Devil's Disciples MC Series- The Complete Boxed Set

by Scott Hildreth

  “We could choose not to listen to what it is they have to say,” I said. “Then, we wouldn’t be disappointed by their lies.”

  Hap scowled in disagreement to my statement. “There’s no escaping them,” he complained. “They’re on the news, in the newspapers, plastered all over the magazines at the checkout aisle, and on the news ticker on my computer. There are far too many entities in our government. They’ve got their fingers in everything. I look at it this way, if it makes you happy, you should be able to do it. Too many laws, too many hands kneading the bread dough, and too goddamned many people with power that damned sure don’t deserve it.”

  “What about our president?” Reggie asked.

  I braced for the imminent explosion. Hap’s opinion of the president wasn’t a favorable one. Personally, I preferred not to talk politics with anyone. It seemed to be the one subject that would cause friends to promptly become enemies.

  “That dumb son-of-a-bitch,” Hap snarled, leaning forward in his seat. He locked eyes with Reggie. “Did you know that he met a top-secret Navy SEAL team last year while they were deployed? The dumb prick wanted a picture with them so he could brag to his underlings about where he’d been and who he’d met. So, some lieutenant snapped a picture of everyone, with POTUS standing in the middle of the clandestine team with his pearly whites glowin’ and his hair piece a blowin’. When dipshit got back to the White House, he tweeted that picture just to let everyone know he was buddies with a team of Navy SEALs. There’s one problem. Leaking out that photo made the team’s identity known to the entire world. So much for secrecy. Now, every angry villager, ISIS member, enemy combatant, and wannabe thirteen-year-old sniper has a clear digital picture of the members of SEAL team Five.” He shook his head in clear disgust. “Our POTUS is dumber than a bag of hammers.”

  “That’s enough about the POTUS,” Braxton demanded. “Your good blood pressure is going to be bad blood pressure if you keep it up.”

  “I can talk about what or whoever I want,” Hap snapped back. “It’s my God-given right.”

  “Every time you talk about him, you get wound up,” Braxton argued. “One of these days you’re going to have a heart attack.”

  With his empty beer bottle dangling loosely from his fingertips, Hap stood. He gave Braxton a cold stare. “And, one of these days, you’re going to wake up and be a single, miserable, controlling prick.” He nonchalantly tossed his beer bottle across the porch. As always, Braxton plucked it from the air in mid-flight, set it aside, and blindly reached into the cooler for another.

  Still glaring, Hap sauntered across the porch. He took the full bottle from Braxton’s grasp. “Oh, wait,” he said in a sarcastic tone. “You already are all of those things.”

  In a clear display of defiance, he twisted off the lid and threw it into Braxton’s lap. Wearing a prideful smirk, he turned away.

  “Fuck you, Old Man,” Braxton said, not meaning one word of what he said.

  Hap sipped his beer while he meandered past Reggie and me, and then took his seat. “Back to the matter at hand. The POTUS is a POS.”

  “I’ll agree, wholeheartedly,” Reggie said.

  Hap leaned forward and looked at me. He raised one of his wiry brows. “Well?”

  “No comment.”

  His eyes narrowed. “We all know what that means.”

  “It means no comment,” I said.

  He gave me a flippant look. “It means you don’t have the guts to speak your mind.”

  “It means no comment.”

  “If you agreed with Reggie and me, you’d chime in,” he argued. “You don’t, therefore you’re preserving your status with the group by keeping your POTUS-loving mouth shut.”

  I shook my head in frustration. “I don’t love the POTUS.”

  He gave me a quick once-over. “From my vantage point, it sure looks like it.”

  “Knowing when not to speak is the mark of an intelligent man.” I quipped.

  “The Old Man must be a damned fool,” Braxton interjected. “Because he never shuts his mouth.”

  “I’m going to suggest a change to our seating arrangement,” Hap said in a flat tone. “You move over by Braxton and Reggie moves where you are, beside me.”

  “I like that idea,” Reggie said.

