by Jenika Snow
Evernight Publishing ®
www.evernightpublishing.com
Copyright© 2014 Jenika Snow
ISBN: 978-1-77233-120-2
Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs
Editor: Karyn White
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
This is dedicated to all the readers, and the Crescent Snow Street Team. Thank you all for your support, kind words, and for wanting to read my crazy stories.
LUCIEN’S WAR
The Brothers of Menace, 3
Jenika Snow
Copyright © 2014
Chapter One
Lucien stood against the garage wall, the cigarette he shouldn’t be smoking hanging from between his lips, and staring at the man currently strung up like a tied hog. The man Cain had brought to the clubhouse was the same one that had nearly raped Cain’s now-adult daughter years ago. Cain had been in prison for the last nine years, locked up for killing this exact bastard. Someone had called the cops before he could finish the guy off, and the other MC member had held the rage inside, just waiting until he was released so he could finish the job. Lucien couldn’t even imagine being a father and having some fucker force himself on his little girl. It didn’t matter that Fallina was twenty-five now, or that she was doing well in her life and teaching. She had still had to go through that, and Cain hadn’t gotten the vengeance he desperately needed.
Well, he was getting it now.
Cain had done the beating, and although they had been in this garage behind the clubhouse for the last few hours, Cain was unstoppable. The fucker, who looked nearly dead as it was, had his arms above his head, a piece of rope secured around his wrists, and was hanging suspended from one of the beams. He was passed out at the moment but Cain walked over to grab a bucket of ice water Kink had brought him, and threw it on the man. The would-be rapist sputtered and came back to consciousness. Cain took a step back, took off the once white tee he wore, which was now stained red from blood, and tossed it aside. Lucien inhaled from his cigarette and blew the smoke out softly until a cloud covered his vision. It dispersed, and he watched as Cain grabbed a pair of brass knuckles from the workbench, slipped them on, and moved back to the guy.
“Please, stop. I was drunk,” the man sputtered out. Blood dripped out of his nose and mouth, and fell onto his chest and the ground.
Cain swung out without answering, and connected the brass knuckles with the man’s face. He howled out in pain, struggled on his bonds, but then started to slowly still. Blood was a continuous flow from him, and a small pool was now on the floor beneath him.
“My daughter kept saying stop, didn’t she? And if I hadn’t come when I did you would have damaged her even more than you already did.” Cain said in a deadly calm voice. “But you didn’t stop for Vi—” Cain stopped talking right away. He shook his head, inhaled deeply for a moment, and Lucien wondered what he had been about to say. The rage on Cain’s face over this situation was the fiercest Lucien had ever seen on a brother. Malice moved up beside Cain, handed him the bottle of whiskey, and then moved back toward Kink, who was leaning against the other side of the building.
“The guy’s about to take a dive, brother,” Lucien said, took one more inhale from his cigarette, and then dropped it on the floor to snub it out. “If you don’t finish him off he’ll die from blood loss or shock, and you’ll miss giving him that final blow.”
Cain nodded, took another drink from the bottle of liquor while he stared at the man he was about to end, and then set the bottle on the floor. “You’re right. I better end this now before this fucker passes out again and can’t feel how I make the last seconds of his life even more painful.” He went over to the workbench again, grabbed a nine-inch serrated hunting knife, and walked over to the man, who was struggling to breathe now. Most likely blood was starting to pool in his lungs, so Cain needed to be quick before the motherfucker suffocated in his own fluids. Cain grabbed the guy’s chin, turned his swollen and beaten face up so he was forced to look at Cain, and bared his teeth.
“If you would have died nine years ago when I had you, your death would have been far quicker. But for the last nine years while I was locked away all I could picture was all the ways I was going to take your life.” Cain took the blade and ran it along each side of the asshole’s face. The skin opened up instantly, but there wasn’t much sound that came from the man.
He would be dead soon either at Cain’s hands, or because his body had had enough.
“You made my daughter afraid for a long fucking time, and although she is strong and living her life now, your fucking existence still haunts her.” Cain stabbed the man in the gut. “Your death won’t make her feel any better, because she won’t know what happened. I can’t tell her what I did, but she will know that her fear doesn’t need to control her anymore.” Cain moved the blade up, opening up the prick’s stomach like a hot knife going through butter. “I could have let you live your life with the shame of what you did to my daughter, and probably other young girls, but killing you will sate this sadistic monster inside of me that has been itching to take you out.” He continued to move the blade up slowly, and the man gurgled, struggled fruitlessly, and when Cain twisted the blade the life faded from the rapist’s eyes.
The silence that filed the room was deafening, but there was also this release that seemed to come from Cain like the relief that covered his face. He took a step back, and the knife he held dripped the red, viscous fluid onto the ground. Cain stared at each of them, set the knife down, and picked up the bottle. He drank the alcohol until nothing was left.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do with the body?” Cain asked without emotion.
“We have twenty acres on this property. I’m sure we can find some place for him,” Malice said in a deep voice.
