WOLF: An Evil Dead MC Story (The Evil Dead MC Series Book 4)

by Nicole James

  When he was empty, he strolled out the back, whistling all the while.

  ****

  Wolf pulled up to the clubhouse, dropped his kickstand and shut off his bike. It had been a long week. He knew he’d been sent on this damn run just to get him out of town and away from Crystal. And he’d kept his word to Mack. While he’d been gone, he hadn’t called her, and he hadn’t texted her. But now, hell he had to admit he couldn’t wait to at least lay eyes on her. Even if it was just to see her behind the bar in the clubhouse, pulling a beer for him.

  He headed inside, but didn’t get ten feet before Red Dog walked up and shocked the shit out of him by punching him right in the face. Wolf fell back against one of the pool tables. Wiping his bleeding mouth with the back of his hand, he snarled, “What the fuck, man?”

  Red Dog stood over him, two-hundred and fifty pounds of pissed-off biker. “She’s gone. Because of you!” Dog jabbed a fist in Wolf’s chest. “It wasn’t enough you treated her like shit, but you had to drive her away, too?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Wolf asked getting to his feet. “And get the fuck out of my face, motherfucker.” He shoved Red Dog back. Not an easy task when the man was a six-foot-four wall of muscle.

  “Don’t play fucking dumb with me, asshole. Crystal! That’s what I’m talking about. Like you don’t fucking know.”

  “Crystal? What do you mean she left? How the hell do you know that?” His eyes moved frantically around the room, searching, positive Dog must be fucking with him.

  “She ain’t here is she? She’s gone. Because of you! So, tell me, Wolf, is this the part where you’re gonna stand there and pretend you don’t care, don’t give a shit?”

  Wolf shoved past him and headed toward Mack’s office. He didn’t bother knocking. The door banged against the wall as he burst through.

  Mack was behind his desk, on his phone. He glared up at Wolf, and then bit off into his phone, “Let me get back to you.”

  Wolf stood in front of the desk, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. He’d never felt so close to tearing apart his own President.

  Mack tossed his cell on the desk and lunged to his feet, roaring, “Who the fuck do you think you are coming in here like that?”

  Wolf roared back just as forcefully, “You ran her off? After you gave me your fucking word if I left her alone, you’d let it ride, you’d let her stay.”

  “Sit the fuck down!” Mack ordered. Then he walked over to the door and slammed it shut.

  Wolf collapsed into a chair, not because he wanted to, but because if he stayed standing, he knew he’d be tempted to take a swing at Mack.

  Mack retreated behind his desk, probably for the same reason. Wolf had seen him tear apart more than one brother. And he knew Mack was fully capable of laying him out with one punch if he thought twice about it.

  “I see you’ve heard.”

  Wolf stared him down. “Did you run her off or not?”

  “No, I didn’t fucking run her off. I made you a goddamned deal, didn’t I? You keep your end of it?”

  “Yes, I fucking kept it. You sent me out of town to make sure of that, didn’t you?”

  Mack ran a hand over his face. “Did you ever think of the possibility that she left on her own?”

  Wolf shook his head, emphatically. “No way. She wouldn’t do that. She loves this club. She’s happy here.”

  “Is she? You sure about that?”

  Wolf’s eyes narrowed.

  Mack huffed out a sigh and leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking. “You put her in a bad spot, Wolf. You know women better than any of my guys, yet how are you so blind when it comes to Crystal? How are you the last to see it when it comes to her?”

  Wolf dropped his eyes. Every fucking word was true, and it was shredding him to be confronted with it.

  Mack continued his flaying words. “You drag a woman through the dirt long enough, she’s going to eventually wise up and realize your ass isn’t worth it, no matter how much she loves you.”

  At that, Wolf’s eyes shot up. Love? Christ, did everybody see it? Was it that obvious? He thought they’d played it so cool all these years. Fuck, he was an idiot. “Did she talk to you? Did she tell you she was leaving?”

  Mack shook his head.

