“What do you do? You know, for fun, for a job, for a hobby, that type of crap?”
“Waitress at the diner.”
“Ahh, The Long Road?”
“Yeah.”
“That explains where you met.”
“What about you?” After I asked it, I thought it was a stupid question. What did any of these women do? Old ladies were there to be used. They were also there to do all the fun things like cooking and cleaning as well.
“I run my own craft business,” Roxy said in a completely serious tone.
She shoved her empty beer onto the bar. Her expression didn’t change.
“Have my card,” she said. She slid me a business card with cute pink cupcakes holding hands. She was on Etsy?
“Your own Etsy shop. That’s cool.”
“Yeah, I do a lot of sewing, crafting, that kind of thing. I mostly sell off Etsy now, though.”
“It’s my turn then to make assumptions. I wouldn’t peg you for someone into the craft business.”
“You’d be surprised,” she said. “Just stay here, I swear, we’re all fucking nuts in our own way. You’ll see.”
I was beginning to understand. As we continued talking, I lost track of time. Whatever they were talking about back there must’ve been important to leave me alone in a strange place for so long. Why did I expect Red to be accommodating? He brought me against my wishes. I shouldn’t have expected so much from him.
Roxy blocked my view of something in the corner. I heard shouts and screams that sounded like MTV spring break. Like one those party shows, there was a girl with her shirt up, showing her tits. Hooting and hollering, three Bastards surrounded her.
“Jesus,” Roxy said with a sigh.
Roxy pointed to the back room where Red disappeared earlier.
“Come on, let’s go upstairs. You play pool?”
“I know how to play. I’m not very good.” I didn’t wait very long to add, “But let’s go.”
We headed into the back room. There was much more to the building than what I expected, a kitchen and a meeting room. There was a long hallway stretching back into multiple corridors along with a stairwell. Once we got upstairs, it looked like a hotel room, branching off into different hallways with bedrooms. I didn’t want to think about what went on in those rooms.
“It’s just up here,” she said, leading the way confidently.
After turning the first corner in the hallway, we came into a foyer, the center hub used as a lounge. We should’ve heard the moaning, but the screaming and bass from downstairs could be heard through the floorboards, and it must’ve masked the sound.
A group already used the table, but they weren’t playing pool. A brunette, placed on the edge of the pool table, was completely naked, her legs spread, a Bastard thrusting between them. Her breasts jogged as another Bastard plugged her screams. She stopped sucking, but the cock pushed deep in her throat. The men weren’t going to stop even if they saw us.
She leaned back, her neck rolling as the pleasure overwhelmed her. Her thighs trembled and spread wider. My eyes were stuck on that Bastard’s ass flexing and thrusting, punishing her soft, curvy form.
“Looks like it’s taken,” Roxy muttered. She pulled me away.
Dazed, walking crooked, I didn’t resist. This was a strange, unbelievable day...and now this? Witnessing my first gangbang.
“Let’s go outside.” Roxy unclasped my wrist. I followed her lead.
“We need to stop that,” I said.
Roxy sprung around and shoved me to the wall. It was fast enough to shake me, but not forceful enough to hurt.
“We’re going to go outside and chill, okay? That’s what we’re going to do.”
“I can’t let a girl be raped.”
Roxy tilted her head like a cat, then she burst out laughing.
“That girl wanted it. It was probably her idea.”
“How can we be sure?”
I remembered the horror stories. I was warned by my boss Wyatt what might happen. If it came down to it, my orders were to fight for my life and escape.
“Did she say help or anything? No? Then I wouldn’t worry about it. These guys might be animals, but they’re not rapists. Anyone getting fucked on the property is getting fucked because they want to be, otherwise there’s a problem.”
“I see,” I said, shrugging. I shook my head, allowing a relieved smile to break over my worried expression. “Sorry, I jumped to conclusions. I never saw anything like that.”
“Let’s go outside,” she repeated.
