Logan threw a glance to K-P, before smirking at Luke. “That’s Master Logan.”
“I didn’t sign on for this, Outlaw,” Luke said coldly, unable to stay silent any longer and refusing to break Lowman’s hold. “I don’t need this and I don’t need you, motherfucker. My old man can buy and sell this motherfucker ten times over.”
An imperious lift of Logan’s graying brow and he shrugged. “Sharper has his uses.” Not elaborating on that mysterious statement, he turned his attention to Big Joe. “You came and I’ve given my decision, so his Black goes.”
Big Joe growled and crowded Logan against his door, his blond hair swinging. “Fuck you, old man. I didn’t fucking come for your fucking permission.”
Hadn’t he? That’s the reason Luke was given for coming out to the farm.
“I came to give you your fucking reports when I told you about the trip to Cali,” the club president continued. “You fucking summoned your grandson and Luke. You want me to continue to run this fucking outfit for you, you shutting the fuck up about Luke and Christopher, and you especially shutting the fuck up about Dinah.”
Logan’s cold half-smile didn’t faze Big Joe. “You’re in Seattle more than you’re here, so—”
“So, fuck all. Try me. I’ll be there all the fucking time if you don’t back the fuck down.”
Logan glanced between Outlaw and Luke. His narrowed eyed look intimidated, adding a maniacal layer to the racist one that stood front and center. The crazy old man wouldn’t hesitate to end Luke’s life right then.
He wanted to leave, get far away from this. But he was without a ride. Without money and without a charger for his phone.
“Inside, Joe,” Logan ordered in an even, level voice, more chilling because of the softness of it.
Instead of showing fear, Big Joe bristled. Luke wondered where in outer space he’d been dropped. Crazy, old racists. A big, blond man with icy blue eyes. A bald-headed one-eyed biker. Outlaw.
Where he’d grown up, green was the only color that mattered. The edicts of the bible was the only way he knew how to conduct himself. Mostly.
Until a few days ago, Char had been the only woman he’d been intimate with. She was wealthy, too, with skin like brown satin. Three years older than him, well-travelled, beautiful, and sexy.
He’d cheated on her, the only constant in his life for almost six years.
He’d given into the pain of her salacious offer to Outlaw and listened to the man, practicing an eye for an eye, when he never had before.
It felt good. Freeing. Liberating.
He wasn’t the perfect son of the widowed Sharper Banks with the perfect girlfriend.
No such thing as perfect existed in the world. Perfect was just a crock of shit perpetuated by Norman Rockwell’s paintings and greeting card companies and chain stores wanting to sell turkeys. All the other trimmings, too, for perfect Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas celebrations for perfect holiday seasons.
Luke would take that kind of perfect any day if he could’ve had it. He didn’t, though.
Yet, he felt lost and alone here, too. Familiarity—Char treating him like shit, Sharper ignoring him, Mark being an annoying fifteen-year-old—was in LA. It was hundreds of miles away from Planet Kluxer with deranged old fuckers being overtaken by 18th century ancestors.
“Fuck you. Fuck Johnnie. I don’t fuckin’ need you or him.”
“You need us, piece of shit fuckhead.” Politically incorrect didn’t begin to describe Logan. He was offensive, detestable. “You’ll only ever have us. That’s why you’re fucking standing here listening to me on behalf of your N-word.” He threw Big Joe a sour look. “Fucking happy, boy? Didn’t use the word you think is so offensive.” He stared at Luke. “My club’s a god-fearing group. We love our country. My boys don’t socialize with your kind.”
“Bullshit,” K-P said around a cough. “Raise a little green, you don’t see black.”
Logan glared at him. “One day, Kaleb Paul. One day, I’m going to skin you alive. Listen to you fucking scream as I scalp you.”
Luke staggered, not comprehending the cruelty spoken with such casualness. Just like Big Joe, K-P didn’t seem the least bit worried.
“Maybe, I’ll just take care of your little fucking mongrel.”
“Enough!” Big Joe bellowed. “Leave his girl out of your fucking mouth.”
Logan smiled serenely. “Indeed.” He turned to Outlaw again. “You don’t even deserve the love of Kaleb’s little mongrel slut.”
“Christ! My daughter’s only seven-years-old.
