by Paula Cox
“It was all fucked up,” Del said slowly. “I sent Griffin and a couple of the new guys to Houston to talk to our guy on the docks. We had gotten wind that the cops were pressuring him. I don’t know how they tracked him down, but they had.” Del continued to look at me. “Your dad, he was a bulldog. When Griffin got there, he found out the guy had turned and he called me, wanting to know what to do.” Del finally broke eye contact with me and looked at Thad. “I told him to kill him. If he talked, we were fucked and the lot of us were going to jail.”
“I didn’t know any of this. Why did you keep it from the rest of the club? Why didn’t you tell me about this when I took the chair?” Thad asked.
“Because of what happened next. Griffin found out that…what the fuck was that guy’s name?”
“Kendrell?” Cain suggested.
“Yeah, Kendrell. Before he killed him, Griffin found out that Kendrell had talked to a Dallas cop. Kendrell had the signed papers where he had given his statement and everything.”
“So you had him, the cop, killed?” Thad asked.
Del looked at me. “No. I never gave the order. I didn’t even know about it until it was done. Griffin came back into town and told me Kendrell was dead. I thought that was the end of it. I didn’t even know about the statement until much later.”
“So who killed her father?” Thad asked.
“Griffin, and the two others that went with him to talk to Kendrell, Chuck Holly and Jim Peters.”
“Jackknife Jim Peters, the President of the Bulls?” Thad asked loudly.
“Yeah.”
“What the fuck?” Cain muttered.
“Griffin decided that he would handle the problem of the cop himself. I don’t know if he knew I would never give the okay to kill a cop or what, but after the death made the news…he admitted that he had set it up. He was right proud of himself, how he had made it look like an accident.”
“How did Jackknife get to the Bulls?” Thad asked.
“We had a meeting of the club, just the founding members. The heat was coming down on us. The cops couldn’t prove it was us, but they knew. We took a vote. Holly and Peters were stripped of their colors and expelled for their involvement. Peters joined the Bulls and I don’t know where Holly ended up. He just disappeared.”
“Son of a bitch. No wonder the Bulls have it in for us,” Thad said. “What happened to Griffin? Wasn’t he a founding member, too?”
“Yes…and I killed him.”
I felt Cain stiffen under me. “You killed a brother?”
“I had to. I beat him to death myself.” Del looked down as if ashamed of his actions. Perhaps he was. “It was the only way. He stood there and took it for as long as he could. After he was dead, we burned his marks, cut off his fingers, pulled his teeth, and disfigured his face with a hammer. Anything that we thought would lead the cops back to us. Then we dumped the body where it would be found along with a note that said he was the one that had killed the cop.”
“Fuck…” Cain whispered.
“There was a war coming. The cops, they wouldn’t have stopped. We had to end it.”
“And the case my father was building?” I asked, the first time I had spoken since he asked my name.
“They had a statement, but no witness, no corroboration, and no hard evidence. It was all hearsay. I guess the DA decided not to pursue charges.”
“Del! Why didn’t you tell my any of this?” Thad asked. “You always said the Hounds never kept secrets!”
“Because your hands were clean and I wanted them to stay that way. I didn’t want our stain to remain with the club. I was getting old. My brothers were killing cops without my knowledge. I knew then it was time for a change. That is why I started grooming you for the chair.”
Thad looked at me. “I’m sorry, Alex. I didn’t know.”
Before I could answer Del took my hand. “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t know what happened to you or I would have tried to make it right. I couldn’t bring back your parents, but I avenged them in the best way that I could. It’s ironic that you, the daughter of the last man we killed, should join the Hellhounds. Can you find it in your heart to forgive an old man?”
I held my tongue, not telling him that I was responsible for so many deaths at the hands of the Hellhounds. That stain was on me. I leaned forward and pulled Del into a hug. “I can,” I whispered as I held him.
Epilogue
Alex returned to New Orleans the day after she spoke with Del Kozlowski. She and Cain had made up and spent the night in his apartment in the throes of passion. He had put her on a plane the next morning with a kiss and a promise to join her.
Four weeks later, he made good on the promise, arriving in his truck, his hog in the back, and a few of his possessions. Despite her grandparents’ objections, Alex insisted that Cain move in with her until he could find a place of his own. He began to search, but he wouldn’t tell her what he was looking for until one day, two months later, he presented her with a choice. Did she want to live in a restored house in the French Quarter or a new house on the beach in Gulfport, Mississippi?
Alex chose the house in Mississippi. Fourteen days later, they closed on the house. As they drove up to Cain’s new home, he pressed the button to open the garage. As the door rumbled up, Alex gasped at the new Ford Explorer Sport parked inside with a big red bow on it. He informed her that he was tired of squeezing into her car, and the used Civic she was driving had to go. Ale didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so she did both.