Prospects smiled and greeted us, but didn’t try to talk to us. We were left alone. I was thankful for that. The biting chill of the night woke me out of my stupor as we leaned against the front, careful to stay clear of the bikes.
“Not a bad first day,” Roxy said, giving me a playful punch on the shoulder.
That’s when I broke.
It all came rushing to a head. It was bound to happen. I had tried to be strong for too long. Red had prolonged the inevitable, bringing me out to that peaceful view, when he left, and after time had passed, the memory of the violent day came barging in and I broke.
I dropped to the pavement. Hot tears ran free as I shuddered into my arms. No one should see me so weak.
“She all right?” I heard one of the pledges ask.
“She’s fine,” Roxy said as she dropped to a knee before me.
She placed a comforting hand on my trembling shoulders. “I’ll take care of it. Come on, Ash, come with me.”
When Roxy helped me up, I wiped the tears away, taking a walk of shame around the corner. I leaned against it again, the last shudders of sobs rocking my chest while staring at the perimeter enclosing us like a prison.
I turned to Roxy. She gave me a wry smirk, hoping that it would help. I laughed a little at the absurdity, wiped my nose, then looked out over the compound walls at the glowing moon.
Roxy wasn’t my friend. I was there to bust her. In the end, Roxy would end up hating me, hating this moment where she tried to make a sad stranger feel better.
“It’s all right. I cried a few times when I first got here. Big tears too. It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” she said. When she stared at me, staring blankly ahead, she flipped her fingers through her curls.
“I’m probably not the best person to help, but I’m all you got right now. Sorry.”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “No, honestly, you’ve helped me a lot. You’re doing fine.”
“If I’m the one being reassured, I don’t think I’m doing a good job.”
I grinned and took a deep breath. I could smell the wings cooking from the kitchen, could smell some lingering smoke, and some perfume from Roxy. It was a tantalizing combination. I could hang out there all night and get the down winds. Time to move my pathetic ass. No more crying for me tonight.
“I think I better get going,” I said.
“Did Red say where you’re going to sleep?”
Good point, I thought. Red didn’t tell me anything. At that moment, all I wanted to do was to go back to my apartment and crash on my bed. That wasn’t an option.
“He didn’t say. Maybe you could find me a room?”
Maybe while she searched I could take some pictures? Scout the area to bust them? A pang of guilt wallowed in my chest for using Roxy. I would regret it later, I was sure, but I wasn’t going to withdraw from my mission. They might be nice people, but nice people or not, they were breaking the law, and I was sure that some disgusting acts happened in the dark of the compound, much like I saw on that pool table. Probably worse. Most definitely worse.
She wanted it. You know it, she wanted it, I told myself, but I shut myself up, knowing that it didn’t matter if one girl wanted to be banged on a pool table. These were criminals.
“How about Red’s room?”
She noticed my jaw slack.
“He can sleep somewhere else. Unless you want him to sleep there?” She shrugged. “Like I said, I’m
not good at this. I can’t tell if you’re fucking or not. You can decide whether to kick him to the curb or not, but let’s go.”
Keeping my eyes peeled as we headed to another building, I wondered what secrets I could uncover while left alone. Being away from Red, my mission became clear. This was the moment I was waiting for. After Roxy dropped me off, I would start developing my case against The Blessed Bastards.
I might’ve still been sniffling, but I was there to do a job. I planned on finishing it.
IBWTO (Chapter 5)
Red
I was constantly checking the door. If only I could see through it to clock Ash’s moves. She would be fine in the old ladies’ care, but it still bothered me. I didn’t want to screw up a good thing. And the more this dragged on, the more it seemed like that’s exactly what I’d done.
I kept thinking about our hot kiss, my tongue rolling when it thought of tasting her. I would foam at the mouth soon. Sitting at the long table with all of the brothers, it looked like something out of King Arthur’s court. From my constant fixation with Ash’s curvy, sexual body, I sported half wood when the gavel came down on the table. All right, boys, put your dicks away, meetings in session.