  Our seating arrangement wasn’t etched in stone, and I realized it. Nevertheless, making changes would irritate me to no end. Had Reggie originally been seated between Hap and me, I would have been fine with it.

  Because she sat between Braxton and me, that’s where I expected her to stay.

  I glanced at each of them. “I don’t.”

  “Why not?” Hap asked. “I have a hell of a lot more in common with her than I do with you. If you swap spots, I won’t have to look around you every time I’m trying to talk to her. It’s annoying, to be honest.”

  I gave Hap a cross look. “I annoy you?”

  “When I’ve got to try and look through you to talk to the only living soul on this porch that has a reasonable head on upon her shoulders, yes.”

  “Reggie’s the only one on this porch worth talking to?”

  Hap gave a nod. “Until someone else arrives that’s more intelligent or entertaining, yes.”

  “Fine.” I stood. “Swap seats with me, Reggie.”

  Giddy with Hap’s suggested seating arrangement, Reggie took my seat. She faced Hap. “How’s the weather over here?” she asked with a laugh.

  “Much better than it is at the other end of the porch, I can tell you that much,” Hap said. “Kind of stuffy down there, if you ask me.”

  “I like it down here, too,” Reggie said. “Age trumps beauty.”

  “What?” Hap leaned away and gave her a look. “You think he’s better looking than me?”

  Reggie flashed her award-winning smile. “I like the way he looks, but I like your way of thinking.”

  Hap leaned forward. “Another reason to have her down here is that I get along with women more than men. It’s effortless. It comes naturally. Always has.”

  “It doesn’t bother you to look around her to talk to me?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Not in the least.”

  “Getting along with women comes naturally?” Braxton laughed out loud. “You and mom bickered all day, every day.”

  “Nothing but playful antics,” Hap replied. “That’s one of the problems with today’s society. Everyone is far too goddamned serious. People need to learn how to let loose. We need to bring back the 1970’s. Hell, everyone was happy back then.”

  “Tell that to all the protestors that were on the news every night,” Braxton chided.

  “That was fake news,” Hap said dryly. “More propaganda.”

  “Sounds like you and the POTUS agree on one thing,” Braxton said with a laugh. “Neither of you like the news.”

  Hap flipped Braxton the bird.

  Braxton returned the gesture.

  Still holding his weathered finger sky-high, Hap appeared to have an epiphany. He shot from his seat and faced the group. “Speaking of the news, did you see where that guy from channel five drove his car off the edge of the cliff on Mulholland?”

  I hadn’t heard a word from Braxton about the matter since we last spoke in Mel’s home. At that point in time, the guy from channel five didn’t look like he could have driven a car anywhere, let alone down the winding lanes of Mulholland Drive.

  “I didn’t hear anything about it,” I said straight-faced.

  “Don’t get much San Diego news up where I live,” Braxton said. “What happened?”

  “Rick McNown from channel five. Fucker was drunker’n a monkey, flying down Mulholland Drive in his Mercedes. The dumb bastard missed a curve. Drove off the edge of a cliff and landed nose-down against a house-sized rock. Had a known meth dealer in the car with him and a bunch of meth-making supplies. His goddamned car hit the rock, exploded, and blew body parts from LA to the Santa Monica Bridge.”

  Braxton acted surprised. “Maybe he was in
terviewing the meth dealer for his show.”

  Hap’s brows raised. “Maybe he wasn’t.”

  Braxton relaxed into his seat. “We may never know.”

  Hap rolled his eyes. “Trusting what they tell us on the news is like believing the expressed length of a man’s schlong or the claimed size of a woman’s shoe. What we’re told is always fractionally different than the truth.”

  Normally, I didn’t buy the fake news propaganda. In this circumstance, however, I hoped Hap was right. As long as the truth was never known, I’d be free to live my life without fear of one day being torn away from Reggie’s loving arms for a crime I didn’t commit—but would undoubtedly be found guilty of by association.

  235

  Reggie

  I was halfway done shaving my left leg when Tito shouted. The unexpected question startled me so much I nearly sliced myself open.

