CARSON_Satan’s Ravens MC

by Kathryn Thomas

  “They should be pulling up any minute. You need to think very carefully about the next move you make here. My family doesn’t like you for whatever they presume you did to make me change and pick a stranger over family, but now that Argo is dead, the time for talking is over. Capishe?” She didn’t even look at him with that drawn out rationale for why he needed to stop standing there and get going, but it didn’t feel over. His intuition could be wrong when it wanted to be, he guessed.

  He walked over to get the rest of his clothes and threw them on. “I know you’re not in the mood to hear me, but if ever you want to know what happened tonight I’ll be willing to tell you. No one else, but you. I will.” He scribbled down the phone number he kept at his home and hoped that one day soon she would call it. Placing it in her purse, he closed it and walked out the door. He wasn’t going to beg anyone to be there for him or to trust him. He knew no one thought he was trustworthy, and he knew the end result of trying to force something that wasn’t meant to be. It had been like a television show while he was with her… friendly… inviting… unreal, and he loved each and every minute of it. He wasn’t sure he deserved all that he was getting when he was with her, but damned if he was going to turn it down.

  Taking the steps quickly he threw his duffle bag over his shoulder and went over to his bike. It didn’t take long to strap everything up and be ready to go. Unfortunately, he didn’t want to go. He looked up to the window where their room had been hoping to see something… a shadow of her frantically packing or her in the window flipping him the bird, but what he did see made him wish he’d been denied anything. There was a shadow that he could make out, and it was of her crouched down on the floor. It looked like she was crying so hard that her body was wracked with heaving sobs. Fuck.

  He couldn’t leave her like that. There had to be a way he could stand around and make sure she got picked up. He wheeled his bike to the other side of the house behind a wall where he couldn’t be seen from the road. It didn’t take long for the troops to come rolling in, and they came in like there was a war to be fought. Most of the men stayed in the cars but what looked like a father and a few other guys got out.

  The door opened, and Kelli walked out of the house like she was a regal princess. He could see the dirty look her father was giving her, but since nothing was done, Carson would have to be comfortable with the fact that she was safe with people who loved her… minus Argo.

  It didn’t take long for them all to let the lead car back out and the others follow suit, and he knew he should be counting his lucky stars that no one saw him and that he didn’t try to take off when he was going to… he would have ran right into them on the road, and he wouldn’t have to worry about getting another chance at her or anything else. His chances would be done and so would he.

  Waiting a few more minutes, he pulled out of the place where his bike was hidden and started his bike. With one last look up at the place that had been his residence and dream life, he took off into the night trying not to think about what was going on with Kelli.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Well, look who made it back,” Beast, the leader of the mercenary motorcycle group The Satan’s Ravens, and technically Carson’s boss said when he walked in the door.

  Carson had gotten home last night but had waited for the next day to come in and talk to Beast. He didn’t know what kind of reception he’d receive, but the happy go lucky one didn’t even make it on the top 10 lists of how this was going to play out.

  “I wanted to talk to you about what happened on the last job,” Carson said as he looked around at the few men around them.

  “Come with me,” The large Hispanic man lead them to his office and directed him to sit in the seat across from the large presidential chair. He leaned back in the chair and looked at Carson so long he wondered if the man was going to gather the information just by looking at him. “I heard it was a cluster fuck down there, but the job got completed, and there is a fat reward for you.”

  “A reward?” Carson didn’t think he deserved any type of reward for what he’d done.

  “Yeah. I guess no one told you, but the man who wanted Argo dead was getting impatient since it seemed like the person we sent down there was having a change of heart when it came to completing the mission. So you get your regular pay for completing the mission and an extra $50,000 bonus.”

  Carson couldn’t even believe what he was hearing. It seemed wrong to even think about taking money for something that had ruined his life with an angel.

  “I didn’t kill either of them. I don’t deserve that bonus or the pay.” Carson argued and found it hard to keep seated, but in the end, he did just that. He was known for his patience and calm, so this damn fidgeting was going to have to go.

  “I heard they both shot each other.” Beast watched Carson like a bird of prey and with all that had happened, Carson had nothing to hide.

  “Right.” Carson hoped the man was getting the gist of what was going on because he really didn’t want to talk about this right now, but that is why he had come in today instead of getting into his bed and sleeping for a good long while. “I was down there so long trying to get them to resolve their issues. Crowbar came out of nowhere, and they shot each other.”

  “Look, dude. I’ve known you for a long while, and I really wanted this to be your thing, but it’s not. There are plenty of jobs to do with the club, and you need to look into one of them. It’s not saying you’re not tough or able, but you are a lover. You think it’s your problem, but I think that’s just you. Stop fighting it.”

