Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (Brimstone Lords MC 3)

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

  Gage a.k.a. Chaos

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I’m freaking right the hell out.

  “Calm, brother.” Boss tries to settle me. “Are you sure you didn’t see her leave?” he asks Blue and Blaze.

  “No. Swear,” Blue says as his shitty defense. “She never made her way out through the front.”

  “That asshole’s still out there. Why would she leave?”

  I think I might puke.

  Levi comes running into the main room of the clubhouse where we’ve all gathered, hoping for information. He tries to get our attention. I’m too freaked to acknowledge him and in the confusion everyone else talks over him.

  “I’ve tried her cell several times,” Elise, Boss’s old lady, tells the room while bouncing a fussy Gun, their baby boy, in her arms. “I knew she probably wouldn’t answer a call from you, Chaos, but I was hoping she’d take one from me.”

  “Anyone reach Crass yet?” Boss asks.

  “Just got through,” Blaze says. “He’s been with a lady friend, why he wasn’t answering his phone. Now he’s mobilized, out looking for Liv.”

  Apparently done with being ignored, Levi puts his finger and thumb bent like a horseshoe in his mouth and whistles loud. All chatter stops. “The truck out by the access road is gone.” Levi, whom the men christened “Hero” when he patched in to the club after saving Elise from Houdini, taking him from recruit to full member—he’s a good brother. Trustworthy.

  “We got the Illinois chapter checking out her condo or any other spots.” Duke, our president, joins the group. “Hero, Sneak, Carver, Sly and Blood.”

  Liv’s brother, my former best friend, Blood. We’d been best friends our whole lives until he found out about me and Liv. It pissed him off so much, he wouldn’t speak to me or her.

  “…follow the trail from the access road,” Duke finishes. I’m sure he’s said some other shit in there, but I’m not able to keep my focus.

  “Chaos. Boss—you stay here for now.”

  “No. I need to be out looking.” Bullshit I’m staying behind when my woman is out there somewhere needing help.

  I should’ve forced her to talk to someone, but she promised me she was fine. And if she ever stopped being fine, she’d tell me.

  “You stay,” Duke orders. As our club president, his word is law.

  “Duke, please, man,” I beg. Yes, beg. I’m not above it, not today. “What if it was Dawna out there? She needs me.”

  “Exactly why your ass needs to stay here. You’re too close to the situation.”

  “But you send Blood out?” I argue my point.

  “Blood ain’t fucking her. There’s a huge difference between finding a sister and finding the woman you’re sticking your dick in. Makes a man lose his ever-loving mind. Remember Boss when he couldn’t find Elise?”

  Boss doesn’t say anything because there’s nothing to say. He did go out of his mind when Elise went missing. When she took off on her own, and then when Houdini got her on their wedding day. That shit was bad. I thought I’d have to tranquilize the man.

  “Love’s a fucking joke,” I mumble.

  At the same time Elise turns to Boss. Hanging her head, she squeezes his arm. “Sorry, baby.”

  “Water under the bridge, darlin’.” And even with a fussy baby in her arms, he cups the back of her head with his hand, drawing her closer. Boss kisses his woman deep, not caring that there’s a club full of men watching. He’s never cared when it comes to Elise. “Come on, boy,” he continues. “Quit givin’ your mama a hard time.”

  Then Boss scoops Gun out of his wife’s arms. The boy just needed to be around other dicks—at least that’s how it seems as his fussing quiets the moment his daddy takes him.

  “If love’s a joke, then maybe you’ll quit dicking around with my baby sister.” Blood tears my attention away from the happy couple. It’s the first he’s spoken directly to me since he found out about me and Liv ten—almost eleven—months ago.

  “Fuck you, Blood. I’m sick of your shit. I’d think you’d be happy having a brother looking after her. Someone you know you can trust.”

  “Yeah, real good looking out there, Chaos. She’s real safe, isn’t she?”

  I don’t even think, not with my head at least. My fist cracks against his jaw, catching him off guard. Spittle flies from his mouth as his head jerks to the left.