  Wolf was on his feet in an instant, hope soaring in him. “Then how do you know she left? Maybe—”

  Mack cut him off. “Sit down.”

  He obeyed reluctantly, fearing what he was about to hear.

  Mack leaned forward, resting his arms on his desk and gave it to him straight. “I heard it from Cole. Crystal told Angel she was leaving. Stopped over there to say goodbye on her way out of town.”

  Wolf felt his stomach drop. It couldn’t be true. She couldn’t have left town. Left him. And without even saying goodbye? No way. He couldn’t accept that. He surged to his feet again.

  “I’ve got to go.” He paused, looking at Mack, giving him at least that shred of respect, waiting for the old man’s nod of approval.

  He got it and was out the door in a flash.

  ****

  Mack stared at the door of his office, wondering if one of his best guys was going to be useless to him for a while. He’d known more than one brother to have his head messed up by a damn broad. Messed up so bad they couldn’t fucking concentrate on the job at hand. And that kind of distraction could get a man killed. It could also get a brother killed whose back he was supposed to be watching.

  Shit.

  He picked up his cell, his thumb moving over the screen, and put it to his ear. When his VP came on the line, he gave him a head’s up.

  “Wolf’s on his way, and he’s not in a good place.”

  “Right,” came Cole’s reply. “I’ll deal with it.”

  Disconnecting, Mack tossed the phone on the desk. Women. They caused him more trouble than every other rival they had, put together.

  Fucking hell.

  ****

  Red Dog blocked Wolf’s way to the door, and Wolf could see the intent in his eyes. He wasn’t done with him.

  “You want a piece of me, let’s go outside,” Wolf growled at him.

  Dog’s eyes flared with warning. “We take this outside and one of us ain’t comin’ back.”

  Wolf glanced over and saw Shane standing by the bar, watching. “What about you? You got something to say?” Wolf growled at him.

  Shane tightened his hold on his beer bottle, but he just shook his head. “You made your own hell. I ain’t got to add to it.”

  Wolf nodded understanding. Shane wasn’t going to do anything to screw up getting his patch. Not when he was so close. So Wolf made it easy for him. “You get your patch, you come find me.”

  “Count on it.”

  Wolf shoved past Red Dog, half expecting another blind punch, but Dog let him pass. Wolf walked out of the clubhouse, slamming the door and stopped in the parking lot, his eyes skating over the line of bikes sitting in the sun, but he didn’t really see any of them.

  She was gone. Good and truly gone, and he felt like a part of him had just died. Just fucking died. He felt a tightness squeezing his chest, and it felt like he couldn’t breathe.

  Fuck. What had he done?

  Wolf tore up the gravel driveway of his VP’s house. The place was set out in the country, east of San Jose. He shut his bike off and went around to the back of the house. Cole met him on the deck, obviously having heard his bike roar up the drive. Wolf’s eyes slid past him to where Angel stood in the partially opened sliding glass door.

  “Where is she?” he asked her.

  Cole looked back at his wife, and they both waited for her response.

  Her eyes moved between them, and then she told Wolf softly, “I don’t know.”

  Wolf clenched his jaw. He didn’t buy it. She knew. She had to know. “Angel, please. I know she was here.”

  She nodded. “Yes, she was here.”

  “I know how tight you girls are, there’s no
way you’d let her leave like that, without knowing shit about her plans. She had to have told you where she was going.”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry, she didn’t.”

  “Bullshit.” He took a step toward her, but Cole brought him up short. He slammed a hand into Wolf’s chest, grabbing a fistful of his shirt and shoving him back.

  “Back off, Brother. She told you she doesn’t know.”

  Wolf’s jaw tightened as he stared down his VP. Then his eyes moved back to Angel, and he shook his head. “I can’t believe you just let her go.”

  With that, Cole tightened his fist in Wolf’s shirt and shook him, growling in his face, “Don’t you dare put this on Angel. It’s your fucking fault she’s gone. You’re the one that never made her your ol’ lady. You’re the one that strung her along all this fucking time, so don’t think you can come here and put the guilt on Angel or anyone else. It’s nobody’s fault but yours.”

