Devil on Your Back

by Max Henry

  “You can’t fucking do this to him, Sawyer. You can’t!” Ramona screams through her tears.

  “I do what I want, woman, and you fuckin’ knew that when you decided to get yourself pregnant.”

  “Get myself pregnant?” she shrieks. “You told me everything was fine!”

  The whole club knows their story. Ramona was one of the club whores back in the day, and a damn sweet one at that. She had—still has—a heart of gold, and would go out of her way to help anyone in need. Sawyer walked into this place, full of attitude but equally as sulky, and damned if Ramona didn’t think she could fix him. Two months and one busted condom later, Ramona found herself the proud owner of a positive pregnancy test. Stupid girl still thought she could change his way of thinking, and opted to become his old lady when he asked her the question. Maybe she might have been able to straighten him out if he wasn’t the fuckin’ devil’s spawn himself.

  “Would have been fine if I’d put the fuckin’ thing on myself,” he grumbles at her. “Probably your fuckin’ talon nails that did it.”

  Ramona flies into a fresh rage, held back only by the tree-trunk arms of Bruiser around her tiny waist. As much as each of us men here would love to teach Sawyer a lesson, we can’t. The kid’s untouchable, but not by his own doing. Sawyer’s old man happens to be a guy named Carlos, a rival cartel boss, and all that spells for us is a risk of war if we upset the apple cart too many times. Even though Sawyer joined the Fallen Saints MC out of pure spite, the connection is too fragile to play Russian Roulette with. The kid’s one of us now, and as long as his dad gains another grey hair every time he thinks about it, Sawyer will stay. And as long as he stays, our pres gets grey hairs trying to find a way to cut him without starting an argument between the two groups.

  Catch twenty-two. Yippee for us.

  “Bitch, I don’t have time for this.” Sawyer turns to leave, but Bruiser’s large hand stops him in his tracks.

  “You wanna tell us what’s going on here?” Ramona huddles between them, nestled against Bruiser’s chest as he speaks.

  “Not really. You wanna butt your nose out of my business . . . boy?”

  I shoulder my way between the three of them, ready to do what I can to haul Bruiser off Sawyer.

  “You oughtta try rephrasing that, son.” Muscles flex and veins pop under Bruiser’s chocolate skin. “Ain’t no one gonna call me boy and get away with it.”

  “Fuckin’ try it. See what shit you get yourself in.” Sawyer grins, aware he’s got the upper hand in this fucked up game of poker.

  “It’s not worth the time, Bruiser.” I place a hand on his shoulder, and the tension drains from his stance. “Let the jackass go. It’s clear Ramona’s had enough of the sight of him.”

  “Yeah, I have,” she whispers, burying her face in Bruiser’s cut.

  I’m no fool; I’ve seen her sneak out of Bruiser’s room before, and a guy would have to be blind to not see the way he looks at her. Not that Sawyer seems to care either way . . .

  “I’ll see you out, Sawyer.” King sighs, and pushes through the thick of us to lead the way. “I need a word with you.”

  I shake my head. Why King thinks it’s necessary to have a chat, I dunno. The asshole doesn’t care. Sawyer’s been slapped over the hand more times than he’s had hot dinners, and still, nothing. No change. The kid’s a lost cause.

  “You okay, Ramona?”

  She nods as Bruiser tightens his arms around her. “Thanks, Vince. I’m just so fed up with him and his shit. He’s hurting Mack’s feelings and he just doesn’t care.” Tears spring forth at the mention of her boy’s name.

  Bruiser rubs a hand up and down her back. “It’s all right, Ramona. It’ll work itself out.”

  Yeah, with a lead bullet if Bruiser had anything to do with it.

  “Come have a drink, tell us what he’s done now and get the shit off your liver,” I say.

  She nods, and pulls out of Bruiser’s grasp. “That sounds good. I need to get myself straightened out before Mack wakes anyway.”

  I realize I haven’t seen the little tyke since earlier in the afternoon while some of the prospects were trying to set up. “Where is he?” I ask Ramona as we start to file back into the common room.

