“There’s four prospects up there. I’ll bring two with me and send two back. They need to change shifts too.”
“Layne…”
“I gave an order,” I said. “You look like shit. Go back to the clubhouse. There’s enough going on already.”
“If I leave, I’m alone.”
“Be alone,” I said.
“I’ll wait out here for you.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “Look alive though. Someone catches you sleeping, they’ll cut your throat.”
“That’ll keep me awake.” Brett took out his phone and his thumbs flew around the screen. He turned it around and showed me a video of a girl taking care of a guy with her mouth. “This’ll do.”
“Christ,” I muttered.
I went into the hospital and up to Pep’s floor.
I found all four prospects awake, drinking coffee. The second they saw me they all jumped to their feet.
“How is he?” I asked.
“The same, sir.”
I let the sir thing slide. I wasn’t in the mood to beat down on some prospects right now.
“Doctors? Nurses?”
“Were just here a short while ago. Nothing’s changed. Doctor mentioned they need to speak to next of kin. Might be time to make a decision.”
“Jesus,” I said.
That’s all I needed now. Carry that weight on my shoulders.
I put my hand to the door.
“Sir?” one of the prospects asked.
I looked at him. Good looking kid. With glasses. Should have been working at a bank or something. Not trying to earn the cut in a MC.
“What?”
“He’s brain dead,” the prospect said. “He’s basically dead already.”
“Are you a fucking doctor?”
“No, sir, I’m not. I was in med school. I dropped out.”
“Good to know.”
I pushed at the door and entered the room.
It was dark and quiet, just like the last time I was there. The curtain was closed and I slid it open, the little hooks scratching against the track, sounding like nails on a chalkboard.
And there was Pep.
The same as before. Just like the fucking prospect said - Pep was as good as dead. There was nothing happening in there. The machines were keeping him alive. The machines were forcing his heart to pump, his blood to flow. He was long gone in la-la land or whatever the fuck he believed in after death.
I approached the bed and touched the railing. “You old bastard. Still fighting through this. If you’re gone, then be gone. There’s nothing here for you.”
Of course Pep didn’t respond.
This wasn’t some goddamn TV show where I’d say something and he’d magically pop back to life. The bullets had done their damage.
“The club’s at war. I’m sure you’ve gone through it yourself many times. I’ll find who did this to you and I’ll put a bullet in their head. In your honor. You need to let go. You need to rest once and for all. No more fucking machines doing the work. That’s not how you want to do it.”
The door opened.
It was a nurse.
“Med check,” she said.
I stared at Pep as she messed the bags feeding fluids and meds to him. She touched a few things. The machines beeped a few time.
“How is he?” I asked.
“He’s here,” the nurse said.
“He’s dead.”
“In a sense,” the nurse said. “I’m sorry.”
“He means nothing to me. Don’t be sorry.”
“Oh.”
“If the plug was pulled, how long would he live?” I asked.
“Depends on the person. Sometimes it’s fast, sometimes it’s not.”
“When can I talk to a doctor?”
“I can check for you.”
“Do that. Thanks.”
The nurse left the room and it was just me and Pep again. The room was so calm and quiet. Oakville, however, was anything but. It was swelling. I knew the sense because I’d lived it many times in Brocke. Sometimes it would be quiet and then all hell would break loose.
That was the nature of this beast we were all riding with. The beast was death and death was everywhere. Whether we liked it or not. Guys who were afraid of death were taken first. Guys who believed they couldn’t die were next. I knew death waited to grab me and drag me away. So I had to face reality, face what was in front of me, and when death came…
Death came.
Something happened with Pep.
His body jumped for a few seconds and then he looked relaxed. The machines all stopped functioning. The heart monitor went flatline. It was a single beep that rang out through the room.
I blinked fast, trying to come to terms that I had just watched Pep die. The old son of a bitch finally let go. I touched his shoulder and squeezed.
“Rest easy, brother,” I whispered. “I’ll take care of the rest down here.”
I heard a clap and I jumped. Then another clap, and another. I turned and watched someone entering the room, clapping. Shoes on the floor, one after another, the silhouette coming to life, revealing itself.
Well, himself.
“Nicolas,” I whispered.
The mafia member stood there in a perfect suit. “Layne.”
I went right up to him and grabbed his shirt. “You fucking ever look at Shelby again…”
“Hey, hey,” he said. “Hey. Don’t make me the enemy. I came with favors. Gifts to you, Layne. My friend.”
“Fuck you.”
“I didn’t hurt her. I reminded her who I am. Who she is. And I got her out of there, didn’t I?”
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I’m everywhere. All the time. Did you meet my personal nurse?”
“What?”
Nicolas grinned. “She took good care of Pep.”
I looked back at Pep. Then at Nicolas. “You fucking killed him.”
“I didn’t kill him,” Nicolas said. “I aided him. He didn’t feel a thing. No pain, I swear. We’re not all that violent, when we don’t want to be. A quick little drip in an IV bag and he’s gone.”
I reached back for my gun and Nicolas put a hand up.
