by Lake, Rae B.
I move out the way as he runs to the woman. He pushes the guy away from behind the woman and briefly looks in our direction. There’s no sanity left in that man’s eyes. How are they letting him run around like this?
“What the hell is going on here, Rooster?”
Before Rooster can answer, Tex spits on his dick and rams it into her. She screams and begs for him to stop, but Topper struts over and shoves himself into her mouth.
Devin pushes forward. “Get the fuck off of her!” But Shepard holds onto him to keep him from going to Tex.
There’s no mistaking what I’m seeing. They’re all raping this woman. There is nothing about this that I’m ok with.
“Rooster! What the fuck?” Clean screams, and finally, Rooster pokes his head out from behind the table.
“Oh, brother! Tex will be done soon. You can go next.” Rooster laughs as he pushes a woman’s head down on his cock.
“I don’t want a god damn turn, you piece of shit. I want you to call your fucking mutts off her. The fuck is your problem?” Clean moves by Shepard, who is doing his best to keep us all calm. He may not be letting us by, but I can see in his eyes he isn’t about this shit. His face is full of disgust. Unfortunately, standing by and letting them do this to that poor girl makes him just as guilty.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, boy, coming into my space and telling us what the fuck to do? Wire is the only one I will pay mind to. You are just a fucking guest. I’ve gutted guests for less.” Rooster snarls at Clean and forcefully pushes the woman off his dick.
“Now I want to keep things cordial between us, but don’t push me. If you want to know how I react to people questioning me, talk to Mack, he can tell you first hand what happens to someone who disrespects me in my home.” Rooster smiles in my direction before he fixes himself in his pants.
The only reason Rooster is good to my sister because she was the ol’ lady of his previous VP, but that rarely was the case for me. I thought once I wanted to be a Spawn but at the very last second decided against it. I knew I wasn’t for the destruction and chaos they thrived in. I never thought I’d still be riding with them, even with a different club's kutte on.
“Nah, man, everything is ok. We just need to get the package, and we will be out of your way.” Ripper speaks up, trying to diffuse the situation.
“Whatever, Shepard, take them to the back and show them where the merchandise is. It’s packaged up and ready to go. There’s no exchange, so you just need to leave it and be on your way.
“Alright, Rooster, that’s what we’ll do then.” Clean doesn’t say another word, just follows Shepard to the back room.
Devin and Ripper do the same. I take a chance and shoot the girl being raped a look, and even with Topper’s dick in her mouth, I can see her pleading with me to help her and not leave her there to be further brutalized, but what could I do? I have no pull when it comes to this shit.
Shepard holds open a small door leading to a dark storage area. “This crate here. He opens up the crate and shows us about two dozen Glocks. All generic looking, but I’m sure people would pay top dollar for them. He places a layer of hay over the guns, then decoy glassware on top of that, and seals the crate. Both Devin and I do the grunt work and pick it up. This shit is heavier than it seems.
Clean double-checks the address we have is correct, and we make our way out of the small room. Shepard walks with us back to the elevator, and as I set my side down, I know that if I don’t ask him, it’ll be heavy on my mind all day.
“What did she do?” I speak slowly, thankful the right words came out.
“She fell asleep in the back room where they were entertaining him. He felt like she needed more incentive to stay awake.” Shepard looks away, and that intense expression of disgust crosses his face again.
“What the fuck? Why doesn’t anyone stop him?” Devin hisses from beside me.
“Do you see what the fuck is going on in there? It’s a fucking wolves den, all jumping on fresh meat. What do you think will happen to the person who tries to pull it away. It’s fucking anarchy over here.” Shepard spits out.
“You can do something,”
“I am doing something, I’m staying true to my patch, and you better watch your fucking mouth if you think you’re going to get me to do anything different.” He glares at me before he turns and walks away, leaving us all there in the elevator with a crate of guns and a sick feeling in our stomachs.