  “Asleep, in Bruiser’s room. He had a big day out, and the little guy’s exhausted.” She rubs the palm of her hand across her brow.

  “Anything special?”

  “Just a day at the zoo to try and get him distracted from all the arguing I’m doing with Sawyer.”

  “Bet he loved it.”

  “Yeah, he had a blast,” she says with a smile as she slips onto a stool.

  I take a seat, and my thoughts drift back to a time when I would take my boy to the zoo. A time when he would sit on my shoulders while his mother popped sweets into his mouth. A time when I didn’t know real pain, pure disappointment or unchecked regret.

  “You all right?” King asks as he slips onto a stool beside me.

  I realize how long I’ve been lost in my head, seeing Ramona’s half-finished drink. “Yeah, just playing through the memories.”

  “Good? Bad?”

  “Undecided.”

  He nods, and gives Sonya a wink as she slides him a fresh bourbon. I watch her walk to the far end, admiring how well her jeans fit her ass.

  “You like Sonya, eh?” King smiles.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Only because you’ve been eye-fucking her since the party started.” He grins mischievously.

  “Hardly,” I scoff.

  “You trying to say you look at all the ladies around here like that?” He chuckles. “How have you two not hooked up before?” King shakes his head and adds, “I must have you out on the road far too much, man.”

  I smile and nod. “Sure doesn’t leave me much time to play.” I eye Sonya as she laughs with a prospect. “What was Sawyer’s excuse this time?” I ask, shifting the subject.

  King’s expression falls flat. “Same old bullshit. Carlos’s got some beef with a bunch of guys down south, and Sawyer wants to head out tonight, get there first mess with his old man’s plans. He wouldn’t be straight up with Ramona, which is why she was ready to castrate the fucker.”

  “He’s got some serious issues, that kid.”

  “I know.” King sighs. “Most of the guys around here want him to be my first order of business as pres, but I dunno. I’m kinda ready just to let him go and hang himself, save us the politics, you know?”

  “Hopefully the arrogant asshole’s bitten off more than he can chew this time,” I agree. “Maybe we’ll be glad he went down south this time next week?”

  “Dunno. You could be right. Apparently the guys he’s tracking are a bunch of dudes who move between the clubs and gangs, doing the dirty work for an even dirtier price. I heard about them in meetings with Apex, but never anything definitive. As far as I know, we’ve never used them. They tend to stick in their own backyard.”

  “That so?” Sound like smart guys to me. No allegiance, no contract to anybody, just doing what’s best for their own interests.

  “They’ve been dubbed the Butcher Boys. Couple of them are more brains than brawn, but apparently there’s one kid who when you get him alone is quite handy with a knife. The others don’t know about that, but given the reason behind what’s going down, the truth will come out soon.”

  “What makes you say that?” I lift a finger to Sonya, keen for a drink to go with the juicy bedtime story. She flashes me a smile, and turns to get a fresh glass.

  “Well, knife boy has a bad relationship with our girl Mary-Jane, and apparently owes a bit to Carlos. Was supposed to do one of these sideline jobs for Carlos last week as a way to help clear the debt but reneged, and now the old boy wants blood. From what I hear, the bungled job the kid never completed cost Sawyer’s old man an entire supply arm. The rat, who was supposed to become ground meat, went and took his loose lips to a new mob, and now Carlos has lost a fifth of his income.”
>
  “Shit.”

  “Shit’s right. It hit the fan and it’s fuckin’ everywhere. Sawyer seems to think he can take the bunch of them out in a weekend, beat Carlos to it and prove something in the process.” King takes a healthy swig of his drink, and grimaces.

  “Hopefully this bunch of kids will get to Sawyer first then, hey?”

  Sonya slides a drink over, and I make sure to catch her hand under mine as I take it. Her cheeks flush a gorgeous shade of pink before she pulls free and disappears to the other end of the bar.

  “Either that,” I carry on “or Carlos catches up to Sawyer when he finds out what he’s done.”

  “Yeah. Here’s hoping. The bunch of guys he’s hunting out are supposed to be pretty good at what they do. The lot of them sound like rock-star vigilantes: Bronx, Tigger, Malice and Ty. Next boy band, maybe?”