  “Where’s the good razor?” he bellowed.

  I opened the fogged-over shower door. Wearing only his boxer shorts, Tito was standing in front of the mirror, rubbing his slight growth of beard.

  “You scared me to death,” I said. “I thought you were asleep.”

  “I was. I woke up.” He glanced in my direction. “Where’s the good razor?”

  “Which one’s the good one?”

  “The one that’s good. One has a crappy blade and one has a good blade. I want the one with the good blade.”

  I held up the razor I was using. “Which one is this?”

  “The good one.”

  “I like this one,” I said. “The other one rips the hairs out. It’s awful.”

  He laughed. “Toss it to me. I’ll replace the blade.”

  I hated throwing things. Knowing the odds of succeeding were minimal, I threw the razor the best I was able.

  It crashed in the right side of the vanity, six feet from where Tito stood, knocking over a bottle of lotion and a tube of tanning lotion in the process.

  Obviously disappointed by my lack of accuracy in throwing razors, he looked at the disaster and shook his head. “You throw like a girl.”

  I gave him a view of my backside. “I am a girl.” I pulled the shower door closed and commenced with shaving my legs. “Are you busy today?”

  He laughed. “Not at all.”

  “No car wash emergencies?”

  “None that I know of. Why?”

  “I was wondering if you wanted to try and meet me for lunch, or something.”

  No matter how much time I spent with Tito, I wanted more. Unlike the men in my past, where I often wanted time away from them, I didn’t get tired of being with Tito. He never put me down, didn’t fill the house with odd furniture, wore normal clothes, and only stayed out late on Thursday nights.

  “Is today your day off?” he asked.

  “Well, this week.” I turned off the shower. “It’s today and tomorrow.”

  He pulled open the shower door. The left side of his face was shaved clean, and the right was covered in shaving cream.

  “You never get two days off in a row,” he said.

  I squeezed the water out of my hair. “I know.”

  He handed me a towel. “Let’s go to Las Vegas.”

  “Are you serious?” I asked excitedly.

  “I don’t have anything to do today or tomorrow. Tomorrow night, I have a late meeting. Actually, it’ll be really late meeting. There are flights out every ninety minutes. Let’s go.”

  “I’ve never been.”

  “All the more reason to go.”

  I’d never taken an impulsive trip in my life. As far as I was concerned, going to Vegas for two days in the middle of the week was the epitome of excitement.

  “Let’s do it,” I said.

  The Uber driver stopped in front of the hotel and rushed to open my door. I stepped onto the sidewalk and gawked at the sight of the hotel, a curved structure that reached for the cloudless sky above.

  “This is amazing,” I murmured. “I’ve never seen a hotel like this.”

  “Wait until you see the inside,” he said.

  The hotel’s lobby was an architectural masterpiece. A combination of contemporary sculptures fashioned of polished stainless-steel, wooden structures, and fresh floral arrangements tickled my senses of sight and smell.

  In the background, slot machines, the shouts of gamblers winning, and techno music from a distant club satisfied my ears.

  A graceful man in a tailored suit approached us. His skin was tan and his dark hair was gelled to sculpted perfection.

  “Good morning Mister Silva,” he said. “Welcome back.”

  Mister Silva?

  “This is Reggie,” Tito said.

  The man shook my hand while offering a toothy smile. “Pleasure to meet you, Reggie. I hope you enjoy your stay at Aria.”

  “Thank you.”

  He handed Tito a small envelope. “We have you in Sky Suite 62101. Let me get someone to help you with your bags.”

  “That’s quite alright,” Tito said.

  The man gave a sharp nod. “Let me know if there’s anything else you need.”

  “Thank you,” Tito said.

  The man offered a smile and then disappeared through the sea of people gathered around the reception desk.

  I faced Tito. “Mister Silva?”

  “We come here quite a bit,” he said with a laugh. “One of the guys in the MC has a little bit of a gambling problem.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess spending money here has its benefits, huh?”

  He reached for our bags. “I suppose so.”

