“Fuckin’ foul, heinous shit. Not only to outsiders but to his own brothers.”
A collective roar and boot stomping filled the room.
“So, yeah, this ain’t a regular church meetin’.”
Diesel stepped forward. “Fuck no. Got you all here for a fuckin’ vote to strip one of us of ‘is colors.”
The room stilled. Stripping someone of their colors was serious shit. A few brothers looked around nervously, trying to figure out who it was and hoping like hell it wasn’t them. Which made Dex raise his brows.
Nash yelled out, “Who?”
Hawk, Diesel and Z’s gaze landed on Pierce, who was perched on the edge of one of the pool tables. His feet dropped to the floor and he stood.
Dex studied the man who had sent Warriors to rape and kill his own fucking daughter. And to kill one of his own club brothers.
He shook his head. To call him a monster wasn’t even good enough.
Dawg moved around the pool table to stand behind Pierce. “Figurin’ it’s this piece of shit,” he yelled out.
A mumble went up.
“What the fuck? You talkin’ about me?” Pierce asked Hawk.
Hawk gave him a sharp nod. “Bring ‘im the fuck up here, Dawg.”
Dawg grabbed Pierce’s arm, but Pierce jerked out of his grip. “Can fuckin’ walk. Haven’t done shit. If you’re gonna accuse me of somethin’, I better get an opportunity to fuckin’ respond.”
Neither Hawk nor Diesel answered him. Dawg stalked behind Pierce as the former prez made his way through the group to stand in front of the bar, his back to the room.
“Don’t even know where to begin,” Hawk muttered, brushing fingers over his short mohawk.
Jag stepped closer and yelled out, “How ‘bout the fact that he sent Ivy into Dirty Dick’s an’ the Dark Knights territory without any of us fuckin’ knowin’ it. Coulda went sideways for ‘er real fast. Good thing the Knight’s enforcer didn’t let that happen.”
A grumble rose up.
“The bitch wanted to go,” Pierce said. “Didn’t approach ‘er, she fuckin’ came to me.”
“As prez, you shoulda told her no, fucker,” Jag muttered, running an agitated hand over his jeans. “Or brought it to a vote. No excuses.”
Dex had a feeling Jag was just itching to plant a fist in Pierce’s face. He’d been wanting to do it for a long while.
Slade moved next to Jag. “How ‘bout the fact that he touched Diamond when she was just fuckin’ fifteen.”
Jag’s head spun toward Slade. “What?”
Slade nodded. “Cornered her. Touched her. Shoulda lost his fuckin’ balls after that.”
Dawg grabbed Jag before he could rush up to Pierce. “Fuckin’ touched my sister when she was a fuckin’ kid?”
Pierce stood silently with his jaw tight.
Jag turned to Slade. “Why didn’t you say nothin’?”
“She didn’t want anyone to know. But since we’re airin’ shit out, figured it needed to come to light. She’s gonna fuckin’ kill me. Just sayin’. Ain’t gonna get pussy for a long time.”
“Gonna deny it?” Jag screamed at Pierce. “Gonna say my sister lied?”
The room got deadly quiet. All eyes were pinned on Pierce.
“Begged me to pop her fuckin’ cherry.”
Everyone in that room went completely solid. Like stone.
“Wait... what?”
Oh fuck. Slade’s surprise meant he hadn’t been told it went that far. Slade only thought she’d been touched. That was clear by the fury that crossed his face.
“You touched her like that?” Slade leaped forward, his fists clenched, and Crow was there, holding him back.
“Brother,” Crow murmured. “His time’s comin’. A fuckin’ fifteen-year-old.” He shook his dark head and blew out a noisy breath.
Dex turned his attention back to Pierce, who definitely looked a bit paler than normal. He raked shaky fingers through his short salt-and-pepper hair.
“Anybody else wanna come forward?” Hawk asked, then mumbled, “What the fuck with all this shit. Otherwise, I’m gonna get to the main reason we’re votin’ today.”
“There’s worse shit than rapin’ a fifteen-year-old?” Slade shouted, his face almost purple as he tried to pull away from Crow. Crow planted his feet and hung on as best as he could.