“No woman’s ever going to love you,” Logan continued, not responding to K-P’s outburst, just focused on Outlaw. “You’re not even worth the air you breathe. You don’t have the brain to run my club. It takes balls. You couldn’t keep those assholes in line if I fucking paid you to do it. You’ll never have the balls to cut a man open if he looks at you wrong. You’ll never know how to keep a woman in line and protect her. You’re a fucking disgrace.”
“Apple ain’t fallin’ so far from the fuckin’ tree,” Outlaw gritted. “You a dirty, filthy, low down motherfucker that I can’t fuckin’ stand.” He glowered at Big Joe. “I fuckin’ listened to your bullshit just like you fuckin’ asked. You either lettin’ me fuckin’ earn my cut or you ain’t, but I ain’t listenin’ to a motherfuckin’ more of my grandfather shit, Boss.” His cheeks flushed and his voice cracked, but he stiffened his spine and stood taller before addressing Logan again. “I ain’t ever needin’ some cunt to love me and I especially ain’t needin’ your fuckin’ love. Might as well fuckin’ ask a fuckin’ demon to love me.”
“I don’t need this,” Luke reiterated. “I’m going back to Cali.”
“Don’t fuckin’ blame you,” Outlaw muttered. “I shoulda been askin’ your fuckin’ ass if I could stay there before agreein’ to let you come here.”
“You two get the fuck back to the club,” Big Joe ordered. “You need to check out that motherfucker you beat to a pulp anyway, Lucas.”
Luke frowned. He’d forgotten Matthew existed, although he wasn’t sure how. He represented just another agonizing chapter to his relationship with Char. “Why? Motherfucker deserved it for fucking my girl and you told me to do it.”
“Shut it,” K-P ordered, folding his arms. “You don’t talk to Boss like that.”
Big Joe held up a hand, halting K-P’s chastisement and ignoring Luke’s growing hostility.
Luke’s daddy didn’t scold him. He sure as fuck wouldn’t let this one-eyed motherfucker do it.
“He’ll learn the ways of the club.” Big Joe pinned Luke with a you best not fuck with me look. “He’s in the same spot as you as a future probate, Luke. Right now, you both are guests of Christopher. You two patch in and I didn’t want that bullshit blowing up. Whether you fucked him up or not, he’s still…” Hooking his thumbs in his belt loops, he shrugged…. “your brother. We look out for each other.”
Not according to what he’d just witnessed, but, Luke was outnumbered. K-P and Big Joe were Logan’s boys, so they’d probably stick by him if worse came to worse. The words out of Logan’s mouth was definitely worse.
“I’m not staying here,” Luke insisted, sending vibes of death toward Logan. Next year, he was graduating and going to UCLA at Berkeley. No matter what this man said about him, he was intelligent and capable. He had a lot of prospects back home. “If you not letting Outlaw bring me back, I’ll hitchhike.”
He’d come all this way without a dime to his name. A clear fucking sign he’d been dropped on his head at some point in time. Who brought their broke asses anywhere?
“Know what, Luke?” Outlaw began thoughtfully. He lit a cigarette and pulled on it a few times. “You right.” He threw Logan and Big Joe the evil eye. “I ain’t puttin’ up with this bullshit, either. I got fuckin’ bills. We head out together.”
“I can’t pull you away from your family.”
“What fuckin’ family?”
“P
atty and Bitsy.” Big Joe scratched the evening stubble on his chin. “K-P, make these two fuckers go back to the club. I’ll stay and point out a few things to Logan.”
Logan hooted with laughter. “No fucking need, son. Already know the bullshit you’re about to hand me. One day, I’m going to tire of you using the same old card.”
Big Joe narrowed his eyes. “And, one fucking day, at a fucking charitable event, your bullshit is going to get real clear to the fucking world. My blood and bones might be an insect buffet by then. Don’t give a fuck. I can walk the fuck away today and bring this motherfucker down.”
Logan’s gaze landed on K-P and conveyed an unspoken promise, a dire, deadly threat. “Would never harm you, Joseph,” he swore, his voice cracking. “I know you don’t…you’ve built my club back up. I don’t have the energy anymore.”
