HARDCORE: Storm MC

by Zoey Parker

  “Yeah,” Missy replied. “Hope you feel better soon.”

  Inwardly, she scolded herself. Hope you feel better soon? That's what people say to someone with a bad cold, not someone who's been almost beaten to death.

  There was an awkward pause, and Cain said, “You know, I mostly remember you from the night I got my VP patch.”

  Missy chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you would remember that. I'll bet Marian sure does.”

  Cain laughed, then winced at the pain in his sides. “I thought that was pretty cool, the way you stood up for your brother like that. You're usually so quiet, I wouldn't have guessed you had an ass-kicking like that in you.”

  “Element of surprise,” Missy said. “Gets 'em every time.”

  “Anyway, thanks again,” Cain said. He pulled himself out of his seat and shut the car door behind him. Missy watched him make his way to the front door, staggering slightly and fumbling for his keys. Her eyes traveled down to his tight and narrow behind, and she found her mind drifting again as she wondered what it would be like to give that ass a playful squeeze.

  Cain glanced behind him, saw that she was watching him, and raised an eyebrow.

  Missy felt herself blush again. Damn it, she thought. Since when do I blush at all, let alone twice in one day?

  “Just making sure you made it in okay,” she called out.

  “Yeah, I'm fine,” Cain called back, unlocking the door and stepping inside.

  Missy drove away, heading back to the house she shared with Hunter. As she pulled into their driveway, she saw Hunter standing on the porch, waiting for her.

  “How is he?” Hunter asked as Missy walked up to the house.

  “Pretty banged up,” she answered, “but the doctor said he'll be fine as long as he rests up for about a week.”

  “Good,” Hunter said. His voice sounded far away, and his eyes looked dark and haunted.

  “Did you find out who did it?” Missy asked.

  Hunter nodded slowly, but didn't say anything. The way he was acting was starting to scare her. She couldn't remember the last time he'd seemed so frightened and uncertain.

  In fact, she was pretty sure he never had.

  Still, Missy knew that if he wasn't ready to tell her the whole story, there wasn't much else she could do. “Okay, I'm gonna grab some rest,” she said. “I'll see you at the Knife later.”

  “Listen, why don't you just hang back for a while, okay?” Hunter said. “I'm not sure whether I want you coming in tonight or not. Just keep your phone on and wait to hear from me.”

  Missy frowned, confused. “Sure,” she said, “if that's what you want. Why, what's going on?”

  “I'm not entirely clear on that yet,” Hunter replied. “But I'm gonna send a couple of the guys over later just to check in on you an’ make sure you're okay.”

  Missy put her hand on Hunter's shoulder, searching his eyes. “Hunter, what kind of trouble are we in, here?”

  Hunter sighed. “The bad kind, sis. Maybe even the worst kind.”

  Chapter 10

  Missy

  Hunter made a few calls to Eagles on his cell phone, speaking too quietly for Missy to hear. Then he rode off on his bike.

  Missy went upstairs, stripped off her clothes, and started the shower. She hated the smell of hospitals—rubber and linoleum, disinfectant, and the obscure stink of disease—and she felt like it was still clinging to her hair and clothes after so many hours waiting for Cain.

  The plumbing in the house was old, and she had to wait a while for the water to go from cold and rust-brown to clear and steaming. When it was ready, she stepped in and soaped herself with body wash and her loofah, feeling her tense muscles loosen under the warm spray.

  She'd seen the Eagles go to war before—twice against other MCs, and once against a local gang of white supremacists. It was always stressful and scary, but it was part of the biker life and she'd grudgingly learned to accept it. She used to get exasperated at how Hunter seemed to relish the chance to create mayhem and dish out punishment. She'd often hoped he would eventually grow up, stop acting so macho, and start approaching the threat of violence with more caution.

  But now that she'd seen the apprehensive look on Hunter's face, she wished she hadn't hoped that after all. Because anything that could put that much fear into him was almost certainly something heavy enough to take down the entire club.

  Missy shut off the water, toweled off, and got ready for bed. She tried to think about what could possibly pose such a risk to the Eagles, but her thoughts kept returning to Cain's body.

  In the past, she'd always been fascinated—and somewhat horrified—by men's ability to shamelessly lust after women they didn't even like, or in some cases, outright loathed. As a woman, she'd always smugly considered herself above that kind of thing.

  But now she was fantasizing about a stubborn man who'd spent most of the night treating her like she was an annoying pest, and she was embarrassing herself in the process.

  She slipped between the sheets and rolled onto one side, then the other, trying to get comfortable. Every time she shifted into a different position, she thought about how Cain's hands would feel on her body.

  She tossed and turned, picking up her cell phone every ten or fifteen minutes to check the time.

  Thirty minutes passed. Then another thirty.

  And another.

  Okay, this is ridiculous, Missy thought. I've had a long night, I'm exhausted, and I need to get some sleep no matter what it takes. If that means indulging myself in this stupid fantasy for a few minutes to get it out of my system, so be it. Maybe a good, solid orgasm will knock me out.