  He lunges for me, but his contact gets interrupted by Carver and Sneak.

  “Everyone’s thrown off by this. Brothers fighting brothers ain’t no way to fix the situation,” Duke bellows. “Chaos, get your shit together or you’ll deal with me. Blood, quit antagonizing the man. He loves your sister and he’s right. You should be thanking your lucky stars she’s got a brother like Chaos in her bed. What if she took up with some asshat outside the life? You’d never know what she was into. Sneak, Scotch, you’re with me. Now, men, break.”

  As insane as it makes me to have to stay behind, it feels good to see my brothers scramble.

  Blue and Blaze make their way back out front to guard the gate. Until we promote our new recruits, as the newest brothers, the job stays with them. Elise walks over to me, her golden blonde hair swaying against her back. It’s gotten longer since she and Beau got back together. Most women tend to cut their hair once motherhood hits, but not Elise. Boss told her he likes it long, she let it grow long. It’s how those two work, always doing for the other. I thought that’s what Liv and I had.

  Elise wraps both her arms around my shoulders, pulling me in for a hug. “We’ll find her, Chaos. They’ll bring her home, then you can get her some help. But don’t give up on her.”

  “Give up? Girl, how could I? I’ve loved her my whole life. My whole fucking life. Only stayed away for Blood.”

  “I know.”

  “No. Only Boss and Duke really know what a man’ll do for the woman he loves. Something happens to her, I don’t know that I’ll want to go on breathing.”

  “Don’t say that,” Elise reprimands. But what I tell her is the God’s honest truth. A world without Livvy isn’t a world I want to be a part of.

  “Brother.” Boss shifts Gun from one arm to the other. “We’ll find her. She’ll be safe. You get her help, then put a ring on her finger just like I did with my beautiful wife.”

  Then he turns to walk toward the hallway leading back to the member rooms. “Come on, lil’ dude. Got you some squishy drawers. Let’s rectify that.”

  Elise sighs, love written all over her face. “Those two are my entire life.”

  “He was born to be a daddy,” I offer, shoving my hands in my front pockets because I don’t have any idea what to do with myself, let alone my hands.

  “You want it, you’ll have it. Just got to get Liv back to good.”

  “I was trying. She promised if it got to be too much she’d talk to a therapist. Damn it. I’ve been trying so hard with her, Elise. So damn hard. What if… What if she doesn’t love me the way I love her?”

  “No. I lived with Liv. She loves you. She’s just scrambled right now is all.”

  “I guess we’ll see.”

  “You will. I promise, Chaos, you will. Now…” She shoots me a sly smile. “I’m going to go help Beau with the baby.”

  Yeah, “help Beau with the baby” would be code for change the kid, get him down for a nap and then fuck Boss’s brains out. We’ve all been privy to hearing her “help him with the baby” since they moved back into the compound. That’s the last fucking thing I need to be thinking about right now, seeing as before she took off, Liv and I hadn’t been intimate in a few weeks. I thought she backed off because she was hardly sleeping. But now I know it was her pulling away.

  “God! I’m such a fucking idiot!” I yell into the empty common room.

  3.

  Livvy

  I stand at the edge of my property, the rising sun warms my skin as I look over the Chesapeake Bay, water sparkling like a billion tiny diamonds. Waves lapping against the shore. I spent the entire
rest of the day yesterday catching up on sleep. Slept through the day and right on through the night. I guess I needed it, because boy, do I feel refreshed now.

  Gage would love it here. Shit! I have to bite back the tears thinking about him always seems to cause anymore. I’m a crazy bitch. But he wouldn’t just love it, he’d totally fit in here, too.

  Despite being born and raised in Chicago, he’s the epitome of the blond haired, blue eyed, laid back surfer dude. All he ever missed were the puka shells.

  Short, sun-bleached tips with enough wave to run my fingers through and those eyes that sparkle like the water of the Chesapeake. He’d been beautiful our whole lives. I think I’d been in love with him our whole lives. But boy, once puberty hit, it hit with a vengeance—in all the right ways. Shot him up well over six feet, and that lithe, sculpted chest devoid of hair. He always looked like he waxed, but he never has. Just lucky genetics. Huh.