We get the merchandise into the truck and head toward the destination, but something eats away at me as every second passes. Something is off.
I signal to the guys I need to pull over. It’s late, and we are on the back roads, so I’m not worried about anyone coming up behind us.
“What’s wrong?” Clean hops out of the truck and looks over my bike. He probably thinks something is wrong with my ride.
I don’t say a word. I just pop open the back doors to the truck and start pulling the box forward.
Clean grabs hold of my hands before I can get a good grip on the top. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Mack? Why are you fucking with Roosters shit?”
“It doesn’t feed right.” I stare him down, waiting for him to get what I’m trying to say.
“I’m with him, Clean. This shit doesn’t feel right at all.” Devin says from the side.
“Fuck that. If Rooster finds out that we’re fucking with his shit, it’ll be all our asses. Leave that shit alone, let’s make the drop, then get the fuck back home.” Ripper put his two cents in.
I shake my head. Clean saw what the fuck was going on in that clubhouse. He can see the type of people they are. We need to find out what the fuck we are carrying around for them.
Clean stares me down for a second, then lets my hands go. “Make this shit quick.”
I easily pop open the hinges on the box and move the decoy glassware out of the way. I lift the hay and see the guns. As I move them to the side, I notice they have the right weight, and nothing about them looks out of the ordinary. I move them to the side and then the hay that they’re sitting on.
“This shit is taking way too long. Hurry the fuck up.” Ripper growls over his shoulder and then goes back to being the look out.
I touch the bottom of the crate, and there’s nothing there but wood.
I could have fucking sworn.
“Hold up,” Devin says and moves closer. “You’re touching the bottom?”
“Yeah.”
“Your arm isn’t in completely,” Clean says.
When I move back, I can see that even though my hand is touching the crate's bottom, it looks like my arm is only halfway inside. It’s a false bottom. “Motherfoot.”
Now Clean and Devin help me clear the box and try to find a way to open up the box's second compartment. After a few seconds, Devin finds a small latch on the inside corner, and the whole bottom flips open.
My stomach drops when I see what’s inside.
“Oh shit!” Ripper blurts. I can feel him looking over my shoulder.
“What the fuck?” Clean turns away and screams into the night air.
There are bags upon bags of crystal meth lined in the bottom of this crate. We transport guns from time to time, but the Wings of Diablo doesn’t deal in drugs. We’ve been trying to make sure they stay out of our community, and here we are making door to door deliveries of some hardcore shit.
“Close it up. We’re taking it back.” Clean orders.
“Brother, are you out of your mind?” Ripper asks, “If we show back up to Rooster and tell him that we don’t want to deliver his shit, he’s going to know we looked inside. What the fuck do you think he will do to us if he figures that shit out? I don’t know about you, but I would like to go the fuck home.”
I hate to admit it, but he’s right. There’s no way we can go back and tell him that shit. We’d never make it out of there alive.
“He’s right,” I say and start pushing the contents back in the case. We would have to
make this delivery and then figure out what to do next after making it back to the clubhouse.
“Fucking hell, fine. Let’s just get this shit over with.” Clean walks back to the truck, and we finish packing up. Not only were we transporting guns that could land us in jail, but we were also a couple of felonies deep in drug possession.
We make it to the drop-off point without a problem, but the location only manages to piss Clean off more. The house we brought the case to is right next to a school. They were going to flood the streets with that mess when there were kids right next door.
We have to ride hard to keep up with the truck on the way back to the compound. Clean is moving faster than a bat out of hell. His mother died from a drug overdose, so he is really sensitive about drugs.
Clean barely puts the truck in park before he is out and walking into the clubhouse. Wire is sitting with Vexx and Keeley. Whatever they are talking about doesn’t seem too important. I hope it isn’t because Clean is only inside for a second before he’s yelling for Wire.
“Wire!” He may be the VP and Wire’s best friend, but even he isn’t immune to reprimand if Wire feels like he’s acting disrespectful.