  She got up, grabbed her vibrator from its drawer, and flopped back down on the bed. She turned the knob at the base of the device and gently pressed the humming tip against her clit, sighing and closing her eyes.

  In Missy's mind, Cain was naked and positioning himself over her prone body. His injuries were gone, his skin taut and tantalizing in the glow of the early afternoon sun. His long brown hair hung around his shoulders, and the shafts of light from the window picked up the reddish highlights in his neatly-trimmed beard. His green eyes twinkled mischievously, filled with desire as his lips hovered inches away from hers.

  He reached between Missy's legs and the buzzing toy became his fingers, stroking the moist lips of her pussy. She let out a low moan as his fingers traced delicate patterns up and down, teasing her before plunging inside of her. They pushed against her G-spot insistently, making her light-headed with pleasure. She could hear her pulse throbbing in her ears and imagined it was Cain's heartbeat as he pressed himself against her body.

  Just when Missy felt like she couldn't take any more, the vibrator went deeper inside of her, touching her cervix. She rubbed her clit and let out a long cry of ecstasy as she came hard, soaking the blanket beneath her pelvis.

  She stayed there for a few more moments, breathing hard and trembling. Finally, she switched the vibrator off and tossed it on the nightstand. She got under the covers again and put on her sleep mask.

  But she still found herself strangely jittery and unsatisfied, and caught herself wondering how her fantasy of sex with Cain would compare to the real thing.

  Sleep was a long time coming.

  Chapter 11

  Hunter

  Hunter was deep in thought as he rode his bike over to Cain's place to check in on him.

  He hadn't wanted to let Missy see how uneasy he was, but he knew he'd done a piss-poor job of hiding it. One more thing to blame himself for, along with not going to the Teepee Motel to take care of the dealer himself and not being prepared for the threat that faced the Eagles now. Keith had told him the name Nostril had given up.

  Gaspar Hernandez, Hunter thought. Fuck. We are so screwed.

  The Eagles had maintained a truce with Gaspar ever since he and his gang moved into Dipper County a year and a half ago. Gaspar was a high-ranking member of the powerful Barros Cartel based in Mexico, just outside of
Juarez. They'd sent him up to Ohio to oversee their Midwest distribution network for cocaine and heroin.

  At first, there had been some tension between the Eagles and Gaspar's men, but they soon met and established a set of boundaries they could both work within. The Eagles agreed not to deal coke or H so they wouldn't be competing with the Barros Cartel, and in return, Gaspar agreed to respect the club's turf and keep his business outside of Micanaw's borders. This arrangement had worked well so far, since neither side seemed eager to start a war that would attract the attention of the authorities.

  But based on what Keith had told Hunter, now it seemed like Gaspar had decided to piss all over their treaty. He'd set Nostril up in a room at the Teepee and waited for word to get out that someone was dealing in Micanaw without permission. And when the Eagles showed up, Gaspar's men had been there, ready to send a bloody message.

  “Why, though?” Hunter had asked Keith when he first heard. The two of them had sat at the bar, drinking shots of whiskey. “Was this whole 'truce' we negotiated just a smokescreen the whole time?”

  Keith shrugged. “Could be. Could be it gave Gaspar time to buy off or threaten the feds and the staties. But that ain't the biggest question here, is it, boss? What we really need to know is, was this shit sanctioned by the cartel, or did Gaspar just get bored an' greedy an' decide to expand on his own?”

  Hunter sighed, putting his face in his hands. “I dunno, man. Fuck, I just...I dunno. Whatever this crap is, it's more trouble than we've ever faced down before. I mean, Gaspar's guys are mostly trained killers—former Mexican soldiers, mercenaries, real hard cases. An' they've got so many fuckin' military-grade weapons, we may as well be carryin' goddamn slingshots.

  “So, what are our options?” he continued, taking another drink. “Basically, it seems like we got three. We can run, we can surrender, or we can stand our fuckin' ground.”

  Keith considered this carefully. “Hell, runnin' ain't much of a choice. I mean, maybe we could go find another town to run our shit from, but by the time we got there, we'd be known as a pack of worthless yellow cowards who can be pissed on without consequences.”

  Hunter nodded. “Fair point. An' surrender is an ugly fuckin' word. Sure, there's a chance we could still make a deal with Gaspar, give up a little slice of our action in Micanaw to keep the peace...”

  “Yeah, but what about the next time Gaspar steps over the line? An' the next?” Keith asked. “What, are we gonna just hang our fuckin' heads, step aside, an' let him do whatever he wants? We gonna take orders from him, run his errands, an' fork over our profits like a bunch of bitches?”

  Hunter shuddered. “Fuck that. At least we got a code to live by. These cartel guys, though...they're bunch of fuckin' nutjobs. For all we know, they could order us to blow away a bunch of innocent people, or do someone's kid as a warning. An' when we say no...”

  “He lights us up anyway,” Keith finished. “Makin' the whole fuckin' thing pointless from the start. An' besides, if we ain't got freedom, Hunter, then what the fuck do we got, huh? If we're willin' to just bow down for guys like Gaspar, we may as well hang up our goddamn cuts an' get square jobs.”