  The man just had to smile at a girl and she’d drop her panties.

  I saw it happen. That one time got a bit uncomfortable for the both of us. It got even more uncomfortable later that same night when we were almost passed-out drunk and he admitted that he’d only fucked her because he couldn’t have me. He’d wanted me then. Once Houdini targeted me, despite how pissed my brother was, he’d declared his love for me, ruining his friendship with his lifelong best friend.

  And how do I repay him? Steal away into the night like a coward. But I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t stay, and he’d never leave. So how could we work when fundamentally we’re so different?

  I stay looking at the water until the remainder of the morning fog burns off behind me. Then I turn to go back to my truck—the town and a grocery store beckon. I need food. Then I need to see if the well still works to pump water into the house.

  It’s hard, but I have to force Gage out of my mind. He’s my history.

  So then why does my heart feel so heavy?

  ***

  “Hey, pretty lady, you must be new around here.”

  From anyone else, I’d have crushed the guy’s balls with my fist for that remark. But the guy behind the counter looks close to a hundred years old. His only boon after my morning having been spent standing in a ridiculously long line for a town the size of Smithfield, to pay the deposit and get on the list to have my electric turned on. There I was met by a condescending ‘sweetheart’ too, but the remark had come from a woman who most likely lacked balls to crush. Though, in this day, one never knows for sure.

  “Yeah. I’m new,” I say and pause. “But my family isn’t. My great-granddad used to own this station.”

  “Seriously? You’re Shelly’s daughter?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No shit. How is she? Haven’t seen her since she moved away to the Windy City, I think. Years ago. She come with?”

  “Oh, um… Granddad didn’t tell you? Mom passed away years ago.”

  “Shee-it. Sorry, doll face. No. Skip never told me. He knew? Before?”

  “His mind went?” I finish for him, wringing my fingers together until they turn past red to white. I have a hard time talking about her and he apparently has a hard time listening, so I swallow and do my best to end this topic. “Yep. Must have just been hard for him to talk about. He raised her, after all.”

  The old guy clears his throat, looking ten kinds of uncomfortable. “So what brings you in here today?”

  “Your ‘Help Wanted’ sign,” I confess, grateful that he’s as willing to move past the awkward as me. “Great-Granddad left me the house in his will. I’ve been paying the property taxes all this time, so I decided maybe it’s time to relocate.”

  “Couldn’t have a better place to call home.”

  “Have an application for me?”

  “Skip’s great-granddaughter? Nah. Job’s yours, doll.”

  Without thinking, I don’t even say thank you but pull him in for a kiss on his liver-spotted, bald head.

  The cutest blush spreads from his forehead to neck as he reaches up to rub the spot I kissed. “Gonna have to watch it with the smooching,” he mumbles. “The missus would gut me in my sleep if she thought I was skirtin’ around.”

  “Well, just this once… What she doesn’t know won’t hurt you.” I wink at him.

  His cheeks burn a bright red. “See you bright and early tomorrow for training. We open at seven sharp for the folks commutin’ to work.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  He dismisses me without so much as a goodbye by turning to pick up the phone behind the counter. “Hired a new girl,” he says—but that’s all I hear as I walk back outside the filling station.

  After leaving the station, I continue on into town, stopping off at the small grocery store to pick up food and sundries for my house, along with a Styrofoam Igloo cooler and a bag of ice for the perishables in case my house still lacks electric.

  Everyone’s so friendly, wanting to talk. I’ll have to come back later to look around after getting the food put away.

  Back at home, I have to let the water run for a while to rid the system of the brown, mineral-filled liquid, but the pump for the well works and now clear water runs through the faucet. The water heater, as I find out, needs to be lit manually because of its age. And unfortunately, I don’t own a lighter. Scouring thoroughly through each kitchen drawer, I finally stumble upon a tiny, half-used box of wooden matches.

