by Kati Wilde
Stone would probably give her every dollar, if he thought she really needed it. He wouldn’t care about the money itself. But he’d care if she stole it or if she fucked him over. So he’d rather not even risk it.
“She mentioned a room she’s staying in,” he says.
Shit. That’s not much better. I dig the Escalade’s key fob out of my pocket and hand it over. Better for him to swing by and grab a weapon before he heads off to her place. But that reason goes unspoken.
“You can fold the back seat forward and the cargo hold is about as big as a bed,” I remind him. “Might be better than holing up in a room where some asshole might come knocking.”
“True that. I’ve got enough scars.”
Which he got after going home with another girl in trouble. Except that one had an ex-boyfriend who liked using his fists on her. And that ex-boyfriend brought friends. Stone can fight like the devil, but he barely made it out of there alive—and he went out through a window, not a door.
He’d have bailed before it came to that, except he was still trying to protect the girl, who turned around and accused him of raping her to save her own ass from the jealous bastard who was going to kill her for straying.
Considering the circumstances, how terrified she was, Stone forgave her that. But he’s been wary ever since.
Even now, there’s caution in the way he watches Cherry return, drink in hand. Her smile falters, emerald eyes searching his expression as she gives him the beer. “Are you all right?”
“Better now,” he tells her. “Just discussing the perils of defenestration.”
Her eyebrows rise. “Being thrown through a window?” She hesitates, her gaze lightly touching on his jagged scars. “Is that what happened to you?”
His body stills and I’ve got the sudden feeling there’s going to be three of us on that flight home tomorrow.
“Don’t you be pretty and smart,” he warns.
“I’ll try.” Humor flashes in her eyes before it flickers out. “I’d rather be something else, anyway.”
“What’s that?”
With a shake of her head, she seems to draw into herself, and all at once there’s that broken woman again. Her face is a mask of hopeless desperation as she gestures at his beer. “Why don’t you finish that up and we’ll head out?”
His eyebrows pull together in a frown, but he obediently chugs, watching her over the end of the glass. She’s shaking again, her emerald eyes bright as she looks everywhere but Stone.
I can’t hear his heavy sigh over the noise in the bar, but I see the deep rise of his chest and read the beleaguered look he gives me as he turns to set down his empty glass.
I’m laughing at his expense even as he slings his arm around Cherry’s shoulders and leads her away. He’s screwed. Not in the fun way. Cherry is so desperate, having sex with her would be like fucking a woman in chains. Stone’s an asshole, but he won’t take advantage of a girl who obviously needs more help than a dick can give.
So that’s two of us who won’t be getting laid tonight. The difference is, I’m not sorry.
Hell. Even I wasn’t hung up on Anna, I’d be too damn tired to get it up, anyway. Nothing sounds better than heading back to the hotel and hitting the bed, but I’ve still got a tab to close out.
But maybe not yet. Buster’s still going strong and showing no signs of stopping. I find a seat by him and finally sit my ass down, stretching my legs out.
I watch in amazement as he downs another pint. Plenty of bikers are heavy drinkers, but he must be setting some kind of record for staying upright. He slams down the empty and regards me steadily, a thick foam mustache hovering over his upper lip.
“You heading out?” he asks, his tone forlorn, as if the prospect of no more free beer is almost too much to bear.
I tip my head to indicate his empty glass. “I’m waiting to see if it’ll catch up with you. You should be on the floor by now.”
Swollen cheek bunching like a squirrel’s, he grins that lopsided grin. “A fist is the only thing that can make me go down.”
“Your old lady must pack one hell of a punch, then.”
His sputtering laugh sends the foam mustache flying. Grinning, I turn my head to avoid it, and when I glance back he’s blinking off into the distance.
“Maybe it’s hitting me harder than usual,” he says with a shake of his head. “Because now I’m seeing double.”
I follow his gaze and my grin freezes in place. Icy tension stiffens every muscle.
He’s not seeing double. He’s seeing one of my brothers.
