Fire Inside

by Kristen Ashley

  I pulled my face out of his neck and again looked at him. “I don’t know. What did you mean when you said, ‘shit happens’ that night you got angry with me?”

  “It means, for your peace of mind, I’m visiting a clinic.”

  Hop, for me, was visiting a clinic.

  Yes, oh yes, it just kept getting better.

  I smiled at him. He smiled back before his hand sifted in my hair and he pressed my forehead against his neck. He held me for a while before he told he had to get back to his kids.

  He kissed me again and I walked him out to his bike, where I kissed him.

  Then he told me he wasn’t leaving until he saw my outside light go on and off, indicating I was safely locked inside.

  That was sweet and protective so I kissed him again.

  Ten minutes later, I flicked my light on and off, indicating to Hopper I was safely locked inside.

  But I stood inside feeling something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.

  Safe.

  Chapter Twelve

  Knife in My Gut

  One week and three days later…

  “So, how did it happen for you?”

  “How’d what happen for me?”

  I moved my face out of Hop’s throat and looked down at him. “How did you find Chaos?”

  It was Sunday morning and we were in his bed in the Compound. Considering we were still keeping our relationship a secret, this was a risk. However, last night, I’d joined Tyra and our friends Gwen and Elvira at the Compound for drinks prior to going out. This was at Tyra’s invitation, and even though I would have preferred to spend my Saturday evening with Hop, in order to hide what we had, I’d agreed.

  Tack, Brick, Shy, Tug, and Big Petey were all there so we ended up not going out and instead, we all got plastered in the common room.

  Later in the evening, after some clandestine texting to let Hop know where I was, he showed.

  This was fun, too fun. Then again, times with Ty-Ty always were. Throw Elvira and Gwen in the mix, it went off the charts.

  Elvira was a black woman who was totally crazy (but in good ways). Gwen was a white woman who was only slightly less crazy than Elvira but I figured this had to do with the fact that she was married to Hawk Delgado. I wasn’t sure since Gwen didn’t talk about it, but considering he always wore cargo pants, skintight shirts, sturdy boots, a forbidding expression and a gun belt, I figured Hawk was a commando.

  An actual commando.

  My guess was, being married to a commando curtailed your level of craziness, because no one wanted to call home to a hubby who was a commando and explain the trouble they’d got themselves into. I didn’t know but I figured commandos had enough trouble professionally. They didn’t need their wives buying them more.

  Though, Gwen being Gwen, even though she was a mom married to a commando, still knew how to have herself a good time.

  Elvira, on the other hand, was seeing a very good-looking, African American cop. Unlike Hawk, Elvira’s man Malik thought her craziness was hysterical and cute. I knew this because I’d been around them and he’d said it. A lot. Because she was crazy. A lot. And it was good he thought this because it meant the drama she liberally injected into their relationship was something he enjoyed, rather than something that set him running for the hills.

  Needless to say, we got plastered and men like it when women get plastered. Therefore, Tack took off with Ty-Ty in tow so they could enjoy her being drunk in their house in the mountains. Hawk showed and guided his tipsy wife and Elvira to his SUV while Elvira talked on the phone with Malik, which meant Malik was going to catch the hint his woman was blotto and I figured he’d meet her at her house in order to take advantage.

  As for me, I kept drinking and enjoying my time with the guys until High showed. Although I was inebriated, it looked to me like Hop gave him a signal and High somehow managed to talk the other boys away from the bar and off on some Chaos errand.

  Alone in the Compound with Hop, he wasted no time leading me to his room, where we had wild, crazy, drunken sex (okay, that last bit was just me) and it… was… fabulous. More fabulous now since Hop’s visit to the clinic brought good news. He could go “ungloved,” which meant it was just him and me with nothing in between.

  I promptly passed out, only to be awoken by my man forty-five minutes ago, whereupon he made sweet, slow love to me.

  It was debatable but that might have been more fabulous.

  I was slightly hungover.

  I was also not-so-slightly happy.

  “How did I find Chaos?” Hop asked and I grinned at him.

