by K. J. Dahlen
“What was he yelling?”
“He was cursing them. He told them they would regret turning their backs on him.”
“That sounds like him, the fucking coward,” Deke swore.
“Yeah, he always did blame everyone but who was in the wrong.” Gator snarled. “He was so high the night he beat the shit out of Reva, he never even felt the bullets I put in him. He beat on his old man after I shot him. If Hound hadn’t swung that 2x4 at his head, he never would have been stopped.”
“And now he’s getting out.” Deke took a deep breath. Running his hands through his hair he said, “We have to talk to Raine.”
“I wanted you in on this.” Gator gazed at Deke. “If trouble is coming here, we needed your input. I don’t know what Reva wants to do yet, but you needed to know.”
“I’m glad you did.” Deke slapped him on the back. “You know we’ll stand behind you, all the way.”
“I was hoping you would say that. I was talking to Marnie a few days ago and she wanted me and Reva to adopt the kids. I was going to tell her this morning but Raine spoke to me last night and now, I can’t even think about anything but Bulldog.”
“We have to find out just what Raine and his family mean to do about this.” Deke sighed.
“The way he spoke, he meant to stand with Reva not against her.”
“I can’t imagine any Moore taking sides against one of their own.” Deke shrugged. “But rather than speculate, let’s find Raine and ask him.”
“Last I saw him, he was talking to Bones at the clubhouse. I don’t know if he’s still there or not.”
“Let’s find out.”
A short time later, they entered the clubhouse to find Raine still sitting there drinking coffee. Gator sat down on one side of him and Deke sat down on the other.
Reva came out of the kitchen and sat down opposite. Taking Gator’s hand, she looked at her brother in law. “I understand Bulldog is getting out of prison soon. Is he coming here after me?”
Raine nodded. “I think so. He still blames you for being in jail. He said if it weren’t for you pressing charges, he wouldn’t have spent the last seventeen years behind bars.”
“But I didn’t press charges against him,” she whispered as her grip on Gator’s hand tightened.
“I know.” Raine sighed.
“Then who did?” she asked. “And why is he blaming me for something he did?”
Raine looked away for a moment then looked back at her. “My mother and father pressed charges against him. After he attacked my dad, everyone knew there was no helping him then. We didn’t know what else to do. You almost died the night your son died. You were so very close but something or someone held you to this world. I know Gator never left your side the whole time you were in the coma. He held your hand and he whispered to you for hours. I don’t know if you two had something going before then or not. It doesn’t matter and I don’t care. My family and I tried to reason with Bulldog long before that night. It didn’t do us any good but we did try. We were all worried about the both of you.”
Reva looked at Gator then back to Raine. “Me and Gator weren’t together when I was married to your brother. I couldn’t look at anyone else. Bulldog was just looking for anything he could imagine to humiliate me, or beat on me. Sometimes he made shit up, just to put me further under his thumb.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I remember being in the coma. I hurt so bad that I just wanted to give into the pain, just to make it go away. I didn’t think I had anything to live for, then I would feel someone take my hand and talk to me. I didn’t know who it was but the voice in my head told me I was safe. That he would protect me and no one would ever hurt me again.” She glanced over at Gator then smiled. “His face was the first thing I saw when I came out of the coma and when he spoke to me, I knew the voice in my head was his. Then he smiled at me. Hell, I didn’t even know his name but I felt safe with him but after Bulldog, I didn’t know if I could trust him or not.”
Gator turned to Raine. “I’d seen her around the compound but Bulldog watched her too close for anyone to even speak to her. When she wasn’t with Bulldog she was with another family member. When they took her away in the ambulance, it broke my heart. Bulldog really hurt her that night and the first time I saw her in the hospital, all I wanted was to gather her in my arms and hold her. The doctors told us she was very close to death and I couldn’t let her go. I sat down and took her hands and begged her not to leave this earth.” Shaking his head, he stared at Raine. “We hadn’t even spoken to each other before then. She belonged to another man and I respected that, but after what he did to her, she no longer belonged to him.”
Raine nodded then turned to Reva. “We knew something was going on, but we never suspected it was drugs. Or that it would get to the point it did. Bulldog was growing more and more paranoid. I’m sorry to say we thought you were stepping out on him. We were wrong about that, we were wrong about a lot of things back then. It took Bulldog almost beating you to death to get us to realize that. And you will never know how sorry we were that night.” He paused then went on, “There was such a look of terror on your face when he dragged you back that we all knew you were innocent of whatever he said you did. We could see it finally, but then was too late.”
“Bulldog told me that no one would believe me if I ever told the truth about him,” Reva admitted quietly. “He said I was just a runaway looking for a thrill and he belonged. He told me he married me because he felt sorry for me but no one would ever take my word over his and because we were married and he could do whatever he wanted to me. He told me he could even kill me and no one would care. He said he could dump my body where no one could find it and he would never go to jail because he was a Moore.”
Raine shook his head. “He might have been right about that at one point, but not then. Not that night. He crossed a line and you paid the price. I am so sorry about that. We all were, we just never knew how to say the words. I guess we were too proud to admit it but we were wrong.”