“Layne, take it easy,” he said. “You know he was never going to wake up. I also have two guys out there ready to come in and slit your throat.”
“Tommy and Paul?”
“Yeah.”
They were the two thugs that beat the shit out of me when Nicolas ordered my kidnapping. I would have loved to have taken on both of them. Fight them to the death.
I gritted my teeth.
“I have prospects out there,” I said. “They’ll die for the MC.”
“I know,” Nicolas said. “They did.”
I stepped forward and pushed Nicolas out of the way. I tore open the door. Tommy and Paul stood there, grinning at me. Guns in their hands. There were long silencers attached the weapons. And the carnage waited for me.
All four fucking prospects were dead. A bullet through the head. Blood and brains on the wall, on the floor. All of them on the floor, gone.
I turned and walked back into the hospital room.
“I’m sorry, Layne,” Nicolas said. “I knew they weren’t patched in. They were prospects. They come and go, right? None of them were going to get a full cut, right?”
I didn’t speak. I debated what to do. I could kill Nicholas right now. By doing that though, I’d be killing myself. I’d be killing the MC. Oakville would be decimated. And then they would spread. The war on territory was a war of respect. Give and take. Fight when needed.
“That was my second gift,” Nicolas said. “You don’t need prospects like that. They didn’t even see me coming. And when they did, they sat there. I told them I was the Medical Director. They didn’t even realize Tommy and Paul were there with guns.”
“I’ll ask again,” I said calmly, “why are you here?”
“Because you still haven’t li
stened. And I’m getting annoyed.”
“Is that so?”
“Kill the bitch,” Nicolas said. “I gave you the name. The place. You know what to do, Layne.”
“I’m working on it. In case you didn’t notice, we’ve been having problems.”
“The world has problems.”
“It’s not exactly easy to just leave Oakville.”
“Not my problem,” Nicolas said.
“Get out of here. You’ve made your point. Remember what I…”
“Wait! There’s one more for you. One more gift. Me to you, Layne. Friend to friend.”
Nicolas stepped to the side and reached down. He lifted a bag. It was a black bag. He held it out and nodded.
“Take it,” he said.
“Is this a bomb?”
“Yeah. I’m going to blow you and me up.”
I shook my head. I took the bag. It was heavy. I opened it and there was a familiar scent.
“So, this is going to cause big problems for you,” Nicolas said. “This is my final warning. Next time I come around, I won’t let Shelby go. I won’t just kill prospects. I’ll go for patched in members. Don’t fuck with me, Layne. Don’t ruin this.”
I stared into the bag.
My hands started to shake.
“What the fuck did you do?” I asked.
“Kidnapped the VP of the Mountain Killers. Cut off his head.”
I looked back down in the bag.
Sure enough, there was Stryker’s head… staring up at me with his lifeless eyes.
*PART TWO*
1.
(Layne)
Brett put his mouth into the bend of his elbow. He shook his head as I threw the last shovel of dirt on Stryker’s severed head. I patted the dirt and tossed the shovel into a second hole. I kicked dirt over it and then looked at my work.
Nobody would know. Nobody would check. Maybe someday someone would be fucking around would dig up what would be a skull. That was if Oakville became a corporate town and was taken over by commercial and residential whores looking to make money.
“Christ, that’s nasty,” Brett said.
“Come on, brother, that can’t be the first severed head you’ve ever seen,” I said with a grin.
“No, it’s not. But it’s the first I’ve seen buried. Without the rest of the body. Where the fuck is the rest of the body?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
That’s all I had to say on the subject.
A purple light spread across the horizon.
Fuck, it was morning.
I got on my ride and rode with the sunrise behind me. I had a knack for preferring the darkness.
2.
(Layne)
I opened the bedroom door and found Shelby in bed with another woman. It was definitely an interesting sight to see. I slowly shut the door and considered my options. Maybe I needed this, right? Fuck both of them. Tell Shelby what I wanted her to do to this other chick in the bed.
Then again, who the fuck was the chick? Why was she in my goddamn room?
I walked around the bed and saw another interesting sight. A mostly empty bottle of vodka, a container of cranberry juice, and a bloody towel. I glanced over my shoulder, wondering what the hell had happened last night while I was gone.
Shelby was on her side, the other chick with her ass almost touching Shelby’s. I crouched down and brushed hair out of her face and then kissed her forehead. I put my hand to her shoulder and shook her head.
“Hey, sweetheart,” I said. “Wake up.”
Shelby stirred and groaned. Her eyes fluttered and opened.
They were drunk eyes. They were eyes that were going to hurt like hell all day with a wicked headache.
“What did you do last night?” I asked.
“What?”
“You’re not in bed alone. And I’m not in bed with you.”
Shelby then jumped up. She scrambled to grab the covers and check, as though she expected a man to be in the bed with her. I quickly stood up and grabbed the blankets, tearing them off both them.
Now I was fucking pissed.
Was there a chance some guy fucked my girl in my bed?
My girl? Really?
I gritted my teeth and threw the covers across the room.
