by Addison Jane
It all happened so damn fucking fast, one moment I was on this high after having Meyah on the back of my bike, absolutely fascinated and eager to learn more and more about her. Then I was on a plane with Wrench on my way to Nevada.
Apparently, Wrench had been sent information that said my brother had made early bail because of overcrowding in the prison. He was being released at the end of the week, and there was only one more day available for visits. If I didn’t do it now, he would possibly walk out of here disappearing into thin air again, and I wouldn’t have had my chance to look him in the eye and hope for the fucking best.
Because that’s all I was doing.
I was going into this fully aware he might not want anything to do with me. I’m not even sure whether he’d speak to me or give me the time of day. But if I didn’t do this now, I might not get another chance, so I dropped everything, and we got on the next flight out of Alabama.
I didn’t even have time to talk to Meyah. By the time I knew what was going on, she was gone, and Wrench and I were already at risk of missing our flight. At least I had my brother with me. Out of everyone at the club, Wrench knew how much this meant to me. He knew how hard this was, and he knew just how hard to push when I doubted myself.
I sneered at the prison guard as he patted his hands down the sides of my body clenching my jaw when his hands came to rest a little too close to my dick, reminding myself if I punched him in the face, I’d be thrown out on my ass.
Or thrown into a cell.
“I thought you might at least buy me a drink first,” I commented dryly before the officer stepped back, his lip curled up as if he was disgusted at the thought of dating me. I flashed him a boyish grin. “Hey now, I’m a cheap date.”
I reached out to pat his cheek but was instantly slapped away, and a hand was shoved against my chest pushing me back against the brick wall.
“I ain’t gay. But you try and touch me again, I’ll make sure one of the boys in here makes you his bitch,” the guard drawled, his hand resting on the baton at his hip while the other pinned me against the wall.
I smirked, raising my hands in the air. “My bad, man. I’m too pretty to be someone’s bitch.”
The guard stepped back and huffed looking me up and down. “Get this asshole out of my fucking way, Billy,” he sneered, backing away and slipping back into his little glass room that was meant to protect him.
Another guard, Billy, I assume, pushed off the wall and waved me forward indicating for me to follow him as an elderly lady stepped up behind me to have her own check done. In the back of my mind, I hoped that she slapped Mr. Handsy around the damn ears with her handbag.
Following Billy down a short hallway, I rubbed my hands together nervously, a million thoughts running through my brain. He lifted his hand signaling the guard to open the door and waited for a loud buzz before slamming his palm against a large metal door that creaked as it opened, and by the way the muscles and veins in his arm tightened and protruded, weighed a fucking shitload.
Swallowing past the lump that had formed in my throat, I took a deep breath as I entered, my eyes refusing to look up just yet. The room was humming with soft voices and the sounds of children playing.
Would I recognize him?
How would I feel when I saw him?
Was this just a huge fucking mistake?
When I looked up, I was instantly given all the answers to my questions.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
I wanted to slump, to embrace the defeated feeling which was shooting through me and sulk toward my little brother begging for forgiveness. But that wasn’t who I was, that wasn’t the man I’d become, and if I wanted to help him, I knew I was going to have to fight for him to put his trust in me again and rely on me to protect him. He wasn’t going to give me a free pass, and he definitely wasn’t just going to hug me and pretend like the past didn’t play a part in him being here.
He’d probably blame me.
And I’d deserved it.
Lifting my chin, I put one foot in front of the other, my heavy motorcycle boots thumping against the concrete floor until I reached the table where he was sitting. I didn’t wait for an invitation dropping my body down onto the cold, hard stool which was concreted into the floor.
“Get up, and get the hell out of here,” Romeo commanded, his hands clenching the edge of the table. I could see the silver lining of the cuffs that encased his wrists—no doubt they were chained to a bolt underneath the table. At least I knew he couldn’t throw a punch and knock me on my ass. His lips were set in a straight line, and his eyes narrowed and brow creased so deeply I wondered for a second whether it was causing him pain to glare at me as hard as he was.
Leaning forward, I braced my arms on the metal table ignoring the pathetic excuse for a threat. “Orange is your color. It compliments your skin tone,” I told him, tilting my head curiously. “But you always did have Mom’s coloring. I got Dad’s pasty whiteguy skin.”
The harshness of his features didn’t ease up any. “Go. The. Fuck. Away, Hamlet,” he warned, his eyes darting to the side, and his body tightening when someone moved too quickly from the other side of the room. I caught it, too. It wasn’t the least bit threatening, but then again, I wasn’t the one locked in this building with violent criminals. It was obvious it was affecting him.
“You’re delusional if you think I’m gonna walk away that easy, little bro,” I said with a shrug. Cupping my hands together on the table, I was happy to wait for as long as it took for him to just talk to me. To tell me what the hell had happened to put him here or just fucking anything.
I was trying to act casual like this was an everyday occurrence, and not like I hadn’t seen my little brother in six years. Inside, my stomach was doing somersaults, both excited and nervous at the same time. I couldn’t even believe he was right here and sitting across from me. It was something I’d been imagining for fucking years. Maybe not in a prison visiting room, but it was what it was.