  “She didn’t talk to you before she left?” Angel asked quietly, and there was something in the way she said it that had a bad feeling snaking down his spine. Was there something he was missing? He searched Cole’s face. Did his VP know something he wasn’t saying? Brothers didn’t lie to one another. Not if he straight up asked. “Cole?”

  He shook his head. “I got shit to tell you, Wolf.”

  His eyes moved to Angel for one final appeal. “Please, Angel. She didn’t even say goodbye. I can’t just let her go like this.”

  “But you did let her go in every other sense of the word, didn’t you?” she asked him, slicing another piece of him.

  Fuck, he hated to be confronted with the truth. With his own inadequacies.

  Expectations. Fucking expectations. They’d been the bane of his existence. Why? He didn’t fucking know, but he was sure it had to do with a father that never thought he was good enough, no matter what he did. So, instead of continuing to beat his head against the wall in a futile attempt to convince a man who would never be convinced, instead of continuing to try to prove himself, what did he do? He joined an MC and became exactly what his father always expected of him. A big nothing in his father’s eyes. The disappointment he’d always told him he was.

  No, Wolf didn’t do well with living up to other’s expectations.

  So he supposed he’d never tried with Crystal. Ran like hell from anything resembling a commitment. And where had that gotten him?

  He met Angel’s eyes, seeing the contempt in them, but also a tiny bit of sympathy. He wished he could explain. “You don’t understand.”

  “I think she does,” Cole corrected him, then twisted to say over his shoulder, “Go back inside, Angel.”

  Like any good ol’ lady, she didn’t hesitate or question. The sliding door slid shut.

  “Sit down,” Cole ordered, pushing him down into a chair next to a patio table on the deck.

  Wolf collapsed back onto it and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. His VP sat in the chair next to him and leaned forward as well. Wolf looked over at him. “Tell me the truth. Did Mack run her off?”

  Cole shook his head. “No, Wolf, he didn’t. I was here when she came by. Her leaving? That was her choice.”

  Wolf looked at his hands, shaking his head.

  “She sold her ‘vette two days ago.”

  Wolf looked up at him startled. “What?”

  “Some guy gave her eighteen for it.”

  “Shit.”

  “So if you’re worried about her, that’ll tide her over, help her start a new life.”

  Wolf cradled his face in his hands wondering what in the hell he’d done. He could feel Cole’s eyes on him, watching his reaction.

  “You could have made her your ol’ lady anytime you wanted, but you didn’t. And I get that.” Cole glanced back at the house. “Relationships are hard work under the best of circumstances. The life we lead? Takes a special kind of woman to put up with it. Shit, Wolf, the burdens I walk through that door with some nights, I can’t even tell you how Angel deals with me. But she does. And I thank God every day she does.”

  Wolf nodded. “You’re a lucky man.”

  “You’re right. And I don’t need you to tell me that, because I know it.” He bumped his fist on Wolf’s knee. “There’s a lot to be said for having an ol’ lady, Wolf.”

  When Wolf remained silent, Cole huffed out a sigh. “I told you to either step up or cut her loose. What’d you do? Neither.”

  “Cole—I”

  “You gonna tell me you weren’t still seeing her? You gonna look me in the fucking eye and lie to your brother?”

  Wolf met his look. “No. I won’t lie to you, Cole. I was. I couldn’t stay away.”

  “And how’s that gonna play out now?”

  Wolf lifted his hands in a helpless gesture as if he’d given up. “I don’t fucking know. I can’t believe she’s gone.”

  “Crystal wanted more, Wolf. You can’t blame her for that.”

  Wolf nodded. No, he couldn’t blame her for that. She’d wanted more, and maybe that’s what had scared the hell out of him.

  “You don’t want an ol’ lady, I get that. If all you want is to get laid, fine, go find you one of Sonny’s girls. But don’t think for a minute you’ll ever find the caliber of woman it takes to be an ol’ lady in that crop, because it’s just not gonna fuckin’ happen, Wolf.”