Anything said now would be Bastard business. None of it would leave the room. It was time to get down and dirty. Talk about all the bloody business. Meetings brought a sense of purpose with a wallop of motivation. It was a good kick in the ass. It was also a hell of a good time having your best friends on every side of you. But I was far away that day. My mind was on Ash.
Crossing my arms and leaning back, I took a good look around me. We had a good outing with most of the senior members: King, Boots, Jackal, Ramos, Grimes, and Cole. Few were missing, notably Lee and Crack. Lee had better have a good reason for missing the meeting, since I’d seen him earlier. Probably getting his dick wet. Not a good excuse.
King slid his seat forward and dropped the gravel. “Meeting in session. There’s bad news to talk about guys. It’s about The Defilers.”
A groan resounded across the table. Some guys got that ice-cold look in their eyes, others grinned devilishly like they knew we were always headed to a war which they’d been waiting patiently on.
Jackal remained unmoved. It seemed like my brother wasn’t paying attention, but I knew better—he was.
King continued with his husky voice, “Shit isn’t good. They’ve been selling on our turf again. I don’t like it, no one does, but we turned a blind eye before. Now they’ve gone and killed a dealer close to home. In Rapid Valley.”
“Who?” Jackal asked.
I wondered if it was my brother’s affinity for drugs which caused him to ask. But then I forgot that he was probably not the ideal customer for these guys, who mostly sold meth and crack and all the real nasty shit. Jackal was into weed and mind-altering substances like acid and shrooms. As far as I knew, he was off the shrooms and acid too. He straightened up some, but there needed to be a lot of straightening in order for Jackal to be considered as straight edge as King.
King probably thought he was new school from the types he used to roll with. But we all knew him as the classic old school biker. He rose to greatness after the death of King Sr., who was the founding outlaw biker type, straight out of Nam and creating a rebel brotherhood. King Jr. was around those guys, but when he was inducted, a lot of the older guys left when King Sr. died. In his mind, he was anything but the norm. His father and his veteran buddies were the rock that had long ago been washed away.
King Jr., now known as just King to us, was the only rock we needed. There was no one who came close to keeping us all together.
“Some guy named Warner,” King said.
Jackal shrugged.
Cole slammed his fist against the table. It was a sturdy table, made especially for hot heads who liked to punch it. Even with the old timer’s huge fist, it didn’t rock. “They’ve been coming into our turf stirring shit up for a while now. I’m sick of it. You let a rabid dog eat your scraps, sooner or later they’re going to want to come in the house for their fill.”
Time to put the rabid dog down? Is that what he wanted?
The Defilers were like nothing King Sr. or King Jr. had ever known. They started to get our attention when they came in from West California. They called themselves a motorcycle gang, but the truth was, these guys didn’t play by any rules. They didn’t have a charter. They were a gang, a bunch of prison gangsters who happened to roll on bikes.
They dealt in nasty drugs, weapons, prostitution. They beat women. They murdered without any thoughts of the consequences. There was no outlaw justice. The Defilers were bad news, but we let them slide, because we knew once these two bulls locked horns there would be no avoiding a full-out war.
Boots turned to his old friend, King. “They need a warning.”
Flicking my hand over my chin, I said bluntly, “I don’t think they’re going to listen to a warning.”
Boots practically jumped from his seat. “Then we need to strike first,” he yelled.
Cole’s fingers tightened in their vise. “Hit ‘em hard before they can hit us. A preemptive strike.”
Ramos eyed everyone around the table carefully. “That would mean war. And these guys don’t fight fair. It’d be down to the last man.”
“Are we ready to do that?” I asked.
“They’re not giving us a choice,” Cole said, standing from his seat and then sitting his ass back down as Boots held him back.
I wasn’t about to jump out of my seat, but my jaw was set hard, my fist tightening. Cole was right. “Sooner or later we’re going to have do something about this. These guys don’t play by the rules. Whether we want to or not, we need to deal with this problem.”