  “Yeah.”

  “Tack came to a show.”

  I tipped my head to the side. “What?”

  “When I was still with the band, Tack came to a show. My family’s from Nevada. Mom and Dad still live there but Bog put out feelers everywhere so we got gigs in Denver. After a show, Tack came up to me and told me he dug what we did. Liked him, he seemed solid, and it was cool he went out of his way to say that shit to me. When I quit the band, I thought about where I wanted to land and by that time, even though I was only twenty-four, I had a lot of miles in. Place I liked best was Denver. Came here, remembered Tack. Not hard to miss, seein’ as he was wearin’ his cut, that he was in a Club and I rode into town on a bike. Seemed a fit. Sought him out, told him I left the band, he told me about Chaos. Invited me to a bash. I went.” He smiled. “The rest is history.”

  “So you’ve been in the Club since you were twenty-four?” I asked.

  “By the time I got here, made the decision, finished my time as a grunt, full membership at twenty-seven.”

  “And you never looked back,” I noted.

  The ease of our post-making love morning drifted from his face when he replied, “Never looked back.”

  “What’s that?” I queried.

  “What?”

  “That look on your face,” I explained, and he hesitated before he rolled us. I had been lying on him. Hop situated us so I was on my back and he’d pressed his front to my side, his hand splayed on my belly.

  “Tack didn’t invite me to join so much as recruited me,” he stated in a way that sounded weirdly like a confession and I felt my eyebrows draw together.

  “I don’t get it. I mean, aren’t all the guys recruited?”

  “Not for what Tack recruited me.”

  I knew from his tone and the look on his face, our happy morning seemed to have gone south somehow.

  I just didn’t get it.

  “What are you saying?” I asked hesitantly, not wanting our morning to go south and not really sure I wanted to know what he was saying.

  “What I’m sayin’ is, the Club was different back then. You and me, we stay solid, you’re brought officially into the fold as an old lady when we let out the news about us, you’ll hear talk.” He studied me a moment before finishing, “You might have already heard it.”

  “I haven’t already heard it,” I shared. “How was the Club different?”

  “They were into some serious bad shit then.”

  Oh dear.

  I was right. I didn’t want to know.

  Still, I had to.

  So I pushed. “What kind of serious bad shit?”

  “Seriously serious bad shit,” Hop evaded.

  “Hop—”

  “Lanie.” He lifted a hand and cupped my cheek. “It was not good. What it is, is over.”

  “I think maybe I need to understand this,” I told him though I didn’t think I needed that. But I knew, if we went the distance, I’d have to know.

  “I think maybe you need to trust me that you don’t.”

  “So what if I hear talk?” I pressed.

  “You’ll know it’s over.”

  “Hop—” I began and his face suddenly got closer.

  “Drugs,” he bit out, the word sharp but almost strangled, like he had his own monster who’d dragged it out of him and he had no control, no way to hold it back.

  I
gasped and he continued. “And girls. Seriously bad shit, lady. Seriously bad shit that Tack wanted nothin’ to do with. He wasn’t president back then but that didn’t mean he didn’t have an exit plan for the Club on all that shit. He also had patience. A lot of it. And part of his plan was not only workin’ behind the scenes to turn brothers to his mission but also to recruit brothers who would fight his side. I was one of the brothers he recruited. Dog and Brick, too. It took time and the takeover was hostile. It was a dark time for the Club but Tack planned for that, too. He led us to the light and that’s where we are now, Lanie. Swear to Christ. We’re in the light.”

  “Drugs and girls?” I asked breathlessly.

  “It’s over.”

  “Girls?” My voice was pitching higher.

  “Baby,” his hand pressed into my face, “it’s over.”

  “So, if it’s over, what about Benito?” I asked.

  “I already told you, not talkin’ about Benito and you gotta trust me on that, too.”

  “Hop—”

  He interrupted me this time by rolling full on top of me and framing my head in both hands.

