Knox Brotherhood

by Knox, Elizabeth

  “We’re going with you, and there’s nothing that you can say to either of us that will make us stay behind. Yeah, you’re going to some biker bar, you are literally walking into the lion’s den, and I really don’t like that. If you want me to sit here and say I’m fine with you just waltzing in there, I can’t. But, I will tell you that we’re not just going in there to be your muscle, kiddo. We’re your friends, and this isn’t something that will be easy for you. You’re gonna need us, as much as you hate to admit it, Bellamy, you’re going to need support.”

  Just like that, I’ve been slapped in the face with the reality check that I didn’t know I needed. Syd was right. I’m going to need support, because if it all goes to crapmundo-ville…I don’t know what I’ll do.

  I really don’t know what I’ll do.

  The next thing I know, these two are talking me into grabbing the keys to Jase’s beloved Mazda, and we’re on our way to a bar named Bubba’s in Gainesville. The knot in my stomach couldn’t get any tighter, and with every breath, I become more and more terrified for whatever is about to unfold.

  My phone beeps obnoxiously, and I instantly recognize the ringtone. The one person on the planet who knows I loathe him more than anything has just texted me, the one who betrayed me and violated my trust.

  Zac.

  Reluctantly, I have to decide if I really want to open this message. Nothing could prepare me for what I was about to see.

  From: Zac

  Press play for me, baby, soon the whole world will finally get to see what kind of girl you really are.

  There are twenty-one words. I count them, and I can’t tell you if it is the twenty-one words that are making me sick to my stomach or the video that he sent with them.

  CHAPTER 3

  Fate whispers to the warrior, “You cannot withstand the storm” and the warrior whispers back, “I am the storm”

  - Anonymous

  Butch

  “C’mon Dais, we have to go. We can’t wait much longer,” I tell her, hopeful that my low tone will help convince her to stop waiting. It’s been three hours, and her moaning tells me that the contractions are getting closer together. We’re at the point where it could happen any second, and I am saying this right now. “I am not delivering your fucking son.”

  “Bitch!” Daisy snaps at me, her face distorting as another contraction ripples through her. I know she called me a bitch to piss me off, and I’m at my limit. This is it. I’ve had enough of this fucking shit, and I’ll be damned if this stubborn woman doesn’t have this baby in a fucking hospital. We’ve waited long enough.

  Reed decided it would be best to deal with our newest threat today. As it turns out that the Mexican Cartel is slowly seeping their way back into Nashville and the surrounding areas. Now, we don’t have the best relationship with the Cartel. Shit, they shot Kyle for fuck’s sake! All I know is that this isn’t good, the Cartel being back or Daisy having this baby right now. Neither of these two things is good!

  Daisy and I are in the clubhouse, alone, because why the fuck wouldn’t we be? At least if Elena or Jenna were here they’d talk some fucking sense into the bitch in front of me! I’ve had enough, and I mean it.

  Before I know it, I’m walking over to Daisy and pulling her up into my arms. She groans and curses at me with every step that I take until I’m sliding her in the passenger side of my truck. “You better not have this baby on my fucking leather, Dais,” I grumble, not giving a shit if I sound like the world’s biggest dick right now because let’s be honest – we all know that I am.

  “I’m not having this baby until Ollie is here!” she screams, tears flooding over her swollen cheeks. Daisy has looked amazing for most of her pregnancy. If you’d walk behind her on the street you wouldn’t have a clue that the girl was pregnant, until about three weeks ago when she started inflating like a balloon. Every part of this girl that was small and dainty is suddenly puffy.

  Instead of arguing with her like I normally do, I make my way around my truck and pop into the driver’s seat. From the corner of my eye, I glance and see she’s put on her seatbelt, which calms me down just a tad. All in all, I cannot explain how overwhelmed I am right now. Never did I think that Ollie and the guys would be AWOL or that Daisy would be in my fucking truck, practically crowning.

  It’s just another day with the Skulls, I suppose.