“You don’t have the fuckin’ guts to do shit out in the fuckin’ open, old man,” Outlaw pointed out. “You want the world to think you a benevolent bein’, bestowin’ your fuckin’ dollars to ass-fuckin-kissers.”
“Go, Outlaw.” Big Joe scowled when Outlaw didn’t move. “Please.”
“Let’s get back to the club,” K-P suggested. “If Luke leaves because of this and you want to go, then do it. If he leaves because he really doesn’t fit in here, then reconsider.”
“Yeah, what-the-fuck ever. C’mon, Luke.”
“Inside, old man,” Big Joe ordered. “I’ll send some girls over later to calm you down. All I fucking request is for you to try and let them walk away alive.”
Logan glanced over his shoulder and studied Luke. “That’s my decision, Joe. With them, I am the beginning and the end.” He smirked. “Understand what that means, Luke?”
He started not to answer. He owed this man nothing but spit in his face, but Logan unnerved him. With effort, he held the other man’s gaze. “Of course. I’ve heard of the Book of Revelations often enough.” He swallowed, his insides trembling, but if he didn’t stand for something, he’d fall for anything. “Never heard the Second Coming had taken place. Until that happen you’re not Alpha. You’re not Omega. And you’re not worth wasting my breath on.”
Without waiting for a response, Luke stormed to Outlaw, more than happy when the other man just nodded and allowed Luke to get on, then sped away without another word.
Chapter Two: Outlaw Decisions
Luke stalked through the clubhouse, his skin prickling, the weight of everyone’s gazes heavy on his awareness of their perceptions of him. Before the past few hours had taken place, he’d thought the stares and unfriendliness was directed at him as an outsider, not anything else. That was part of it. The bigger part of it, though, was who he was. How he looked. The difference in the texture of his hair. Everything that made them alike, made them just plain men searching for acceptance, was ignored.
He couldn’t believe his naiveté. The wealth he’d grown up in had insulated him from everything.
The walk to the hallway with the peeling paint seemed to take forever. The clubhouse needed a major makeover. Walls and floors were cracked. The public bathrooms on the other side of the room were a mess. The lone pool table was old with clumps of the red baize gone. This place was dark and depressing, and the room he’d been assigned was smaller than his bathroom in his father’s mansion.
Wanting privacy to think about his next move, he walked into the room and shut the door. He stared at the dingy confines, wondering where he belonged. If it came right down to it and he didn’t belong, he’d prefer not to belong and have money. Accepted as one of them or not, being pauper-poor was fucked up.
As these cognizant fundamentals settled into his brain, the door opened and Luke froze in the spot he stood, not turning around because he expected Outlaw.
“You really want to leave, son?”
The sound of K-P’s voice surprised Luke. For the entire ride from LA to Hortensia, the man had spoken maybe six sentences to him.
“I’m not staying where I’m not wanted,” Luke growled, the walls closing in on him. They did at home, too. His bedroom was just a bigger space to press in and trap him.
If he had money to get home, all he’d need to do was walk out the door and leave. He hadn’t brought shit with him. No packing and preparation required.
“You’re wanted in LA?”
Char had been the one he’d clung to for years because he’d had no one but his little brother after their mother’s death. Fuck, Mark was still a kid, and relied on him.
“Well?”
Luke spun to face K-P and halted. The biker’s eye patch freaked him out and when he’d seen the red wetness on one the other night, he’d gotten light-headed. Yeah, he was a bitch ass because the sight of too much blood made him want to heave and faint like a girl. “What are you doing? Checking up to make sure I’m getting the fuck out of this club? Reporting back to Logan to get points with him?”
“It’s best not to concern yourself with Logan.”
Luke glared at K-P. “No shit, Sherlock.”
Folding his beefy arms, K-P rocked back on his heels and narrowed his one eye. Luke swallowed, a morbid curiosity about the state of his other eye making sweat pop out on him.
“Don’t concern yourself with him or my relationship with him,” K-P corrected. “That’s shit you want to stay far away from.”
“No skin off my back.”
Luke stuffed his hands into his pockets and glanced away, uncomfortable with K-P’s gruffness and concern. How long had it been since someone had really been concerned about him? Not that anything but Divine grace mattered. Even now, at seventeen, Luke was required to attend church, choir practice, bible class, Sunday school. As long as he was good with God, he didn’t have anything else to worry about.
