I made myself comfortable at the bar as they all disappeared. Lure shot me one final look over his shoulder and I nodded, I would be careful and keep my eyes open.
Sliding my kutte off I carefully laid it on top of the bar before shrugging out of my jacket and setting it down on the seat next to me then slid my kutte back on. The minute I was still and not focusing on other shit the sorrow rushed back in and swamped me. I leant my forearms on the bar and sat breathing deep to try and calm down. This place had been Reid’s home for the last couple of years, the bar a place where he drank with his brothers. A place where he had lived a life he had chosen over his blood family and that hurt, badly.
A tall blonde woman was on the other side of the bar, setting trays of beers down in front of each of the three men who were openly staring at me. I ignored them, if they were relegated to fetching beers they weren’t high up in the club hierarchy.
I watched them from the side of my eyes as they left. They were taking the beers to their chapel where the meet was taking place.
While I had been watching them the blonde had walked over to me, standing silently in front of me until I looked up and met her sad eyes.
“What can I get you?” Her voice was melodic and somehow quiet.
“Anything that’s alcohol free please.”
Her small smile, though sad, was friendly. “I can do that.”
“Perfect, thanks.”
I watched as she filled a glass with ice then set it and the unopened can down in front of me.
Leaning against the bar she silently watched as I opened and poured my drink. She waited until I had taken the first sip.
“I’m Chris, the bartender here. Army was a friend of mine.”
It still sounded so wrong every time they called him Army. They had given him a road name that on the one hand must have pissed him off because he was a Marine, and on the other reminded him of the shit he had gone through. It just made my heart hurt even more.
“I’m Leo, Reid’s sister. I know his road name was Army but I just can’t use that name, it doesn’t feel like him.”
Her eyes widened slightly letting me know she hadn’t realised I was his sibling. Like most of them she most probably assumed I had been Reid’s woman.
“I’m so sorry for your loss. He was a great guy, always joking. His brothers respected him and his best friend is lost without him. The club girls love and miss him because apparently he was a lot of fun, if you know what I mean.” She tried to cheer me up with that little nugget of information but it didn’t. It just hurt even more.
How could he have been a fun loving joker here when he had walked away from his responsibilities to Sherri and his child? Why had he done it? And will we ever get the answers to all our questions now that he’s gone?
Her voice pulled me back from the dark place I had gone. “Your name is Leo? Really?”
I sucked the black back inside and gave her a small smile. But I could see by her eyes that she wasn’t taken in by the smile, she knew I was hurting and was trying to draw me into a conversation that wouldn’t hurt as much. So I gave her that.
“Actually it’s Leona, but my eldest brother shortened it to Leo when I was still a baby. And it stuck. Now everyone calls me that.”
“You’re so lucky.” Chris sighed. “I wish I had a nickname that sounded all badass instead of sounding like a wimpy guy.”
For some reason I liked this woman. “The hardest part of a new nickname is getting people to call you by it. Believe me I tried to change mine when I was a teenager and noticing boys for the first time. With three older brothers and an entire club of badasses behind me my hopes of getting a boy to look at me was a lost cause and the name just made it worse.”
Chris shook her head and smiled sadly. “You were so lucky to have a family who cared about you. Not everyone is that lucky.” A tiny frown settled between her brows and she tilted her head to the side as she watched me. “Why don’t you have more of an American accent? You pronounce some of your words like we do.”
That was an easy one to answer.
“Our dad is South African and growing up I thought he sounded exotic and I wanted to sound like him. My brothers all have our Mama’s southern drawl. Growing up I did anything and everything to get my dad’s attention and that’s where the accent comes from. I sound more like him, but with a bit of my Mama’s drawl thrown in.”
She was frowning as she listened to my explanation. I didn’t have to wait long to find out why she was frowning.
“Army didn’t have much of an accent at all. Everyone knew he was American but he didn’t sound it.”
