“Enough with the photos.” Meggie laughed and shook her head. “They’ll leave us.”
“That’s the fuckin’ point. I ain’t lookin’ fuckin’ forward to trick or treatin’. You sure I can’t fuckin’ skip this shit and go straight to the fuckin’ club party?”
“No, you may not! It’s bad enough you wouldn’t put on a costume.”
“That shit ain’t ever happenin’, Megan.”
“Go, Mommie,” Rebel demanded, grabbing Meggie’s hand and tugging her forward.
“All right, sweetheart,” she said calmly.
“Wait me,” Rule called, running to Rebel’s side. He hated to have her out of his sight.
Meggie paused. “Where’s Diesel?”
“Upstairs. He said he was meetin’ us at the club when he got back.”
Rebel glanced over her shoulder, down the hallway. “Dee not come?”
Christopher shook his head. “Nope.”
“I’ll be at the club, Meggie,” Bunny promised, “setting everything up for the party.”
“Okay. We’ll see you in a couple of hours.”
The baby kicked hard and Meggie pressed a hand against her belly, hoping her touch calmed her son down. Ever since the visit to the house yesterday, he’d been moving a lot. The discovery of that house and what it represented had upset Meggie, but she hadn’t been feeling well for the last day or two, a fact she wouldn’t mention to Christopher for now.
She didn’t want him to worry unless there was a reason to do so.
Kendall Donovan threaded her way through the crowd in the main room at the clubhouse, searching out her husband. She spotted him leaning against the bar, his pirate costume distinguishing him from most of his brothers who wore their regular old cuts and jeans, too manly to enjoy Halloween.
Seeing the Bobs sitting at some of the tables made Kendall wrinkle her nose. She hated that Outlaw allowed those whores on premises. He insisted it was for the single brothers, but, to Kendall, it disrespected the women of the brothers in relationships. But only Meggie could make him put a stop to it, and she refused, believing Christopher could do no wrong.
“Marie Antoinette!” someone called.
Kendall smiled and nodded her head regally, as she thought the French queen would’ve done. She’d gone all out for her costume and white wig, so she’d milk it for everything it was worth. The thought reminded her of how lucky she was to have her own career. She used most of her pay on clothes for herself. Johnnie provided for everything else.
As she reached her husband, she realized his asshole of a blood brother sat next to him, surrounded by their friends.
Stopping behind Mortician, she cleared her throat, and the handsome enforcer turned. The dreads framing his face covered his diamond studs.
“Red,” he greeted, putting his arm around her neck and drawing her into their circle.
She preened at the attention, grinning widely.
“Not Red tonight.” Johnnie pulled her away from Mortician and into his arms. “She’s Queen Marie and I’m her swashbuckler.”
“You mean you her fuckin’ dickhead,” Outlaw grumbled around a beer.
“Fuck off,” Kendall growled, searching Johnnie’s area to make sure he wasn’t lowering himself to their standards with lowly beer. His glass of whiskey pleased her. “Don’t start with your bullshit and upset me, Outlaw. I have seven weeks left until I deliver my daughter and I’ve been really tired. That’s why Johnnie suggested Rory and I stay home tonight instead of walking through a strange neighborhood.”
“First, cunt, it wasn’t a strange fuckin’ neighborhood. Derby and Gypsy live there, so shut the fuck up.”
Derby was the president of one of their support clubs, and Gypsy was his long-suffering old lady. Kendall had seen the asshole in action for herself. How Gypsy stayed with such a cheater was beyond the realm of even the lowest self-esteem.
“Her name’s Kendall,” Johnnie snarled. “Not cunt. I’m tired of telling you that.”
“I’m fuckin’ tired hearin’ it, so we fuckin’ even,” Outlaw retorted.
“Forget it, my love,” Kendall inserted, lifting her chin, determined to show she was the bigger person. “Where are the girls?”
“At the table,” Johnnie answered, rubbing their noses together and kissing her mouth.
Arms around Johnnie’s neck, Kendall smoothed her fingers over the blond hair at his nape. “We can’t stay long. I’m really tired. I just wanted everyone to see my costume.”