  I drive as quickly and safely as I can until we reach the nearest hospital. Daisy fought me tooth and nail, complaining that this wasn’t in her birth plan, whatever the fuck that is. Apparently, it’s a big fucking deal when I take her to the hospital where her doctor won’t be at. Well, I broke it to her that if she’d have let us get on the road sooner than when we did, we could’ve driven the extra ten minutes to “her” hospital. Now she’s stuck with the reality that this kid’s birth isn’t going to follow her plan at all! He’s making the decisions, not her, and the doc just broke that to her.

  “I can’t have this baby until my boyfriend gets here!” She’s screaming at the doctor, holding her side like she’s being ripped apart, and maybe she is – I wouldn’t know.

  “You’re going to be having him soon, sweetheart, very soon! I’m going to give you another five minutes, and then we’re going to start pushing, okay?” I glance over to the old woman who is trying to coax Daisy, knowing it’s not working. When this girl gets an idea in her mind, she sure as hell doesn’t drop it.

  “Fuck, no! I can’t. I can’t have this baby…not without Ollie…” She breaks down into sobs. It takes every ounce of me to not just sit in the couch and let her cry, but I fucking know that if Daisy tells Seamus I let her cry and didn’t do a damn thing, that I’d be the one being ripped apart.

  I slide up off the cheap tan leather, brushing both of my hands on my jeans as I walk towards her bedside. My own eyes meet with the doc, silently telling her to leave the room while she has a chance, and she does. I sit in the chair to Daisy’s side, knowing that this isn’t what she ever wanted, and I’d bet that Seamus didn’t want this to happen either. I am not the man you go to when you’re freaking out, and I’m also not the man that is good at diffusing situations, yet here I am, trying my hardest to calm her down.

  “You and I both know that this isn’t what either of us anticipated to happen today. No one could possibly know that the one-time Reed decides to take every fuckin’ brother from the club, you’d be having this baby.”

  “He isn’t due for two more weeks! How can this be happening right now?!” Daisy sobs, shit. Fuck me sideways. My momma raised me better than to be the man who lets a woman cry in front of him. I may not give a shit about a lot of things; I’m the first to admit that I am the most selfish bastard you’ll ever meet, but I cannot just let her cry it out.

  I move my hand over the plastic bar on the side of the bed and release it so it goes down, moving my own body up next to her, I pull her against my chest and let her cry, rubbing her back in slow movements. Daisy fucking hates this, and I do too.

  I hate this more than anything.

  “Oh, fuck!” Daisy screams, gripping my cut for dear life. In this very moment, I wish that there was something I could do to ease the pain. We only found out a few short minutes ago that there is literally nothing that can be done. Daisy is too far dilated, and this baby is coming soon, whether she’s prepared or not.

  “Okay, it sounds like it’s showtime! Let’s get this baby out, shall we?” That damn sweet old doc is back in the room with us in no time, going straight for center stage and ready for this lil’ one to shoot out. She needs Daisy closer to the end of the bed, so I shimmy myself behind her, giving her support and rubbing her shoulders as needed.

  Shit, now I’m really feeling like a dick. “Oh god-d-d-d,” she groans, holding onto the plastic bars that were both put back up, her knuckles turn white with the amount of force she’s putting into everything that she’s doing.

  “You got this. You’re a force to be reckoned with,” I whisper to her, rubbing her bac
k gently.

  “Yeah, easy for you to say that, jackass! You’re not the one pushing an eight-pound bowling ball out of your who-ha!” Daisy snaps. Glancing up, I see the amused look from the doc and wonder if she gets a kick out of hearing women snap to their birthing partners. Looks like she does from my position.

  “Push…. NOW!” And like that, it happens over and over again. Daisy following the doc’s orders and me just sitting there behind her, giving her as much support as I can through every single one. Her body is completely limp against mine when I hear the roaring cries of that baby boy, and the three of us all smile in unison. I can’t help but think that yeah, today might not have gone the way we wanted it to, but it was a pretty good fucking day.