I shook my head. “When he left the US he was your typical southern boy, accent and all. Why he changed who he was and where he came from is a mystery to me. Reid broke our Mama’s heart and the heart of his woman. She had loved him and stayed faithful to him throughout his many deployments and even after he deserted her. I’m so, so angry with him. I love and miss him but if he was alive today I would beat the shit out of him for what he had done. He walked away from his family and someone who needed him desperately to come down here and play soldier for this club. And that got him dead. I can never forgive him for that, not ever.”
I had been so deep in my memories that I hadn’t noticed Chris’s eyes widening until the tinkling of tags drew my attention. I turned and watched the woman accompanied by two huge dogs walking towards us. She was average height with curly dark hair and very dark eyes, but none of that mattered because the aura of power that surrounded her was what grabbed my attention. That and the dogs. Two very beautiful dogs who walked on either side of her and with one gesture of her hand sat down as she slid onto the barstool next to me.
“I’m DC, Hawk’s old lady and I’m so very sorry for your loss. Army was a great guy and we’re going to miss him.”
I didn’t know what to say so I nodded. “Thank you, I appreciate it.”
And typical of a woman with power she didn’t hesitate to start interrogating me.
“What was your relationship with Army? Are you his woman?” Those black eyes were focused on me like lasers.
I frowned, not allowing her intense stare to get to me. I had been raised in an outlaw club after all. I knew how to handle myself.
“No, I’m not his woman. I’m his sister. I hadn’t heard from him in more than two months so it was decided that I would come over here to find him. We arrived at our hotel this morning only to get the call from our dad that...that he had died and his funeral was today. The fact that he’s gone hasn’t really sunk in yet.”
Only the slight widening of her eyes showed that she hadn’t expected my answer.
“That must have been very difficult for all of you. I’m so sorry you had to hear about it like that. He was a hero, you know. He was on the detail that was protecting a brother’s old lady when it happened. They were ambushed.” She glanced towards the back before she looked back at me as she filled me in. “I’m not supposed to discuss this with anyone but you needed to know. He was a protector to the end.”
I shook my head because it didn’t help at all.
Not. At. All.
“He chose the wrong people to protect. He should have been at home protecting his own. Not here protecting strangers.” I couldn’t help the ice that had crept into my voice.
A heavy hand came down on my shoulder and I whipped around in my chair. The freaking dogs hadn’t moved to give me a warning someone was approaching. It was the guy from the church, the one who had helped me to my seat. His dark eyes were soft and filled with so much sorrow it hurt my heart to look in them.
“My brother had demons that he didn’t discuss with anyone. I was the only one who got close to him and even I didn’t know his background. He hid it from everyone. The club knew of his army background but that was all. He came here and started over with a clean slate, like we all do.” He said softly.
Shaking my head angrily I swiped at the tear that slipped down my cheek. “He was
a Marine not in the army. And he didn’t have the right to a clean slate. He...he deserted his family, his...”
Before I could say more big arms wrapped tight around me and Lure’s voice rumbled in my ear. “Darlin’, he made his choices from a place of pain and we have to accept it because there’s not a fuckin’ thing we can do about it now. You need to forgive him and move on, sweetheart, or it’s going to fuck up your memories of him.”
“I know, but it’s so hard.” I whispered.
Lure cleared his throat and tightened his arms around me. “They sent me out here to fetch you, sweetheart. Dive needs you beside him.”
Oh God, what now? Being called into the chapel wasn’t something that ever happened to females. Not at the Shadow Wraiths MC’s table in any case, maybe the rules were different here.
I allowed Lure to help me off my chair and slid my hand into his, holding on tight. Leaning back I grabbed my jacket, nodded at the big guy still standing at the bar then let Lure lead me out the room.
The layout of their chapel did not surprise me. It was different but the same as the one back home. And yes, I wasn’t supposed to see the inside of that room but I was a curious kid and very inventive. So I sneaked in and out without anyone ever knowing I had been in there.