Shelby was fully clothed. The other woman was missing her panties. The other woman’s ass hugged a tight pair of lacy pink panties too damn perfect not to look at.
“What the fuck is this?” I asked.
The other woman stirred and looked at me. Her eyes went wide and she jumped up. Now I had two women sitting up in my bed, staring at me. I was at the foot of the bed. Christ, the temptation to just get this going was greater than I figured it would be. I wanted to tear their clothes off and watch then slither up and down each other.
Fuck.
“Who the fuck are you?” I asked.
“Amber,” Shelby said. “She’s… a friend.”
“What’s with the bloody towel?”
“Shelby kicked me in the mouth,” Amber said.
“Why?”
“Because I smacked her a few times.”
“What the fuck…”
“Layne, it’s okay,” Shelby said.
“I used to be with Finn,” Amber said.
“Not anymore,” Shelby cut in. “She thought… it doesn’t matter.”
“Two drunk chicks in my bed matters to me,” I said. “After the fucking night I had.”
“You just got back from your meeting?” Shelby asked.
“Club business,” I said. “Nobody else’s business. Not with some strange bitch here.”
“Another person calling me a bitch,” Amber said.
“What happened to your fucking pants?” I asked.
“I took them off. I got sweaty. Sorry.”
“Get out of my bed,” I said. “I can’t believe I just said that to a woman.”
“Hey!” Shelby said. “You wouldn’t…”
I wasn’t in the mood for joking. I walked to Amber and grabbed her by the waist. I put her little ass right to my cock and stared at Shelby.
“What?” I asked. “Does this make you jealous?”
Shelby’s face burned red.
I ran my cheek along Amber’s hair. I brushed my scruffy face against her smooth cheek. She jumped a little. My cock throbbed in my jeans.
“I can smell her getting wet,” I said.
“No, I’m not,” Amber said.
“Don’t fucking lie,” I whispered.
Amber swallowed.
“It’s okay,” Shelby said. “I get wet when you touch me.”
I slipped my right hand around to Amber’s front. My fingers crept down, outside her panties. My fingers curled, pressed, pulling at her. She jumped and whimpered when I touched her melting center.
“That’s what I thought,” I said.
Shelby looked ready to explode. It definitely bothered her. I liked it though.
“Maybe I’ll keep going,” I said. “Finger this sweet pussy right in front you, Shelby. You want to watch?”
Shelby leaned forward and crawled to the end of the bed. She propped up on her knees and reached for my hand. I let her pull it away, wondering what she was going to do next.
“No,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
I raised and eyebrow and watched as Shelby pulled the front of Amber’s panties down. Her fingers disappeared between Amber’s legs and Amber let out a groan.
Well, fuck, I guess I’m not getting sleep yet.
3.
(Shelby)
His grip was so tight. Pulling at me as he thrust. Burying his cock inside me. The water from the shower hit my back. The room spun as I wasn’t sure if I was drunk, tired, or just really hungover. Layne’s other hand squeezed tight at my shoulder, keeping me right where he wanted me. I felt his body smacking against me, harder, faster, grunting with each heavy pump of his beautiful dick.
It had been the only way to not explode. I had to get his hand
off Amber. That fucking whore. Not that it was her fault, but whatever. I touched between her legs, barely even putting a finger into her body before Layne pulled her away and tossed her out of the room. I guess he didn’t want me to touch anyone but him.
Fine by me.
“Fuck, sweetheart,” Layne groaned. “I love your fucking pussy.”
He slammed himself deep into me and held there, coming. Each pulse of his cock filling me more and more, sending warm sensations from my core and spreading through the rest of my body.
When he finished, his hands slid up and around, cupping my breasts. He then stood me up, his cock still in me. He was still throbbing, as was I. His right hand came up to my throat and he held there. His rigid, steel cut chest and belly pressed to my back.
“Fuck,” he said. “You never touch someone else without my permission.”
“She attacked me last night,” I said. “So I fought back.”
“You busted up her face?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Then you got drunk with her?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I was lonely. She talked about the club.”
“What about?”
“That Finn had been fucking her. And he kicked her out. She thought I was her replacement.”
“Were you?”
I hesitated and said, “No.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me.”
“I’m not fucking anyone but you, Layne.”
Layne pulled away from me, including his cock out from between my legs. I gasped and fell forward. I put my hands out and caught myself, my legs bending. I ached and throbbed so hard I lost my breath. I felt everything rushing out of my body with a pleasure filled sensation that left me trembling.
I stood and turned, facing Layne as the water beat on him.
“What happened last night?”
“Pep’s dead.”
“What?”
“You heard me. He’s dead. I went to check on him. He was brain dead. Then he let go. Don’t ask about it.”
I touched Layne’s chest. “Why are you hiding from me?”
He grabbed my hands and held them. “I’m trying to figure this out. I’m not fucking hiding. I’m right here, sweetheart.”
I nodded. “I know the meeting is none of my business. But can I do anything to help?”
SAVAGE HEART (Layne & Shelby Book Two) (A Devil Call MC Book) Page 7