  King chuckles at his musings, but my ears ring with the sound of names I hope are nothing more than a coincidence.

  “Where are they from?” I ask, swallowing back the apprehension at his answer. I take a mouthful of my whiskey, but the taste is sour on my tongue.

  King answers my question, his voice hazy to my screaming ears. The singular word which falls from his lips, the one place name I hoped to never hear again, has me rooted to the spot in sheer panic. My head thumps, my veins heat, and an overwhelming urge to start running takes over.

  My boy. He returned home.

  “What the fuck, Lynch? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” King stares at me with a furrowed brow, concerned.

  I pale further as his face smooths out, his concern turning to realization. “Fuck, man. Was one of those your kid? I thought you said he had a girl’s name? Something weird?”

  “Yeah,” I croak. “His name’s Alice, as in Malice—Alice.”

  “Fuuuck . . .”

  “Everything okay here?” Sonya quicksteps from behind the bar area, and she moves to stand next to King. “Do you need a glass of water, Vince?”

  I need to vomit.

  Her gentle voice registers in my subconscious as I take shaky step after shaky step, pushing my way outside through bustling bodies to catch a breath of fresh air. My boy. Years apart, and this is so far from how I figured we’d cross paths again that I can’t even comprehend it.

  Traffic hum from the nearby road soothes my racing nerves; the white noise lulling me into a kind of trance. I stare out at the tops of the pine trees that line our property, watching the moths flicker around a floodlight that illuminates the parking lot behind the clubhouse.

  I’m at a loss for what to do. Any sane person would call up their club-mate and tell Sawyer to back off. But the kid’s crazy. If I let slip that one of the boys is my own, he’d simply put the pedal to the floor and have twice the incentive to go mess him up. Maybe King could help, but probably not. What would his options be? Tell Carlos? And then what?

  “Vince . . .”

  I close my eyes, hoping if I deny Sonya is beside me she’ll really be gone when I open them. I came out here for a clear head—peace and quiet.

  Nope. Still there.

  A set of baby blues assess me, her brow creased, her eyes glassy. Is she upset for me? Why would she be upset?

  “King told me,” she whispers.

  “I’m fine,” I snap, aggravated that after one conversation with me, she feels she has license to interfere. “It’s nothing a quick fuck with one of the whores ’round here won’t help me forget.”

  “Fucking a piece of trash will make you forget this?” Her glassy eyes turn to a rainstorm, anger sending the droplets over her cheeks. “Is that really how you’re going to play this?”

  A moment of silence passes between us.

  “He’s your son,” she whispers.

  “What else do you think I should fuckin’ do?” I holler at her.

  She takes a step back, stamping her hands on her hips, her beautiful face contorting with disbelief. “You assholes are so fucking unbelievable!”

  “What the hell, woman?” I step toward her and lean down so our noses are level. “Who the fuck are you to me to think you can tell me what I should be doing?”

  “A friend,” she utters.

  “I don’t need friends,” I growl.

  “Just like you don’t need to do a thing about your son?” she asks. “You’re just going to step back, fuck a whore, and ignore the fact Carlos has an order on your kid?”

  “The kid hasn’t spoken to me in eighteen years—why would he need me now?”

  “Every child needs their parent,” she mumbles.

  I laugh bitterly, crossing my arms over my chest as I pace into the parking lot. Her small footsteps near, and I spin around, only to receive the full force of her swinging palm. My cheek stings, and the rage inside me reaches a dangerous crescendo.

  “I don’t believe in laying a hand on a woman, but if you so much as fucking touch me again . . .”

  “You’ll what? Hit me? Push me around for telling you the truth?”

  “How would you know what the truth is?” I roar. “You. Don’t. Fucking. Know. Me.”

  “Who. Fucking. Does?” The muscles in her neck stand out like ropes on a ship straining in the storm. Her fists are balled tight at her side, the knuckles white—so much rage contained in such a tiny package. “Do you have a single fucking person who gives a shit about you? Anybody who cares? I bet not, and you know why? Because you’re a selfish fucking asshole who would rather ignore the facts than lose face trying to do something about it.” She shakes her head, grasping those golden locks of hair in her hands. “Fucking man up, Vince. Man up and do something about it before you fucking regret it.”

