Devil's Mark

by Megan Crane

  “Give me your phone,” he said.

  Uptown and his many orders. But he wasn’t the problem, she knew. The problem was she liked obeying him. Maybe because, unlike all the rules she’d dutifully followed all her life, she didn’t have to do what this man told her to do. She just wanted to. After all, he’d never steered her wrong yet. Her pussy clenched at the thought, then pulsed with a new, wet heat. But all she did was reach into her back pocket, as ordered. She tugged her phone free, then handed it to him.

  Uptown frowned down at the screen as he took it.

  “Your girl Katelyn texted you.” He sounded pissed again, that low, dangerous rumble. “A lot.”

  “She does that sometimes.” And in the spirit of all this sharing that was going on, Holly kept going. “Usually when she’s unhappy with me, it has to be said.”

  His gaze flashed to hers, then dropped to the phone again. “Tell her she needs to watch her mouth.”

  Holly laughed. “Katelyn doesn’t watch her mouth. As policy since the sixth grade. She takes pride in always speaking her mind. No matter what.”

  “If she calls you a bitch again,” Uptown said very distinctly, with another one of those lightning-dark glances, “I’m gonna view that as my problem, not yours. Make sure you tell her that.”

  Holly had the feeling he was talking in a code and that she should understand what he was saying. But she didn’t want to tell him she didn’t. She made a note to ask Katelyn what it meant—assuming her friend was in the mood to impart biker secrets, which was a big assumption, especially if she’d been texting mean things all night.

  Uptown punched in a number and let it ring, making his pocket buzz. He fished out his own phone, swiped it on, then off again.

  “Now you have my number,” he said, as he shoved his phone back in his pocket again. There was definitely something in his dark voice that she was missing. But he hadn’t touched anyone but her since that first night. She tried to keep herself from beaming at that little bombshell. “I don’t want to show up at the bar tonight to find your car gone and you God knows where. You call me, princess. Tell me how you’re getting to work. If you need a ride, I’ll come get you.”

  “Why didn’t you take me to my car now?”

  His mouth gave the impression of crooking slightly without actually moving. “I want you to call me, Holly. Like I said.”

  “I can just get a ride to my car at some point today.” She waved her hand at the house. “Someone will help me out.”

  “What did I just say?” He sounded harsh, but there was still that faint hint of a curve in the corner of his mouth. It made Holly feel ridiculously warm all over.

  “I’ll call you,” she agreed, and then she couldn’t keep herself from smiling at him. “I don’t want to embarrass you, but I thought the guy was supposed to say that.”

  His lips twitched. “Later, we’re gonna have a long discussion about your smart mouth.”

  “No need.” She smiled wider, and maybe she couldn’t keep her feelings about all this inside as well as she thought. “I think you already showed me how much you like it.”

  Uptown handed her phone back to her, then tugged her toward him with a hand around her wrist. She went happily. He bent his head and pressed a hard, possessive kiss on her mouth. It made everything inside her go taut.

  “Later,” he said against her mouth, and he sounded just as greedy as she felt.

  It was hard not to feel that everywhere, like some kind of love poem.

  But she only smiled brightly when he stepped away and swung back onto his bike, because what were her options? Clinging to the cuff of his jeans? She might have been new to sexual relationships, but she wasn’t a complete idiot. He cranked his engine and the tough bike beneath him rumbled its response, louder than the grumbling sky above them as he took off.

  If she took her sweet time going up the front steps so she could listen to his motorcycle roar down the drive and out into the road for as long as possible, that was perfectly understandable, she thought. And besides, there was no one around to see her.

  In fact, the whole house was oddly still when she walked inside at last. It felt different. Not empty. Just…changed, somehow.

  But she stood in the foyer, staring at the usual ostentatious flower arrangement in its big vase, and all those things she hadn’t wanted to remember came flooding back to her. What Katelyn had said about her mother. What that meant about her father. What it all meant about the kind of person she’d spent her life trying so hard to please. And maybe the house hadn’t changed since she’d last been in it. Maybe she was the one who’d changed.

