Never Let Go (Devil's Chariots Motorcycle Club Book 2)

by Miranda Banks

  Phil had called the meeting after a brief chat with Aaron. The two of them were the longest running brothers in the club, and they were very set on making sure that the oaths that were taken continued to be upheld. However, even Phil had to admit that this was a unique situation. He'd been in the club for most of his forty-three years of life, and he'd never encountered anything like this.

  Not that he hadn't seen brothers betray each other. Hell, before he'd even turned twenty-one he'd seen an old brother, Nate, have an affair with a brother's old lady when he was in the hospital in a coma. Naturally, Nate had been made to pay the price for his bad choices.

  The problem that Phil saw now was the fact that Johnny wasn't like that. Hell, Johnny had never even looked twice at a brother's old lady. He'd been in the club since he was a young teenager, and he'd idolized Dan. They were more than brothers. They were best friends.

  Phil had learned to read people and could often tell what was up. That was why he wanted to have this fucking meeting. Because he knew Johnny. He knew Johnny wasn't just fucking with a newly available woman. He wasn't playing games or trying to get his rocks off.

  That boy loved her. He hadn't said it. Hell, Phil would bet his own balls that Johnny hadn't even admitted it to himself; but, he did. And that is where this became a big problem.

  Shaking his head, Phil listened to the guys argue for a minute. It took him back to when he joined the club at fifteen. That was thirty fucking years ago. Times were much simpler in those days. Once a brother joined the club, the rules were clear. They did jobs. They fucked around with club girls. Once in a while one of them would claim an old lady. However, there weren't all these different complications.

  Phil had only been in the club for about three months when he'd had his first taste of the club girls. Hell, that bitch had shown him things he thought were only fantasy. He remembered the way he thought that night. Fuck his family. Fuck the people who had given him away. Fuck ‘em all. He could be whatever he fucking wanted to be. Now, here he was, watching the club he loved battle between the softer side of the new generation and the tougher side that had been around the block several times.

  Truth was, even he had a softer side, and he was finding it more and more as he contemplated the situation with Johnny. He felt bad for the kid. Once Phil had met Annie, he'd been hooked. There was nothing, including his brothers, which would have kept him away from her.

  Fortunately, she wasn't another brother's old lady; so, his situation was easier. However, Johnny, that boy had some trouble coming, and as the leader of the club—or at least that was everyone’s impression—he had to help guide both Johnny and the other brothers to a solution that would benefit everyone. After all, no one wanted to lose one of their own—especially not in the way it would go down.

  But for now, he would listen. Then, he would speak his mind. Share his two cents. Guide the brothers to the right solution.

  “But we don't rule it out,” Aaron had injected into the conversation.

  Phil had to agree. It wasn't something entirely ruled out. The club just preferred that it not happen. It was very hard to differentiate between the brothers who had accidentally fallen in love and those who were just out to betray the ones who trusted them most. The more complicated that it became, the harder it was to decipher the way this situation should be handled.

  “We should.” Stan was clear on his point. “There's no fucking time it's okay to bang a brother's old lady.”

  “Look,” Frankie started, “this is weird. All of it. So can we talk and sort it out?”

  Phil watched his brothers debate the situation. He hadn't really weighed in on all of his thoughts before then. He'd shared a few of his opinions about the loyalty of the brothers. He'd shared the basic rules and oaths. However, he'd never told a soul, not even Aaron, that he somewhat felt bad for the kid. That he knew what love felt like, and he'd seen it all over Johnny's face.

  “It's not weird,” Stan answered. “It's wrong. Plain and simple.”

  Phil noticed that the guys had a very set opinion of the way things should be. Each of them held their own, and he could tell how the battle line would be drawn. Standing up, he showed them it was time for him to speak.

  ***

  Johnny wondered which one of them was at the hospital. He wanted to go up there, but some of them would be hard to handle if he ran across them. Add the redheaded bitch to the mix, and it was a recipe for disaster.

  He knew better. He should not go there. The problems that would arise for him were far worse than the benefits that he would get. Or were they? He'd see Beth. He'd be able to look at her, talk to her, and let her know he was there.

  But why? So he could leave in a couple of days? That's what the club was going to do. They were going to make him leave. Head back out to do jobs. He'd be fucking lucky if he got back this way once a year.

  Wouldn't it hurt her worse if he was there and just suddenly disappeared? He didn't know how much she knew or remembered. Maybe she'd think he took off from the first day. Maybe she'd be able to move on better that way.

  Johnny made a last minute decision to head to the clubhouse instead. He wanted and longed to go to the hospital, but he knew it wasn't a good idea. Instead, he'd go hang with the brothers and let them see that he was okay. They were wondering lately about his intentions.