“Then you coulda took a fuckin’ picture and spared me havin’ to look in your miserable fuckin’ face.”
“Damn! Savage ass words, Outlaw,” Digger said, shaking his head, while everyone else studiously ignored the asshole.
“I loathe you,” Kendall snapped.
“I don’t give a fuck, cuz you can’t hate me worse than I despise your fuckin’ ass.”
Johnnie jumped to his feet. “You can’t let shit rest, can you, Christopher? If you don’t have anything nice to say to my wife, please don’t say anything to her at all.”
“Fuckin’ fine with me.”
Even if Outlaw was too much of an asshole to see how his attitude affected Johnnie, Kendall noticed. Her renewed antagonism with his brother upset him. It upset her, too.
Bygones had been bygones, except Outlaw had never given in and offered Kendall the chance at friendship. Everyone else had. In the past few months, Kendall went out of her way to undo any similarities that Johnnie had to Outlaw. She abhorred the asshole. Tonight, seeing Johnnie’s bleakness made her realize how her war with his brother affected him. She hated seeing Johnnie so unhappy. For that reason alone, she needed to change her modus operandi and find a way to break through to Outlaw and make him like her some kind of way.
“Let me say ‘hi’ to Meggie, then we have to leave, Johnnie,” she said in subdued tones, her feelings of hopeless despair as horrible as her irritability that turned her into a raving bitch.
After Matilda’s birth, Kendall had one more pregnancy to get through, hopefully, twins like Meggie had.
Kendall wanted at least three children, but being off her antidepressants was hard. Admittedly, before she’d found out about her pregnancy, she’d decided to stop them. The drugs affected her sexual desire. They affected her behavior at work and her performance in the courtroom when she’d just gotten in good with the law firm again after the Spoon incident.
Brooks forgave her enough to offer her a junior partnership, meaning she had to bring in the cases to retain her status. To bring in cases, she needed to win the ones she was assigned.
Lucky her, pregnancy was the perfect excuse not to take the meds. While she really didn’t want to hurt Matilda, she wanted parts of the old her back. Hopefully, she’d get pregnant again right away after this birth. Rory was no problem at all, well on his way to being a perfect little gentleman under her orders. Kendall would also start Matilda’s discipline early on. Have her potty-trained at an early age just like her son was.
“Gorgeous?”
Not wanting to worry Johnnie with her tumultuous thoughts, Kendall smiled. “Roxy said we could leave Rory with her for the entire night.”
Johnnie gave her a smoldering look. “That so?”
“Yes.”
He got to his feet, his dark breeches, white shirt, tan vest, tricorne hat, and eye patch turning him into a full-blown rogue and making her pussy ache to feel him inside of her. “Find Megan to give your regards, so we can get out of here, gorgeous.”
“Wait, John Boy, we didn’t toast yet,” Val pointed out. “Surviving the trauma of trick-or-treating.”
Regret entered Johnnie’s eyes and he turned to her. She knew he was about to ask to stay longer. But they rarely got time alone and she wanted them to have it tonight. Ever since she’d restarted her campaign against Outlaw, she’d also limited Rory’s socializing with the other kids at the MC, especially CJ.
“One more drink?”
Kendall stiffened at Johnnie’
s question and he shrugged, smiling sheepishly. Disappointment dampened his enthusiasm, but he had his priorities straight and always put his family before whatever juvenile thing his club brothers wanted him to do.
“Another time,” he said. “Or we can do a quick toast now while Kendall finds Megan.”
“No!” Kendall inserted quickly, horrified at the thought. “One toast will turn into ten and we’ll never leave.”
“You’re right, sweetheart,” he said immediately, wilting a little more.
Kendall scowled at Val, annoyed he’d put the idea of a drink in her husband’s head. “Five minutes,” she commanded, then turned on her heel and marched to their usual spot in the club, where she knew she’d find Outlaw’s old lady.
“You’re a witch, Meggie,” Kendall chirped as she glided to the table with as much grace as possible, considering how close she was to delivering her daughter. “How original.” She smiled at Bunny’s adorable costume and indicated the whiskers. “So cute.” Zoann was dressed as a sexy nurse. Kendall snapped her mouth shut at the woman’s glare and she decided to withhold any comments. She didn’t want to start a big stink because Zoann couldn’t take a little honesty. “Lady Liberty,” she said in approval to Bailey.
