by Malcom, Anne
Jagger
Hansen eyed him, unblinking at the blood he guessed was covering his face, his skinned knuckles, ripped shirt. It wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence for brothers to work out their shit with their fists.
In fact, it was the only way brothers worked out their shit. It wasn’t like they talked about their fuckin’ feelings over bullshit cocktails or something. That’s not the way men worked. That sure as shit wasn’t the way the Sons of Templar worked at least.
But it was necessary to acknowledge shit that came up between brothers. Sort it immediately. Because rifts could fracture a club. Could fucking ruin it. Especially when you needed to be prepared to die for your brother. Even if you felt like killing him.
It was growing pains too. The club was new. A mix up of nomads, of patched members from other charters willing to relocate to repair New Mexico.
Not everyone was gonna fit.
Not everyone was here for the right reasons.
They’d weeded out most of that at the beginning.
It was ugly.
But Jagger had thought they were getting there. Had warmed to most of them, since he’d known most of them, not counting the prospects. And he thought the prospects had the makings of good brothers.
But Swiss and Hades.
He hadn’t warmed to them.
Mostly because they were cold-blooded motherfuckers. Exactly what the club needed at times like this.
But not what fucking Caroline needed to see. She didn’t need to be breathing their fucking air, let alone watching Swiss torture someone.
And Claw. He was as ruthless as them all, but at least there was a bit of human in his monster. He had decided not to kill him for putting his hands on Caroline after seeing his absolute change with her once he heard her story. He knew he had her back. Liked her. Maybe too much. But that worked for him right now. Another man, another brother, to keep an eye on her. He’d deal with that man, that brother, for having that eye too south of her hips and north of her ribs at a later date.
He cracked his bleeding knuckles under his president’s stare.
“You feel better?” Hansen asked calmly.
“Better?” he hissed. “You think a couple of punches is gonna make up for the shit he pulled? This is a serious fuckin’ offense. Showin’ our business to a civilian. A journalist at that. My—” he cut himself off before he said ‘his woman.’ Though that might’ve been what she was. Always. But not something he could ever say out loud. He didn’t deserve to lay claim to her out loud. “There needs to be a full table.” He looked around the empty seats. Hansen had brought him in here after three brothers and one prospect managed to tear him off Swiss.
The fucker grinned at him with bloodstained teeth.
Then he’d lunged again.
Jagger had knocked a tooth out. It was embedded in his hand until he’d yanked it out and tossed it at Swiss’ boots.
Hansen didn’t glance around the table. “She’s invited to write her story,” he replied.
Jagger gritted his teeth. “Yeah, and I thought it was bullshit about fuckin’ parties, club girls. Nothin’ real. It was nothin’ but a farce to make sure she wasn’t gonna rat.” He paused, understanding washing over him. “This was you,” he clipped through his teeth. He had to hold himself still. Very fucking still. He didn’t trust himself to even twitch a fucking finger because he might start attacking his president. His best friend. His brother.
His best friend and his brother had ordered to have his woman taken to watch a man be tortured and murdered. He’d ordered Caroline to have more scars on her soul.
Hansen watched him. Waited. As if he expected him to lunge. Hansen read people. He’d known Jagger for all the years he’d been at the club, which mean he knew him. Which was why Jagger was so fucking shocked at the clear knowledge that he was behind this.
“This needed to be done.”
He’d always admired Hansen’s ability to stay calm in the most volatile of situations. Thought it was what made him a great brother, father, and president.
But right now, he wanted to wring his fucking neck for it.
He slammed his fists down on the table. “Like fuck it did!” he roared. “Caroline did not need to see that shit. That’s not shit women should have to fucking see. Not her.”
Hansen’s eyes softened at the corners. With something resembling pity.
That was worse than his trademark calm.
“Agree with you on that one. Good women should never have to see the ugliness of this world.” He paused long and hard, likely thinking of his own woman, what she’d seen. What she’d done. “Unfortunately, it’s the best and most undeserving of women that see some of the ugliest shit that would undo even most men. That’s what makes them into something more than good women. And I know you’ve become educated on who Caroline is. Macy showed me her reports. This isn’t the worst she’s seen, brother. Not by far.”
Jagger struggled not to flinch.
“Yeah, it may not have been the worse she’s seen,” he gritted out. “But that wasn’t here. On her home soil. In a club that I’m fuckin’ in.”
Hansen didn’t even blink. “You don’t think she knows who you are? Exactly what you’ve become?”
Jagger couldn’t hide his flinch. “Yeah.” He stood. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Then he walked out, before he punched his best friend, before he broke down in front of his president.
He didn’t stop walking until he found himself on his bike.
Then he roared off, seeking the solace the road gave him.
But he found nothing.
Definitely not solace.
He’d locked that in his bedroom at the clubhouse.
Chapter Ten
Caroline
“You’re not gonna slap me, are you?” I asked, sighing at the person who approached me with a hostile glint in their eye. “It’s been a long night.”
