by Brook Wilder
Chapter 15
Rex
I leaned against the wall, staring at the unfinished bike before me. After the run in with Kris and her new club, I had to get away, not caring what they thought about me. I needed room to breathe.
This was my fucking life, my former life at that, and I had to process what just happened. What Kris did was unspeakable; killing a Rough Jester with no provocation gave us a reason to go after the club and disband it immediately.
I just couldn’t bring myself to put out that order. I wasn’t saying Josh deserved what he got, but he’d intentionally gotten under her skin, and Kris had retaliated. And even though I never imagined she’d shoot him, the act was perfectly her.
Kris wasn’t the same woman who had been in this shop just a few days ago, who was up for having sex on the back of her bike.
No, this Kris was different, and I blamed myself for it.
It was my fault, all of it. If I hadn’t kicked her out that night, she would still be at the house and not in the middle of some biker gang she had no business leading.
Well, after today’s actions, some would argue that point.
That she was cold blooded. That she was a bitch. That she was putting her nose into things she didn’t know anything about.
All of those would be true, yet she’s still the Kristina that I fell in love with.
Except now, I lost her.
There was no turning back from this now.
“Fuck,” I looked up at the ceiling, blinking back the tears.
She would never let me get close to her now, to talk her out of going after the cartel. Now that she had a backing, Kris wasn’t about to step down from the challenge.
I couldn’t deal with this new Kris. Gone was the woman who had come to my front door that night, her clothing torn and tears streaking down her face, begging me to keep her safe.
I broke her heart and should have been the one she shot today.
She would have put us both out of our misery.
Walking over to the bike, I picked up a tarp and draped it over the machine, not even wanting to look at it anymore.
Hell, I wanted to be wrong about this. I wanted Kris to come back to me in a week, or even a month, and patch things up just like we always had.
But after today, it couldn’t possibly happen. There wouldn’t be ‘I’m sorry’ and everything would go back to the way it had been. I wasn’t going to get her back.
I fucking hated myself and what I had done to the one person who had cared about me, the one person whom I cared about on this earth.
My chest squeezed unbearably but I forced myself to turn away, walking toward the door. This life was over, and I needed to forget Kris and I were ever together. I needed to forget my life ended when Kris had pulled that trigger and the true president of the Rough Jesters was born.
Opening the door, I stopped when I saw Corey standing outside, puffing on a cigarette.
“I thought you might be here.”
“Good guess,” I replied, shutting the door behind me. “What’s wrong?”
Corey flicked the cigarette into the dirt, shaking his head. “Nothing. I’m just checking on you. That had to be hard, watching her ride away like that.”
I let out a long sigh. “I fucking screwed up, Corey. I should have never said the things I said to her. I should have begged her to come back. I shouldn’t have let her leave that night.”
“Whoa,” he said, holding up his hands. “What’s done is done man. There’s nothing you can do to fix it unless you have a time machine hidden under that tarp.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I know. I just… I didn’t want it to go this way.”
“I’m not saying you have to pull your shit together on the inside, but you have to on the outside. There’s a whole club looking to you for guidance man, and now is not the time to show any weakness and make them second guess their choice.”
I knew he was right. I had to get my shit together and though I would mourn Kris’s loss over weeks, months, and probably even years down the road, I had something else that needed my attention. “Get the run groups up,” I finally said, clearing my mind of anything not club related. “We start the runs tomorrow.”
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Corey clapped me on the back before heading toward his bike. “I tell you, this will work out for the best. You will see. Give it some time.”
I gave him a nod as I locked up the garage, walking to my bike as well. I knew it would. I knew in the end I had the club, but there was a gaping hole in my chest where my heart had been before Kris ripped it out today.
I also knew this wouldn’t be the last meeting between us. No, after she declared war on the very group we worked with, we would be running into each other plenty. Especially since we were both presidents of our clubs.
I just hoped it didn’t come down to us having to shoot each other. No matter how much time passed, I could never shoot her.
I could never harm her.
“Oh, I had another reason for coming out here,” Corey was saying as he started his bike. “I know what your road name should be.”
“But I already decided on one,” I told him, my lips turning up in a grin.