  “Damn,” he said to himself as he pulled up outside the clubhouse. Bikes everywhere. That meant that pretty much everyone was here. He hadn't seen them all at the clubhouse in ages.

  Parking his bike, Johnny worried that his feelings would show all over his face. What if the guys saw that he was torn in two? What if they realized the feelings he'd just realized he had that morning?

  Stepping through the door, Johnny took a deep breath and prepared to put on his best fake smile and be okay—even as he worried relentlessly about Beth. Those worries disappeared the moment he stepped inside.

  Standing before him was a meeting—as in a club meeting. He knew how they looked. He'd seen them before. But why was he not there? That was the part that struck him; however, he knew the answer. The meeting was about him.

  He watched as Phil stood up, and he knew that he needed to lay low and listen to what the accepted leader of the club had to say. So, he ducked behind a column that sat off to the side in the room.

  ***

  “Brothers,” Phil started and watched the crowd quiet down. “We've come here to decide how to handle a situation that we've never really experienced before.” He stared into the crowd and waited to finish speaking.

  “The truth is, we've lost a lot of brothers. It happens far more often than we want it to. And we've followed the oaths we took to cover their old lady's for life. But is that fair?”

  The crowd was surprised, as Phil continued to speak. They hadn't expected him to be soft in any way.

  “Truth is, shit fucking happens. So what if that is what happened here?” he spoke, the crowd barely breathing. “What if Johnny fell in love with her by accident?”

  “Who the fuck cares?” Stan announced. “She's Dan's old lady.”

  “Dan isn't here,” Phil stated clearly. “So, are we going to hold the oath so strictly that we block happiness for both Johnny and Dan's old lady?”

  “What about the fucking kid? Is it going to grow up calling Dan's best friend daddy?”

  The question was valid. It was a concern the brothers had. “Of course not. I don't see Johnny as being that way, do you?” Phil turned the question to Stan, but Frankie was the one who replied.

  “Who knows? Do we really know his motives?”

  “No,” Stan offered.

  “We are just guessing,” Aaron replied.

  “So,” Phil said. “How do we find out his true motives so that we can decide what the fuck we plan to do about all of this?”

  “Ask me?” Johnny stepped forward to the surprise of his brothers.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The club sat silently and waited on either Ph
il or Johnny to speak. No one had expected that the subject of the meeting would show up and confront them. Johnny used it to his advantage, wanting to surprise them and put them on the spot. That way they would be honest with him.

  “Johnny,” Phil finally said when he regained his thoughts. “Glad you are here,” he finished and waited on a reaction.

  “I'm assuming my invitation was lost?” Johnny spat out.

  He knew that they'd planned the meeting without him for a reason. The club wanted to discuss him and his situation without his input. But was that fair?

  “We wanted to bring you in after we had a discussion,” Phil nodded as he spoke.

  “So you wanted to discuss my fate without talking to me first?” Johnny asked sincerely though he already knew the answer to his question.

  “We were discussing how we interpret the oath,” Phil stated. “We wanted to know that before we saw where things stood with you.”

  Johnny stood silent for a moment. Some of the brothers watched him and began to think that he wasn't going to say anything. He knew they were waiting, but he had to think. This had to be handled delicately given the circumstances.

  “Am I not one of the brothers?” he asked.

  “Of course,” Phil answered his question.

  “For now,” Aaron stated.

  “We shall see,” Frankie piped in.

  Losing his confidence with each response, Johnny decided to speak. “Then, why would I not get to discuss this matter?” He was sincere. He should be given a vote on how to interpret the oath even if his situation was what had prompted the meeting to begin with. His say should matter just as much as anyone else’s in the club.

  “We just thought...” Phil had begun but had no real answer.

  “That maybe I didn't get a vote because I might be the one breaking the oath?” Johnny asked.

  The brothers all nodded in agreement. No one had to speak. Phil watched the subject of their meeting. Johnny’s face was red, but it wasn't fully anger, part of it was embarrassment. Phil paid close attention as Johnny’s facial expressions changed when he talked. The goal was to analyze. He wanted to see how sincere Johnny was—both about his words and about his feelings.

  The one thing that Phil was proud of was his ability to read people. He bragged about it often. It was one of the reasons they'd all but adopted him as their leader. It was far simpler for him to see whether or not someone was genuine.

  When you belonged to something like this club, it was easy to be played and taken advantage of—not usually by chicks. They were pretty fucking simple to turn around. A good dick and they'd bend and twist whatever they thought to confer with the man who'd offered it. However, other people, guys who wanted to join just to fuck with them all, Phil was good at picking which ones could be trusted. They'd all decided at one point that he had about a ninety-eight percent success rate.

  “I still belong here,” Johnny began. “No matter what I may or may not have done to break this code and oath, I still get a vote in how to handle them.”