Their chapel was big and had no windows and if I had to pinpoint it I would have said it was almost in the very middle of their clubhouse. A big scarred table took up the centre of the room with mismatched chairs ranged around it. Some of those chairs were filled as well as some of the ones set against the walls. The history of the club was documented by photographs and framed kuttes on the walls. Magic and Breaker sat in chairs against the wall as did three of the Devils from Portland. Reaper sat with Dive at the table. There was an open chair next to Dive and Lure pulled it out for me, waiting until I sat down before moving away.
We were watched the entire time, not a word being said. The doors closing and the lock clicking had my head swinging over to it and there the big guy with the amazing eyes was. But he didn’t look at me so I dragged my eyes from him and back to my brother.
Dive’s eyes were on me as I shifted my butt around trying to get comfortable under the watching eyes.
“We don’t usually allow women in our chapel. But these are exceptional circumstances we have here today.”
Hawk’s deep rumble of a voice drew my eyes to him. The big man filled his chair with his bulk, his aura of power unmistakable. I didn’t say a word because if they wanted me to speak in their inner sanctum they would give me permission to do so.
Glancing away from him and down at the battered table my eyes zeroed in on the lockbox in front of him. A lockbox I knew very, very well and a box that has been missing for years. I no longer waited for them to give me permission to do shit.
“What the hell is my lockbox doing on their table?” I whisper-hissed at Dive.
His hand shot out and grabbed my arm, holding on too damn tight. “That’s yours?”
I jerked my arm to try and loosen his grip but he didn’t let go.
“Yes, it’s mine. Dad gave it to me when he gave me my first gun when I turned twelve. But my collection grew until I had to get the walk-in safe I have now.” I pointed at the box. “I used that one for keepsakes and shit. My initials are scratched on the bottom right hand corner. You can check it.”
Hawk turned the box over, lifted it and grunted. “LGJ, that you?”
“Yeah, Leona Grace Jordan, that’s her.” Dive gritted out angrily.
I pointed at the small key taped on top I grinned. “And that key isn’t going to open anything but the first lock. That box is a box within a box. You need the code to open the internal box.”
And then it hit me, the reality of what the box on that table meant. I swung around to look up at my brother.
“Reid stole my lockbox, Dive, he stole my fuckin’ lockbox. And if he opened it...” I couldn’t say more because when Reid opened it he found my secret. A secret I had made very sure I shared with nobody. Not even Sherri and Evie, and they knew all my secrets.
Shit. I hope like hell he had gotten rid of the evidence of my stupidity. I was young and furiously angry when I did what I did and then took a souvenir, something that would get me into deep shit with the club if it was ever found.
“What? What did he find inside the box, Leo?” Dive grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. Damn.
“Just stupid girly stuff.” I mumbled the lie.
Then I heard the scrape and click, a very familiar scrape and click I hadn’t heard in years. The box slid across the table and Dive grabbed it then shoved it in front of me.
“Open it.” He ordered in the ice cold voice I’ve heard him use on others but never on me. Shit.
Slowly drawing the lockbox to me I ran my fingers over the little panel of six numbers on top of the lid. Said a short little prayer. Then tapped in the code.
Like magic the lid clicked up but as I reached out to open it fully Dive snatched it away from me.
“Jesus. Fuck. Leo, what the fuck?”
I leant over to look and froze, my luck, my stupid unlucky luck. I should never have printed the damned thing, should have just deleted it from my phone and left it at that. But I wanted to remember what I had done and to never be that vulnerable ever again. The photo I had taken of Scraggs just before I tipped his body into the water for the gators to feast on lay on top of whatever else was in there. Three red rings had been drawn over the photo. A big one around his undone and very bloody pants. A small one around the tip of my boot just visible at the edge of the photo. And another around the multiple stab wounds on his torso.
And how had Reid known it was my boot? Easy.
Because my dad had had pretty shiny engraved tips put on that specific pair of boots. I had been given the boots that very morning as one of the presents for my sixteenth birthday. I hardly ever wore them again after that night. They had been thoroughly cleaned and now sat at the back of my cupboard.
My shoulders fell as he handed it over to Lure and the others. Fuck my life, this meant the third degree and reliving that shit.
