was alone all the time.
Since it was the middle of the summer and just after five, the sun was still high in the sky. It was warm and slightly humid, overall nasty-ass weather. She had never been one who enjoyed the heat, so a cold shower to wash the sweat off, which had formed in the small amount of time it took her to walk to and from her car, was in her very near future.
The house was relatively quiet except for the small ticking of the wall clock. Setting her keys on the small table next to the door and her bag on the floor, she stood straight again and listened. Something felt off, but she couldn’t quite place why the hairs on the back of her neck and on her arms stood on end.
“Rob?” Naggie called out, realizing how weird it was that Rob was home but nowhere to be seen. Normally, he was on the couch, watching TV or playing video games. But then, right before she yelled out his name once more, she heard some noise in the back bedroom. The house was small, but for some reason it seemed like it took Naggie forever to get down the hallway.
There was another banging sound right on the other side of her closed bedroom door, but before she opened it, she already knew what the fuck was going on. The sight before her at first had her mouth hanging open on its own, and then this blood-curdling rage filled her.
Rob was on his knees, holding onto a very skinny waist, and had his head thrown back as he grunted with each thrust. Naggie couldn’t speak, couldn’t move as she was in a kind of trance watching her boyfriend fucking not just a woman, but that skanky-ass bitch Tally.
It took Rob and Tally a whole minute of continued fucking before they realized they had an audience. Tally looked over, still on her hands and knees, and smiled. Rob gave one more thrust before turning and looking at her. He was sweaty, and beads of perspiration dripped down his chest.
The “oh shit” look that crossed his face was priceless, but Naggie was seeing red and was about to beat someone’s ass.
“I didn’t expect you home this soon.”
“That’s obvious.” Venom dripped from Naggie’s voice, and she was barely holding onto her control. But then again, she didn’t know why she wasn’t kicking both their asses right now.
“Naggie, baby.”
She held up her hand then realized it was shaking uncontrollably due to how fucking pissed she was. Naggie curled her hand into a fist. “You don’t get to fucking call me that ever again, you worthless piece of shit.” She couldn’t remember being this mad before. What made this whole situation even worse was that Rob was fucking the same woman—the town slut.
Tally was the same woman who tried to pick up Rob at the bar over six months ago, and the same one Naggie should have royally fucked up back then. “What the fuck.” She said it more to herself than directed at either of them, but then when Rob pulled out of Tally, and that slut’s grin grew, something inside Naggie just snapped.
“Naggie, this is not what it looks like.”
She felt her eyes widen, and this incredulous laugh came from her. “Not what it looks like? I’ll tell you what it looks like.” She sucked in a lungful of air, feeling her entire body shake from her anger now. She might’ve been short and small in the body frame department, but she had a temper to rival an enraged bull. “My now ex-boyfriend has his dick in the town slut’s dirty-ass cunt. That is what it fucking looks like.”
Rob, with his tattoos and piercings, and that willowy kind of body, used to turn her on, but now all she could picture was him sticking it into the woman who got around with nearly every guy in town.
“How about you leave and let us finish?” Tally smiled and actually lay back on the bed—the fucking bed Naggie slept in with Rob.
And that was the straw that broke the fucking camel’s back. The red haze that covered her vision filled every inch of her body, and without thinking or holding back any longer, she went into the room, over to Tally, and grabbed that skank by her hair. Tally squeaked out, but the skinny bitch wasn’t any match for the rage that consumed Naggie.
She felt possessed, angrier than she had ever felt before. She hauled Tally off the bed, and the bitch struggled in her grasp. Naggie may have been smaller than her, but she had the strength of ten grown-ass men right now, or at least she felt like she did.
“You bitch!” Tally squealed out, clawed at Naggie’s hand, and then started asking Rob to help her. But Rob was a big pussy and stayed right where he was.
Naggie grabbed off the floor the strips of material that Tally considered clothes and hauled her out of the bedroom, down the hallway, and kicked her trampy ass out of the house.
“You bitch!” she repeated. “Rob isn’t going to stop seeing me.” Tally was scrambling to put her clothes on as she stood on the front porch. “In fact, he’s been fucking me for the last three months.” She grinned, but she looked like the damn Joker, because her red lipstick was smeared across her face. “You remember that night he went out with his buddies?” Tally slipped her shirt over her head, and the thing barely covered her big, fake tits. “Yeah, met him up there, and he jumped right at the opportunity to get laid good and hard.”