  No one spoke. They were afraid of saying the wrong thing. Phil thought long and hard about what to say. The truth was that Johnny was right. His vote did count regardless if the problem had been originated by him. He still had the right to vote on any club matters.

  “Then, do tell us, Johnny,” Phil began, “how should we interpret our code of honor when it comes to fallen brothers?”

  ***

  “How are you feeling?” Stephanie looked at her best friend as she spoke.

  Beth looked helpless. Her face was pale. She didn't appear to have much, if any, energy. Steph would have bet that she could barely get out of the bed if she had to, let alone wanted to.

  She had only been awake about an hour. Steph had been downstairs having dinner and didn't even know. The surprise when she walked in had brought tears to her eyes. She wanted to chatter like she always did but tried to remember that Beth was disoriented and tired.

  “Like I was hit by a bus,” Beth tried to laugh but the pain stopped her. “What happened?”

  Stephanie spent the next half an hour telling her best friend how she'd ended up in the hospital and that she was carrying a child. She left off the part about that fucking biker guy being around and pretending to be her fiancé. She didn't want to talk about him at all.

  Beth had other ideas. Once she knew where she was and why, her first question had been about Johnny.

  “Is he here?” she asked and tried to pretend it didn't matter.

  “No,” Stephanie didn't offer any further explanation, and Beth didn't ask.

  The conversation continued until the doctor came in with the good news. Beth was doing okay and provided that she felt ready, she was going to go home in a few hours. That made her happy, and Stephanie was glad to see her smile.

  The problem was that she needed to get her out of there before that asshole came back around. If Beth had any indication that he'd been around from the first day, she'd never settle for moving on with life. To the best of Steph's knowledge, he hadn't been around since the day that band of fucking fools had arrived in the waiting room.

  What good was a man who chose his gangster friends over the woman he supposedly loved? If he couldn't be here for her, then she sure as hell didn't need him. Period. Stephanie wasn't going to feel guilty for letting her believe he never came.

  “Ready?” Beth had packed her things and put on something comfortable. “We need to head home so you can help me figure out how the fuck I'm going to raise a baby!”

  “Let's go,” Steph said quickly and pushed her friend towards the door. She wanted to get her out before she realized that she'd been lied to.

  ***

  “I think it's complicated,” Johnny began and heard a couple of snickers from the crowd. “Not everything is simple. Sometimes a person ends up in a situation that just doesn't make sense. One that wasn't planned. One that they'd never willingly choose.” He took a deep breath and looked at his brothers.

  “He could walk away,” Aaron offered, “especially if he knew it was a bad idea.”

  The answer seemed simple to all of them. They didn't want to think that emotions could be complex. You found a babe; you liked her; you either took her for your own, or you fucked her and moved on. Nothing more, nothing less.

  However, Johnny knew better. It was far more complicated than that. As Phil watched them all, he had to agree with Johnny. It was complicated.

  “IF it were that easy,” Johnny shook his head. “I can't explain it all. But I'll say that sometimes you just have to base a decision on the situation at hand and not on what others may or may not think.” With that, Johnny turned to walk away. “That is my vote. So go ahead and decide what to do with me without knowing anything for certain,” he said, walking towards the door.

  “Do you love her?” Phil couldn't help but ask.

  The words came out, and Johnny froze. He hadn't reached the door. He hadn't been able to escape. So, he stopped and tried to decide if he should answer or not. Without even facing his brothers, he pulled the door open, and they all heard his reply as he walked out. “I think I do.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Everything was a mess. Even though it'd been a couple weeks since she got home, Bethany couldn't help but be annoyed by the things that needed to be done. How the fuck did people manage who left for vacations and shit? She had left home for a brief stay at the hospital, followed by a few weeks with her best friend, and it seemed like the house was nothing but chaos.

  That—and she was cranky. No, more than cranky. She was a bitch. She was having a hard time dealing with the raging hormones that were taking control of her body. She had decided about two weeks ago that pregnancy was going to be the death of her.

  Not only were her emotions completely out of control, but she had found herself craving sex. Steph thought it was weird. Apparently, the more common situation resulted in women not wanting to be touched at all. Those women had husbands there to satisfy
them, and they didn't even want it.

  Here, Bethany was longing for it all day and night, and there was no one around to help her. Well, there could be if she'd settle; but, she didn't want to settle. She wanted Johnny.

  “Fuck him!” she screamed and threw her book across the room.

  Hating Johnny had become the norm for her day. She hated him for disappearing. Didn't he care that she'd been sick? Had he even bothered to care about her or the baby? No! He'd fucked her and took off.

  It was a month and a half ago that she'd landed in the ER. Where had he gone? Probably back to his precious fucking club of brothers. Who the fuck cared about them? They'd tried to pop in here and there, but she'd just told them that she was fine and never invited them inside.