“Why? What the fuck did he do?” Lure growled as he threw the photo back onto the table.
“He tried to take what wasn’t his to take.” I said softly then shrugged. “I did what I had to do and I knew I’d get into shit with the club so I cleaned it up.”
“Bullshit, Leo! You were fifteen! You wouldn’t have gotten into shit if...”
I didn’t give Dive a chance to finish. “I was sixteen and that right there is why I did it. That ‘if’. There was no if, he did what he did and I took care of him. Permanently. I wasn’t the first and wouldn’t have been the last of the young girls who had to deal with his sick shit. None of you did anything about his sick perversions. You all knew what he was.” I punched Dive on the bicep, hard. “You all knew!”
Again it was Lure who surrounded me with his strong arms and hugged me, calming me down while Dive took my hand in both of his. “Sweetheart, we didn’t know, not really. We fuckin’ suspected but could never catch the fucker doin’ that shit. You know, you fuckin’ know, we couldn’t take suspicions to the table. They would have fuckin’ lynched us if we had, regardless of whose kids we were. He was a senior patch and we were fuckin’ prospects at the time. It fuckin’ kills me that you had to deal with his fucked up shit. It shouldn’t have been you, never you.”
Sagging in my chair I sighed. “It’s done and there’s nothing that can change it now. We’ll talk about this later. Club shit and all that stupid male crap.”
Strangely Dive started laughing, grabbed me and hugged me tight. “Fuckin’ love you, Leo.” He growled against my hair.
Hawk clearing his throat had him letting me go and relaxing back in his chair. Lure tapped my shoulder before returning to his.
“We’re not interested in shit that’s obviously your club’s business. What we need to know is if there’s any explanation in there for the shit we found in his sto
rage unit.” He growled.
I made to push the box towards him and he shook his head.
“You do it, empty everything onto the table.”
Damn. I closed my eyes, opened them and looked in the box. There were letters in there. Lifting them out I laid them out on the table. They were addressed to Mama and Daddy, to me, to Renegade, to Dive, to Sherri and lastly to someone called Bullet. He used the do the same before a deployment, but back then he had left the letters with me until he came home. We would build a bonfire in the fire pit in my backyard and burn them to celebrate him coming home alive. But not this time. There wouldn’t be a bonfire for these letters.
Taking a deep breath I took out the next thing. It was fairly big unsealed white envelope. I shook the contents out on the table and his US drivers licence, credit cards, US passport and birth certificate slid out. I left them where they fell.
In one corner of the box were three USB’s and I laid them next to each other on the table. A small clear plastic box contained several memory cards for a camera and I set it down next to the USB’s.
An unsealed envelope almost at the bottom of the lockbox was filled with photographs. I lifted it out and I tipped them out on the table, they were of Reid and Sherri and had me swallowing hard to stop the tears. It recorded their relationship from when they started dating to the horrible finish.
Underneath the envelope were his dog tags. They lay in a dull silver pile in one corner of the box. I picked them up, slid my thumb over his name and drew them over my head glancing down as they settled against my top with a soft jingle.
They gave me an idea and I filed it away to think on later.
Only three more things remained in the box and I slowly picked them up and set them down on the table. Two were ring boxes. The one was an old scuffed up black velvet box while the other was a newer box but also a bit scuffed up, as if he’d had it for a while. I knew without opening them that the rings they contained had been meant for Sherri.
The last item in the lockbox was a small soft black sued drawstring pouch. Pushing the lockbox away from me I pulled the drawstring loose and shook the contents out into my open hand. A heavy ring fell into my palm. It was the ring Reid had been given on his eighteenth birthday when Dad had expected him to start prospecting with the club. He hadn’t, he had enlisted instead. I slid the ring onto my thumb, closing my fingers to keep it from falling off, and shook my head. So much heartache and waste because of stubbornness. Reid’s and dad’s, they were like two freaking peas in a pod.
Vengeance Of A Black Knight (Iron Dogz MC, #4) Page 11