  “So you’re saying I should just fuck for a living?” Carson thought this was the strangest conversation he’d ever had.

  “No. I’m saying maybe you could do surveillance or fact checking or hell… watch over the money, but the killing part isn’t for you.”

  Carson was somewhat happy that he wasn’t being asked to leave. He’d been with the group so long it was like he didn’t know where else he’d go, but there was something relieved that he wasn’t going to be going back to the streets in the same capacity. He wanted to share that news with someone but he knew the someone he wanted to share with didn’t want anything to do with him.

  “Why am I getting the money when I didn’t do the job?” Carson was confused about that part.

  “Well, someone did the job and since you were the only one standing that makes the money yours… did you not want it?” The man leaned up in his chair like he was getting ready to call the little men to take him to the mental health unit.

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t take it… I just wondered why I was receiving it.”

  “This has been a tough assignment, but it was lucrative to the company. Take a few days off and rest, but we’ll see you after that, and I’ll figure out where to start you.”

  Beast had a way of dismissing you even though he didn’t say the words.

  “Alright, then.” Carson was already mentally in his bed as he left the office, so the reality of that job being over seemed to wipe him out.

  The ride home was quicker than normal, and he almost dreaded going inside. He didn’t want to have to deal with this shit. He was a few chick a night fucker, but he couldn’t even think about going out to score. Fuck… he was losing his damn self over a woman who was over him. He’d think about that shit tomorrow.

  He put his hands in his pockets to find the key to his apartment and in that pocket he found the sparkly diamond bracelet that he was trying to give Argo when it all went south. He held it up to the light and was again amazed at the clarity of the stones. He wasn’t a jeweler, but even a blind man could tell this wasn’t just your regular mass market jewelry.

  Holding the treasure in his hand, he wondered what he was supposed to do with this. One thing he knew for sure was that these little quirks of fate were signs and even if he didn’t normally believe in them, he was going to believe in it now.

  Here he was with a big ticket item in his hands, and he had to
get it back to her. Maybe she’d not noticed it was missing yet. He’d followed along in the paper and knew that the funeral was a closed event with only close family and friends, but that was going on tomorrow. He wouldn’t break into the funeral. Carson wasn’t a religious man, but he respected what other people chose for their religion.

  Setting the piece on his side table, he went to sleep and hoped that all would be figured out when he awoke.

  He was bone tired and miserable, but he couldn’t get a wink of sleep. It was like the bracelet was calling to him and wanting to return to its owner. That’s what he would do; he’d wait a few days and then get back so he could give her a chance to receive the offering in the spirit in which it was given… like a man who was going to have to live without oxygen and was trying with all he had for a few more sucks to fill his lungs.

  With a plan in his head and Kelli’s jewels in his hand, he could feel himself drifting off. He hoped his girl was going to get a bit of rest because he was coming back with a vengeance. Would it be a fight? Maybe… but would it be worth it? Hell yeah.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “So how does it feel… knowing that the man you spread your legs for killed your cousin?”

  Kelli Picerno had been listening to her father ask questions like that for the last 29 days. The exact amount of days that her beloved Argo had been killed. There was no reason to try to explain that her; she didn’t really have a title for him. It didn’t help that Carson had been the hit man that was sent to kill Argo and met her by trying to pump her for information. They’d ended up doing a whole lot of pumping, but of another kind.

  “Just eat a little more, princess, and then he’ll let you go.” Her mother whispered to her looking like a ventriloquist. She never knew how her mother could talk without looking like she was talking while she was doing something else. Kelli knew that her mother had been married to the head of the local mafia for over 42 years, so she guessed she shouldn’t have been that surprised that the woman had a few tricks up her sleeve. She wondered if she’d be able to help her not want to kill the man in her sleep.

  “Thanks, Mama,” she said to her mother not even knowing what she was thanking her for. Looking down at her plate, she decided to try eating a bit of food, but the hostility in the air and her anxiety had made eating impossible. She’d lost 23 pounds since the day her world had darkened, and although at any other time she’d have been throwing a ticker tape parade, now she just didn’t give a damn about anything.

  “You have no answer for me, princess?” How her father made that pet name sound like profanity she didn’t know, but it turned her stomach. It wasn’t until recently that she’d even liked that title even though people had called her that her entire life. That was just another thing that Carson had made special for her.

  “I’ve been here, in this house, for almost a month practically on house arrest.” Kelli had taken about as much as she planned to from this man. He could have sat at the end of the table with his plate of lasagna and glass of red wine, enjoying the meal and sitting with all 5 of his children peacefully, but that would be too much for Angelo Picerno. “I’ve listened to your mean words and your hateful glares because maybe in some way I felt I deserved them, but it ends today.”

