by J. C. Allen
HARD SACRIFICE
J.C ALLEN
SYNOPSIS
I’ve lost everything.
My wife, murdered.
My unborn child, murdered.
A second chance at love, destroyed.
My sanity, ravaged.
But the Black Falcons haven’t taken everything.
Not yet.
Eve is still out there. The club is still there.
I need to pull myself together.
I need to plan my revenge.
But I will stop at nothing.
I’m not going to waste another chance at love.
I’m not going to waste what the club still has.
And I’m not going to waste another moment to destroy the Black Falcons.
Because while I’ve lost everything, I haven’t lost it forever.
Contents
Prologue
1. Derek
2. Eve
3. Derek
4. Eve
5. Derek
6. Eve
7. Derek
8. Eve
9. Derek
10. Eve
11. Derek
12. Eve
13. Derek
14. Eve
15. Derek
16. Eve
17. Derek
18. Eve
Epilogue
Prologue
Two and a Half Years Before
Blood soaked my hands.
As I pulled up to my house in my innocuous Honda Civic, neighbors who didn’t know any better waved to me. The only reason I waved back was because it was dark and no one would know the difference between the blood of my enemies and a dark gardening glove. In this neighborhood, blood only spilled during weed-pulling accidents; but in my world, blood had shed all too frequently.
Hell, the only reason I even had blood on my hands was because the Black Falcons had decided they could take some of my family’s.
I pulled into the driveway, having kept myself composed up to this moment. The drive home from the shop, after our first revenge raid, should have given me a thrill. I’d set out what I meant to do—avenged my brother’s death. And, by extension, my father’s and mother’s.
But it hadn’t done anything of that nature. Instead, it just left me terrified and mortified that the very life I’d tried so hard to leave—a mindset proved by the house I had just pulled up to and the newly-pregnant wife inside—had not only crept back into my life, it had forced its way in, raping any chance of normalcy.
I knew what my father had said on my wedding day. I had heard it and believed it, but I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted to believe that it would never come true.
So fucking much for that.
I quickly glanced, ensuring that our next door neighbors wouldn’t see my splattered leather jacket or jeans as I walked inside. Maggie, whether knowingly or by good accidental fortune, had turned off many of the outdoor lights, giving me as anonymous an entrance as I could really ask for in that moment. I kept my hands close to my sides as I got out of the car, moved to the front entrance, and shut the door to my home behind me.
The very act of doing so seemed to sap all of my energy, everything that I had used to get there. I slumped against the door, head down, only without tears because I had spent them all on the three funerals I’d gone to in the last year.
“Derek?”
I gave a grunt so my wife would know that some random stranger had not just barged into the home. She came down from the top of the stairs, looking as stunningly gorgeous as the day I’d married her, as the day I’d proposed to her, and as the day our childhood friendship had finally matured into something much more special than that. She wasn’t even showing her pregnancy yet, but I knew she’d be just as pretty then as she was now.
“Oh my God, Derek, are you OK?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Wasn’t shot or hurt.”
That much was true, physically speaking. Our attack had been something of a guerrilla, preemptive strike, a vengeful attack on a known drug base in retaliation for my brother’s death. More strikes were coming, but Roost, my brother’s second-in-command and now the man I looked up to the most, had advised us to lay low for a bit, the better to spring the element of surprise once more.
“Derek,” she said in a voice that was sweet enough to calm me but stern enough to tell me she thought I was lying.
“I just don’t know if I’m cut out for this leadership role,” I said, trying to bite my tongue from swearing around her. “Like… Dustin was so good for this. My father was a legend. Meanwhile, all of a sudden, here’s Derek, the son who never wanted to be in the club, who bought a house, took a real legal job, and got married to a beautiful woman. Oh, yeah, that guy? He’s in charge of murdering people, getting soft drugs transported, and maybe even setting up a prostitution ring or two.”
I had to give Maggie credit. For as much of a quiet, normal background as she came from, she rarely flinched when she heard about the club’s life. That was not to say that she wanted to hear all about it—I didn’t need to go into detail on how my brother was executed, details even I wish I didn’t know—but for a woman who grew up far away from the visibility of it and for someone who always begged me to stay out of the life, she could stomach it pretty well.
And this was no different. She came down, sat by me, kissed me on the cheek, and put her head into my shoulder.
“I’m just… I don’t know. I don’t believe in this lifestyle, you know? Like how can I fight and ki… do what I have to do when I don’t believe in this world?”
“Well, what do you believe in?”
It was such a simple question that threw me for such a loop. How had I never asked myself that question? Probably because you never had to.
And the answer was and is so obvious.
Her.
It’s always been about her when you believed in leaving the club. But now?