“Is that why you gave us this warning?” Gator asked.
Raine nodded. “I also wanted both of you to know the whole family will stand with you against Bulldog. None of us have communicated with him in years. He keeps writing us but we haven’t written back. My mom sends his letters back unopened. Bulldog hates that but she keeps doing it. He finally quit writing her five years ago.”
“So how do you know he’s getting out if you haven’t answered his letters?” Reva asked.
Raine shrugged. “Bulldog keeps writing, hoping that one day, someone will answer him. I also have a guard friend that keeps track of him for me. He is still my brother despite what he did.”
“So did he tell you what he’s going to do when he gets out?” Reva asked.
“Yeah, he did.” Raine nodded. “He says he’s coming to find you. He was really mad that you served him divorce papers while he was in prison.”
Reva began to shake. Her skin paled and she would have pulled away from Gator if he would have released her hand, but he didn’t. He held her tight. She looked at him with tears in her eyes.
“We shouldn’t have to run. We have a good life here, you and me,” Gator told her softly. “We aren’t going to run away from this.”
“No you aren’t,” Deke finally spoke. “This whole club will stand behind you. Bulldog won’t even get close to you ever again.”
“We’ll stand with you too, if you’ll have us,” Raine added. “Not only our family but the whole damn MC.”
“What?” Reva whispered.
Raine nodded. “You heard me right. The whole Satan’s Bastards MC is ready and willing to stand behind whatever you want to do. Most of them remember that night and the new guys have heard the stories. No one wants to forget and we all carry a bit of the shame from that night. I heard from Hawkeye last week and he told me to tell you they would stand with you against Bulldog. He is going to be stripped of his colors as soon as he gets out. Hawkeye said they shou
ld have done it sooner, but they needed to wait until he came out to do it.”
“What shame are you talking about?” Gator asked.
“Our world may be tough and I’ll be the first one to admit the MC doesn’t always follow the law but we’re supposed to have a code to live by,” Raine explained. “We protect our women and the innocent. Reva was both and we didn’t protect her well enough. Oh don’t get me wrong, some women don’t deserve our protection but Reva wasn’t one of them, and not one of us stood up for her, until you put two bullets into my brother.” Rain looked at Gator and suggested, “It might have been better for everyone if your aim had been a little bit better that night.”
Gator shook his head. “I didn’t want him dead that night or believe me, he would have been. I just wanted to stop him from hurting her. His judgment wasn’t on me.”
Tears rolled down Reva’s cheek unchecked. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. All these years she’d been living in fear and now, she knew she had nothing to fear at all. “The only thing I want from Bulldog is a divorce. That and to be left alone. I just want him out of my life forever.”
Raine smiled. “Then somehow, we’ll make that happen. I can’t promise it will be easy but it will happen.”
“God, I hope so,” she whispered.
“If you ever do get the divorce, you won’t be single very long,” Gator promised. “The laws are better now for this kind of thing, ya know. I’ll finally get to put my ring on your finger.”
Reva smiled. “And I would be more than happy to accept. I’ve wanted nothing more for as long as I can remember. I love you old man.”
~* * * *~
Three hundred forty three miles away in Warren, Maine the large double doors of the state prison opened and a lone man walked out. He was a tall man, his long brown and grey hair tied back into a ponytail, hidden under a stocking cap. His jeans were worn and they barely fit him anymore but they were what he’d worn the day he came here. His t-shirt was a little tight.
Bulldog had beefed up while he sat behind bars all these years. He also wore his MC cut, proclaiming to the whole world he was a member of the Satan’s Bastards motorcycle club. In his hand was a duffle bag, issued by the prison. Inside the bag were the things he had in his cell for the last seventeen years.
There wasn’t much in the bag, a couple pair of pants, a couple t-shirts, four pair of underwear and socks. A stack of letters, each bearing the stamp, Return to Sender and a set of legal papers marked, Dissolution of Marriage.
He heard the door close behind him and he took a deep breath. The air outside the prison had a different scent to it. It was the scent of freedom. He lifted his eyes and found the group of people waiting for him.
His eyes found those of his father, Daniel Moore, otherwise known as Black Jack. Two of his brothers were there as well. Quincy and Patrick, otherwise known as Gambler and Judge respectively. There were three members of his old MC waiting there as well. Razor, Beaner and the man they called Hyde.
Everyone was seventeen years older but Bulldog noticed, no one had changed much over the years. The only noticeable difference was the grey in their hair. Although he thought his father had aged a bit since he’d last seen him.
He walked over to his family and held out his hand. When no one grasped it, he raised an eyebrow at their lack of greeting. “What the fuck?” he called out. “What is this? Aren’t you happy to see me free of that fucking place?”
“We would be if you hadn’t earned what put you in there,” Patrick told him.
Bulldog snapped his head to stare at his brother. Very slowly, he turned and saw the expressions on his father and other brother’s face. “Is that what you guys truly believe? That I earned those seventeen years in prison?”
“Yes son,” his father told him quietly. “You did earn them. You did the deed that put you here. No one else did.”