That was something of an understatement. Working the first night after every patched member of the Sons of Templar found out my true identity was nothing short of miserable. Henry still treated me exactly the same, then again, he wasn’t a patched member.
His only comment on it had been a raised brow when I walked in with a prospect behind me. “You’ve got balls, babe,” he commented as I walked behind the bar.
“No, I’ve got ovaries,” I replied.
He grinned. “Well, get those ovaries behind the bar and get to fucking work.”
And that had been that.
That was not that with the rest of the club.
Claw had almost warmed back up to me. But the flirting was definitely gone. I wasn’t sure if that was because the thought of hitting on a rat was repulsive to him or if Liam had done or said something to him about it. It was not something to dwell on. So Claw didn’t flirt with me when he came up to the bar. Though he still smiled at me when I gave him his beers.
Not like Luther, an older, tattooed and muscled man with mean eyes and shoulder length hair, who not only glared at me but had snatched my outstretched wrist and yanked me so my mid-section pressed painfully against the edge of the bar. “You might have Hansen fooled with your doe eyes, and Jagger because you’ve obviously got him by the dick. But I’m not softened by doe eyes, and you’re a hot piece of ass. Doesn’t mean I won’t hesitate, won’t fuckin’ revel in taking you down the second I get wind of you goin’ behind the club’s back.”
His breath smelled of smoke, no booze. No one in the Sons had to be drunk to hand out death threats and brutality anyway.
“You don’t let her go in the next two seconds, we’re gonna have problems,” an iron voice informed him.
He snapped his gaze at Liam, who had murder in his eyes. Menace. And horrifying coldness. Something I should’ve gotten used to by now, but I couldn’t. Luther didn’t back down, though I guessed that most of the men in this room might’ve from a look like this, a promise of death. Brother or no brother.
He squeeze
d my wrist even tighter so I had to sink my teeth into my lip to stop from crying out.
Then he let it go, snatching his beer, giving me one last sneer before he sauntered off.
I yanked my hand back, glaring at Liam. “I don’t need your protection,” I hissed.
His eyes went to the wrist that was pulsating with red hot pain. “Yes, you do.”
“I don’t want it,” I corrected, moving to mix drinks pointedly with my sore hand. It was agony, but it was better than standing there idle with him staring at me.
“Want it or not, you’re getting it, Peaches.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped.
He didn’t reply. Just gave my wrist another glare and walked off.
He watched me the whole night.
Until he left, some kind of cold promise in his eyes as he looked over his shoulder standing at the exit. Different than the one he gave Luther. Different only because it didn’t promise violence. But it promised death nonetheless.
Elden still sat in the corner of the room, chain-smoking and nursing his second beer of the night. I guessed captors had to have their wits about them. And he had wits. Spending time with Elden, I put him at least early thirties, with a liberal amount of salt in his pepper hair. It worked for him. Big time. Where every single member of the club, prospects included, boasted some kind of ink, usually it covered their bodies, he had none.
He had muscles.
Plenty of those.
He was one of the largest men in the club. That was saying a lot, considering the men in the club were all six foot or over, and almost pure muscle.
He was a hulk, with a rolling Scottish brogue and emptiness behind his eyes. He barely spoke to me. But he watched. Watched in a way that I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to detain me if I tried to run from him. In a way he wouldn’t hesitate to dig my grave. I didn’t find myself afraid of him. I felt somewhat safe in his presence. There was an honesty in it. He was here because he was ordered to be here. He wouldn’t hurt me out of menace. Or pleasure. Only duty.
He’d tensed as the door opened after we were technically closed, and I was gathering dirty glasses. He didn’t completely relax when Scarlett walked through the door, eyes narrowed at me.
She somehow managed to look more dangerous in a snakeskin mini dress than most of the men did in a leather cut. Likely why the prospect stayed alert, because he couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t start clawing my eyes out.
I put the glasses down, straightening, half expecting that too.
She’d got the job for me, after all. Put me in deeper. I’d betrayed her, and the sisterhood that we’d had distantly over the fact we were both here for complicated reasons.
“I’m not gonna slap you,” she said in response to my greeting. Her voice was husky, and not at all friendly.
“Shoot me?”
The corner of her mouth ticked. “Wouldn’t want the prospect to have to clean up the blood.”
I nodded. “Considerate of you.”
“I’m known to be considerate if the occasion calls for it.”
Silence rang out.
She was utilizing one of my own interview tactics, staring blankly, not asking questions that I knew she was here to ask. Usually I weathered well under such silences as I considered myself the master of them. But this bombshell in platforms and perfect red lipstick at three in the morning was beating me with ease.
“I’m sorry,” I said first, breaking the number one rule I lived by as a reporter, never apologize for doing whatever it takes to get the story.
And the other rule I lived by for being a human, as long as I never physically, emotionally or financially hurt someone undeserving, never apologize for doing what it takes to survive.
It wasn’t even like we’d bonded in the weeks since I met her. She was back and forth from the Amber club, her Old Man helping out here by the looks of it, and liaising about whatever was going down.
Scarlett came with him.