  ***

  It’s been over five hours, and I haven’t heard anything from Reed, Kyle, Enzo, Seamus, Dmitri, or even Pain and Chaos, not to mention the countless others that I’ve texted. Nervousness floats through my body wondering what the hell is going on, as I’m continuing to send out mass texts from outside Daisy’s hospital room. I overhear a conversation between the doc and Dais’.

  “Your friend right there is pretty amazing. I’ve seen a lot of dads who aren’t even that involved.”

  “He’s not just my friend, he’s my brother.” There are a lot of times where I still struggle to find where I fit within this club, but it’s moment like this that shows me that I belong, that they are my family.

  It’s just then that a text comes through my phone from Seamus, back-to-back I get message after message. Finally, I can tell Daisy that her man is on his way after I’ve texted him with the address and room number of the hospital we’re at.

  I walk back into Daisy’s room, telling her the good news. The smile that lights up on her face is enough to make me realize that we may have gone through a lot of shit today, but in the end, it was all worth it.

  “Did you pick out a name yet?” I ask, settling back down into the chair next to her.

  “Yep. Wanna know it?” She looks down to the little man, snug asleep in her arms, then back over to me.

  “You know that was the stupidest question you could’ve asked me today, right? Of course, I want to know the name of the kid that was almost born on my new leather,” I chuckle, staring down at him. It makes me think of a time where I was almost a father, and how everything was ripped from me. Memories come flooding back in a wave of unwanted misery. Daisy’s words are the only thing that keeps me from focusing on my past.

  “His name will be Ryder Abe Virts.” She says it proud as can be. Now, me? I can’t help but smile. Daisy is using my name as this little man’s middle name.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I tell her.

  “I know I don’t have to, but I wanna. You got me through this day, Abe. If you weren’t there, oh, my god…I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t there. All I can say is that everything turned out okay because of you. If I was alone, things could have gone very bad. So yep, I’m naming my son after the man that was there for me today.” She smiles dotingly at her son, putting her index finger between his tiny little hands.

  “What the fuck? Did you just say that you’re naming our son after Bitch?” Seamus growls, purposefully changing my name from Butch to Bitch as he charges into the room.

  “Already did. Nice of you to actually show up,” she hisses back. I’m tellin’ ya. I don’t know how these two work, they bicker like cats and dogs. Every coupling in our MC does when I think about it. “Come meet your son, Ryder Abe Virts.”

  Seamus bites the bottom of his lip as he takes slow steps towards his girl and their son. He leans over, burning a hole through Ryder, staring at him like if he blinks his son will vanish into thin air.

  “You did a great job, Babygirl. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here, he kisses Daisy’s lips chastely before pulling away and redirecting his attention to me. “Thank you for being here for her when I couldn’t be.”

  “Think nothing of it. If the roles were reversed, I know you’d do the same.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “You owe Butch a shitload of beer, Ox. You got that?”

  “I got it. Don’t you worry, baby.”

  CHAPTER 4

  One man’s “I’m not ready,” is another man’s “I knew the second I saw her.”

  -Meredith Marple

  Bellamy

  “What the hell is going on with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Syd comments, staring me down in the rear-view mirror as he parks the car. Rocky flips his big old muscular body around, and the next thing I know, his eyes aren’t wavering from my face. I can’t bear to look at either of them, but from the corner of my eyes, I can see everything that I need to see.

  “Zac texted me,” I tell them. The first thing I hear is Rocky’s growl and Syd’s sigh.

  “What the fuck did he say, huh, Bells?” Rocky growls at me, ripping the phone from my hand, he tugs it into the front seat, and I watch his expression as it changes. Before I can tell him not to press the video he does, and I hear what I hoped I wouldn’t…

  “What do you like to be called, baby? Tell me.”

  I can hear my soft giggle, “I love it whatever you call me. Every nasty word, it turns me on so much.”