Jacob. The second of six sons in the Cooper clan. Spotting him is like spotting a glimpse in the mirror eight years into the future. The same angular face, the same pale blue eyes. Look close, he’s a little thinner and shorter than me, with gray salting the black hair at his temples. But at first glance—even at second and third glance—a double.
We’ve got four other doubles, but one of them’s rotting in the ground.
I look for Benjamin and Isiah—the eldest of us, Adam, is in prison, which is a hell of a lot better than he deserves—but the only other man I see sporting the Notorious Few’s colors is a big bastard I don’t recognize.
Careful not to show any emotion, I lock eyes with my brother again. I won’t think of him as Jacob. He goes by Strawman now. Better to call him by his road name, because there’s still a part of me that thinks Jacob and remembers the older brother I used to admire. Back when I was a kid who didn’t know beating me to teach me how to be strong wasn’t the sign of affection he claimed it was. Back when I thought a man was defined by how much blood he drew from his enemies and how many women he fucked. Back when family meant falling in line.
His smile appears as he sizes me up—pleased to see me in the same way a poacher is pleased when a tiger crosses his path. I can always tell what he’s feeling, and not just because I grew up tagging along behind him. It’s easy to read a face just like your own.
Keeping my gaze on Strawman, I lean closer to Buster. “You mind giving me and my brother some space?”
He rises to his feet, belching all the way up, then gives Strawman a once-over. “He’s not a Hellfire Rider.”
“He’s not.” Thank fuck for that. A club that patched in anyone sharing my blood isn’t a club I’d want to be a part of.
“Well, I’ll be over there just drinking my beer.”
I nod. Unsaid is the promise to have my back if shit goes down. Part of that’s simply because Buster’s a good sort. We aren’t from the same club and only see each other a few times a year, but making another man bleed forms bonds between you and him. Often those bonds look like anger and revenge, but sometimes spilling each other’s blood leads to trust and friendship. Buster’s so damn cheerful it’s impossible to go in any direction but the second.
But the other part is that, despite me calling Strawman my brother, despite the similarity in our looks, Buster must recognize what else the other man is—a fucking atom bomb, walking around and pretending to be human. And like any nuke, it’s not just the explosion you’ve got to worry about, but all the dirty radiation in the fallout.
I left home at seventeen and I still don’t feel clean. That was half my life ago. But the dirty shit, it lingers.
Maybe Buster smells it. Maybe he can see it by the cold glee in my brother’s eyes. Or maybe he recognizes the patches on Strawman’s kutte—the white skulls, the gray skulls. There’s more than a dozen, each one representing a man he’s killed.
That’s not so remarkable. I’ve killed more. Most in service to the country, and some protecting the Hellfire Riders. I don’t slap a patch on my kutte or a tattoo on my skin to count them, though some Riders do. Plenty of bikers in other clubs do, too. But the boys of the Cooper family—and by extension, the Notorious Few—they’ve got their own system. The white skulls show how many pure white men he’s killed. The gray skulls represent men of any other color, and that patch is smaller, because those men aren’t worth
as much.
And the blood running through my veins? Not pure, though they like to say it is. It’s fucking poison. The only thing pure in this family is the bullshit they all spout.
“If it ain’t my little brother, Zachary!” Strawman spins the chair Buster vacated and straddles the seat, wearing a big toothy smile. “Been a long time.”
“Not long enough.”
“Long enough for you to finish growing up, get some muscle on you. You’re not such a scarecrow now. You’re starting to look like one of the family. Well, almost. One detail’s wrong.” His gaze lingers on the shoulder of my kutte, where my road name sits below the HRMC patch and my rank. “Sergeant at arms? You could hold the same position as one of the Few.”
Not a chance in hell am I joining them. But I just take a swallow of my beer, holding his gaze. I’ve got nothing else to say to him.
His smile fades. “Mama misses you.”
My stomach tightens. The warmth and concern on his face—that’s real. One thing the Cooper boys do well is love their mama.