  Holly followed an urge she rarely had and took the grand front stairs up to the second floor, then followed the graceful hallway across the house to the master suite that took over the far end. Her father made no secret of the fact he’d moved into one of the guest suites years ago. The master bedroom was her mother’s domain. Holly paused at the door. She took a deep breath, then she pushed her way inside.

  The shades were drawn, as they always were. The room was dim, with only a bedside lamp to cut the gloom. Holly moved toward the foot of the grand four-poster the way she always had as a child, making sure she stayed silent. It was early in the day, after all. Meaning it was before three p.m. It had taken her a long time to understand that her mother wasn’t “a bad sleeper.” Her mother was usually dreadfully hungover at this time of day, which made her even shorter tempered and less approachable than usual.

  Today was no different than any other day across the years. Her mother’s still, slender form was stretched out beneath the light coverlet she preferred in warmer weather. The ceiling fan moved the air around and did nothing to hide the sound of her deep snores. She had the same glossy brown hair that Holly did, streaked with an elegant silver these days as it fanned out across the pillows.

  Holly had been furious with her mother all her life. She’d spent years wishing her mama had just gone ahead and killed herself if this was how she intended to go on living, because it would be easier that way. It would be closure. It would be something more than this. Sleeping her life away, year after year after year.

  Her hands were in fists at her sides, though Holly had no recollection of doing that. She listened to her mother sleep that hard, whole sleep that came only with too much self-medicating. She’d never understood her mother, but then, everything made a new sort of sense now. A horrible, revolting sense she didn’t want to accept. But there was no going back.

  A man who could whore out his wife, then lie about why she was distraught enough to numb herself into a coma for years, was a monster. Plain and simple. The fact that he’d called his own daughter such a vile name yesterday hardly signified. The fact that he’d stolen money from all kinds of people barely mattered next to the damage he’d done right here, in this room.

  And there was no doubt in Holly’s mind that one way or another, she was looking at the fate her father had planned for her. That this darkened room filled with oblivion and pain was the great future she had waiting for her if she left it in his hands. If he would ransom out his own wife, what would he do with a daughter? Especially one he now considered biker trash?

  Maybe the reason she’d been unable to come up with a concrete plan for her life after college was because, deep down, she’d always known it wasn’t up to her and worse, it wasn’t likely to be all that much fun. She knew her father’s friends. She knew their hard-eyed, entitled sons. How long would it be before her daddy was encouraging her to marry one of them? And how long after she did—because sweetly docile Holly Chambless always did what made her daddy happy, everyone knew that—would she find herself in a situation like her mother’s in one way or another?

  There wasn’t a single one of her father’s friends’ wives who ever looked happy. Holly couldn’t think of even one.

  She was shaking when she drifted closer to the bed. She reached out and took her mother’s hand, swallowing hard against the lump in her throat as s
he held it in hers. It had been so long, she’d forgotten that she and her mama had the same hands. Slender, with the same tapered fingers, and the same funny thumbs that didn’t quite seem to match.

  It had been so long.

  “He’s going to go to jail,” Holly whispered, leaning in close. “Or worse. Either way he’s not going to be around much longer. I promise. You can wake up soon.” She pulled in a breath. “You can come back, Mama.”

  Her mother didn’t stir. She didn’t know why she’d expected otherwise. And still, when Holly left the master bedroom she had to wipe tears from her face.

  She wandered back to her childhood room on the other end of the house, far from both the master bedroom and the guest suite her father had taken over at least a decade back. But the room felt oppressive when she stood in it. It was as if the whole house was crashing in on her now that she knew the truth about what had happened here. What was still happening here.

