by KJ Dahlen
Jackal growled.
Beast looked startled as he pushed her slight weight in his direction.
Jackal caught her and hauled her back into his lap while glaring at his VP.
Beast just looked confused at his President. “What the everlovin fuck?” the big man growled.
Chapter Three
Jackal looked down at the woman in his arms.
Doc rushed over to them. His fingers reached for her pulse on her wrist. It was pounding so hard he was afraid for her health. He looked up at Jackal and shook his head. “Whatever she saw scared the bejesus out of her.” He checked her pulse again. “Maybe you should take her back to your place? I don’t know what she was looking at but something didn’t set right with her.”
“She was looking at Cobra,” Jackal told him. He turned his glare toward Cobra and noticed he was looking back. Jackal motioned for him to join him.
Cobra and Beast sat down at his table at about the same time.
“Who’s the skirt Pres?” Beast asked as he studied her over. “And who beat the hell out of her?” He growled.
“I have no clue but whoever hurt her, threw her alongside the road like she was trash a day or so ago,” Jackal explained.
Cobra looked over at Beast and they both looked back at Jackal and Doc.
“So what’s her story then?” Beast asked.
Jackal shrugged. “She woke up this morning and didn’t know where she was or who she is.”
“How did you find her?” Beast kept staring at her pale face.
“I stopped not five minutes from the compound to take a piss.”
Beast looked over at Jackal and he had a grim look in his eyes. “Five minutes huh?”
Jackal nodded slowly. After a moment or two, he told them, “Silas has been hearing rumors and he’s mighty jumpy. Now this? Makes a man wonder what’s coming, don’t it?”
Beast nodded. “Maybe we should get eyes on the situation.”
“Maybe, at least until we know something more than we do right now,” Jackal agreed.
“So why did she freak out when she was looking at me?” Cobra asked. “I’ve never seen her before today.”
Jackal shrugged. “I have no clue but I intend to find out.”
“Would appreciate that Pres.” Cobra nodded. “I don’t care for the look on her face when she saw me. I don’t mind striking fear into the hearts of men but it’s not the same when a woman looks at you like that.”
She stirred in his lap and Doc was there to check her pulse again. He looked up at Jackal and nodded. “It’s better than it was. She might be trying to wake up.”
She began to struggle but Jackal wouldn't let her loose. When she realized it, she finally settled down. Slowly, she opened her eyes and peered up at him.
Jackal could see her eyes were clear. Frowning, he searched her eyes again and this time saw a clarity she didn’t have before. “You remember don’t you?”
She nodded her head slowly. “Some of it, but not all of it. There are still bits and pieces that don’t make any sense to me yet but at least I know my name.”
“And what’s your name sweetheart?” he asked with a raise of his brow.
“Noelle Stark.”
Jackal cocked his head to one side and repeated, “Noelle Stark huh? Well, I’m pleased to meet you Noelle. Now suppose you tell me what the hell you did to get yourself all beat up and who beat you?” he asked with a growl in his voice.
Noelle looked nervously at the other men around the table. “I live in Shreveport and work for my brother’s company, Williams INC. My stepbrother is Dane Williams. My father was Derek Williams. He and my mother were never married, so I had her last name. After my father’s first marriage broke up when I was five, he came to live with us, my mom, and me. Then when I was fourteen, three men broke into my mom’s house and they murdered my parents and left me for dead. I was too young to be left on my own, so my brother took me in. Or I guess I should say my stepbrother.” She shook her head. “I don’t think Dane ever liked me that much and I can’t say I liked him much either. But both of us were stuck with each other.”
“Why didn’t you leave when you turned eighteen?” Beast asked.
“Dane wouldn’t let me,” she admitted while shaking her head slowly. “He told me I had a job and a paycheck as long as I stayed but if I left, I would have neither. He said he would put the word out and I wouldn’t get another job so I was better off staying where I was, if I wanted that paycheck.” She shrugged. “It was barely enough to pay the bills but at least it was something.”
“What brought you to Baton Rouge from Shreveport?” Cobra questioned. He wasn’t the only one in the room now looking at her like she was holding something back from her story.
She began to tremble and Jackal wrapped his arms around her and held her close. “Dane sent me here to deliver a package to a man I didn’t know. He told me his name was Cody Pekin but everyone called him Venom. Dane told me to take the package to his club, The Nexis and put it in his hands myself.” Her words were little more than a whisper now, a whisper tainted with fear and pain.
“What did this Venom do when he opened the package?” Beast asked while looking angry.
“He was furious with me.” Noelle looked up at him. “You see the package was supposed to be a payment Dane owed him but instead it was just cut up newspapers.”
“And why would your brother owe a man like Venom a payment?” Any kind of payment?” Beast demanded.