Bulldog’s hands tightened on the duffle bag he gripped. “If my wife hadn’t pressed charges, I wouldn’t have been here at all. She put me in this place.”
“No son, she didn’t.” Black Jack shook his head.
“Yes old man, she did,” Bulldog insisted.
“She wasn’t the one who press charges against you,” Judge told him.
“What are you talking about?” Bulldog frowned. “She had to be the one.”
“But she wasn’t,” Black Jack insisted. “She was in a coma for the first three weeks after the assault, fighting for her life.” He glanced over at his other two sons and then he stared back at Bulldog. “Your mother and I pressed charges against you.”
“Along with me, Gambler, Raine and Hound,” Judge informed him. “Us and everyone who was there that night. After what you did, we thought you’d be safer in custody than out on the streets.” He paused then added, “The fact you were found guilty seemed right when everything came out in court.”
“Well fuck you all then!” Bulldog’s monumental temper flashed into rage. He turned to his father and asked, “Is that why Mom never answered any of my letters all this time? Is that why she isn’t here now?”
Black Jack nodded. “We tried to bring you boys up to respect the MC and the laws. You betrayed that and she couldn’t take it. You brought shame to our family and dragged our name through the mud. And you did it knowingly. She felt you turned your back on us long before we did you.” He paused to glare into his son’s eyes. “When we became aware of everything you had done over the years, she hung her head in shame. In all the years I’ve known that woman I’ve never seen her look so defeated, but that day in court, she was broken and I blame you for that.”
“But you taught us all our lives that family stood together no matter what,” Bulldog spat out.
“You crossed the line and never once thought about the consequences, did you?” Black Jack asked. “You broke the family bond, not just once but several times and you didn’t even care. You lied to us time and time again and thought we’d never find out. Well we did find out. We found out about every time you used and abused your young wife. But we didn’t hear it from her, we found the hospital records. In the seven years you were married, you sent her to the hospital twenty seven times. And she never said a word.” Black Jack stepped closer to his son. “I taught you boys better than that. I taught you to never strike a woman, never take your anger out on your wife because that made you a monster. I also taught you boys to never take drugs and by the time I found out you were an addict, it was too dammed late to stop you from killing your son. You did all that, YOU Harry, no one else. That’s on you.” He stepped back. “Maybe I didn’t want to think my son could do something as horrible as what happened and that’s on me. I’ll take the blame for that but know this Harry, if you want back in this family that’s something you have to earn back. You have to show us that we matter to you as much as you matter to us.”
“What are you saying?” Bulldog stared back at him.
“I’m saying that unless you can prove this is truly behind you and you want to start over with a clean slate, you aren’t welcome to come home.” His father glared at him.
Bulldog was stunned. His father’s words cut him deep. He glanced at his two brothers and they wore the same expression ad their dad did. “Does that go for you two as well?”
Gambler and Judge nodded but didn’t say anything.
Then he looked over at his friends. They stared back with no expression in their eyes. Their arms were crossed over their chests but not one of them greeted him like they were glad to see him. “Why are you guys here?” he finally asked.
“Hawkeye wants to see you,” Razor replied. “We’re here to take you to him.”
Bulldog snorted. “So the President of the club can’t even be bothered to see me now.”
“Hawkeye is the President,” Razor countered.
“What happened to Sam Tory? This used to be his club.”
“Sam left to join Deke in New York. That was almost a year ago,” Hyde spoke up now. “He’s a gran
dpa now.”
Bulldog snorted. “I don’t give a shit.”
“That’s been your problem all along hasn’t it?” Judge asked. “If it doesn’t involve you, you just don’t give a shit.”
Bulldog glared at his brother. “Fuck you.”
Judge turned and walked back over to the truck his brother, father and himself came in. He got in and slammed the door shut.
Without saying another word, Black Jack and Gambler joined him. Bulldog watched as the truck tore out of the parking lot. When he could no longer see it, Bulldog turned and made his way over to the three men standing to his left. Hanging the duffle bag on the back bar of his bike, he swung his leg over the seat and started the engine.
They left the parking lot as a group and none of them moved away from Bulldog as they drove back the seventy miles that separated Warren from Bangor. When the four of them came into the compound of the Satan’s Bastards MC, Bulldog noticed everyone watching his arrival.
He could see their expressions and it did not warm his soul. When they parked in front of the clubhouse, people began gathering around them. No one said anything but they formed a barrier around him. He had no choice but to walk into the clubhouse.
Bulldog didn’t get a good feeling as he walked through the men standing there. There was a group of women in the back and the men stood between them and him.
When he came to the table in front of Hawkeye, the other man just stared at him for a moment. Hawkeye finally got to his feet but he didn’t reach out his hand. Instead, he nodded at Bulldog, then he glanced around at the others. “Bulldog, glad to see you made it out of that place.”
“What is this Hawkeye?” he asked. “Why was I escorted here without a word said as to why?”
“Because you betrayed this club over seventeen years ago and this is your reckoning.” Hawkeye looked him in the eyes. “This should have happened a long time ago.” He hesitated then asked, “We need your colors.”