Naggie curled her hand into a fist again and without thinking popped Ta
lly right in the side of the head. The bitch fell backward, hit the ground on her bare ass, and instantly blood started to drip down her lip.
“You psychotic—”
“He’s all yours, bitch.” Naggie slammed the door shut and locked it, and then she was storming back in the bedroom. Rob already had his pants on, but she couldn’t even look at him she was so pissed and disgusted.
“Naggie, I’m really sorry.”
“Shut the fuck up.” She turned and grabbed her bag out of the closet.
“Don’t leave. Tally means nothing, absolutely nothing to me. She was just a fuck, and—”
Naggie spun around and narrowed her eyes on Rob until he snapped his mouth closed. “And how in the hell is that supposed to make me feel better?” Before he could respond, she shook her head. “You know what? It doesn’t even fucking matter. I’m done. You cheat on me once, you’ll always do it. Hell, you probably have been screwing a slew of chicks since we’ve been together.”
When he didn’t answer and she saw his throat work as he swallowed, she knew right then that this whole relationship had been a joke.
“Wow, you dirty motherfucker.” She turned and grabbed her clothes hanging up and shoved them in her bag.
“Please, let’s talk.” Rob came up to her and grabbed her arm, but on instinct she turned around and brought her fist across his cheek.
“Don’t touch me. You don’t ever get that right again.” It had felt damn good to hit Tally, but there was even more pleasure in doing it to the man she lived with and had thought she cared about.
“What the fuck, Naggie? What did you expect me to do when you haven’t been giving it up?”
“So now it’s my fault you’re a piece-of-shit boyfriend?” She snorted, turned back around, and finished getting her shit out of the drawers. “I think that is the standard line a POS guy says when caught cheating.”
“Where are you going to go?” There was a bite in Rob’s voice, but no way did he get to be pissed about this.
“Not your concern. You can now bring that slut to the house and fuck her to your heart’s content.” She turned around and stared at him. “Or is the thrill gone now that you’re single?”
“I wanted to tell you but didn’t know how to explain it. I mean, I felt like shit doing it behind your back.”
His pathetic excuse just made her even more pissed, and if she didn’t leave, she was going to do something she might regret later, like crack the lamp over his head. “I don’t have to put up with this shit.” She stared at him, right in the eye so he knew she was dead serious. “I am too good for this bullshit.”
“What the hell, Naggie? Let me explain.”
She didn’t bother telling him there was nothing to explain. He had been caught, didn’t deny it, and had been doing it for months. But it wouldn’t have mattered if this was the only time he had done it, or if he had been doing this for their entire relationship. Cheating was cheating, and she was done. She moved past him, brushed him off when he tried to reach for her, and walked out of the room.
Once she had her keys and her other bag she had set on the floor by the front door, she headed to her Pilot, tossed her crap inside, and got in. Tally was lucky she had been smart enough to leave, because if she had still been standing outside, Naggie would have beaten her ass for real this time. She started her car and looked at Rob, who still stood on the porch.
With a grin, she lifted her hand and flipped him off. Yeah, that felt good, but what was going to feel even better was getting drunk and trying to forget about this shitty night and everything the last year had entailed.
4
Naggie lifted her empty shot glass to Ryan, the bartender at O’Henry’s, one of the only decent bars in Reckless. She needed a refill like last week, but for some reason, the bar was busy tonight, and that meant Ryan was slower than normal in keeping people hydrated. The bar was dimly lit, but who wanted to go to a place to get drunk with florescent lighting?
Hell, she wanted to feel like she was in a haze as she drowned her sorrows in a bottle of whiskey. There were guys off to the side playing pool, others sitting on overstuffed chairs in front of a big-screen TV watching sports, and even some scantily clad college-aged girls shaking their asses and tits on the makeshift dance floor.
“You sure you want to get trashed?” the woman beside her asked.
Naggie looked at Bennie, her friend for the last two years. Bennie had come in for some ink a couple years ago, and after Naggie had been the artist to give it to her, they clicked. Bennie was a gorgeous brunette who looked like one of those pin-up girls. She wore tight pencils skirts and baby doll shirts like she owned the damn world. Naggie wasn’t gay, but Bennie had curves that could make any straight girl want to see her naked.
But it wasn’t just her awesome attitude, her killer sense of style, or the fact that Naggie clicked with Bennie almost instantly. She also had some awesome ink, and Naggie was honored to have been able to work on her.