  “This shit… fuck,” he ground out, paused and his face betrayed an inner battle before he continued, “you gotta know. You asked, this is part of me but this shit, I didn’t wanna tell you until later. But you asked so here it is. When I got in the Club, we were into that shit. You became a brother, you did your duty to the Club, and part of my duties was that shit.”

  Suddenly, something High said weeks before penetrated.

  “Exactly what part of that shit did you do?” I asked.

  He held my eyes and answered straight out. “Lots of it but mostly, looked after the girls.”

  My body jerked under his like it was trying to get away but his weight pinned me to the bed and his thumb swept down to press into my lips.

  Even with his thumb hindering my words, I said, “You have a way with gash.”

  His eyes flashed at my words. “Lanie, hear me, I did not like doin’ that shit and I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t know that it was a means to an end. Tack made promises, promises he kept, that it was temporary.”

  “So you were a pimp?” I whispered in horror and his thumb swept away.

  “Chaos pimped. I just took care of the girls.”

  “I’m not seeing the nuance of difference, Hop,” I told him, my hands now at his shoulders, putting on pressure, and his jaw clenched.

  “Hard to see since that nuance is just that. Chaos is me, I’m Chaos. But I wasn’t a pimp, woman. Another brother had that job. I was an enforcer. A girl got worked over, she came to me and I dealt with it. I wasn’t just an enforcer for the girls, I was one for the Club. I’m good with my fists. You learn that shit when you spend most of your life in bars, you have a guitar in your hands or not. When we were starting out, some of those bars were rough and shit happens. The president of the Club back then, he noticed I had talent in that area and he was a man who used that kinda talent. I took their backs. The girls just trusted me. I don’t have a way with gash, Lanie. But a john works you over and a man goes out and makes him bleed for that mistake, that bitch is gonna be grateful. It came natural and those women would have given it to any brother who took their backs like that.”

  He was angry at my comment. I knew it because I felt it but I also knew it because he called me “woman” and he’d never done that.

  It was also interesting to understand how he felled monster truck man so easily.

  I didn’t share this with him.

  I told him honestly if cautiously, “I’m not sure that’s much better.”

  “You would be right,” he retorted. “I’m not gonna lie to you. I did what I did but it wasn’t my choice and it wasn’t my decision. But it was my decision to join the Club, take Tack’s back, help him maneuver himself to the gavel and be a soldier in the war that would get us out of that shit. In order to do it, I had to do what I had to do.”

  “Did you sleep with those girls?” I asked.

  “Fuck no.”

  “Give them drugs?”

  Hop went silent and bile crawled up my throat.

  I pushed through the sick. “You gave them drugs?”

  “No, but Chaos had access and brothers, brothers that are gone now, did.”

  I closed my eyes and turned my head to the side.

  Hop moved it back into position and I opened my eyes to glare at him, because I did not like this, any of it, only to see him scowling at me.

  “Two years, Lanie, two fuckin’ years I worked those girls, keepin’ them together, tryin’ to get them straight, helpin’ them plan for when Tack executed his takeover and we cut them loose. That life, not a good one and you’re hooked on shit, you’ll do pretty much anything to keep yourself supplied with it. I tried to do it smart, keep them quiet and move them out of the life and two of those bitches talked. We lost a brother because of that, Lanie. They opened their mouths, shit got out to the wrong people and Tack had to move to shut it down and we lost a brother. Takin’ us out of that life into the one where we are now was not easy, everyone’s hands got dirty. Blood flowed but, where we are now, what we can give to our kids, it was worth it.”

  “You lost a brother?” I asked and he unexpectedly knifed away, lifted an arm and pointed at the tattoo on his bicep.

  I’d seen it before, time and again, not only on Hopper but all the brothers had it. It was a set of unbalanced scales. The top scale had the word “Red” inked in it, rivers of red blood dripping over the sides. I knew, without anyone telling me, that this indicated Tyra and what happened to her because of Elliott. The bottom scale had the word “Black” with a hooded, skull-faced reaper that had creepy blue eyes and a scythe in his skeleton’s hand. The support of the scales was fashioned out of the words, “Never Forget”.