My little brother was no longer little.
He was taller and broader than I was, but honestly, not as pretty. The scar that cut across his right cheek fucked up the perfect skin and cheekbones he’d inherited. I wasn’t joking when I said he got Mom’s skin tone. The deep, rich tan of his skin and inky color of his hair always made people look at us three kids strangely.
Phee and I were all Dad with our white skin and sandy colored hair. He was your average literature nerd. How he’d managed to charm my mom was a mystery of its own.
Mom was fucking beautiful. She had deep Spanish roots which made her seem so exotic and out of reach, yet she was never embarrassed to hold Dad’s hand or let people know they were in love and happy. He wore her heart out there for people to see, and she let everyone know that intelligence for her was always going to win over looks.
There were times where I was jealous of Romeo. He was broader, taller, and rougher around the edges which meant that girls loved him the second they laid eyes on him. I wasn’t exactly lacking in the looks department, but back in school, I didn’t have that bad boy, dark and mysterious edge that Romeo owned.
Romeo’s nose twitched when he realized intimidation wasn’t going to work in this instance. “How’d you find me?” he asked, forcing me to sit a little taller.
Was he trying to hide from me?
“I changed my name when I got out of foster care.”
“One of the boys in my club can find anyone,” I told him straightforward. “It took a while, but here I am. So how ‘bout you tell me how you ended up here?”
“If your boy is really that good, then you’ll already know why the hell I’m here,” he glowered, leaning back against the wall behind him and placing his hands on the table. The chains hung down clanging against the table.
I gritted my teeth. I knew this was going to be hard. I’m lucky he’d even given me the time of day, but I desperately wanted it to be easy. I wanted to see him crack a smile, show me that
cheeky grin I’d grown up with, the one that always told me he was up to no good. “I’d rather hear it from you. I don’t trust police records.”
He stared me directly in the eye assessing me, judging me.
He was trying to figure out if he could trust me, and man, did that fucking hurt. I had brothers at home, not blood like Romeo, but men who as far as I was concerned were my family, and none of them had ever looked at me the way he was currently staring at me. It was time just to lay it all out there on the table and let shit fall where it falls.
“I did everything I fucking could—”
“Well, it wasn’t enough, was it?” he snapped, and I knew we weren’t going to get fucking anywhere until we hashed this out. He tugged on the chains holding him captive, and for the first time, I saw the bruises and the raw red marks across his knuckles. “I sat up, night after fucking night, waiting for you to show up at my window. I had a fucking bag packed ready to run because that’s what I would have done if it had been you. Fuck the court. You’re my damn brother. We could have run, taken Phee, and gotten the hell out of there. If we’d stuck together, we would have been okay.”
My mouth hung open in shock. So that was it. “I was only eighteen, Rome. I fought as hard as I could. I spent every fucking cent that Mom and Dad left to try and get you and Ophelia back. There was a point where I couldn’t even pay my rent and had to live in a fucking shelter. I’m still paying back legal fees because I was constantly bugging the lawyer… fighting for you.”
People around us were starting to pay attention to our interaction, but I didn’t give a shit. This was my little brother, and if it were going to make him feel better to tell me what a fucking useless brother I was, then I’d take it. But I refused to walk out of here without knowing that I did fucking everything I could to connect us again.
“I don’t give a fuck about your legal shit,” he hissed, sitting forward, a few strands of dark hair falling across his face. It was longer than it had ever been, pulled back into a short ponytail at the back of his head. I wasn’t a fan of that shit on guys, but it suited him. It made him look dangerous, and with the dark flair in his eyes, it even made me think twice and start to question whether I was just too late.
“I just wanted my brother to be there for me. I wanted for you to care more about me than lawyers and cops and doing things right for once. You always did the best in school. Always followed the rules. Always did things by the book.”
I sat a little straighter. He was right, when we were younger, I was a good kid. I worked hard at school, I was good at sports, and I guess you could say I was almost a goody-two-shoes. I barely ever put a foot wrong, while Romeo was more of a free spirit.
“I wanted to know for once I was more important to you than the rules,” he whispered, his voice almost cracking. His eyes glistened under the fluorescent visiting room lights. I knew it wasn’t a good look, you can’t cry in prison without someone seeing and coming after you, but it was like he didn’t care. He needed me to see how much I’d hurt him. That sixteen-year-old kid that I watched them drag out of our childhood home kicking and screaming. The same one I should have gone after, that I should have protected at whatever cost, even if it meant breaking the law.
“I regret it all,” I answered finally. “I could have done more. I should have fucking done more. I should be where you are right now. I should have fought harder.” My throat burned. I traced the tattoo on my forearm, the one that represented my brother. A beautiful bright romantic rose for Romeo. “I know I fucking let you down,” I hissed, squeezing my hands into fists. “I’m here. You can hate me, punch me in the fucking face, refuse to see me. Whatever. I can’t change the past, but just know I’m not fucking going anywhere. I found you once, I’ll find you again.”
I wasn’t lying. I was fully willing to hunt him down again if he tried to run.
I’d do whatever I had to do to fill that hole in my chest that they left.