We weren’t best friends, didn’t tell each other secrets. But it was something different with a woman like Scarlett. A woman hardened by the world, who didn’t give kindness freely because she’d had to forsake kindness to survive whatever had put the hardness behind her eyes. She saw something in me, likely that same kind of hardness, with a side of hopelessness—I didn’t have a man who looked at me the way her biker did—and she’d given me something she didn’t have to.
She did it as a rare act of kindness and my using that for my story rubbed me the wrong way.
“I look like I’m asking for an apology?” she asked with a scoff. “I’m someone who’s had to do a lot of things to stay alive. Not judging for what you do. Mostly because I’ve been educated that you weren’t out to bring the club down.” She raised her brow. “You were, it’d be a different story, and we’d likely be having this conversation in a basement with you tied to a chair.”
I had to say I was impressed with her steel, and her knowledge of how the world worked. She was likely in on a lot more than the traditional Old Lady might’ve been.
“You’re gonna have to deal with your share of hate, since I don’t think it’s escaped you that you’re not exactly popular right now,” she continued.
“I’ve noticed,” I replied dryly.
“You’re not a woman that’s gonna let that bother you, though,” she said with a chilling certainty. Like she knew me. “No one will hurt you. Not until you give them reason to.”
I nodded.
I knew as much, though the purplish bruising on my wrist spoke somewhat of a different story. Though I couldn’t worry about bruises in a world of bullet wounds and severed fingers.
“Not gonna be your friend,” she continued, walking over to the bar and reaching to snag a bottle of tequila with a wink to Henry. She then snagged two glasses and brought them back over to the table, pouring liberal amounts into them. She sat. Eyed me expectantly.
I did the same, grabbing the glass though I wasn’t much of a drinker. If there was ever a night that I needed tequila, it was this night.
Well, it was eight nights before this, but they all merged into one.
“We’re not friends, but we can be allies,” she said, clinking her glass with mine. “Only if you tell me your story.”
I brought the glass to my lips and let the liquid burn at my throat. I put it down. She refilled it. “I’m not usually the one to tell my story. I’ve made a job out of avoiding my story,” I told her honestly.
She set the bottle down. “Babe, we all try to avoid our stories. Till we have to live them. Tequila works as a good accompaniment to tellin’ your story. Living it—there’s nothing to soften that blow.”
I blinked at the philosophical insight coming from a woman in snakeskin at a biker bar after midnight.
“You some kind of expert on life?”
She laughed, it was throaty and attractive. “If there’s an exact opposite of an expert on life, that’s what I am. No one’s an expert. That’s the big secret. Even the men in the cuts who try to control life the best they can. We got a brutal reminder on Christmas Day that not even the strongest of us can escape death. Or life, depending on how you look at it.”
Her eyes glistened with the same ghosts I’d seen in Hansen’s eyes.
She blinked rapidly and downed her drink. She eyed me. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
I took my shot.
Told my story.
* * *
The bottle of tequila was empty.
I was disturbingly sober.
The tequila wasn’t there to get me drunk, it was there to use as anesthesia to the emotional surgery I had to undergo in order to tell Scarlett my story.
Our story, I guessed.
Though I didn’t think it belonged to either of us anymore.
“Holy shit,” Scarlett said when I was done.
Though I wasn’t done, was I? The story, the one that wasn’t ours, it wasn’t finished, it wasn’t over.
Or may
be it was.
I didn’t know which was worse.
We’d had our happy ending. Ironically the happy ending, the happiest ending under the circumstances, would’ve been if Liam actually died. If he died without having to become...Jagger. And so I didn’t have to see this. Feel this.
But happy endings didn’t exist. Happy ever afters were just stories that weren’t over yet.
“Yeah,” I agreed, trailing my finger around the rim of my empty glass.
I waited for her to curse Liam out, talk about what an asshole he was. She was the kind of woman who didn’t hesitate to call a spade a spade or an outlaw and asshole.
But there was only silence.
“That’s it?” I asked. “You’re not gonna say anything else?”
She shrugged. “No, that’s not it, but anything I say isn’t gonna mean shit since you said it all. And it’s not me that has to do any talking. No, it’s Jagger, after you tell him the story you told me.” She did something I would understand to be very uncharacteristic of her then, reaching over to squeeze my hand. The contact was important not because it wasn’t normal for her. But it was a sharing of something. Of a past that she wouldn’t share with me, not in words at least. It wasn’t sympathy or pity either. It was an acknowledgment of the battles we were both fighting.
“I’m not talking to him,” I said after she let go of my hand. “He doesn’t deserve my explanation. I’m not the one who pretended to be dead. I’m the one who had to bury him.”
“You didn’t bury him, though,” she said. “Not really. From what it sounds like, whether he had really died or not, he would’ve always been alive to you.”
Her words hit me to my core because they came from there. She’d sat there and given me truth I was too cowardly or too blind to see.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” she challenged after a long silence.
“I can’t,” I admitted. “But it’s not that simple.”
“No,” she agreed. “It’s not.”
“What he did...” I trailed off, choking on the truth of it all. “It’s unforgivable.”