  She kicked off her shoes and peeled off her clothes, thinking she wasn’t nearly as tidy as Uptown when she dropped last night’s outfit on the bench at the foot of her bed. She pulled on a pair of white jeans and her favorite blue-and-white-striped top because it was so soft and comfy and she needed that today, then piled her hair on top of her head. It was only then that she realized she was hungry. Starving, in fact.

  And she was grinning like a fool again when she remembered all the delicious reasons she had to be hungry today.

  She took the back stairs down to the kitchen, straight into the huge cook’s kitchen that neither of her parents had ever prepared a meal in, to her knowledge. She rummaged around in one of the huge, steel fridges until she found some orange juice. She poured herself a glass and was sipping at it, staring out back at the gardens from her place at the sink and trying to decide what she wanted to eat, when she heard a faint noise behind her.

  “Don’t start, Daddy,” she said, trying her best to keep her voice even when all she wanted to do was shout. Scream. Something to indicate she knew exactly who he was now. That he couldn’t fool her anymore. “If you don’t have something nice to say, I’m really not in the mood to hear it.”

  “I’m not your daddy, bitch.”

  The unfamiliar voice had her whipping around. Holly forgot her glass of juice entirely as her heart tried to claw its way out of her body. She threw her hands out in front of her as if she thought she could ward off an attack—

  But it was another biker.

  She saw the DKMC cut first. Then the familiar face. She frowned, trying to make sense of it. This was Aaron Guillot, the son of the Devil’s Keepers long-term president. Even she knew that. He was roughly Uptown’s age, though he hadn’t exactly had the same effect on the female population of Lagrange, to her recollection. Then again, no one did. Holly looked at his cut and saw the name WHALE printed there, which made no sense at all on such a reedy, notably unimposing man. But then, what did Uptown mean? She supposed she should ask him someday. Once she figured out what was happening here.

  “Are you looking for Uptown?” she asked, trying to sound helpful instead of unnerved. Because surely that was the only reason a DKMC brother would be standing in her parents’ kitchen. “He left a little while ago. But I bet he’d come right back if we called him.”

  “I’m not here for Uptown.” Whale smirked, and that was when she noticed how flat and mean his eyes looked. “I came for you.”

  She didn’t have time to be confused by that. Or even particularly alarmed.

  Because Whale didn’t give her any time. He stepped forward and hit her. Hard.

  And everything went black.

  Chapter 11

  Uptown roared back up the mayor’s pretty driveway a few hours later, with Greeley and Chaser flanking him and Roscoe leading the pack. That was what happened when the brothers decided it was time to have a little motivational talk with Benny about all that money he owed the club. Everyone wanted to come play.

  They all climbed off their bikes and left them out there in front of the house, where any Lagrange citizen could drive by and see them cluttering up the mayor’s property. Something that they all knew was likely to give the douchebag a stroke. Uptown hung his soft helmet on his handlebars and eyed the rumbling, churning sky like it was an omen rather than another Louisiana storm. The wind was still whipping in his face and thunder muttered in the distance.

  It was a perfect time to make a useless tool of a man, all puffed up on what was left of his petty little throne, feel as small and as breakable as he actually was, Uptown thought.

  Digger hadn’t seemed all that concerned about the money Benny owed, which was a good thing no matter if it was a little odd, because Uptown was way more interested in making the fucker hurt. But Digger had sent them out anyway, because the longer Benny was walking around in one piece, advertising that it was possible to cross the club and live, the more bullshit they’d have to deal with down the line. That was the trouble with the criminal element. They were always trying shit. The slightest indication that they could get away with something? They’d be all up in it.

  “You gonna tell us what happened with the mayor’s little prom queen last night?” Chaser asked as they started for the front door, their boots loud as hell on the gleaming white porch. “Or are you pretending we didn’t all see you haul her out of Dumb Gator’s?”

  Uptown was hoping the prom queen in question was locked away in her room in this place, sleeping through whatever was about to happen to her father. He’d sent her a text suggesting she do just that, but she hadn’t answered. One more thing they needed to talk about.