I could tell he was grinding his teeth together, his jaw moving back and forth as he stared me down like he was trying to figure out if I was legit. I couldn’t stop touching the tattoo on my arm, my thumb rubbing over it in circles absentmindedly.
“Jesus fucking Christ, what kind of pussies have we turned into,” he groaned, shaking his head. He blinked a few times expelling the moisture from his eyes before it could drip down onto his cheeks. Then his eyes settled once again on me, the anger dissipating, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. “You always said you’d never get tattoos, that they were for criminals, remember?”
Romeo held up his arms as far as he could, the sleeves of his jumpsuit sliding back to reveal one very intricately decorated right arm while the other was left untouched—exactly what I’d done but on the opposite side. At a brief glance, I could make out some chains, a dragon, some fire maybe, but it’s the quote written across his wrist that made me smile.
“To be or not to be,” I muttered with a smile, rolling my eyes.
“That’s the fucking question,” Romeo followed it up with, that menacing grin I was hoping for making its presence now known.
Debatably Shakespeare’s most famous quote from Hamlet. It was like a kick start to my fucking heart telling me that while my brother played hard, he never wrote me off.
“Aw, so you didn’t forget about me,” I teased.
His smile faltered, and he shrugged. “I figured you’d show up one day.”
I grinned. “You got that fucking right.”
“So what’s this club you speak of?” he asked, leaning back against the wall, his eyes full of curiosity and interest to hear about my life.
“Man, where to fucking start.”
My heart pounded in my chest as I sucked in breath after breath trying to keep them slow and steady. It’s a fight against your body’s natural instincts when all your lungs want to do is stop the torture and suck in as much oxygen as possible, but you’re still trying to push further and longer and faster than yesterday without dying on the side of the street.
“Race you!” Chelsea called out as we hit the corner of the road and could finally see the clubhouse gates around two blocks down.
I groaned loudly, but she was already gone, her body kicking it up a notch like we hadn’t just spent the last forty minutes pounding our feet against the asphalt. “Fuck,” I rasped before ducking my head and pumping my arms and legs forward trying to force my exhausted and drained body to pick up some speed and not stop breathing at the same time.
Chelsea was a good twenty feet ahead, and there was no way I was going to catch her. The woman was like a machine. I swore she could run and run and her body would never give up, and on top of that, you’d never fucking guess she’d given birth to twins. Despite a few stretch marks, which Chelsea wore with pride, her stomach was as flat as it was before she got pregnant. Maybe even more fucking toned if we were totally honest.
She’d worked her ass off to get it there.
Running wasn’t my strongest point or the activity I loved the most, but when I was prospecting, it was Chelsea who piqued my interest in it. She explained to me why she ran. Why it was important to her, and how it helped her cope for a long time when she felt like she was falling to pieces.
When she had the twins and decided to start running again, it was around the time I decided to finally grow up and ask Wrench to help me find my siblings and get the answers to questions I’d spent years trying to avoid thinking about because I was too fucking scared. I thought maybe it would burn some of the frustrations out as I ran to the point of utter exhaustion, or at least until I heard something about Romeo and Phee. That’s how I ended up running beside Chelsea, three mornings a week at fucking 5:30 a.m.
I hit the ten-foot clubhouse fence with force gripping the wire netting with my hands and trying to stop my legs from collapsing out from underneath me, while my lungs screamed in pain. I had sweat in my eyes, and the last sprint home had caused something in my pants to move and chafe.
Ch
elsea laughed breathlessly as she fell against the fence beside me pulling one of her knees up to her stomach. “You’re getting faster,” she praised.
I scoffed in response, but it came out as some awkward choking sound that made her furrow her brows like she wasn’t sure if I was agreeing, or if she should give me the Heimlich. I waved her off and placed my hands on my knees, bending over, and trying to suck in all the air to satisfy my starved body before I passed out.
It was a good ten minutes before Chelsea managed to get me moving inside the compound and the clubhouse. I collapsed onto the nearest sofa while she fetched two water bottles from behind the bar. It was still and quiet inside, but strangely, the patio door was pushed open, and I could hear the muted shots of an air rifle obviously right out the back at the target.
I moved to reach for my shoelaces, ready to feel the satisfaction of pulling them off and dying right here for the next few hours, but Chelsea snapped at me before I could pull them undone. “Hell no, buddy, you’re going to do some stretches. You don’t want to damage a muscle because you were too lazy to prep your body properly and then wind down afterward.”
I groaned, drinking half the bottle of water before climbing to my feet and following along as we stretched out our muscles.
Whenever the club moved together as a group, there were always comments and questions about whether the club only let good looking men inside, given that at this stage, none of us had the dreaded beer belly that some of the older guys tended to sport. We were all toned, some more than others, but for the most part, we all had strong bodies.
And the truth was because it was required of us.
Joining the club was a commitment to keep ourselves healthy, strong, and able to fight to protect our families if that’s what it came down to—which it had before. We’re expected to be able to do whatever we could to keep our family safe and have our brothers’ backs, and you can’t exactly do that if you can’t walk a flight of stairs without having a stroke at the top.