I tap his arm to get his attention, “Clean, cook out.”
His eyes squint at me for a second before he looks away and takes a deep breath.
“What’s up? The drop off go, ok?” Wire asks as he moves toward us.
“No.” Clean replies and turns toward church.
“What the fuck?” Wire follows us in and sits on the edge of the table to find out what went on.
“You get jacked or something?”
“Wire, what the fuck is going on with Rooster?” Clean asks. His fists clench at his side.
“What the hell do you mean, what’s going on with Rooster? Stop talking in fucking circles and tell me what’s going on.”
“First, we walked into a fucking shit show of a party at the Spawns clubhouse. They were raping a woman out in the open.”
“Raping? You know the club bunnies over there like it a bit rough.” Wire explains.
“Fuck rough, Wire. She was screaming and begging for them to stop. They were raping her. When Clean tried to step in, Rooster said he would gut him.” Devin speaks up this time. “I thought we were supposed to be partners with them. How the fuck is that a partnership?”
“Shit, really?” Wire asks and gets up from where he’s leaning on the table.
“Then, to add to that, the guns Rooster gave us to run is more than guns. Turns out he is hiding at least twenty bags of crystal meth in there. We were ordered to take it right into the center of town. Our fucking town, Wire!” Clean yells. His anger getting the best of him.
“Step the fuck back, Clean, and remember your place.” Wire warns with his eyes glued on his VP.
“This is who we are now, Wire? When did we become drug dealers? I know we do some things that most would consider the wrong side of the law, but there’s always been a line. It’s getting really fucking blurry right now.”
“Oh, cut the dramatics. We aren’t drug dealers.”
“So what are we going to do about all this shit?” Clean asks.
“I think we should just mind our business. We have a good thing going with Rooster and the boys. What he does with his club is his own business.” Wire shrugs and walks over to the doors like he’s about to walk out.
“Wait, that’s it? Are we just going to let them continue to do this shit? Get away with raping women?” Devin asks, his tone full of disbelief.
“It’s not our fucking business. It would be best if you were worried about what’s going on here. Not there.”
I can feel the anger building inside of me. When I first joined the Wings, I was happy I would be apart of something mostly right. Sitting back while the town goes to shit is not what I signed up for. I wait for Wire to walk out, and I quickly make my way upstairs to my room. Just as none of Rooster’s men will go against him, no one here will go against Wire. I would have to be pissed about it alone in my room. I open the door and see Siren sitting on the bed, “Fuck.” I roll my eyes.
I completely forgot she was here.
“You ok?” She asks quietly.
I nod once and strip my kutte off, hanging it on the hook behind my door.
When I look at her again, she is still staring at me, and though she hasn’t said anything else to me, I can see the questions in her eyes.
“We don’t do drugs. Never have. Now all of a sudden, we have become mules. It’s bullshit.” I say and sit down on the chair. This all seems like too much, but what choice do I have?
“What about your leader? Wire?” She asks.
“He thinks we can just ignore it. He says it’s none of our business what they do.”
“So he’s as guilty as the rest.” She states calmly.
“Fuck that! We’re nothing look at them. Nothing.” I slam my hand down on the table.
“Someone hasn’t told Wire that.”
I put my head down on the desk, hoping it would be enough to calm me down. I think about the last song I heard and start to hum it. It’s an older song, but every time I hear it, I always calm down. It’s true what they say about music soothing the savage beasts.
After a few seconds, the most delicate, awe-inspiring sound echoes in the room. I lift my head and listen in amazement as Siren sings the first few chords of Devil’s Backbone by The Civil Wars.
I close my eyes and just let the sound wash over me. I don’t know what possessed me to do it or why I felt so moved for the first time in years, but when Siren gets to the part of the song where the man starts singing, that is exactly what I do.
I only opened my eyes for a brief second, and even though she’s still signing, I can see the bright smile on her face when she realizes her solo has become a duet.