  “Did you just upgrade yourself to a ‘we,’ asshole?” Uptown asked. He nodded at Greeley and Roscoe. “Because no one else was there, looking for answers at the bottom of a bottle. That was just you.”

  “I’m fucking fascinated by your sex life,” Greeley said, deadpan.

  “I’m never looking for answers,” Chaser said, as if mortally offended by the very idea. “I’m looking for the bottom of the goddamn bottle. It means I’m on the way to decently drunk, for a change.”

  “What the hell do you think happened?” Uptown grinned. “She taught me how to knit, man. It was beautiful. I’m making you a fucking scarf and a pair of mittens.”

  Greeley let out a crack of laughter at that.

  “You’re a dick.” But Chaser was grinning. Or as close to grinning as that fucker ever got.

  Uptown sighed. “You just lost yourself a matching knit cap, friend. It really would have brought out your eyes.”

  But then they all fell silent, because Roscoe had gone aggressively still in front of them. They all froze. And Uptown could hear it then—the creak of the boards that indicated someone was standing on the other side of the door.

  Roscoe nodded at Greeley, who pulled out his piece. Then at Chaser, who did the same. They both fell back to make an angle, leaving Uptown to go and knock on the door with Roscoe right there at his back.

  He didn’t have to knock. The door swung open as he reached for it, and Benny stood there.

  If the mayor noticed the guns drawn on him, he didn’t seem to care. He looked like shit. His mouth was swollen, like someone had popped him one, which Uptown took a little personally. That was his job. The tufts of hair that hung like a spare tire around the base of Benny’s bald head were sticking out in all directions, and the once obnoxiously well-dressed mayor smelled like sour mash and old sweat.

  “What else do you want?” the older man demanded, because Benny Chambless sucked at reading situations. Four DKMC members flashing pieces, he owed the club money and a whole lot of explanations, and he came out hard instead of kissing some ass? Uptown just hoped that Holly was smart enough to stay the hell out of the way when things got intense.

  “No shotgun?” Uptown drawled, crossing his arms over his chest and taking a moment or two to contemplate all the ways he could break this asshole into pieces. “I’m gonna think you don’t love me anymore, Benny.”

  “This
is bullshit,” Benny threw back at him. His eyes swung to Roscoe, then back. “Digger knew I was taking a bigger cut of that protection money. He had that whack job kid of his work out the percentages. How is it stealing from the club when I was working with the fucking club?”

  Everything inside Uptown went still. Around him, he felt his brothers have the same reaction. Because that didn’t sound like Benny talking shit. That sounded like proof. Or something that could turn into proof, anyway.

  It took Benny a minute for it to penetrate that all the other men on the porch were staring at him, and differently than before. His already red face flushed darker. “What now?”

  “What the fuck did you just say?” Roscoe asked, in a very quiet voice that should have scared the shit out of Benny.

  “Digger and that creepy friend of his always knew what was happening,” Benny complained. That was what got to Uptown. He wasn’t making shit up. He was complaining. “They set it up. Now neither one of them will take my calls. Am I really going down for this? After all I did for the club?”

  “Yeah, you’re a real friend,” Chaser muttered. “Always looking out for the club.”

  “Club pussy isn’t the same as club interests,” Greeley pointed out, his hard gaze on the mayor like he was a cockroach. “Benny liked to indulge himself, sure. But did that go both ways? Seems to me he was really more of a taker.”

  “The club likes givers,” Chaser said, his scary-ass glare on Benny.

  But Uptown’s head was spinning. There had been any number of opportunities for Digger to mention that he knew what Benny was up to, but he hadn’t. Why would he keep that to himself? Why would he send the brothers out to collect a debt that wasn’t really a debt?

  What the hell was going on?

  “Which creepy friend of Digger’s did you talk to?” Uptown asked, and he even smiled, like it was a funny question. When it was anything but funny. “All of his friends are a little creepy. That’s what happens when you spend so much time with drunks and miscreants.”