by Eden Rose
The pain and frustration from knowing that this man was alive has left my body and I take a deep breath. The thoughts of the repercussions of my actions filter through my mind, but I don’t really give a fuck right now. I know that I took out a big figure without permission and I’m liable for some blowback.
“What is going on?” A man’s voice demands and I spin on my feet to see Chantal’s father staring at me. “Who are you and what are you doing in my house? What have you done to my daughter? Who are you!”
I place my hand out in front of me to stop the questionings because he’s only going to have more and I don’t have long to finish this. “Slice, can you take Chantal’s parents in the kitchen so I can finish up in here? Also, give them enough money to go to a hotel room and I will fill them in on everything tomorrow.”
Chantal’s father is medium sized man with dark hair and her green eyes. While her mother is short and stout with long blonde hair and brown eyes.
“Actually! Call A Team back and have him bring them back with him.”
A Team must not have left or maybe he was coming back inside, but he’s standing at the door and he’s ready. After they leave, I take a deep breath and then look at my fallen brother.
“What was in it for you?” I ask him.
Q Ball doesn’t say anything and he looks down at his lap. Slice and Mack Truck pick him up by his arms and stand him up in front of me. “Where do you want ‘em, boss?” Slice asks me.
“Take him to his cage and have one of the clean up crew members drive him back to the clubhouse. We need to get out of here.”
Both Slice and Mack Truck are walking him out of the house and then I’m alone with Big Sir. Part of me wishes that I didn’t kill him yet because I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to know why he would sell drugs to a pregnant woman. I wanted to know why he targeted me and then attacked Chantal like he did. These are all answers that I’m not going to get.
The drive to the hospital doesn’t take long but it feels like forever. I’m sitting in the back of the police car and all I can think about is everything that could go wrong. I knew it was only a matter of time before Dana overdosed but I didn’t think she would have done it when she was pregnant.
She knew how much this baby meant to me. I’m planning on naming him J.J. for Joe Junior. I get that it’s not original or anything but he’s going to be the one good thing that I do in this world and I want to make sure he gets the best of me.
“We’re here. She’s in room two-oh-four and they haven’t started anything yet. Just walk in.”
I don’t wait for him to say anything else and I bolt from the car into the hospital. I take the stairs two at a time until I’m on the floor that is holding Dana. There’s a bunch of nurses that are milling around the hallways and they are looking at me strangely as I dash past them.
My feet skid to a stop in front of Dana’s door. She looks tiny and innocent lying in the hospital bed. There are wires that are hooked up to her body every which way and a monitor that keeps buzzing.
“Joe, you made it,” she whispers.
I walk over to the side of the bed and try not to yell at her for being so careless. “What happened?” I ask instead.
She sobs as she answers me. “I’m so sorry. I tried. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let another one of those men fuck me. I just couldn’t!”
“Who gave you the drugs?” I ask her calmly.
“Big Sir.”
I know that she doesn’t have any money because I’m the one that holds onto the money that she gets in a lame attempt at making sure that she’s not buying drugs. “How did you pay for it?”
The silence that she gave me told me everything.
I have risked my whole life for this woman and ensuring her safety. Everything that I have done was for her up until this point and now it’s meaningless. All of the time I spent trying to work my way up in the club and become a prospect was a waste.
My plan to prospect has been in the works since I knew what it was, but due to Dana being pregnant, my plans got jumped up.
“You fucked him, didn’t you?” I question her. I make a fist and then I let go of the fist. I do that several times in order to calm myself. Being calm is the last thing that I am.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so so so sorry. J.J…”
“What about J.J.? What about him?”
Dana’s eyes roll into the back of her head and her body starts shaking uncontrollably. “Help! Help!” I yell out as loud as I can. “Help!”
The nurses and a doctor come running into the room and push me off to the side so they could do some work. Their medical jargon is something that I don’t understand until I hear the words that I did.
Overdose. Seizure. Fetal heartbeat gone.
“We are losing the heartbeat!” The nurse yells out and the doctor brings in a shot full of something. He injects the shot into her I.V. but the beeping just got louder.
Chantal
My head hurts. Not hurts in the way a headache hurts. No, this is the type of hurt that is caused by a truck running over your head. I’m in that much pain.
I jolt awake and look around the bright room trying to figure out where I am. The bright light doesn’t help my headache and then I feel two hands that have found their way to my arms.
“Chantal,” my mother’s voice says softly. “You’re okay.”
“Where am I?” I ask while looking from both my mom’s face to my dad’s. I know I’m not in their house anymore because their lights aren’t as bright as this.
My dad kisses my forehead and replies: “We are at the clubhouse. Your friend sent us here. He said that he will be coming to tell us what the fuck happened.”