“Didn’t fuckin rape her!” Pierce yelled out. “She fuckin’ wanted—”
Before he could finish, Grizz came from nowhere and popped Pierce right in the mouth. Dex wouldn’t be surprised if everyone’s jaw dropped right then and there.
“Shut the fuck up.” The old man shook his hand out and wandered back to his stool to take a long chug of beer.
Hawk turned surprised eyes from Grizz back to the crowd. “Okay, then. Di ain’t here to settle that an’ ain’t gonna make her confirm it right now. So... here’s the thing. Know of another woman he raped.”
Curses and random shouts moved through the room.
“What?”
“What the fuck!”
“Piece of shit!”
Hawk held up the folded pages from Brooke’s mother’s diary. “Got proof here that he did it to someone else.”
With the back of his hand pressed to his bloody mouth, Pierce turned his head quickly and glanced at what Hawk was holding. “What’s that shit?”
“Proof that you raped Brooke’s mother,” Hawk answered.
“Who the fuck is Brooke?”
“Don’t fuckin’ act like you don’t fuckin’ know. She’s your fuckin’ daughter, asshole.” Dex stepped up to the bar, and turned to face everyone. He pointed at Pierce. “This fucker set Brooke an’ me up. Sent Warriors to Brooke’s house to take out his own fuckin’ daughter. Get rid of Brooke an’ me before I got the proof to nail his fuckin’ ass.” His eyes swung to Slade. “Had no idea, brother. Didn’t need that diary if Diamond had stepped forward.” He raised his palm when Slade opened his mouth to speak. “Can understand why she didn’t, though. Ain’t faultin’ her.” He looked around the room. “So the man ain’t only a rapist, but a fuckin’ snake lyin’ in bed with the Warriors. Usin’ them to do his dirty work. Fuckers almost raped Brooke. Would’ve taken the two of us out. But, luckily...”
Now was not the time to tell everyone what a badass his woman was. That it was her that saved their ass, not him. Yeah, probably best to keep that to himself. He was sure it would get out soon enough.
“You sayin’ you’re accusing me of rapin’ some woman because of some shit written down? That ain’t shit. I don’t’ even know who the fuck she is.”
“Was,” Dex murmured. “Brooke’s mother’s dead now. An’ you mighta got away with it if she hadn’t written that shit down. But she did. An’ your own daughter found it.”
“Don’t got no daughter,” Pierce sneered.
“Yeah, you do. Two, matter of fact,” Dex said, pulling the DNA results from the back pocket of his jeans.
Pierce stared at the papers in Dex’s hand, his eyes wide. “What’s that?”
“DNA proof.”
“Of what?’
“That you fathered not only Brooke, but Kelsea.”
The former DAMC prez went from pale to sheet white. “What?”
Hawk growled, “For fuck’s sake, don’t tell me you touched Kels, too?”
“Didn’t fuckin’ touch no one.”
“Liar!” came the high-pitched scream as Brooke ran through the room then leapt toward Pierce. He stumbled back as all her weight hit him, her hair and fists flying.
“Oh fuck!” Dex shouted, rushing forward to get hands on Brooke. D was there, peeling her off Pierce as she wailed on him, kicking and hitting. Before D could pull her off, Pierce’s fist connected with her face and her head whipped back.
Diesel picked Brooke up like she weighed nothing, swung her around and shoved her at Dex, who caught her but stumbled back in an attempt to keep his balance. When he finally had two feet firmly on the ground, he held onto Brooke ti
ghtly as her chest heaved and she made a sound that raised the hair on his neck. She held her hand to her face.
D stood over Pierce as the man rose to his feet, staring at Brooke. “Don’t know who the fuck you are.” That was a fucking lie. Somehow the man had found out who she was and why she had shown up in Shadow Valley over a week ago, otherwise he wouldn’t have sent the Warriors to “deal” with her.
“You fucking knew my mother thirty years ago!”
“Thirty years ago? I fucked a lot of bitches over the years.” His eyes narrowed as his gaze raked over her. “Oh yeah. Look just like her. Hot little piece of ass. Liked to play hard to get. Say no. Pretend she didn’t want it even though I knew she did. Her moans were fuckin’ sweet. Her fightin’ me even sweeter.” He grabbed his dick. “She made me come real fuckin’ hard.”