We hate her well, too.
But I still don’t respond and he heaves a sigh, then turns his face to the side. And fuck. Fuck. I’m so wound up I didn’t even notice he had a girl with him. Dark hair, tight skirt, strappy top. I spotted her near him earlier but didn’t realize they were together. She’s not a threat but if she had been one, I’d be fucked right now. My focus is too tight.
She comes up to his side and skims her fingertips along his neck. “You need anything, gorgeous?”
“Just your mouth shut and your ass warming my knee.” He pulls her down so she straddles the lower part of his thigh, her panties on display as his hand circles around to her belly and tunnels under her top. Playing with her nipples in the same absent way some men play with their keys, he regards me steadily. “Mama’ll be happy to hear I ran into you. But you’re not even going to ask how she’s doing?”
I’m not. Because they tried to bring me home once by saying she was sick. She just wants to see you again. She might not have that long to live. But she’s as hale and hearty as she’s always been.
I know that for certain, because I learned my lesson. I don’t visit but I keep tabs. Partly so I’ll know if they’re lying, partly so I might see them coming.
But I didn’t see this. So it’s the one question I’m interested in asking. “What brought you here?”
“Club business,” he says and triumph flashes across his expression. I’m talking; that’s a victory to him. I’ll let him have it because it’s the only one he’ll get. “Which I would tell you about if you were wearing the Few’s colors.”
I’m not that interested. “Is Muncher here, too? Six-Point?”
Benjamin and Isiah. I don’t care about seeing them—I just want to know how many of my brothers I might be up against if they force the issue of bringing me home.
Strawman shakes his head. Her face flushed, the girl squirms on his knee, but she might as well be a dog at his feet for all the attention he’s paying her. “This is an opportunity I’m cultivating on my own.”
“Mama must like that.”
She likes her boys to take the initiative. But only when their purpose falls in line with her own.
“She’ll like it when the money starts rolling in. But what she’ll like most is if you come home.”
“Not happening.”
“It will,” he says as if it’s a foregone conclusion. Not angry, not frustrated. In his head, my return is inevitable, so my answer doesn’t upset him at all. “You want a piece of this?”
Of the girl riding his leg. “No.”
“Bullshit.” He laughs because it truly doesn’t cross his goddamn mind that I wouldn’t. So I can only be lying. “Hey, girlie. You want to suck my brother’s dick?”
Surprise flares across her face, cutting through her heavy-lidded arousal when she looks at me. If that question shocks her, she hasn’t been with my brother long. Probably not more than a few hours.
Then interest narrows her eyes as she gets a good look, and her tongue darts out to lick her full lips. “I think I’d like that.” Her gaze slips to Strawman before returning to me. “I’ve never been with brothers. Are you twins?”
Twins. A hot blade slices through my chest. I had a twin. It wasn’t Strawman.
“No,” I tell her flatly. “Not twins. And you stay right there.”
“I guess he prefers to watch,” Strawman tells her, but although his mouth is smiling I know his thoughts went straight to David, too. His death still festers deep, a wound the entire family feels—and they feel it all the deeper because it was their goddamn fault. That pain darkens Strawman’s eyes now and his voice is somber as he says, “Adam’s getting out.”
Rage stiffens every muscle. “Bullshit.”
“It’s true.” It’s not rage I see on Strawman’s face. It’s satisfaction. “He goes up before a judge this week and the lawyer says there’s precedent for getting his conviction overturned. Turns out the lead batch evidence they used to match up his bullets is bad science. So when Adam comes home, he’ll be taking his place as president—and Mama wants all her boys to come home.”
“I’ve got a home.” One I don’t intend to leave. Everything I want is there.
He dismisses that response like it means nothing, but the sudden intensity of his shark’s gaze puts my back up. He smells blood in the water.
“You got a girl, too?”
Brittle ice scrapes up my spine. I don’t show the fear that question brings—I don’t show a fucking thing.