My head flies back a little and I stare at my father. “Did you just curse?” I ask him. My father has repeatedly said that he didn’t like swear words and said that unintelligent people swear to make them look better. Or some shit like that.
I hiss as my head hits the pillow harder from my shock. My mother leans over me and starts fussing over me and it’s frustrating more than comforting. “Where is Joe?” I ask and look to see if he’s lurking in the corner.
With our relationship at a stage of “How The Hell Am I Supposed To Know What We Are,” I don’t know what to expect.
There’s a pain in my chest and I feel tears prick the corners of my eyes as I consider the fact that he doesn’t care enough to be here with me. If he cared about me, he would be here or he would be trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. Does he know that I fell? Did he even notice that I was gone? Does he know where I am? I have no idea and it’s upsetting.
I know how I feel about Joe and I wish there is a way that I could tell him how I feel but I don’t know how. Do bikers have girlfriends? He’s called me his old lady to his club but I haven’t received any grand gestures to let me know.
The pain in my chest deepens and I squeeze my eyes shut to fight the tears that are wanting to escape. I can’t cry in front of my parents because then they will start asking what’s wrong and then I will have to tell them. I can’t tell them… It will just be a whole lot worse.
Just then, the door to the room that I’m in is flung open and I see a tired Joe staring at me. He takes in my body before walking over to me and then he sits on the bed. With his left arm over my waist, he leans in a little to look in my eyes. “It’s over now, Chantal.”
My mind begins to swirl as I try to comprehend what that means. What’s over? Big Sir and the fact that I owe him money? Joe and I? I have no idea.
The Bear
The drive back to the clubhouse isn’t long enough to cool me off. I’m so pissed off right now at two of my brothers who took an oath to put the club first and only put themselves first. And for what? Money? Power? No, greed. They got greedy and decided to risk everyone’s life to benefit them.
Besides my club, I’m worried about the fact that they put Chantal’s life in jeopardy. Chantal didn’t have anything to do with Smokey or Q Ball�
�s plans but they used her as a fucking pawn and almost got her killed. And then they dragged her parents into the middle of it! This is bull shit.
While driving back to the clubhouse, I think about everything from Chantal to Dana. The amount of pain and guilt that I have carried with me is starting to fade away and I feel lighter. I have blamed myself for all of these years that I couldn’t save Dana and J.J.
I mourned the life of another man’s son as I went through a destructive streak through the club. I mourned the fact that I never got to hold the baby that I had already fell in love with but he wasn’t mine. Everything that I thought I knew was wrong and now there’s no going back.
The amount of affection that I felt for Dana doesn’t even compare to how I feel about Chantal. I don’t know what is going to happen when I get back to the clubhouse, but I’m hoping that she will give me a chance.
I need a chance. And not just to prove myself to her, but to prove myself to me. For all of these years, I have carried the pain of what happened to Dana and J.J. Now that I have a chance with a woman who takes all of that pain away, I don’t want to waste it.
With my mind made up, I pull into the driveway of the clubhouse.
I’m going to make Chantal give me a chance.
Slice and Mack Truck are both waiting for me in the driveway and I park my bike by them. I look to the left and see that Chantal’s car is still here and I feel relief that she hasn’t run from me. Would she run?
If anything would have made her run, it would have been this shit that happened today.
A Team already texted me to let me know that Chantal is all right and that she just has a concussion that is mild. That, in itself, set my mind at ease. I couldn’t deal with anything bad happening to her after everything that we’ve shared.
“Hey, prez. Are you ready to get this goin’?” Slice asks me.
I nod my head and get off my bike. Before speaking to either of them, I dig into the front pocket of my cut to get my cigarettes out. I need to calm down before I just shoot everyone.
The minute the cigarette hits my lips, a group of the brothers are walking outside to talk to me about what the fuck happened.
I put my hand out in front of me to stop them from talking. “Look, brothers, some shit that happened today was bad. The most important thing is that we found the leaks in the system. I need every single one of you fuckers looking deep in you to see if you’re going to bail too. If you’re just wanting to play weekend warrior, I need you to kindly fuck right off. You got me?”
“That’s a little rash, don’t you think?” Flip asks and takes out his own pack of cigarettes.
Slice pats my shoulder and then addresses the mass of the brothers that are standing in front of us with questions looming. “You weren’t there today. Pinky almost got killed because two of our brothers got greedy. Do what he says and all ranking members walk over to the warehouse. We are gonna have a meeting.”
I’m surprised at the relief that I feel that I wasn’t the one that had to make the decision of involving the whole club or just the ranking members.
My mind is focused on getting all of this shit over with so I can go and check on Chantal. I need to see it with my eyes that she’s okay.