“And no one will come looking for him?” Kink asked. He moved toward the guy and stared at his lifeless body.
“No, this piece of shit was living in a crack-house about two hours from here, high with a needle still in his fucking arm, and a whore draped over him sucking his dick,” Cain said and took the offered cigarette Kink handed him. “Besides, I did my research on him while inside—I had some connections while locked away—and knew that once I was out I’d have everything I needed to hunt him down and finish what I started nine years ago.” Cain lit the end, inhaled from the cigarette, and then exhaled. He looked down at the smoke. “You should quit this shit. It’ll kill you,” Cain said, took one more hit from the smoke, and then snubbed the butt out on the bottom of his shoe. “Well, if you boys are ready to get this fucking piece of dirt in the ground, I’m ready to put this shit behind me.”
Lucien walked over to the corpse, unhooked him from the chain that he was attached to, and let his body fall to the floor. Kink and Malice picked him off the floor, and the four of them walked out of the garage through the backdoor, and made their way through the woods that lined the clubhouse. Lucien had grabbed a few shovels on his way out, and Kink had grabbed a flashlight. The body was draped over Malice’s shoulder, and the outline of Cain leading the way was illuminated by the moonlight moving through the trees.
Over the years with the club Lucien had done some fucked up things, but they had been part of the MC, keeping everyone whole, and making sure payback was dealt. The illegal things they had don
e had been necessary, and he didn’t regret any of it, not even what they were doing right now.
Twenty minutes later and they had dug a hole big enough to keep the body buried, and covered the asshole molester with dirt. They stood there when the hole was filled.
“You guys know you’re my family,” Cain said, but still had his focus on the freshly filled grave. “I have been waiting for this day since I pulled the motherfucker off my daughter all those years ago.”
Lucien clapped Cain on the back. “I know, brother, and you’re our family, too.”
“For life,” Kink said out loud.
“And we’d do anything to help you find peace and vengeance, brother,” Malice stated, and moved closer to place his hand on Cain’s shoulder.
Cain nodded.
“Anyone fucks with a member’s kid, in any damn way, and we band together and take them out,” Kink said in a deep rumble that held menace and threat.
Lucien glanced at Kink after he spoke. Although Lucien wanted Kink’s eighteen-year-old daughter in the worst kind of way, he also knew he was too damn old for her, and that doing anything with her was a big fucking backstabbing idea for him to do to another brother. But when Lucien had brought Callie back to his place the night she had called him shitfaced, something in him had shifted. He had never seen her as anything more than a young woman to protect because she was family. He hadn’t touched her, hadn’t done anything other than think about the totally wrong fucking things that would get him shot by Kink. The man was his VP, a man he considered a brother, and a person he would lay down his life for. Trying anything with Callie, even if she was of legal age, would be a traitorous move on Lucien’s part.
But Lucien still wanted Callie, and no matter how hard he stayed away, tried not to think about her, and told himself that being with her would be a betrayal, Lucien wanted her so fucking badly. He could taste it, feel it in his blood with every beat of his heart, and had this ache in his cock and balls that screamed to be inside of Callie and ease his need for her.
“Let’s get drunk,” Lucien said, glanced at the three men again, and then headed back to the clubhouse. He needed to get good and trashed, because his thoughts were too fucking dangerous.
****
Callie stared around at the empty bedroom that she had stayed in most of the time when she had lived with her mother. The funeral for her mother and Dale had been uneventful, but it wasn’t because the only people that had shown up were the guys from the club and a couple old ladies. The thing was, her mother had burned a lot of bridges throughout her life, using her hate, selfishness, and anger to keep her alienated from her own family. Even death couldn’t have brought her mother’s parents to the funeral of their only child. And that was one of the saddest things Callie had ever experienced.
Although she had gotten most of her things out of the house she had shared with her mom and her mother’s boyfriend, Dale, she still found herself coming back here more times than she should. First it had been just driving past the house, but then the last two occasions she had actually come inside, walked through the rooms, and thought about all of the times her mother hadn’t been there for her. Sarah had been her mom, but even thought she was dead and Callie shouldn’t think such thoughts, she admitted to herself only that she hadn’t been a very good mother. She had neglected Callie, ignored her, yelled at her, scolded her, and told her on more than one occasion that she should have been aborted because then Kink wouldn’t have been in her life. What mother said those things—did those things—to her own child?
Callie felt her tears start to fill her eyes, and hated that fact. She didn’t want to cry over the past, didn’t want to feel any kind of anger toward her mother anymore because she was dead, and what was the point? She pushed away the stray tears that had fallen, and moved away from her bedroom and back down the stairs. She had a lot to do, a lot of things to keep her mind off of what had happened. She needed to think about college, finish filling out applications, and then leave everything behind. Her dad and Cookie had been great, and she had never thought she’d feel any kind of close connection with her father’s old lady. Maybe it was because Cookie was a tortured soul, and had still prevailed despite everything against her?