We sing the song to completion, and with those final notes, I have to admit I do feel better.
“You didn’t miss a word.” Siren whispers.
“What?” I ask as I come down from the high I feel.
She stands, a smile still on her face, “You didn’t miss a word. You sang every word perfectly. You didn’t mix up one word.”
I open my mouth to tell her that she was wrong, but I realize she is right as I think back. I’ve never actually sung in front of anyone else, and when I sing alone, I don’t pay attention to the words coming out of my mouth. She is the first to hear me sing out loud and the first to bring to my attention that I’m fucking normal when I sing.
Siren’s POV
I let the words of one of the only songs I remember from a decade ago flow from my mouth. I always feel completely at ease when I’m singing, and it’s the one thing I can say without a doubt that I’m good at. I had dreams of becoming a singer when I was a child, but my life took a drastic turn for the worse. Now the only reprieve I’ve ever had during the pain I’ve endured at the hands of countless bastards is my music.
Mack’s entire body goes lax as the day's stress and the discovery his club isn’t on the right path like he would like to think they are, simply drip from him. As I make it to the chorus of the song, I see his mouth move and hear a gruff baritone voice coming out of his mouth. What’s even better is he isn’t thinking about the words, and they come out effortlessly.
I want to jump in excitement as I realize that he isn’t messing up any words. They come out perfectly.
Once the song is finished, I explain to him that he sang perfectly, and it seems like he doesn’t believe me at first. He deserves this. He is always so frustrated or angry because he can’t communicate the way he wants to. If he could have one way to communicate the way he wanted to, I would be happy.
“Hmm, I guess.” He tries to brush it off like it’s not a big deal.
I let it go. If he wants to pretend it’s not a big deal, then so be it.
He puts his head back and leans back further in the chair. I look away, but being in such proximity to him has pushed me to the limit for the past f
ew days. The man is gorgeous. Even through my years in that fucked up hell hole with Ruby and Harrington, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man as beautiful as him. His hair was cut very low, but he had a long, well-kept beard. If I could run my fingers through it, I was sure it would feel like wolfs fur. Thick and smooth. He was tall and muscular. I had the pleasure of watching him change in and out of his shirt, and though I know the last thing I should be thinking about is a man, I can’t remember if I ever have wanted to run my hands down someone's abs as much as I wanted to touch on his.
Add to that he may be the only man in the last fifteen years who’s been nice to me without wanting anything in return. I keep waiting for him to make a move or try and force himself on me in the night, but he’s never even touched me inappropriately. Then the cherry on top, his voice is like a warm blanket with a built-in vibrator. If I could live inside his voice, I would.
“Why don’t you sing more?” I ask, genuinely curious why I never hear him singing.
“Never wanted to. It’s silky.” He blew out a breath and crossed his arms over his chest.
I stand up and move to him, pulling his arms from his chest. “I hate that. I spent so long being silent because I was scared of what those bastards would use in my words. Scared that I would say the wrong thing. Scared of what they could figure out from the tone of my voice. I hate that you hide for the same reasons. These people are supposed to be your friends, your family. I hate that you have to hide from them as if they are your enemy.”
He looks up at me, and a small smile crosses his face. “You know, for someone who didn’t spell, you sure do have a lot of smart shit to stay.”
“Well, I like to think I’m pretty smart.”
“Yeah, you are.” He gets up and moves past me into the bathroom, barely touching me but enough for me to want more.
When I say the man has never done anything inappropriate toward me, I mean he’s done nothing. I have been a slave, I’ve been a killer, I’ve been a prisoner, but I’ve never been anyone’s woman. Sure, I’ve been passed around for the carnal pleasure of some fuck after they close a deal or gang banged as a form of punishment. But I’ve never had a man hold me like I know Mack would hold me. I tried to purge myself of ever wanting anything, but the more I’m around Mack, the more I can’t help but wish for what I’ve never had.