“Hey Kendall,” Meggie said with a smile, setting off a chorus of greetings from the others. “Sorry you were feeling too bad to come with us,” she continued once Kendall responded. “The kids had a lot of fun. Rory would’ve enjoyed himself.”
A part of Kendall feared she was doing irreparable damage to her relationships with these women by her attitude. “Maybe next time,” she said lightly.
“Maybe,” Meggie responded, sounding as if it didn’t matter to her one way or the other. As if she wasn’t just a girl with a bunch of babies, a chauvinistic pig for a husband and a job in her sister-in-law’s business, couched as a partnership. She didn’t have the career. Zoann did.
Given those facts, Kendall could never understand why she was always the one made out to be the pitiful freak show when Meggie didn’t even have a high school diploma.
“Ready, gorgeous?” Johnnie asked as he walked up to the table.
“I’ll see you all later,” she said, not giving Johnnie a chance to get into a conversation with any of them. Well, not Meggie, since the girl wasn’t talking to Johnnie, still in a snit over the rightful way he’d screamed at her when Outlaw was stabbed.
Meggie not talking to Johnnie was all the better, to Kendall’s way of thinking.
It took them several minutes of stops and starts to make it out of the club and into the parking lot, where the party had spilled beneath a bright moon and starry sky. Grunts and groaning captured her attention and disgusted anger hit her at the sight of three bikers leaning against the building, having their cocks sucked by three Bobs.
“Ignore them.” Johnnie’s calm and simple words burst her jealousy.
However, the scene just reaffirmed her decision that Johnnie spend as less time as possible at the club, even as she swore she’d find a way to get on Outlaw’s good side.
The next afternoon, Johnnie walked through the deserted clubhouse and found it, for the most part, back to normal with almost no signs of the party from the night before. Only some Halloween decorations remained to be taken down and then replaced. Johnnie knew the deal. In a few days, the place would look like a fucking Pilgrim settlement with Megan’s ideas of Thanksgiving shit.
Why Christopher allowed her and the old ladies to fuck up the clubhouse, Johnnie would never know. That motherfucker had the audacity to talk about the way he gave Kendall her way when Megan hung shit better suited for schoolrooms than a motorcycle clubhouse. Christopher’s reasoning was the other old ladies enjoyed it as well, and, supposedly, Megan always hung decorations because of the club parties she planned. Never because he spoiled the fuck out of her.
On his way to the boardroom, Johnnie stopped to chat with Slipper, the brother in charge of the Probate fuckheads on the clean-up detail. Slipper’s hair hadn’t commiserated with shampoo and water in days, but other than random hygiene problems, he was a good fellow.
Johnnie clapped Slipper on the shoulder. “Keep up the good work, brother.”
Slipper sucked on a cigarette and puffed out his chest. “Thanks, John Boy.”
Scowling at the crepe bats hanging from the ceiling, Johnnie stomped down the hallway, flipping off the Grim Reaper mural. Laughter boomed from the boardroom and jealousy surged through him. He rarely participated in shooting-the-shit with the guys any more if it wasn’t by accident. During their weekly, rotating dinners at each other’s houses, Kendall clung to him and insisted Rory show what a “sweet, mannerly boy” he was.
Fuck, he missed the woman his wife had become when she’d followed her doctor’s orders and couldn’t wait until she returned. Johnnie hid a calendar in his closet, marking off the days until their daughter’s due date. As of today, she’d arrive in forty-eight days.
Thank fuck.
As he pushed open the door, he noticed the bottles of alcohol already in the center of the table. His whiskey was there, too, but not the glass he now required. He agreed with Kendall that children imitated what they saw. If he acted like a barbarian and drank from a bottle, Rory would do the same.
He sighed, missing the days when he’d just swigged from a bottle. Drank beer. Laughed with abandon. Kendall was teaching Rory the difference between an inside voice and an outside voice, so Johnnie had to follow suit.