“Dane is not a very good man, not very good and more than a little shady. He talks the talk but never follows through. Dad used to say he would never make it on his own, he was too much like his mother.” She looked up at them. “I never knew his mother, I only ever met that crazy woman once but she was a devil.” She lifted her head to look at Jackal. “You see I’m not supposed to exist. I was never supposed to be born. My father was forced to marry his wife and when Dane was born, she literally shut him out. For years, he honored his vows, he put up with her abuse for his son’s sake then that changed when he met my mother. With my mom, he had a chance to be happy and he took it. His wife didn’t want him so he took a chance on happiness. His wife found out about me and my mom when I was five. Dad wanted a divorce but his wife would never agree to it. She used her political connections to her advantage but in the end, it backfired on her.”
The men all listened. Jackal stared at her pale face.
“I was ten when Dad got his divorce. Dane was twenty one. I guess his wife finally had nothing left to use to keep my dad. She didn’t like it but there was nothing she could do about it. She tried to ruin him but by then, people knew the whole story. She couldn’t do any more damage to his business or his personal life by that time. She began a path of self-destruction. Before she died in a car crash, she’d lost everything. Her company, her money, her friends and finally her life. She was driving drunk when she lost control of her car. When she crashed, a lot of people thought it was on purpose. Dane picked up the pieces of her company and somehow managed to pull it together again, but he had to make some friends that weren’t exactly good ones. I think Venom was one of those men.”
Jackal looked up and the other men met his eyes. They knew of this type of thing in the area. Illegal cartels, small ones but lethal just the same.
Noelle continued, “A year after his mother died, my parents were murdered in a home invasion. Dane took me in and I’ve been living in hell ever since.”
“You said earlier that you were left for dead,” Cobra mentioned. “What did you mean?”
Noelle looked away from them. Her face was pale and she couldn’t seem to speak for a few minutes. Finally, she managed to swallow the lump in her throat and spoke again, “Two of the three men that broke into our home that night held me prisoner and made me watch the third man as he shot my parents in the back of the head. He shot my mom first, then he shot my dad. Then he turned the gun on me. But he didn’t shoot me in the head like he had them, instead he p
ut the bullet into my belly. When I fell to the floor in pain, he looked down at me and told me the pain was necessary as I needed to wash away the sins of my birth with my own blood.”
Jackal frowned at her words. The threat she spoke of sounded almost personal, not like a home invasion by strangers. “How long did you lay there before someone found you?”
“I’m not really sure but they said it took them a day and a half to realize something had happened. I know I almost died. I was in the hospital for a long time before I was released into Dane’s guardianship.”
“So what did this Venom do to you when he saw the newspapers instead of the cash?” Doc asked. He’d been quiet listening to her story the whole time.
Noelle frowned. “You know something I don’t think he was even surprised. He just looked at the package I brought and said, ‘Is this how you want it fucker? Then so be it. I’ll bury you.’ ”
Jackal looked over at the other men sitting with him. Wordlessly, they all got the message.
“So why did this Dane send you here?” Jackal felt a burning rage in his chest at the horrid trap her own brother had put her in.
“Things have been falling apart for Dane. His business is almost bankrupt,” she explained. “I think he’s gonna run but he had to satisfy something with Venom before he could do that.” She shrugged. “Dane doesn’t think I know what’s going on but I’m not as dumb as he thinks I am. He’s been liquidating his assets for the last few weeks now.”
“Did you try telling Venom that?” Cobra asked.
“I tried but he told me I was crazy, Dane would never do that, not to him. He owned Dane and had for ten years.”
Jackal got the inference of the ten years. He looked over at Beast and nodded. They needed to know more about this Venom character and the club Nexis. Then they would look into Dane Williams.
“What was it that freaked you out so much when you saw me? I’ve never seen you before this morning.” Cobra stared at her.
Noelle raised her gaze to the tat on his shoulder. Her eyes glazed over as she stared at the snake’s eyes. “Your snake. It freaked me out for a moment. I know a snake like that. I’ve seen it before. I can’t remember when or where except I remember staring at the snake’s eyes.” She shuddered. “Those eyes remind me of pure evil. I’m sorry, I know I’ve never seen you before but your snake just reminded me of something bad.”
“Did the police ever find the men that murdered your parents?” Beast wanted to know.
Noelle shook her head. “It’s still an open case despite Dane telling the police to close it. My dad had a life insurance policy that never paid out because the case is still open and unsolved. He wants the money from the policy even though it would have gone to me and not him. He thought that as my guardian that he could collect it but that wasn’t the way it worked. The money would have gone into a trust fund for when I turned twenty-one. Dane was really pissed about that.”