  “Oh, is that so?” Her father wiped his mouth on the fine linen napkin, and he piped up in his chair. It looked like he’d been waiting for a fight, and that was fine because she was about to bring it.

  “Yes. You’ve locked me out of my home, closed my boutique, and kept me in this high priced pumpkin shell you call a home.” Kelli heard the gasps around the table where her four brothers and mother sat staring at the two of them like they knew that this conversation was about to get heated.

  “A high priced pumpkin shell? That’s a good one. I allow a daughter of mine who snuck off to be with a killer the generosity of my house, and this is what I get?” Her father loved to get himself worked up over injustices that he’d made up in his mind, and the laughing he did as he was speaking sounded like mocking. “Not only snuck off with him but warned him about family business. Let him be free so he could then kill your cousin.”

  Her father was standing up and yelling now, and the ‘Alright Pop’ that everyone was saying from around the table sounded like the murmuring of a crowd. The red face and the bulging veins at his temple made her fear his death if he didn’t settle down.

  “It wasn’t like that, Papa.” Kelli tried to keep her voice at a respectable level. “You’ve never listened to what I’ve had to say. You’ve made up your mind about what I did and why I did it, and then you closed the case. I’m 27 years old and I’ve made some mistakes, but I didn’t have anything to do with killing Argo. No one loved him more than me.”

  She was looking down at her lap, so she heard more than saw her father sit back down in his seat. When she took a chance to scan the table, she noticed that everyone was looking down into their plates like it took an advanced degree to clean their plate. Her Papa was looking at her like he didn’t know who she was. Kelli understood that. She had changed in the few weeks she’d known Carson.

  “May I be excused,” Kelli asked her mother because if she asked her father and he said no, it was debatable if she would end up in jail or a mental facility.

  “Yes, honey.” Her mother was a sweet woman who only wanted peace for her family. It was probably where Kelli had gotten her desire for clean living and nonviolent tendencies.

  She went up to her room and closed the door longing for the two bedroom home she had before this whole fiasco started. It was bad enough she had nothing to do with her days, but her nights were long, lonely, and boring as well. This is the reason why she wanted to have her own shit. Her father wouldn’t have been able to lock her out of her own home and business if it was actually hers. She was such a hypocrite in saying she didn’t want to be a part of her father’s business, but she didn’t mind accepting the fruits of his criminal labor. His money paid for everything and was probably a money laundering facility.

  Falling on her bed, her mind went to where it normally went when she had a few minutes to herself… Carson Hale. That black haired, green eyed devil had given her more experience in three weeks than anyone else in her whole life. The talks they had when they finally opened up to each other made her feel close to him. From his life in foster care feeling alone and abandoned to his life with this club that seemed to fill that void. He was working hard to find a way around the Argo situation, but if her father was telling the truth, Carson had shot Argo in cold blood as soon as he met with him at their warehouse.

  It didn’t make any sense to her. Carson had told her that there was another man there that had followed him from a tracker his club put on his bike. Was that a lie? She knew that he made up tales about where he’d been and who he was when she met him, but she only recognized it because she, the eldest daughter of the local mob boss, was well versed in making up a new story for her existence. A lie, was a lie, was a lie… she knew that, but she felt like they were too close for him to do that to her, especially since he knew how much Argo meant to her.

  She was so wired up. There was no way she was going to be able to calm herself down if she didn’t stop beating herself up about loving a man who’d killed her greatest protector and friend Argo. All her life she thought she had intuition on her side. She knew things about people… sometimes it was just a feeling, and other times it was just as clear as if the person yelled out their personality type. Carson was a lover she knew that for sure and whomever else he’d killed, it didn’t touch his desire to do good when he thought it was the right thing to do. But somehow she’d missed something or maybe he was such a psychopath that believed his own lies he’d fooled her.

  The bracelet that Carson had taken to give to Argo as proof that she still lived hadn’t shown up anywhere, and she’d found surveillance that her father had done on Carson that said he was living it up fucking every available piece of ass in sight and spending money like he’d w
on the lottery. That one piece of jewelry was worth over a million dollars, so if he could find someone to give him even half of that he’d be able to live like a rock star… for a few minutes at least. When she looked down, she saw what she usually saw when she thought about her bracelet: her one hand cradling and rubbing the spot where her sparkler used to be.

  The biggest complaint she had with herself was how aroused she got when she thought of the man. It wasn’t enough that he killed her cousin and stole her million dollar sparkler, but she still lay in the bed with her nipples hard and her pussy wet wanting nothing more than to be filled with the cock of a killer. That was humiliating. Had she no shame? He was good at what he did; this was true. He was a dirty talking, nipple biting, clit sucking, ass slapping, hair pulling, throat grabbing god, and her body missed him fiercely.