And I don’t think about Anna. She’s not mine.
“No.”
“No?” A lazy smile curls his mouth. The girl on his knee gasps in pain, her brows knitting, her body going still. His hand under her top isn’t moving—pinching her flesh or her nipple. She’ll be bruised tomorrow. He likes to leave a mark. But she’s not protesting or trying to get away, so I’m not going to stop him. “Because you know Mama worries. So sometimes she sends the boys to check up on you.”
The boys. Members of the Notorious Few who come from outside the family—the ones I wouldn’t recognize.
“I know she does.” I usually don’t know when or who, but it is not surprising news.
“Well, it seems there’s one girl in particular you pay attention to. And spend a significant amount of time with her at work, at her house.”
I play so fucking dumb that my brain might as well have crawled up my ass. But it’s not all acting. I am stupid. So goddamn stupid for ever taking any kind of risk with Anna. For watching her. For not fucking every girl in sight, just to throw my family off the scent. Hell, stupid for befriending Stone and for joining the Riders. I should have kept running.
But that’s all just bullshit now. All that matters is keeping Strawman from believing Anna means anything to me.
Frowning as if I’m confused, I ask, “Whose house am I supposedly visiting?”
“A pretty little bartender’s.”
In an instant, my rage and fear go from hot to cold. So cold. I think about snapping his neck. It’d be easy. His hands are trapped under the girl’s shirt, his leverage gone thanks to her weight on his knee. He couldn’t even ward me off.
And if I was in prison for killing him, I sure as hell wouldn’t be going home and granting Mama’s wish.
But that’d only protect me, not Anna. Because my family might guess exactly what set me off. And I could get a warning to Stone, ask him to take them all out before they come for her, but there’s a more efficient way to make Strawman believe Anna’s nothing to me.
So I let my confusion ease into a smile. “You talking about Stone Wall’s sister? No.” I shake my head, chuckling. “She’s just around. They share a house, and the Wolf Den where she works is the prez’s bar.”
“Word is, she’s a looker.”
“Cute as hell,” I agree because no one would think anything different. “But she’s damaged.”
His eyes narrow. “Damaged
how?”
I raise my fingers as I count off the reasons. “One—she had cancer. And she carries that disease in her blood. Two—the treatment left her barren. She’s never giving birth to any kids. Three—she was adopted. Doesn’t have a fucking clue who her parents are. Her mom could be a Mexican crack whore for all she knows.”
All those reasons don’t mean anything to me. But to Strawman, they’re everything. And he’s not good at imagining other people thinking differently from him. Especially if those people are his kin.
Slowly he nods. “You ain’t lying?”
“No.”
Because if he checks on those statements—and he will—a lie would fuck everything up. The only lie is pretending I give a shit about any of it.
“Good thing.” His hand slides under the girl’s skirt. “Mama’s got a woman picked out for you. Real pure. And still a virgin, at least in the ways that count.”
“Just what I asked for from Santa,” I say dryly, then glance pointedly at the girl’s lap, where his fingers between her legs are working her up. “How’s your wife?”
He grins. “Real good. About to have our fourth kid. Doc says another son.”
“Only four?” Not the way he fucks around.
“I always wrap up my dick with pussy from off the farm.” He nuzzles the girl’s brown hair before spearing another look at me. “You really got snipped? Mama says she’s sure you faked that report with your sperm count.”
Of course she did. It’s beyond her to think any Cooper might willingly sacrifice his legacy and future children. “I didn’t fake it.”
“I don’t believe it, man.” Laughing, he shakes his head—but his reason for doubting is different than my mother’s. He can’t imagine any man voluntarily undergoing the operation, because he never would. “But it doesn’t matter. Mama made sure those conjugal visits between Adam and his wife bore fruit. Benjamin and I took care of that; we can do the same for your woman.”
Just stand back and watch my brothers breed my wife. Jesus. Sometimes I think my family can’t sink any lower, then they surprise me by digging the hole deeper.