Dex never saw Diesel move so fast. His hand shot out in a flash and gripped Pierce’s throat, raising the fucker to his toes.
D stared at him, his nostrils flared, his chest rising and falling quickly, then he shook his head and tossed Pierce to the side.
Pierced stumbled but caught himself, putting a hand to his throat. “You wanna fight me over snatch?” He raised his arms out. “Come get me, then, brother.”
Egging D on for a fight was asking for a death sentence. Pierce was being reckless and he knew when he said that shit to Brooke that he’d evoke some sort of response.
D grunted. If smoke could come out of a man’s nose, the room would be full of it. “Ain’t your fuckin’ brother. None of us are your brothers anymore.”
“Been a part of this club for over thirty-five years. Longer than most of you been born. Think you can just toss my ass out?”
“You told the Warriors where we were,” Dex shouted. “Ratted us the fuck out, Pierce. Didn’t care that they were gonna rape an’ kill your own blood.”
Pierce spit on the ground. “Ain’t my blood no matter what that paper says.”
Z stepped around the bar and in front of Pierce. “Let’s talk ‘bout rats.” Zak took a deep breath and shook his head. “Spent ten fuckin’ years...” He got right into Pierce’s face, his finger a cunt hair away from the man’s nose as he screamed, “TEN FUCKIN’ YEARS in a fuckin’ hole because of you, motherfucker. Ten fuckin’ years of my fuckin’ life. If I didn’t have a fuckin’ wife an’ son, I’d put a bullet between your fuckin’ eyes.”
“What’s Z talkin’ about?” Dawg asked.
Zak turned to face them all, pointing at Pierce, who finally wore a look of shock and some fear as shit hit home. If his asshole wasn’t puckered before, Dex was pretty sure it was now. The man finally realized he wasn’t getting out of this with just some lame-ass excuses.
“This is the fucker that set me up all those years ago. Not the fuckin’ Warriors. Had me locked away so his ass could sit at the head of the table.”
Dex was expecting Z to turn around at any second and punch the fuck out of Pierce. But before he had a chance, Slade jerked free from Crow’s grip and slammed his palms into Pierce’s chest, screaming, “This is for Diamond.” Then with one strategic punch knocked Pierce out cold.
The former president of the DAMC crumpled to the ground.
Brooke jerked against Dex so hard that she broke free and rushed over to Pierce, lifted her booted foot and stomped him right in the nuts with her heel.
A collective groan went up as everyone winced and their hands covered their own junk instinctively.
Even D winced and turned a little green at that.
Dex was pinning his own thighs together and blew out a breath. “Damn,” he whispered.
D looked at Dex and jerked his chin toward Brooke, who still stood over an unconscious Pierce, her hands curled into fists as she glared down at him.
Dex moved up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back against him gently. “Babe,” he whispered against her ear. “Need to go back up to my room, got me? Gotta do it now, yeah?”
She didn’t answer for the longest time and he began to wonder if she heard him. She just continued to stare at the man who was in a crumpled, unconscious heap on the floor.
“Babe... Brooke. Go upstairs. Be up there shortly.”
Suddenly, her spine snapped straight and she nodded. “We have to talk.”
Dex closed his eyes for a second. That didn’t sound good. “Yeah,” he said softly.
He reluctantly released her and without even a look at him, she made her way back through the rest of the men and up the stairs.
After she was out of sight, he turned back to the front of the room.
“Let’s vote!” Crash yelled out.
“Should he be awake when we do it?” Hawk asked.
Grizz came over and poured his full pint of beer over Pierce’s head. Pierce groaned, sputtered and shook his head, his eyes unfocused. “What the fuck...”
“He’s conscious. Let’s vote,” Hawk announced. “All in favor of strippin’ this piece of shit of his colors?”
A roar of “ayes” rose up.
“Ayes fuckin’ have it. He’s done.” Hawk spit on Pierce.
One by one, all the brothers stepped up, spit on Pierce and turned their backs to him as they returned to their spot in the large room.
Crow was the last one to approach. “Assume you don’t need me to cover the colors on his back.”
Diesel growled. “Fuck no. Strippin’ his colors is gonna go way deeper than the skin on his fuckin’ back.”