Callie had been staying with her dad and Cookie at his house, and although she liked having them around, liked the fact her father had always been there for her, had tried to always do right by her, and had never let his violent and dangerous MC life seep into her and tarnish anything about her, being in River Run was really hard. She thought back to the night she had been wasted at a college party with her shitty then-boyfriend. That night could have been really bad, and gone down a totally different way, but then she had called Lucien Silver, The Brothers of Menace President. Just thinking about him had this chill of awareness moving through her. At forty years old, he was over twice her age, deadly and lethal, and not because he had the title of being the leader of an outlaw motorcycle club. He just carried this air of being able to kill a man with his bare hands, that he wasn’t to be messed with, and he was so wrong for her on every damn level.
Callie was an eighteen-year-old virgin who had partied hard during high school, had had a douchebag boyfriend, and now wanted Lucien like she wanted to breathe. What did she really know about anything out in life? Also, her father was the VP of Lucien’s club, and being with a member was a big no-no. Lucien would never be with her in any way imaginable, even if she knew he felt the same intense chemistry. Being with her would be a betrayal to Kink in Lucien’s eyes, and how could she do that to either of them?
She exhaled, feeling so confused and out of place, and not knowing what her future held. What she did know was she needed to leave River Run and Lucien, because with each passing day it grew harder and harder to keep her emotions in check. Even when she had seen him at the funeral, and grief had been strong inside of her, she had thought of running up to him and just letting him hold her. God, she had wanted him to hold her so badly. But after that she hadn’t seen Lucien, even when she had visited the club. It was like he was keeping away from her, and maybe that was for the best.
So going to college, staying on campus, and putting all of this behind her was the right move. At least she hoped it was, because she just wanted to tell him again that she didn’t want to leave, that she didn’t care if people talked, that their age difference wasn’t going have anything lasting between them. She also wanted to tell him that things would work out, that what she felt wasn’t just some crush an eighteen-year-old girl had on an older man. He consumed her thoughts, made her feel safe when she was with him, and she wanted so much more with him.
But maybe she was some stupid little girl who was fantasizing about something that would never happen? That’s why she needed to leave, for her own sake so she didn’t make an ass out of herself, and so she didn’t tear apart a relationship between two men who considered themselves brothers.
Chapter Two
Three months later
Lucien was a sick bastard, a dirty old man, and a fucking traitor if he was being honest with himself. He thought about her, Callie Roberts, a woman he had no right even consider being with in any fashion. But he couldn’t help himself. She was like the drug of choice to an addict, his drug of choice. She was the one woman who seemed to consume his very thoughts since he had taken her back to his house months ago. She had been drunk, nearly attacked by two thug motherfuckers, and he had talked to her when he had been laid up in bed and shot the fuck up.
He tossed back another drink, glanced at the bottle of whiskey in front of him, and saw it fade out for a second. He was drunk, wasted, totally fucking trashed, but since he had gotten shot that had been the norm. Lucien had felt himself slip further and further into a dark abyss, and no matter how many runs he went on, trying to clear his head, nothing ever helped. But it wasn’t just because of the shit that had happened with the cult assholes, or the fact he had nearly died. Hell, it didn’t even have to do with the crazy fucking to
rture they had done to the man that had fucked with Cain’s daughter.
No, his darkness was coming from the fact he wanted Kink’s eighteen-year-old daughter. But he knew she would be leaving for college soon, and that was a good thing, because if she had stayed in River Run he didn’t know if he could control himself around her for very much longer. As it was he had been doing a pretty good job. Whenever he had seen Callie coming into the clubhouse with Cookie or Kink he had made himself scarce, because it was damn hard for him not to look at her. He tried not to stare at the woman she had become, and picture her under him as he worshipped every part of her body with his hands and tongue.
Yeah, he was a sick fucking bastard to want a woman so young, and the daughter of the man he considered a brother. It was wrong to think of her in his bed, under him, and being only his. Shit, she was over two decades younger than he was, a full twenty-two years his junior. She was of legal age, but he was old enough to be her father. Even thinking that, knowing that if Kink knew the fucking intimate and dirty thoughts he had for Callie he’d kill him, that didn’t, couldn’t stop Lucien from wanting her like a man tweaking for his next fix. He hadn’t even touched her in a sexual way, hadn’t kissed her for that matter either, but he craved her like he was addicted to her.
Kink was at the bar with Cookie, but since his old lady only worked in the kitchen now, per her request because she liked preparing the meals, Lucien didn’t see her out on the main floor that often. But he knew Kink liked that she was behind the scenes. Even if Cookie was tough in her own right, and she was protected within the club walls, that didn’t mean Kink liked having her around all the booze, drugs, and sex that made a common sight. Lucien couldn’t blame the brother though, because if he had an old lady himself he wouldn’t want her around all of this shit. The club life was rowdy, sometimes vile, and an old lady didn’t need to see the shit the single club members did behind these walls.