Or so his father always preached. Pity he didn’t take his own advice.
“If you want to leave because of a few words of Logan’s, then you don’t belong here.”
“A few words? You fucking kidding me? You dumb ass—” Luke snapped but closed his mouth abruptly. Disrespecting an adult was out of the question.
K-P roamed closer and stopped right in front of him. “You got caught drinking in class again. That’s one reason we made the run down there. Sharper was ready to disown you.”
His father had all but deserted him for emotional support. Physically, Sharper was around only long enough to dictate orders. When the time came for inheritances, his father would make him eat a hundred yards of his shit or disown him anyway. “Like that won’t happen. My father not the man you think.”
Not revealing surprise, K-P nodded. “I know who the fuck Sharper is. I’m not saying this for him. I’m saying it for you. Go back there and you’ll end up on the streets or in jail.”
“Stay here and I’ll wind up strung the fuck up,” he pointed out, the words falling from his mouth before he could reign them in.
K-P’s eye twinkled and he laughed. “Outlaw rubbing off on you?”
Luke shrugged. Over the past few days, he had begun to pepper his words with more profanity.
“You have bad hearing and half sight, fool? You—”
K-P’s surprising laughter halted Luke. “You’re a man. Eighteen in several months. No man can make you feel less than who you are without your help.”
So he claimed, but words hurt. They stuck and wrapped tight like unwanted vines. “What do you want?”
“A decision that’s not one based on emotion, but one where you sit down, use your brain, and reason this out. Weigh both sides. Think about where you belong.”
He didn’t know. He wanted to say with Char, and with his little brother, but Char had allowed Matthew to fuck her, dropped the asshole off at Sharper’s diner and sped away.
“What’s in this for you? Why you helping me when you barely talked to me on the way up?”
“You have heart,” he stated simply.
“For? Being a biker?”
K-P’s shrug aggravated Luke.
One knock and the door op
ened, heralding Outlaw’s arrival. He carried a bottle of tequila in one hand and a bottle of vodka in another. A cigarette hung from his mouth.
“Boss lookin’ for you, K-P,” Outlaw announced and winked at Luke, clueing him to the bullshit meant to get rid of K-P. He sat the bottles on the chest of drawers and took his cigarette between his fingers.
K-P half-turned to lift a brow in question. “That so, boy?”
Outlaw raised the hand holding his cigarette and sniggered. “Scout’s fuckin’ honor.”
“What the fuck ever, grasshopper.” Turning back to Luke, K-P put a hand on his shoulder. “Think about what I said.” He withdrew and hurried to the door, thumping Outlaw’s head as he passed.
Outlaw grinned. “Yeah, fuck you, too.”
“Pussy eater.”
“Cy-fuckin-clops.”
“Fuck you, pussy,” K-P fired back, not offended that Outlaw had just called him Cyclops. “Pussy party tonight. You in?”
They stared at each other and Luke realized the bigger meaning behind the questions. If he was in, that meant he’d stay.
Outlaw gave a brief nod and K-P smiled in relief then departed.
Opening the tequila and drinking from it, Outlaw held it out to Luke. He shook his head. “I don’t drink tequila.”
Throwing his cigarette on the floor and stepping on it, Outlaw swigged from the bottle until his eyes watered. He walked around the room, glancing at all four corners. It had a bed, a nightstand, and a chest of drawers and nothing else. No window, nothing on the wall. A light bulb stuck in the ceiling, and concrete made up floors that didn’t hold heat. Outlaw grimaced.
“Betcha ain’t used to this bullshit.”
Not answering, Luke went to the double-sized bed and sat. This room belonged in hovels he’d read about in novels. At home, he had a magnificent view of the Hollywood Hills. If he didn’t want to go on the balcony then his wall of windows afforded him the view. His floors were wood and marble, his light fixtures elaborate crystal.
“Not really,” he admitted
“You asked to ride with me. Why?”
He hadn’t ridden with him. He’d gone with K-P instead because Outlaw had taken Matthew. Resentful, Luke asked, “Why’d you agree to bring me?”
Death Dwellers Motorcycle Club:: Fifteen Bad Boy Biker Books Page 177