  Wolf stayed quiet.

  “You had something with Crystal. Maybe more than you want to admit. You don’t want to talk about this, fine. You do, I’m here for you. But, I ain’t Dear Abby. You’re a grown ass man, make a fucking decision. You either want her or you don’t. You either step up or shut up. Got it?

  “Got it.”

  They were quiet for a minute and then Cole asked, “You try calling her?”

  “Called her. Texted her. She’s not answering.”

  “Maybe you just need to give her some time and space.”

  “Yeah.” Wolf nodded, but hell it was tearing him up.

  “What happened to your face?”

  Wolf absently touched his cheek. “Dog.”

  A grin tugged at Cole’s mouth. “He always had a soft spot for Crystal.”

  Wolf nodded back. “Yeah.”

  “You may get the same thing from Crash when he sees you.”

  “Fuck.”

  Cole chuckled. “Go home, Brother. We’re meeting tomorrow. You’re gonna give us the low down on what’s goin’ on down at the Temecula Chapter.”

  Wolf nodded again, but stayed seated.

  They sat quietly for a moment.

  “Cole?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I need to ask you something. And I need you to not be a dick about it.”

  Cole grinned. “Not making any promises on that one, bro.”

  “Did I fuck up?” he asked in all seriousness and watched the grin fade from his VP’s face.

  “Only one that can answer that is you, Wolf. You tell me. Did you?”

  Wolf didn’t answer, he just dropped his eyes to stare unseeing at the deck.

  Cole stood. “Go home, Wolf. Drink a bottle of Jack and sleep it off. Either you shake her off or you don’t. Only time is gonna tell.”

  Wolf got to his feet. Cole pulled him close in a bear hug and pounded on his back. “Love you, Brother.”

  “Love you, too, man.”

  When they broke apart, Cole smacked him open-handed in the face, right where Dog had decked him.

  “Ow. Fuck, man.”

  Cole grinned. “I’m letting you off easy. That should have been a punch.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Wolf sat at the table in the clubhouse’s meeting room. Mack had called an emergency meeting just after he’d pulled away from Cole’s house.

  They all sat there, staring at Mack. Wondering what this was about.

  “Just got word. Lost two men from the Temecula Chapter.” Then he looked right at Wolf. “Digger and Weed.”

  There were shocked murmurs throughout the room.

>   “What?” Wolf barked. “How?”

  “They were found shot dead at the drop. Thirty-year old bartender along with them.”

  “Jesus Christ,” he whispered.

  The eyes of every brother in the room swung to him. Wolf’s gaze moved from Mack to Cole, who sat at his President’s left.

  “The Heroin was long gone.” Mack drew his attention back with that statement. “You want to tell me what happened?”

  Wolf frowned. “What happened? I don’t know what the fuck happened. They were all alive when I left.”

  “Humor me. Let’s go over it.”

  Wolf grit his teeth. He didn’t like being questioned, not about his loyalty to this club. Not about two brothers being murdered. But he understood Mack’s need as President to get to the bottom of what happened. “I met them at the bar. Place was empty except for the two of them and the bartender. Santos’ men came in, we made the deal. They left. I left a couple minutes later. Weed was hitting on the bartender, wanted to finish a beer he’d just ordered. I walked out, got on my bike and rode away. End of story.”

  Mack and Cole studied him.

  Finally, Cole nodded and looked at Mack.

  “You saw no one else? No one pulling in? No one pass you on the road?” Mack drilled him.

  He shook his head. “No one. Didn’t pass another soul headed back that way for at least half a mile. Place is out in the sticks.”

  Cole looked to Mack, asking, “We got a plan? Any suspects?”

  Mack shook his head. “Santos got his money. It’s possible his men came back to get the drugs back, but it would fuck-up a long standing relationship, and for what? No,” Mack shook his head again. “Doesn’t make sense.”

  “Random hit?”

  “Who knew about it?”

  Cole shrugged. “Someone could have been following Santos’ men. Decided the two in the bar were a better target than the four in the car.”