Have you ever heard of the saying Walking The Green Mile? Yeah, that is the story of my life right now. Dealing with this club shit is only going to magnify the situation and everything is going to get worse. There is not going to be happy ending.
Slice, Mack Truck and Flip are flanking me and walking with me towards the warehouse. “Have you went to go see Chantal yet?” Flip asks.
“No,” I reply. I want to be with Chantal right now. I want to be holding her hand and kissing her face to tell her everything is going to be okay. However, what I want doesn’t always happen.
“Why the fuck not?” He demands.
I take a deep breath and focus my attention to the warehouse where everything is going to go bad.
The minute we reach the warehouse, I feel a chill go up and down my spine. I know it sounds crazy but it’s almost as if my father is here and he’s watching over me and what I’m about to do.
“All right, men. I need you to sit down because I have some shit to tell you and you’re not going to like it,” I tell everyone the second I get inside. I wait for everyone to sit and then I stand in front of them with a cigarette in my mouth. “This is not an easy thing to talk about so I need you to listen to what the fuck I’m saying before you jump off the deep end. Aye?”
“Aye!” Everyone chants out.
I take a deep breath and then let it out. “About a month ago, I began feeling like there was a leak in the pipes of brotherhood. I don’t know why but I had to test it out. I began sending emails to a fake account in order to check who was reading my emails and to see if they would show up. I created a fake drop and then went to the building where it was scheduled for. I waited about five minutes and hid my bike so whoever was there wouldn’t see it. So, uh, long story short, someone tried to blow me up at the building.”
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about?” Flip blurts out and his eyes are glazed over with betrayal.
Slice shoots out of his chair and walks up to me with a weary look on his face. “You mean to tell me that you went to this drop and almost died? You didn’t have the backup of your brothers? You did this on fuckin’ purpose!”
I hold my hands out in front of me to halt all of the conversations and they all quieted down. “There’s more. Chantal? My ol’ lady? Yeah, I hired her to be a hacker and she began searching to see who did it.”
The final nail in my coffin that is going to secure my fate in this club. I have done the worst sin by bringing an outsider into the club but I don’t regret it. I don’t regret Chantal at all.
Mack Truck kicks over his chair and charges at me. “You mother fucker! You hired a fucking hacker to look through all of our shit? Have you lost your mind?”
The gravity of what I have done weighs down on me and I feel as if my chest is being crushed. “My main concern for this club is to make sure that every single one of you is protected. That Lucifer’s Lair’s legacy is intact and no one disrespects us. I know you don’t understand it right now, but I did what I thought was going to be best.”
Flip is fuming and I know he’s going to try to kick my ass but I don’t say anything to him. I don’t say a word as I let what I have said sink in.
Rabies raises his hand a little bit and I look over to him. “Look, I’m not saying that I’m not pissed on what you did. What I’m saying is, and what I’m sure all of us agree on, you goin’ behind our back is not fuckin’ cool. We’re going to have to bring this to the committee.”
I knew that was going to happen and I had already braced myself with what this meant. “Yeah, I know.”
“So who was it? Did you at least find out who did it?” Slice asks me.
“Smokey and Q Ball have been working with Big Sir and they were trying to take over our club and pipeline. It was a coup and they almost got away with it. Smokey was pissed at me for taking Dana from him and Q Ball is just a dumb lackey. I don’t know everything but Big Sir and I have had bad blood for years after he killed my girl and baby.”
There’s a hand on my shoulder and I turn to see Bic standing behind me. He’s one of those members that doesn’t say a lot but when he does, you listen. Bic is about fifty years old and retired from the Marines with my dad. He knows this club in and out. I feel as if I betrayed him the most.
“Listen up, guys. What The Bear did was not cool and goes against our way of life. But I need you all to look in your hearts and remember what this man has done for all of you. I might not talk a lot about shit like some little pussy, but he did what he had to do. Shut up and listen to him.”
I stick my hand out in front of me and he puts his hand in mine. We do that guy hug and clap the other’s back. “Thank you, Bic. I appreciate it.”
“Where is Smokey and Q Ball?” He asks me.
/> I tilt my head to the right and he gets a big smile on his face. “Boys, hopefully it’s alright with you, but I have some plans with these guys.”
No one objects to what he says and I know it’s because everyone is afraid of the old man. He walks around with knives in his pockets and is notorious for eating with the damn knives instead of a fork. Bic is the number one person that I am glad is on my side.
“Let’s go, guys,” I say and follow behind Bic as he walks into the room that holds our prisoners.
The room is dark and smells like piss mixed with blood. The two men as hunched over in their chairs after their recent beatdowns and I feel a sense of pride that I am able to have stopped them.
“All in favor of letting them take their ink with them to the other side, say Aye!” I announce.