  Before I turn any knobs on the water heater, I think it prudent to jog out the back door to make sure the pig—what you call a large propane gas tank—still holds gas. Which, luckily, the tank is more than half full. But it had been turned off years ago, too. After years of nonuse and weather, it takes me a half hour and several large blisters on my hands to finally get the knob to twist. Yet twist it does. Hallelujah!

  The knob on the water heater—located in the back vestibule, situated beside the washer and dryer, which both run on gas—turns so much easier. An hour later, my house has hot water. It could have heated before that, but I waited an hour.

  With clean water and soap and sponges from the store, I begin the daunting task of cleaning and setting up a home for myself.

  Hours pass before I stop to eat. There was a certain satisfaction when during those hours, I heard the pop as the electricity powered up and the refrigerator kicked on, and after a thorough cleaning I transferred all the perishables from the cooler into their final home, the old Frigidaire, giving me a sense that this place might just save me. Without thinking, I begin grating the sharp cheddar—pulled from my fridge—to go in my special cornbread that I make whenever I make chili.

  Gage’s favorite.

  He loves my chili and cornbread. When a single tear leaks from my eye, I know I have to shove all thoughts of Gage out of my mind. I love him, but he’s a Lord. He represents everything I don’t want in my life.

  Forcing all thoughts of the man out of my head, I finish the food prep.

  Finish eating.

  Finish cleaning up.

  Then I set the alarm for six a.m. and lay down on my clean sheets. Thoughts of Gage unfortunately fill my mind again.

  Love sucks.

  Why can’t I just put him behind me?

  Why do I feel so guilty for leaving?

  My fingers don’t bother to ask my brain for permission before shooting off a quick text to the man, to the number I’ve known for years, burned in my memory. Just two words.

  I’m okay.

  But, boy, do those two words open a floodgate.

  Liv baby? Where are you? I’m so worried.

  Do I answer him? I mean, I knew he would be—worried, that is. Of course I do. I can’t help myself.

  Not telling you where I am. Didn’t want you to worry tho.

  Baby, he texts back. Why did you leave me?

  That’s the hundred-million-dollar question, isn’t it?

  I couldn’t do it anymore.

  Liv.

  Shit. I hear his sadness in that one word.

  Gage.

/>   Come home to me.

  I can’t. Not yet. Just… know I love you.

  After that, I set my phone down and cry into my pillow. My text messages ping several more times before he realizes I’m not going to answer, and he stops sending them.

  My alarm buzzes much sooner than I’m ready for, having stayed up half the night thinking about my Gage. But worrying about Gage won’t get me to work on time. So I force myself out of bed, dragging my feet to the shower, where I pull off the T-shirt that I slept in.

  The air feels lighter, freer in Smithfield. Despite still being tired from so many weeks of sleepless nights in Kentucky, I feel a budding confidence that my new home will give me the new start I so desire, and this budding confidence shines through the smile on my face. The same smile I shot to everyone on the street while running my errands yesterday, every single person I passed.

  One of the stores I stopped at was a little souvenir shop where I picked up a new Tee and some shorts. They even had Smithfield souvenir underwear, so I picked up a pair. After work today, I’ll head up to one of the superstores in one of the bigger towns nearby. I’ll get it figured out.

  I arrive at the filling station with five minutes to spare, giving out a different, grateful smile to the old guy holding the door open for me.

  “You know,” I start, “I never introduced myself to you. Here you are, taking a chance on a no named woman. I’m Livvy Baxter. My friends call me ‘Liv’. You can call me ‘Liv.’”

  “Well, Livy Baxter that I can call ‘Liv,’ it’s a pleasure. I’m Smitty. Smitty Longe. But I’ll only answer to Smitty, so you understand. None of that Mr. Longe business. Mr. Longe just feels too stick-up-your-ass for a town like Smithfield.”

  “Well, okay, Smitty. Show me the ropes.”

  First thing first, he hands me off a set of keys, one for the front door and one for the back, hooked to one of those red, plastic wrist bungees which I slip around my wrist.

  “We don’t have many employees. Just you, Krissy and John are fulltime. Then we have a couple of part-time kids who come in on the weekends, me and sometimes my wife come in when we’re short-handed.”