Over the next several months, they began to settle into their new lives. They kept her house, renting it to the Hellhounds so they would have a place to stay when they were in town. It saved them from having to sell the house, and was cheaper for the Hounds than paying for a motel each time. Alex didn’t return to work, choosing instead to enroll full-time in the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine. After she was accepted, they rented a small apartment in Baton Rouge, near the campus, so that they could be together during the week while she was in class and avoid the two hour drive home.
Money was pouring into the Hounds coffers. Saved from a very embarrassing mistake, New Jersey had consolidated all their purchases through the Hounds, and because of it, the Hounds had picked up several other customers. Because of the increased business, they were accepting two or three shipments a week now, instead of the one or two a month before. The Hounds were becoming wealthy, very wealthy, and Cain was spending his portion of the proceeds liberally to make sure Alex was taken care of and was comfortable, but the rest he was socking away for the future. There were more important things than parties to think about now.
Inspired by Alex’s drive to improve herself, Cain signed up to take night classes at the University of Mississippi at Gulfport, the nearest college, working toward a degree in business. It would take far longer to get his degree than it would for Alex to complete veterinary school, but he didn’t mind. He had a job that was providing a comfortable living, and when Alex graduated he would have learned enough, he hoped, to help her open her own practice.
***
“Wave goodbye!” Alex called in her baby talk voice as she waved Feather’s tiny hand at the backs of the treating Hounds.
About once a week or so, a cadre of Hounds showed up to “see the puppy.” They were actually in New Orleans to pick up the latest shipment of guns, but they made it a point to stop in. After the rest of the Hellhounds found out that they had, in fact, killed Alex’s family, the club quickly rallied around her in support. After all, the Hounds took care of their own.
Cain shut the door, and took Feather from Alex. “You’re such a good girl,” he said softly, making faces at his daughter. “I told Uncle Clyde that baby vomit is good for leather...yes I did. It makes it soft, doesn’t it?”
Feather was getting cranky from being handed around, and was fussing. “I’ll go put her down,” Alex said, reaching for her.
“I’ve got her,” Cain said, bouncing her in his arms as he carrie
d her to her room. A couple of minutes later, he returned empty handed, but with a bulge in his back pocket that wasn’t there before. He could hear Feather snuffling and fussing about being put down for her nap, but three months in they were already experienced enough parents to know that she wasn’t long awake.
He found Alex in the kitchen, cleaning up and loading the dishwasher from lunch. He stepped up behind her and held her tight. She had lost almost all her baby weight and was looking even better than before. “I love you,” he whispered into her ear as he hugged her.
She turned in his arms. “I love you, too,” she whispered as their lips touched. To hear her say the words thrilled him as much now as when she first uttered them five months ago.
As they separated, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small black box that had been hidden in Feather’s room for the past two days. He took a step back as he brought the box around between them and opened it.
“Cain, I —” Alex began when she saw the box.
“Alexandria Nicole Bernhardt, will you marry me?” he asked softly, pulling the ring from the box.
Alex was flabbergasted. Cain had been hinting about getting married, but she had been evasive, wanting to be sure. “Cain…”
“Say yes,” he whispered as he took her hand and slid the ring upon her finger. “I always get what I want…” he added as he gently brought his lips to hers.
She flowed into the kiss, her arms going around his neck. Yes… he always seems to…
THE END
Read on for your FREE bonus book – OUR UNEXPECTED BABY
OUR UNEXPECTED BABY: Black Legion MC
By Paula Cox
THIS WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN.
A forbidden tryst. An unexpected surprise.
A boy and a girl who were never meant to be together.
WHO IS HE?
A biker. An inked rebel. A playboy with a million notches on his belt.
A.k.a., the last man on earth I should ever be with.
But also, the only man I’ve ever loved.
WHAT DOES HE WANT?
My body. My heart. My soul.
And - *gulp* - his baby in my belly.
WHAT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN?
He’s going to take me, or say he says.
He whispers in my ear that I’ll never forget his hands on me.
Bending me over.
Pushing me down.
Teasing me to my peak – over and over again.
But being with him is strictly forbidden.
There are rules in our little corner of the world.
And the punishment for breaking them is too severe to even imagine.
But that doesn’t stop me from dreaming of him. Night after night after night.
HOW’S IT ALL GOING TO END?
With tears and heartbreak. That much is guaranteed.
A man like Jax can never stick around.
Especially not with a diehard motorcycle club demanding his utter loyalty.
He won’t be with me. He can’t be.
But then my belly starts to grow.
And everything starts to change along with it.