King’s hand shot up to silence us. “We’re The Blessed Bastards, remember? They might not have rules, but we do. These guys haven’t done anything except murder some nobody on our turf. A nobody not even affiliated with us. If we want them to move back, we give them a warning.”
Jackal finally spoke, “Give them a warning so they can shoot first? I don’t know if I like that idea, King.”
He shrugged his great shoulders. “All right, then what’s the alternative?”
“Go to war,” Boots said, “squash them before they spread like a bad case of the crabs.”
“These guys gotta go,” Cole said, folding his arms and sneering.
“They’re no good. Cole is right,” Boots agreed.
“These guys are trash,” Jackal said, “but Ram is right. We need to understand that if we do something, they aren’t going to surrender and they’re not going to play fair.”
King puffed his chest and stared at the table while deliberating. We all waited for him to speak. We all let it sink in, then for him to spit out the answer like he always did.
“We’ve been at peace for a long time. Peace feels nice, doesn’t it? War, it’s nothing to be taken lightly, especially with guys like these who won’t stand down. I say we don’t attack. We attack without warning, a real pussy move, and we show every other club that we’re afraid. They’ve done nothing to warrant it, and as far as I’ve been here, The Bastards have lived under a fucked up, but working system of judgment when it comes to bringing the hammer down. We ain’t attacking first. We’re not actin’ like a bunch of threatened pussies over a little thing like this.”
Boots kicked one of his famed boots to the side, looked it over, and then nodded at King. The others simmered over the idea. I could see some real confusion, a mixture of emotions. No one was quite sure how to act, not even Cole, who shouted for war the loudest. His fists unclenched, his jaw slacked, now he gazed over King like a gargoyle turned to stone.
“We take a vote?” Boots asked.
“Like always, we vote,” King said.
He banged the gavel. I noticed he really liked to do that. I didn’t blame him, but every time it made me flinch. Half of the time, it wasn’t really necessary.
“Bringing to vote on whether w
e should—” King paused. He let out a heavy sigh and thought over his words carefully. “Go to war with the Defilers or not. Let’s hear the Yeas.”
“Yea,” Boots said, then looked like he’d gotten mud on his fancy boots.
Cole’s lips trembled, but he didn’t say a word.
I looked to my brother and Ram. I was most interested in Ram’s position, since I was sure he ran into The Defilers and knew them more than anyone. I’d like to pick his brain about them in the future. Ram looked vacant, like he was meditating.
Jackal rose his hand, “Yea.”
Eyebrows rose around the table. Everyone looked to see if there were more votes. I couldn’t remember the last time a vote took so long or was so divided.
Follow my brother? Have his back? No, we were all brothers now. I was my own man. My brother, thankfully, understood that and didn’t expect me to follow him. We both rode our own paths, which was exactly how we both wanted it.
“Is that it?” King asked, wielding the hammer halfway to the table.
No one else spoke.
“Let’s hear the nays.”
“Nay,” I said.
“Nay,” the others, Cole, Ramos, King, and Grimes said.
King slammed the hammer again. “The nays have it.”
Usually we would be ready to toast and get back to partying, but there was a thickness to the air no one could cut through.
King sighed, then said, “Look, I know this was a hard vote. We’ll keep voting on this issue, but for now, nobody treats The Defilers any differently than if they were another crew. We’ve got a legacy to uphold, a long history, you all remember that. The issue isn’t over, I know. Don’t think I’m blowing this over.”
“They’ll have to wait,” Cole said. He shoved his seat back. “We done? This is too serious for me. I’ve got to go finish getting loaded and laid.”
“Yeah, we’re done,” King said with a huff as he stood from his chair too. I noticed a wince from his bad knee.
He waved us off.
Still in a somber mood, we got up from the long table and started for the door.
King, with his big, goofy grin, waved and yelled at our backs, “Go, get your groove on. Go fuck and be merry, my children.”
Lucas (A Billionaire Bad Boy Novel) Page 25