  “Is cumslut your favorite?”

  “Maybe,” I admit, hearing my breath hitch.

  I can recall the moment he took this video, like recalling a movie I had watched at the theater. There’s a ripping sound and then moans fill the car. My moans. My hot and heavy moans. I remember that day, how I had deemed that sex the best sex of my life.

  Somehow, I tune out the rest of the video and sit in silence, thinking about everything that I could have done to warrant Zac’s behavior. He’d just sent me a sexual video, which we both know he has the fullest intent to release to the public. He’s shamed me publicly before, showing the world the barest parts of me. I just wonder why he acts the way that he does. Is it because I’m actually getting somewhere with my career? Or is it something different? Is it because he wants to still have some sort of control over me?

  There was a time where I felt like nothing without him;, like he was my life jacket and I was drowning. It took me a long time to understand that I wasn’t drowning. I was learning how to swim, and sometimes, you need to do that without the safety jacket.

  “If Evie’s voice wasn’t drilled into the back of my thick skull, I’d be the first one to show this asshole how to treat a lady,” Rocky hisses, handing the phone back to me.

  “At this point, I don’t give a shit what Evie says. I’m tired of watching the way that Zac treats you. He leaked –” With one look to Syd, I shut him up. All the guys know that I don’t like talking about it, even Miles doesn’t test me on it – and that is a shock. The one who hates me, won’t even bring it up to my face. I should count that as a blessing. Adding that to the shit we have to deal with on tour would be fabulous.

  “Can we just stop, and go into that bar and do what I need to do? Please? You both know that I’m so dang nervous and all this talk about Zac and the crappy things he does to me is just making me pissed and upset, and that’s not what I came here for. I came here to talk to my sister, and you can damn well bet I’m going to do that!” I huff, unbuckling my seatbelt with as much force as humanly possible. I then swing open the door and slam it behind me – walking straight into the unknown, the lion’s den of sorts.

  We’re at Bubba’s.

  I make my way through the doors and see what seems to be a regular bar, the bar wraps around the entire restaurant in a big L shape, probably allowing at least fifty patrons to be seated there. The walls are lined with booths for table seating and where there isn’t a booth, there is a pool table, or what looks to be a foosball machine. As I keep looking around the bar I see that there is a small stage to one corner, and on the other side of the restaurant, I see another with a pole.

  Dang. This is a full-service bar, I think to myself.

  I can’t help but co
ntinue to look around. This is almost like looking into an entirely different world. Every patron in this joint has on leather, patches, and emblems lining each jacket. But all the jackets don’t have sleeves. That’s kind of weird.

  “You lost, little lamb?” I turn to the right and see a man, only a foot or so taller than I. He has dirty blonde hair and this scruffy beard that would normally look mangled, but it works for him. “The reason I’m asking is ‘cause Bubba’s doesn’t look like the kinda place for you.”

  “Please tell me, what kind of place do I belong in?” I ask, cocking my eyebrow.

  “Something sweet, with sprinkles and sugar.”

  I don’t know who this man is, or what gave him the balls to come up and speak to me that way, but there is one thing that I have to admit, I kind of like it. For some reason this man is pushing all my good buttons. All the little flashing red buttons that say “press me,” he is pushing, and I want more.

  “So, you’re assuming that I’m sugar, spice, and everything nice?”

  He looks me up and down, his eyes going slowly over every part of my body and finally when his eyes meet my own, they’re lit aflame. “No sweetheart. I didn’t say you had an ounce of spice in ya.”

  “You’d be wrong about that…” I glance over his ripped leather cutoff vest and see his name. “Butch, you’d be very wrong about that”

  “Alright then, Sugar. Prove me wrong. I’ll be here all night.” As he walks away from me and goes to the bar I can’t help but want to prove him wrong. I was challenged, by someone I don’t know. I shouldn’t have a reason to want to prove him wrong, yet…I do. I want to prove him that I’m not as innocent and pure as everyone thinks because I’m not.