  After taking a sixty-two-story ride on an elevator so fast that my ears popped, we arrived in our room. He handed me the key card and nodded toward the door.

  “After you.”

  I swiped the card and eagerly opened the door.

  I was met by a travertine tile floor, lengthy corridor, and a beautiful view of the distant mountains. The aroma of fresh flowers lingered in the air. I wandered into the room taking one thing in at a time.

  The bathroom was larger than my living room, and included a separate shower, tub, and jacuzzi. The closets were large enough to sleep in. A living room with two sofas, a big screen television, and ample room for guests was next, followed by a large master bedroom with a view of the mountainous horizon. Beyond the bedroom there was another living room, situated at the corner of the room.

  With a breathtaking view of the mountains through one of the walls of glass and clear sight of the Las Vegas strip through the other, the room was staggeringly large.

  I gawked out the windows for a moment before facing Tito. “This. Is. Incredible.”

  He peered through the glass, toward the busy street below. “It’s a nice view, for sure.”

  “Would it be childish if I took pictures?” I asked. “To show my dad?”

  “Not at all.”

  I took pictures of the pillows, tile floor, breathtaking views, the chocolate on our pillows, and of the bathroom. Pictures of the living room furniture followed, as did a few of the fresh flowers that were placed in vases on every flat surface of the room.

  “I don’t even know if I want to leave the room,” I admitted.

  “I think once you see a few of the things this place has to offer, you’ll change your tune.”

  “I doubt it.”

  Without taking a single step outdoors, we wandered amongst the most exquisite shops in existence. BVLGARI, Valentino, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Harry Winston, Tom Ford, Cartier, Prada, Hermes, and Christian Louboutin were all within eyeshot. It was a shopper’s paradise, and I was right in the middle of it.

  “I love window shopping,” I said. “This is going to be awesome.”

  “We aren’t window shopping,” he said flatly.

  My heart sank. Vegas was known for the gambling, but I at least wanted to wander past a few of the shops before we started plunking money in slot machines.

  “Can we go past that one?” I asked, pointing to Christian Louboutin. “I want to just
look at their shoes. You know, the red-bottoms?”

  “Sure,” he said. “We can go in any of them you like.”

  “I thought we weren’t—”

  “We’re not window shopping,” he said. “We’re shopping for real.”

  I coughed. “I work at The Buckle. I can’t afford a pair of socks in that place, let alone—”

  He waved his hand from the far left to the far right. “Anything you want is yours.”

  The thought of it was exciting. Obviously, he’d never stepped foot in such places. “You can’t say that,” I gasped. “These places aren’t like the mall I work in. This is the crème de la crème.”

  “Listen,” he said, facing me. “I know where we are, believe me. I live in a modest home that I paid cash for, I’ve worked hard for years, and I have roughly three hundred dollars a month in expenses. The rest, I save. I’ve saved for a reason. To spoil the woman I love. You’re that person.” He kissed me. “Let’s have fun, shall we?”

  How could I argue with that response?

  Upon stepping into Christian Louboutin, we were greeted by a gorgeous woman with jet black hair, a perfect figure and pearly white teeth. “Welcome to Christian Louboutin. How can I help you?”

  “I’d like to try on a pair of your Pigalle pumps,” I replied. “In black.”

  “What size?”

  “Eight and a half,” I whispered.

  “I’m Taylor,” she said.

  “Reggie,” I said. “And he’s Tito.”

  She smiled. “Love the name.”

  “Thank you.”

  When she walked away, Tito looked at me and smirked. “You know the names of the shoes?”

  “Listen,” I said. “Guys dream of golf clubs, Porsche go-fast cars, and new Harley-Davidsons. Girls dream of diamonds, shoes like these, and nice handbags. Do you know the name of your dream Harley?”

  “CVO Street Glide Special,” he said.

  I wagged my eyebrows. “Point proven.”

  The lady returned with the shoes in no time, opened the box, and unwrapped one of the shoes. I took it from her, using caution not to smudge the shiny black leather with my fingertips.