“I believe in you, babe,” I said.
I started to put my hands up to pull her in for a kiss, but decided she probably didn’t want her nice white sweater also stained with any blood, let alone Black Falcon blood.
“What else?”
What else?
Isn’t that enough?
“I love you and I know you love me,” she said, as if able to read my mind—we were married for a couple of years now and had known each other since we were kids, after all. “But surely, you must believe in more, right? What would you do if I was gone?”
“Don’t say that,” I said, angry at the words but not at Maggie for saying them—I could never imagine myself angry at Maggie for any reason.
“Derek, you and I know that it’s possible,” she said, drawing a grimace and a near-resurgence of tears. “You’re a Knight. It came back. It’s not ideal, but we live with it. So what are you going to do about it? What else do you believe in? If I’m gone, do you just crumble and let your life rot?”
Probably.
“No,” I said. “No. I… I guess I still want to live up to my father’s name. And protect my brother’s dignity. Avenge their deaths.”
“Then there you go,” Maggie said.
She said it was if I had just solved two plus two. If only it were that simple. If only life was nothing more than math equations. I may not have been the math whiz of our school, but even a dolt like me could understand that.
“Legacy and love are two of the most powerful things in this world,” Maggie said. “You loved your brother and your father and you love me. You love the legacy your father left. As long as you look to what you love, you can fight for that. Mmmk?”
I mumbled something in response. Maggi
e kissed me once more, stood up, and then offered me something stunning.
A hand.
“You probably don’t want to touch my hands,” I warned.
“Ahh, it’s nothing,” she said. “Let’s just call it an accident while cutting meat. Let’s go get you cleaned up.”
For the first time since… well, who the hell knew when, I smiled. I really did love my wife. And of course, I loved my family.
I wasn’t sure if the idea of love enough was reason to fight in the literal sense. I wasn’t sure if the idea of love was enough to get me back into the club. I wasn’t sure if the idea of love could make me go beyond the “socially acceptable” norms.
But maybe someday, I would understand what love could do to push a man into being comfortable with the most uncomfortable realms of life.
Nine Months Before
“Aww, I guess another one of your little dates didn’t work out, huh? Boo, hoo, poor little Eve, her slutty little reputation caught up to her once more.”
I’d had it with Chuck.
I’d tolerated Chuck for a long, long time now. Tolerated probably wasn’t the right word—barely yielded to, perhaps. There were few words that captured how I actually felt about my brother. I felt… on the one hand, obligated because he was family, but on the other, that was literally the only thing preventing me from getting revenge on him.
I wasn’t a particularly vengeful type, but this one was pushing my limits.
“Why do you keep doing this,” I growled in the parking lot where he, once again, had seemed to stalk me, intent on making my life hell.
“I should say, why do you keep doing what you do,” Chuck said, his voice light and mocking at first but growing darker by the second. “Why do you keep playing the victim, when you always can sneak your way out of any trouble? Why do you manipulate all of these men, pretending to be the damsel in distress, when all it takes to get out of your situation is a few well-placed tears? Why, oh, why, Eve?”
“You know I actually like these men.”
“Sure, like their dicks, knowing its the key to their minds,” Chuck said.
My fists balled up. I wanted so badly to hit my brother—no, he didn’t deserve the title of “my brother.” That was reserved for someone I actually loved, like our deceased father. Not some asshole like this.
“I don’t know why you’re so mad at me, Eve, your actions lead you to your current situation. I just speak the truth and let the world see you for who you are. A whore, a slut, a girl whose legs—”
In all of my life, I think I’d hit Chuck maybe once, an act that immediately landed me in trouble from my parents. Ironically enough, Chuck was right on one regard. I was usually the one out of trouble and he the one in it.
But he never understood that that was because I learned from my mistakes quickly. I apologized for the errors of my ways. Perhaps I could get a little feisty and a little too attached at times, but I always wanted the best for others.
Chuck, though? Nothing.
And in that moment, hearing Chuck once again shift the victim perspective on me for something that he had done, I was tired of getting mindfucked. I was tired of him playing games. I knew outside of the moment what he was doing, but I was tired of his tricks confusing me in the moment.
So I slapped him.
Hard.
So hard, in fact, I began to see his eyes well.
It was the first time I’d hit him in years. And the surprise on his face showed.
“You keep pushing me so hard, Chuck, and you’re going to find even I have a breaking point,” I said. “I’m tired of your bullshit. Someday, keep this up, and you might face much worse.”
He rubbed his face, in disbelief that his little sister, the girl, at best, twenty pounds lighter and a few inches shorter, had stood up to him. If he’d had a moment of self-reflection, he might have realized that what I had just done was… much as I hated to admit it, but it was done with the hope that I had slapped some common sense into him.