  “Black. A brother. Dead because of gash. Gash and greed, Lanie.”

  He sat in bed staring down at me and kept talking.

  “I get this is a shock and I get why. Trust me, babe, I like it a lot fuckin’ less than you do I got that shit in my history. I like it less knowin’ Black is no longer breathin’ on this earth. He was a good man. He wanted good things for the Club and his family. So much, he died for it.”

  This wasn’t easy for Hop, I knew, I could see it, but I was too shocked about all he was telling me to do anything about it.

  Hop continued.

  “You would like him because he was likeable, loyal, smart, solid. I am not a soldier in the normal sense but I know by experience, you fight a war for something you believe in, you gotta be prepared to do some serious, sick, crazy, messed up shit to win. I came into this Club knowin’ where Tack wanted to lead it, what he wanted to give to his brothers so they could give it to their families, and I came into it goin’ all in. I never had a good family and anyone who spends five seconds with Tack Allen knows the kind of man he is. He promised me he could deliver me to something I wanted. I believed in him and I was right. I enlisted to fight that war, Lanie, and I’m not proud of what I did to help win it but I’m proud that I did my part to get what we won.”

  I stared up at him not knowing how to process his words, the hard, determined look on his face, or the information he’d just given me.

  I also didn’t have the considerable time I was certain it would take to process this before there was a knock on the door.

  Our discussion and that knock, what it might mean, who might be behind that door, sent a wave of panic through me and before I told my body to move, it did.

  In a flurry, I threw back the covers, rolled out of bed and snatched up Hop’s t-shirt, chanting, “I’m not here, I’m not here, I’m not here,” as I pulled it on and ran to the bathroom.

  I shut the door and deep breathed.

  I knew Tack’s eldest son Rush having the boys for a sleepover meant no way Tack or Ty-Ty were coming back down the mountain. Both of them were older than me and I was far from the days where my biggest hope was making the high
school cheerleading squad but that didn’t mean they didn’t go at each other like jackrabbits. Until I had Hopper, I didn’t know men with the kind of libido Kane “Tack” Allen had existed. I thought he was an anomaly, a happy one for Tyra, but one all the same.

  Feeling somewhat safe from detection, I allowed myself a lazy, happy morning (that unfortunately turned whacked) in Hopper’s bed.

  But that didn’t mean whoever was behind that door wouldn’t talk, and it was one thing for my car to be outside the Compound in the morning (I’d crashed, on occasion, in one of the boys’ beds after tying one on) and another for me to be found naked in Hop’s bed.

  “Brother, serious as fuck, you got bad fuckin’ timing,” I heard Hopper growl.

  “Know she’s here, got back last night, saw her ride. She left her purse on the bar. I tagged her keys and moved her car,” High replied.I If I wasn’t in Hop’s t-shirt and nothing else, I would have gone out and kissed him. “Here’s her purse but, brother, Benito made some moves last night, not good. Tack’s been informed and he’s callin’ a meeting. Boys’ll be descending soon. You gotta get your woman’s ass outta here.”

  Oh no.

  Tack was coming down.

  And oh no again.

  Benito.

  I had not forgotten about Benito. I just had not thought about him, seeing as there was a lot of other stuff I had to think about and my head just didn’t have the space for more.

  Now, knowing what Hop just told me, Benito again entering the picture, it felt like my head was going to explode.

  “Thanks, brother,” Hop replied to High.

  “Not sure I get why this shit’s a secret but you two bein’ just a hookup is not where that’s at. Unless you’re goin’ for the all-time record of longest hookup, and, just a head’s up, brother, there’s another way people refer to that shit and it’s called a relationship. Tack won’t care but respect to Cherry, you two better sort this out. Only so many times I’m gonna hightail my ass to her ride and hide it, Hop. Lanie’s the shit and far from hard to look at, so not one brother will have a problem seein’ where you’re comin’ from. But secrets like this amongst family can tear brothers apart. They can do worse to sisters. You hear me?”