“If it ain’t Black-Fucking-Beard,” Christopher said with a smirk, standing up and leaning toward the center of the table to grab his bottle of tequila.
Val looked up from his phone. “Fuck, about time. We’ve been waiting for half an hour.”
“I had duties to my family,” he snapped, stalking to a cabinet and finding a glass.
“You one shady motherfucker,” Digger said with a snort.
Johnnie stiffened. “What the fuck’s that mean?”
“That we all got fucking families, but our asses here, son,” Mort growled, throwing Johnnie a dirty look.
“You don’t have pregnant wives and a young son.” Johnnie sat in a seat across from Christopher, just then noticing Cash on a laptop, typing away. By the seriousness on his face, it was club business. “What’s going on?”
Christopher scrubbed a hand over his face, wiping away his scowl. “Remember the fuckin’ arms deal?”
“The one where we averted some serious repercussions because we had the buyer’s money and kept delaying delivery?”
“That’s the fuckin’ one,” Christopher confirmed.
They’d finally refunded him with a serious upcharge on his return.
“What about it?”
They were still sitting on the guns, now moved to the cave on club property. That had been a fucking nightmarish operation in the middle of the night. Mutt, Jeff, and a few other law enforcement officials in their pocket had stood guard as they transported the guns from a warehouse by the docks. Those fucking weapons were an albatross around their necks. Acquired at an exorbitant price, it was currently a clear loss for the club.
“Gentlemen,” a gravelly voice said into the silence and Johnnie jerked his head toward the laptop, the screen now facing them. A dark-haired man lounged behind a desk, two armed men on each side of him.
Instead of filling Johnnie in, they’d connected to someone via Skype. When had he become so outside of the officers and their knowledge of club happenings?
“Before ya go declining me again, hear my terms, Outlaw.”
Casually, Christopher lit a cigarette and took a few puffs. “We fuckin’ done with you, McCallister. I paid your fuckin’ ass a big bank. The deal ain’t meant to be. Otherwise, it already woulda fuckin’ happen.”
“Superstitious are ya now?”
“Fuckin’ realistic.”
“You’re sitting on the arms.”
“Brooks open his fuckin’ mouth, yeah?”
“Oh, indeed, Outlaw. He’s concerned
on your behalf.”
Brooks had assisted in the negotiations to have McCallister’s money returned. He was the one who’d fielded McCallister in the first place and then brought him to Christopher to purchase the arms.
“Ain’t necessary for no concern, since I ain’t dealin’ with your fuckin’ ass. The deal been dead in the fuckin’ water for months. Why fuckin’ revive it?”
“For the money.”
“Not all fuckin’ money worth the bullshit.”
McCallister laughed. “I have only one stipulation. You deliver the arms personally before Christmas and I’ll be a happy man.”
“Your ass would be, but my fuckin’ ass would be a unhappy motherfucker, so my answer the same. Fuck, no.”
“Anyway I may change your mind, Outlaw?”
“Nope, but I wanna know why you specifically askin’ for my ass?”
“Do ya know why I decided to renegotiate and accept the money back, instead of taking issue with the amount of time that had gone by with no delivery?”
“Nope.”
McCallister lifted a brow. “You’re lucky Brooks warned me about your ways. Otherwise, your attitude might make me a very unhappy man”
Releasing smoke and tamping out his cigarette, Christopher frowned. “Did the motherfucker also tell you I ain’t takin’ too fuckin’ kind to fuckin’ threats? Especially from motherfuckers not man e-fuckin-nuff to come right the fuck out and say he wanna fuck my ass up.”
“Let’s keep this cordial.” McCallister’s eyes took on a wintry hue, his pose suddenly tense. “We needn’t disconnect as mortal enemies.”
Christopher opened his mouth to speak, undoubtedly to blast McCallister with words.
Although they attended the meeting more as a show of force and support for Christopher, just as McCallister’s men were, Johnnie couldn’t remain silent. “He’s right,” he interrupted. “It won’t hurt to listen to his reasons.”
“Aww, a man of reason,” McCallister chortled. “Johnnie, I presume.”
Death Dwellers Motorcycle Club:: Fifteen Bad Boy Biker Books Page 274