Corey arched a brow. “Thunder is a weather phenomenon. It’s no road name and I just won’t acknowledge it.”
I laughed. “What then? What did you come up with?”
He smirked. “Chains. You know how you’re wrapped up by the one woman who you will never get over? It’s like she has you in chains.”
“Go fuck yourself.” I flicked him off, and yet I was thinking it over. Hell, it did fit me and my current situation.
Slinging my leg over the bike, I started up the engine and followed Corey out of the dusty yard back toward town, leaving behind every feeling I had for Kris, every hope and dream we had planned together. It was all nothing but memories, wishful thinking that would never come true and there was no use crying over it or even trying to figure out what happened.
It was time to get to work.
Epilogue
Five Years Later
Kristina
“Show me where.”
Mama Bear walked over to the map on the wall, looking at the squiggly lines representing all the trails the cartel had used over the last few years, before pointing. “There. It’s a new route for them. Maybe they’re finally catching on that we aren’t going away.”
I grinned, my hands on my hips as I looked at the route. “Or maybe they will run out of routes and we will have the upper hand, finally.” After five years of trying to stop the cartel from taking women and moving them to the Mexican border, I felt the end drawing nearer.
Or at least I hoped it would. We had been so damn lucky not to lose anyone in the last few raids since the cartel started to ramp up their protection.
Which could only mean their cargo was even more valuable.
“How many Jesters?”
“Two, three tops,” Mama Bear replied. “Their numbers are dwindling on these runs. I wonder if they are about to make some change in their partnership.”
I snorted. “Yeah right. That would mean defeat and Rex would never admit defeat.” Even after five years apart, I knew that much about him hadn’t changed. He was still the same arrogant son of a bitch he had always been. “Get the girls ready. We need to go ahead and get set up if we want to attack this one head on.”
“You got it,” Mama Bear replied, walking off.
I stared at the map and the new lines added over the past few days and wondered what the cartel and the Jesters were trying to do. Were they tired of us yet? The Hell’s Bitches had made their presence known more than I was sure they cared to admit, ruining many of their runs and taking their hauls. I couldn’t count how many times we had upset them, how many times we had come away the winners, only to face retaliation later on. They burned our first clubhouse, destroyed some of our bikes; no one went
anywhere alone anymore, though I wasn’t worried Jesters would actually attack my women.
I was worried about the cartel. While Rex was likely very pissed at me, I knew he wouldn’t attack women.
But his Jesters had been given the go ahead to kill us if we got in the way. I had done the same, going into every raid hoping we wouldn’t have to kill any of them, but always walking away with the heaviness of another man not going home to his family, or a member of my own club not making it home.
It was a dirty business, not for the faint of heart. I had put my heart away years ago.
I turned away from the map, hearing the rustling around the clubhouse now that I had given the order. There was always a heightened sense of awareness and excitement right before a raid, one I felt in my bones when I thought of what we had accomplished over the years. These women were my family, my responsibility for five years now, and I knew they trusted me.
Even if I didn’t trust myself some days. Being president of Hell’s Bitches was not easy. We had bad days just the like the rest of the world and in some of those days, we lost fellow members.
But we also had good days: days where we took in the cartel’s haul before they could get it across the border and saved some innocent lives in the process. While some would look at us as outlaws, I tended to think of us as vigilantes.
Vigilantes out to stop human trafficking.
As I walked down the hall toward the room that served as my office, I thought about what we might encounter today, the same worries and stress running through my mind as it always did.
Would we have enough weapons?
Were we picking a good place to ambush them?
What would we do with what we found?
Would Rex be there?
“Pull yourself together, dammit,” I muttered, pushing my hair over my shoulder. That question always popped up. and one would think after five years I wouldn’t care anymore.
But I couldn’t help it. We crossed paths a few times over the years, sometimes shooting at each other. I liked to tell myself it wouldn’t matter if I stumbled over his dead body one day, that I would be satisfied to see he got what he deserved.
All that would be a lie.
Hell, I still loved the bastard.
Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to think of something else, like how Rex was about to get his weekly dose of Hell’s Bitches.
And I would be the one to dish it up to him.
END OF WIDOW MAKER
Prequel of the Rough Jesters MC series.