Crow nodded then spit on Pierce, even though the man now had one hand covering his face along with one on his balls.
Dex was surprised that Pierce didn’t say shit the whole time. He didn’t beg for any leniency.
Nothing.
He knew what his future held.
Justice was about to be served on a cold fucking platter.
Chapter Sixteen
We have to talk.
Every step up the stairs was a dreaded one. He tightly gripped the bag of ice within in his fingers. He just left one shit show and he wasn’t looking forward to walking into another.
With gritted teeth, he wondered what was going to be waiting for him behind his bedroom door. Listening carefully, he moved down the hallway and then stopped in front of his room. Footsteps. Constant, rhythmic footsteps.
She was pacing impatiently.
Fuck.
He braced himself as he opened the door and stepped inside. His room was one of the larger ones, luckily, but that still didn’t give her a lot of room to pace.
“Been pacin’ the whole time?”
She stopped short and turned her troubled blue eyes to him. The look she gave him got him in the gut. “What the hell else was I supposed to do? I was sent to your room like a fucking child.”
“Babe,” he sighed, closing the door behind him and locking it. He snagged the keys she had thrown on his dresser and shoved them deep into his pocket. He held up the ice. “Brought you ice.”
“For what?”
“The shiner that asshole gave you.”
Her hand raised to her eye automatically, then she rushed into his tiny bathroom, flicked on the light and inspected her black eye closely in the spotty mirror. “Son of a bitch.”
“Figured it was gonna turn, so brought ice,” he said as he squeezed in behind her, mentally cursing how small his bathroom was. He needed to move the fuck out of church. It was time.
He lifted the ice up and offered it to her. She snagged it out of his hands and pressed it to her eye with a hiss.
They stood quietly for a moment. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, pull her back against him, calm the anger he knew simmered beneath the surface. But he wasn’t sure if she’d let him.
“What are they going to do to him?”
“Strip him of his colors,” Dex answered. Though those words sounded simple, they had a much deeper meaning. However, he wasn’t going to lay out to Brooke what everyone knew would be done to Pierce.
Everyone knew, but didn’t wa
nt to know, either. Not actually saying the words was safer for everyone in case questions popped up down the road.
She pinned her gaze to his in the mirror’s reflection. “Dex, what are they going to do to him?”
After a hesitation, he said softly, “Babe, like I said, strip him of his colors.”
She turned and leaned back against the sink, holding his gaze. “That’s not enough. Diamond...” she breathed the last and that also got him right in the gut.
Fucking Diamond. No one had a clue that had happened. No one. She had kept that from everyone, including Slade, her brother, Jag, and most likely Bella, too.
After D and Hawk escorted Pierce out of church, with Z following behind at a slower but determined pace, Crow and Dawg had drilled Slade for more details. Apparently, Diamond admitted to her ol’ man one night that Pierce had cornered and touched her, but that was all she told him.
It was possible she didn’t remember it all. Maybe she had blocked it from her memory. Because, for fuck’s sake, he doubted Pierce would admit to everyone that he took a fifteen-year old’s virginity if it hadn’t happened.
And they all doubted that Diamond would’ve given it up willingly to Pierce. She also wasn’t the type of woman to sit back and let someone abuse her like that.
But then, she had only been fifteen at the time.
Diamond was always one to avoid coming to church and club parties, using the excuse she didn’t like being around the “skanks.” But maybe that was only part of it.
How Slade would handle that devastating discovery with Diamond remained to be seen. That would be between the two of them. Though, Crow was more than agitated at the whole thing. His constant murmur of “baby doll” under his breath was a bit strange.
“Babe... Trust me.” He grabbed Brooke’s chin and met her gaze directly, making sure she was clear on what he was saying but also what he wasn’t saying as well. “It’s gonna be enough. He’s gonna get his due. Ain’t gonna hurt anyone ever again.”
Trust me.
That was just it. She wasn’t sure she could trust him now. It was funny, because somehow and in some way, she had begun to trust Dexter Dougherty during the time they’ve spent together. Hell, she allowed him into her home. She allowed this biker to start slipping into her heart.
Down & Dirty: Dex (Dirty Angels MC Book 8) Page 18