  “He’s better off without me fucking the situation he’s in further,” I argue. “I’ve tried to help him before.” I tried to ‘man up’, as she put it, and that got me nowhere but further from him than when I started.

  “Why would he be better off?” she presses.

  “Because I ruin things, okay? I couldn’t help Julia, and all I did after she left us was get so lost in my own selfish misery that I ruined his life too. All I’ll do if I try to help now is squash any chance he might have at getting out of this by complicating things.”

  “Who’s Julia?” she asks, confused.

  “My dead wife,” I drop, flinching as her face softens.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring that up.”

  “Don’t be,” I snap. “She’s none of your concern.”

  Sonya takes a step back, and her arms cross over her body. She drops her gaze to the ground, and a part of me wants to hold her and apologize. I’ve dreamt of getting close to her since the day my sorry ass was dragged in here, and this is how it finally plays out? Life really has a thing against me.

  “How the hell do you expect him to have a fighting chance if he doesn’t even know they’re coming for him?” she asks, cocking her head to the side and lifting an eyebrow. “Huh?”

  She has a point; the boys probably don’t even know what’s going on, from what King told me. Hell, they’re probably blindly oblivious that a crazed kid is on the way to start what his father will probably finish. Maybe I can’t stop the carnage by calling off Sawyer, but I can sure as fuck give Alice a heads up.

  If he’ll listen.

  “Shit, you’re right. He might not want a thing to do with me, but I can at least warn him.”

  Sonya slaps a palm to her head and sighs. “Now he gets it.”

  “Woman, you’re a blessing in one angry whirlwind of a disguise.”

  “I’ve been called worse.” She giggles.

  “I’m sorry for being such an ass.” I take a moment to simply stand and take her in: the crinkle at the corner of her eyes, the curl of her lips, and the way her hair naturally frames her face. Why the hell haven’t I tried harder to have her before now?

  Because I’m chicken shit. I’m scared of being rejected, or hurt.

  “You should smile more,” I tell her, stepping into her space.


  Her hands find my chest, and she ducks her head to the side as she gives me a small tap with her fingers. “I don’t often have a reason to.”

  “I bet I could fix that.” I grasp her face in my hands and lean in so my lips brush over hers. “Thank you.”

  Before I can pull back, she pushes up on her toes, pressing her lips to mine. I can’t say what possesses me to choose that moment to finally kiss her, but it feels so right, so expected. She drops back on her heels, and I lean forward to keep the connection. How could I have waited so long to do this? She has such velvety, full lips—more distracting than anything I would normally be doing on a Saturday night, and more satisfying than a quick fuck with any or all of the club whores. A man could get addicted. Maybe that’s why I kept my distance for so long?

  Tension strains in my jeans and I shift on my feet, trying to nudge the fella into a more comfortable position under the large buckle on my belt. Sonya breaks our kiss with a satisfied hum, and steps back. Her eyes flick to the source of my problem.

  “Oh . . .”

  “Yeah. Question is, what are you going to do about that?”

  She giggles, and then lets out a guttural moan, which has my cock even harder than I’d thought possible.

  “The things I could do,” she teases, stepping backwards towards the clubhouse. “But I guess you’ll have to prove it’s worth me showing you,” she calls over her shoulder, jogging up to the access door, and quickly disappearing inside.

  Hands on my hips, I stand in the middle of the abandoned lot, staring down the problem in my jeans.

  Damn it. At least she managed to keep me distracted, if only for a second.

  Alice. The shit he’s facing has my heart racing for all the wrong reasons.

  The bulge in my pants lessens, and my mood sours quickly. I feel ill—nauseous and weak. I want to deny what I know and crawl into bed with the slim hope that when I wake this will all be some strange dream.

  I resume my position leaning against the outside of the clubhouse and listen to the traffic hum once more, only this time it doesn’t ease the ill feeling permeating deep in my bones.

  What sickens me most is I’ve felt this way before.

  Right before they showed me Julia’s body.