  “Which means staying and fighting,” Hunter said. “Which would probably end with all the Eagles being slaughtered.”

  Keith shrugged again. “You know anythin' 'bout the Mexican Revolution?”

  Hunter chuckled bitterly. “Yeah. It was a bunch of Mexicans, right? An' they revolted?”

  “I watch the history channel sometimes,” Keith continued, “even though Cain likes to give me shit for it. One show was about this guy called Zapata, who led a revolution down there in 1910 'cause their president was a corrupt asswipe. An' one thing this Zapata guy said always stuck with me, 'cause it basically nailed the whole reason I joined the Eagles. 'It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.'”

  This had made sense to Hunter, and deep down, he'd known Keith was right. Fighting back was their only real choice.

  Still, it was hard enough to gear up for a fight that seemed like it couldn't possibly be won. And it was a hell of a lot harder when Hunter considered the idea that his sister might end up as collateral damage. The Eagles had strict rules about not involving their enemies' families in their conflicts, but he knew the cartel had no such restrictions. And it wasn't just Missy, either. A lot of the other Eagles had wives, girlfriends, parents, siblings, and kids, all of whom could quickly become targets for Gaspar.

  Hunter couldn't bear that thought. But he couldn't see any way around it, and he cursed himself for that.

  He parked his bike in front of Cain's house, putting the kickstand down and dismounting. Then he walked up to the front door and knocked. He wanted to make sure Cain was okay. Part of him felt like he owed Cain some kind of apology, but he couldn't quite think of the right words or even make sense of what he wanted to apologize for—the beating Cain had taken, or the even worse beating the rest of the club was probably about to take because he couldn't come up with a way out for them?

  There was no answer, and Hunter knocked on the door again.

  After a few moments passed, Hunter started to get nervous. What if the internal bleeding had been worse than anyone thought and Cain was lying on the floor, dead? What if Gaspar had sent his men to finish the job?

  Hunter pulled the Glock from the back of his jeans with one hand, holding it down at his side. With his other hand, he reached into his pocket, pulling out a large set of keys and trying not to jangle them too loudly. Any time one of the Eagles got a place of his own, Hunter always made sure he had a spare key in case of emergencies.

  He took a deep breath, jammed the key into the lock, turned it, and burst into the living room with his gun pointed.

  Cain was sprawled on the couch, snoring heavily. He was fully dressed, and he even still had his boots on. Hunter figured it had probably been too painful for him to pull them off himself. The TV was on with the volume up loud as it played an old black-and-white cowboy movie.

  Cain's face was still swollen and puffy, the bruises a deep shade of purple. There were a few stitches here and there on his face, but the ones on his scalp practically made him look like a baseball. The broken arm was draped across the scarred and cigarette-burned coffee table where two bottles of pills stood open.

  Poor bastard, Hunter thought. I should have done a better job keeping you safe. I don't know how, but goddamn it, I'm your president and it was my duty to look out for you, and here you are with more stitches in you than a three-piece suit.

  Out loud, Hunter had been more than willing to blame Keith, which was entirely logical. But deeper down in the less-logical recesses of his heart, Hunter couldn't stop blaming himself.

  Hunter bent down and picked up the pill bottles, examining them. One was hydrocodone to dull the pain, and the other was benzodiazepine to help Cain sleep through whatever the hydrocodone couldn't take away. Hunter had sold enough pills in his life to recognize how potent and highly addictive both of them were, especially if taken in the high dosages recommended on the bottles he was holding.

  He winced. The Eagles could be hard drinkers and they never shied away from smoking weed at parties, or even enjoying a bit of acid or E now and then. But the use of heavier drugs was strictly prohibited in the club, since perpetually stoned or strung-out members couldn't be trusted to look out for their brothers. Cain had never shown any propensity for violating these rules, and he usually even waved away the offers of joints since he insisted on staying clear-headed in case an emergency came up.

  So, if he was taking these drugs, Hunter couldn't even imagine the kind of pain he must have been in.

  Hunter grabbed Cain's left boot and pulled it off for him, then did the same for the right one. Cain stirred faintly and mumbled a mouthful of muddy gibberish before settling back into sleep again.

  “Get some rest, brother,” Hunter said quietly.

  He knew he couldn't let Cain stay here by himself when he couldn't even undress p
roperly or go out for groceries. But he also knew Cain's fierce pride would drive him to reject offers of help from fully-patched Eagles, since he'd figure they should be busy protecting Hunter and the Lost Knife instead of helping him out of his shirt and pants. Even if Hunter assigned Eagles to help him under the guise of protecting him from another attack, Cain would probably still say no.

  Suddenly, Hunter had an idea.

  He stepped out onto the front porch and dialed his cell phone. After a couple of rings, Missy picked up. She sounded like she'd just woken up.

  “Hey, where are you?” Missy said groggily.

  “I'm at Cain's.”

  “Oh. Do you want me to go to the Knife after all?” Missy asked. “'Cause I've still got a few hours and I was hoping for a little more sleep, but if you need me to come in early...”