Bennie held up her hands in defense, but if she was about to say something, Ryan stopped her when he leaned on the counter and started talking.
“So, more Crown, or do you want to mix it up?”
Naggie shook her head. “No, I don’t want to mess with the buzz I got going on by mixing shit. How about you just bring the whole bottle over here?”
Ryan cocked a dark eyebrow.
“Fine, just send over a couple more shots, please?” She batted her eyelashes, feeling good and warm already.
“So, is this going to be an ‘I can’t walk straight’ night?” Bennie asked.
“This is a totally I can’t walk, talk, or think straight kind of night.”
Bennie nodded. “You want to talk more about it? You were kind of vague on the details over the phone.”
She nodded and rested her elbows on the counter then stared at Ryan. “He’s a cute guy, in that sort of vanilla way.”
“Naggie, stop diverting and spill it. You know you can talk to me.”
She looked over at Bennie. “I know. I guess I’m just humiliated and still furious over the whole thing.”
But her friend didn’t give her a sympathetic look, and she loved her even more for that.
“Hey, the important thing is that you are too good for that kind of bullshit, and you are still young, hot, and ready to rock.” She winked, and Naggie burst out laughing.
Ryan came over with a few shots and set them on the bar in front of them. “It’s a freaking madhouse in here tonight.”
Naggie looked around and agreed. It was packed, but mainly it was a bunch of douchey-looking college kids in their polo shirts and khaki shorts. Ryan left them to help the waitress with an order, and she turned and faced Bennie. They grabbed their shot glasses, lifted them up, and clinked them together. “Fuck them all.”
Bennie nodded, and they tossed back the shots. “If you want my honest opinion, I always thought Rob was a little asshole.”
“What? Really?” She only told Bennie that they’d broken up because she caught him in bed with another woman. Naggie hadn’t said what woman it’d been, how long it had been going on, or the physical altercation that happened. But in due time, she’d spill it all.
Bennie nodded. “Yeah, remember when the two of you came over and he was bitching like a little girl about the limes not being cold?”
Naggie started laughing and nodded. “Oh my God. Yes, that was embarrassing on so many levels.”
“Honestly, I think he is nothing more than a wannabe.”
Naggie didn’t respond to that, because if she did, it probably wouldn’t be anything nice toward Rob. “You know, I am so pissed, but more than that, I’m hurt.” She would not cry. Oh hell no, she wouldn’t cry, especially not for that asshole.
“Honey, I have totally been there, done that, and don’t care to ever visit it again.”
“You got shafted too?”
Bennie nodded. “Yeah, years ago actually.” She shrugged. “Beat the whore’s ass right ther
e in my bed with her big tits flopping everywhere.” Bennie grinned. “And then I kicked his ass.”
“God, I love you.” Naggie leaned her shoulder into Bennie’s, and they both started laughing. Naggie then proceeded to tell her everything that happened and didn’t mince her words or leave anything out.
The Drifters started playing overhead, and for as out of place as it seemed to be listening to oldies in this Irish-style pub, “This Magic Moment” was a good fucking song.
“Don’t worry. Something a lot better will come along.”
Naggie nodded, because she didn’t have a doubt about that. Any guy who didn’t cheat on their girl was better than Rob, but it still sucked.
5
Booshie and Tank stood in the back room of O’Henry’s, looking at a very nervous John.
“Look, I don’t want any trouble. I just don’t need the Bastards’ help anymore.”
Booshie was beside Tank and had a toothpick in his mouth. When Booshie looked over at the sergeant at arms, it was to see this sadistic smile on his face.
“So, you think making a verbal agreement with the club means that after only a year, you can back out?” It was a rhetorical question, but clearly John didn’t get that, because he started speaking.
“N-no, I mean, I’m appreciative of what the club has done, but I can’t keep paying when the only threat there ever was has now left.” John was twisting his hands together in front of him. “Besides, after you guys roughed up that gang, it wasn’t like they were going to bother me again anyway.”
Tank tsked. “You know why they call me Tank?” He pulled the toothpick out of his mouth and flicked it aside. “I’ll tell you, so you don’t have to think on it too hard.” Tank pushed away from the wall and took a few steps toward John. “Like a tank, I go through motherfuckers who mess with my club.”
John took a step back and held his hands up. “I told Scars I didn’t want any trouble but that I’m just backing out. No harm no foul.”