Chapter One
Jax Monroe stepped from his apartment with a grudging sigh. No rain as of yet, but the morning was still gray, and the air felt damp as he flipped up the collar on his leather jacket and prepared to mount his chopper. Catching a quick glimpse of his face in the bike’s blindside bar end mirror, he took note of the dark circles pooling under his eyes. With the weight of the knowledge of what was just around the bend bearing down on him for the better part of the night, Jax was left to toss and turn. A small part of him that still believed in miracles wished the deed did not have to be done, but now, as first light poked through a cloudy sky, there was no going back on his word – even if it stuck in throat and made him want to vomit.
Paying no mind to the red light on the corner of Hillside and Elm, Jax barreled through the intersection. Let anyone else, law enforcement included, catch sight of him breaking the rules right out in the open, such as it was, one glimpse of the silver skull and crossbones with wide blue wings emblazoned across his back would bring any thought of seeking retribution to an immediate and definitive halt. No one in Deerfield dared to take any kind of stand when it came to the Black Legion. It was an unspoken rule that kept Jax and his crew safe when it came to everything from cutting a corner to receiving due payment and the proper amount of respect, which was the current order of the day.
Pulling up alongside the Gorge, open for business with the keg already tapped and bodies in the stools at ten-thirty in the morning, Jax saw Artie sucking on a smoke as he leaned against the side of the building. The burly bald man gave Jax the high sign, and Jax grunted something that almost passed for hello as he stepped to his side.
“See that you’re right on time,” Artie started. “Thought for sure you’d find a way to blow this one off.”
Artie’s attempt at a low blow came with a teasing smile, and Jax wasn’t in the mood for either as he glanced into the bar and caught sight of his other brother draining a pint of stout. “What’s that?” Jax asked. “His fourth round?”
“Nah,” Artie assured him. “Only been here for like five minutes. You know how Mitch rolls – likes to fuel up before he goes to work.”
Not that the man couldn’t hold his liquor. If anything, a few drinks made Mitch sharper, far more lethal as if such a thing were possible. Jax felt his hand start to shake, and Artie caught on before he could hide it.
“Maybe you could do with your own shot of something,” Artie suggested. “Little liquid courage never hurt anyone.”
“I’m good,” Jax assured him. “Rather just get this over with.”
“I hear that,” Artie confessed. “But the man knows the deal. Borrow from the Big Boss, and you best pay the piper on time.”
Jax formed a counterargument in his head, the words mercy and common sense dictates flashing across his brain. But he before he could give voice to any kind of an alternative, Mitch appeared with stray suds on his orange beard and a wicked glint in his eyes.
“Hey there, kid,” Mitch said as he roughly slapped Jax’s back. “Big Boss will be glad to know that you got your panties out of a knot.”
Jax seethed under his breath and wanted nothing more than to form a fist and slam it into Mitch’s smug face. But what would that accomplish? Maybe he’d get in a few good shots; maybe he’d go so far as to take him down. But that had nothing to do with the matter at hand, and it was better for Jax to go along for the ride, maybe see if there was still a way that he could be of some help. “Let’s just do this,” Jax grumbled.
“Read my mind, kid,” Mitch said with a cold laugh. “Time to shake the tree. See what spills.”
As the trio pulled away from the Gorge and headed for the far end of town, Jax gripped his handlebars tighter. Taking a quick look over his shoulder, he remembered a simpler time, a time when he was able to kick off his boots and talk to someone who listened without expectations or demands. When they talked, it was about nothing at all. Nothing important, just the air swirling around them and the feel of the water running over their bare toes. Sometimes they smoked; other times they made no move and just stared up at the trees. One word for it: peace. He missed that; it had been in short supply since…
“Here we are, boys!”
Mitch pounded his fist into his palm and stomped towards the door. Exchanging a quick look with Artie, Jax felt for his gun in his belt. Last thing he wanted to do was pull the trigger, but if he needed to make a point, the piece might come in handy.
“Yo, loser!” Mitch bellowed as he slapped his hand to the frame. Looking past the redhead, Jax thought he saw a small figure crouching in a corner, trying to be invisible. Go for it, man. Don’t make a sound. Might put him off.
But Mitch was quick to follow Jax’s stare.
“You believe this bitch?” he said with a smirk. “Like he think I don’t got eyes in my head.”<
br />
Mitch lifted the heel of the boot to the door when Jax suddenly seized his arm with every inch of strength at his disposal.
“Guy, why don’t we just---?”
“Why don’t you just remember who outranks you, Golden Boy?” Mitch hissed. “Gonna give a full report when this is all said and done.”
Artie held him back, and Jax endured the powerless sensation already washing over him.
“Whatever,” he mumbled. “Break it down then.”
“Now that’s my kind of music!”
Not needing another cue, not needing any kind of permission in the first place, Mitch bashed his boot against the frame. As soon, it nearly came flying off the hinges and he pounced into the house. Moving fast to follow, Jax was at his back and soon saw a withered man shaking below a head of thinning gray hair. He peered through his fingers, but as soon as he saw Jax, a weight seemed to leave his shoulders.