As usual, I was disappointed.
“You’re going to pay for that, Eve,” he said.
He was smart enough not to hit me in public—he did many things to torment me, but leaving evidence of violence that could lead to his incarceration was not one of them. That had nothing to do with the type of person he was, though, and everything to do with the practicality of the matter.
“You think I’m going to face worse? I’ve run with the kinds of people that would make your preppy college ass piss themselves dry. I got connections to clubs and criminals so bad, you don’t wanna know what they’re gonna do to you. You think I call you a whore? They’ll make you a whore.”
“Uh huh,” I said, waving my hand in disbelief. “You’ve always been all bark, Chuck. Your bark might be too close to my ear sometimes, but you don’t bite. You’re a coward. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
And then, for good measure, I did something perhaps even more unexpected.
I slapped him again.
This time, a tear fell from his left eye. He quickly turned away, brewing up a swear storm of words to cover up the sniffling and crying he was having. I just stood over him menacingly, daring him to show his face.
It was an unusual moment of rage for me, but I’d had it. I just had to stand up to Chuck. If I didn’t, I faced a lifetime of torment—I probably still did, anyways, but at least now Chuck would know I, Eve Kellerman, would fight back.
“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” Chuck said. “You just bought a ticket to hell.”
“I could say the same to you, Chuck,” I warned. “Just remember—whatever you drag me in, you become a part of. Want to take me to hell? Fine. But it’ll cost what little soul you have.”
I was beginning to lose control of my emotions, so I just said fuck it and left. I heard Chuck yelling some obscenities at me, calling me the usual mix of whore and slut. I never turned around, only giving him a middle finger as I left the room.
You really do need to get it together, Chuck. If you’re serious…
You think running with clubsters will protect you?
It’ll only spell your downfall.
And, by extension, mine.
1
Derek
My eyes opened to nothing more than grass, a couple of bugs, and a sky in the nascent stages of brightening. My head felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer and pounded it repeatedly, making sure that the bits inside were more savagely destroyed than cows in a slaughterhouse. My body shivered despite the summer heat bearing down on me.
And yet, none of that compared to the pain in my heart. None of that compared to the headache that came from knowing what I once had would now be gone. And none of that compared to the emotional turbulence I had thought I had slept off but instead had only let fester into something even worse.
And I deserve every single bit of that pain for the fuckups I committed.
I had called Eve, the woman I had loved—still loved—unlike anyone since my deceased wife, Maggie, a fucking cunt. Or I almost had, but then she’d had the good, justified sense to slap me. She’d knocked me to the ground, stared me down, and then stormed out, leaving the only unanswered question “Why had she not done more given how badly I had acted?”
I had called that same woman, who had stood by my side during my coma, my injuries, and just about every moment of danger over the last month or so, a liar.
I had called the beautiful girl worthless.
It was no wonder that she slapped me and stormed out tearing up.
It was no wonder that she had not yet called me or texted me.
It was no wonder that she was likely gone forever.
Oh, Derek. Oh, Derek, Derek, Derek.
You fucking idiot. You chose to believe her brother.
I didn’t really believe him, I saw the things—
Shut the fuck up. You believed him. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have gotten this shitfaced drunk, said those things to Eve, an
d passed out in a goddamn graveyard. You think Maggie would be proud of you right now?
She’d understand, she’d—
Yeah, she’d understand. And then, she’d call you a goddamn idiot who needed to get his shit together.
You’re right.
Damn right.
I put my hands by my face in agony, but the very act of doing so revealed something startling to me.
I was still drunk. Moving my hands to my face, much like the common police test of moving your index finger to your nose, had revealed me to be a man capable of not much more than lying on the ground, committing massive fuckups, and crashing everything in sight.
And it dawned on me that I had not exactly taken an Uber to the graveyard.
With some difficulty—having to move slowly for fear of vomiting—I looked back at the parking lot and saw my bike there, still with her scars, but still in one piece. It was a literal miracle that I had not killed myself in a drunk driving accident on that bike. This wasn’t even a moral debate for me—practically speaking, I had no idea how I had survived. It must have taken some healthy combination of other drivers being alert, me driving on empty roads, and a hell of a lot of luck to avoid joining Maggie and the rest of my family six feet under.
I wasn’t sure at that moment if I was grateful for such an escape or not.
I don’t deserve to live. I don’t deserve…
Maybe not. But Eve deserves an apology.
That much was fair. Whatever happened after that, but for now, Eve deserved way more than an apology. But what? Maybe Roost would know… maybe Tara would know, although there was almost no chance of her ever helping me… hell, maybe Maggie would help. But after what I did?