Jackal grunted but didn’t say anything. Instead, he asked, “How much was the policy for?”
Noelle shrugged. “I don’t really know but one of the lawyers mentioned five million at one point. But that was years ago.”
Beast whistled low as his eyebrows shot up. “No wonder he wanted the money.” He swore under his breath.
“Did he ever get it?” Jackal asked.
Noelle shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t care. The money didn’t mean anything to me. I would have rather had my dad back.”
“So tell me something. When did you come here with the package for Venom?” Jackal asked.
“Dane sent me here on Monday.” She paused then asked, “What day of the week is it anyway?”
Jackal looked over at his men before he told her, “Honey, its Saturday. Doc says you might have been out in the ditch for maybe two days... What happened to the other three days?”
Tears were now dripping down her cheeks as she replied, “I don’t know. I remember Venom hitting me twice before I passed out and I sort of kind of remember waking up alone in the dark but I passed out again. Then I don’t remember much of anything else until I woke up this morning in your bed.”
“Do you remember any other details about where you were?” Doc asked.
“Not really, just that the time I woke up I was so cold and the floor I was on was a bit slimy and smelled funny. It smelled like mold. I remember voices from a distance but I can’t be sure, but I was so out of it I can’t be sure.” She began scratching on her arm as if remembering something. Looking down at her skin she saw it was red and almost to the point of bleeding.
Doc grabbed her arm and stretched it out so he could see the injury. In the middle of the scratches was a pin prick. He frowned as he searched the area over. The needle mark was a couple of days old and he wondered what he shot her up with. He looked at Jackal. “Someone gave her something days ago. It was probably to keep her quiet but the bruise under the scratches tell me it wasn’t voluntarily given.”
“What the fuck is going on here?” Jackal growled. He looked over at his men. “Why would Venom want her dead and what does her brother have to do with this?”
“Why don’t we find him and ask the little douchebag?” Beast commented with an angry gleam in his eyes.
Noelle trembled at the notion that they were going to find her brother. She never wanted to see his sniveling face again. She shuddered at the thought of facing Dane’s rage. She knew Dane was as crazy as his mother was and he never really cared for Noelle at all. She thought about the many times while in his care that she almost died. He would watch as she struggled to breathe after he beat her or when he would turn his back on her and leave her hurt and alone in the dark. She knew the door would be locked keeping her a prisoner in his home. She remembered all the nights she had gone hungry behind the locked door while growing up.
He’d tried his damnedest to break her but he could never quite do it. She let him think she was broken but she really wasn’t and he always knew it.
Sending her to Venom was the last straw for her and his last chance. There was more of her father in her than he realized and he was about to find out how much more.
Noelle’s hands formed into fists. She wouldn’t take this anymore. Her own brother had sent her out to be killed. She sat up straighter in Jackal’s lap and looked at him. Then she met the other men’s eyes one at a time.
They all looked back at her with steady gazes as they did not look away.
She could see the anger in each of these men as she’d told her story. They were bikers, yes, she knew this already, but each of them looked disgusted by what had been done to her. These men may be the kind to live outside the laws of the land, but she knew that they weren’t like her brother or Venom. They would never hurt a woman or someone innocent.
Her gaze rose up to the leader of these men...President of this MC.
Jackal stared back at her unflinchingly. No shifting his eyes away, no hesitation.
A real man like her father had been. It had been a long time since she met anyone who had this trait, all she’d known were men that would sell their souls for whatever money they could make. Men who had walked all over her. Most of the time, they never looked her in the eye.
This was astounding to her to see men like these bikers were. A lone tear rolled down her cheek. She had thought to never be around decent people again.
Jackal looked into her eyes and swiped the tear away with his thumb.
Chapter Four
Noelle sat there silently after Jackal and the others disappeared down the hall to hold church.
Maggie came out of the kitchen with a plate of scrambled eggs and toast. “You should try and eat something sweetie,” the older woman urged.
It wasn’t the food per say but rather the hunger she felt in her belly. She’d gone so long without food that the smell of the eggs was nauseating. She stared at the food and turned a little green. “I don’t know if I can,” she finally whispered.
Maggie grabbed a half a sl
ice of toast and handed it to her.
Noelle took it but didn’t even try to eat it.
Maggie sat down beside her and stared at her for a moment. “How long has it been since you had any food?”
Noelle shook her head as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t know.”
Maggie reached out and touched her shoulder. “Please try a couple bites anyway?”
Noelle raised her gaze and studied the other woman. She seemed genuinely concerned. “Are these good men? I mean honest, good men. I’ve never known bikers before and I’m not sure I want to stay here.”
Maggie sat down and took a moment to think about what she wanted to know. “Honey, they’re men but they’re better than most I’ve been around. I’m married to one of them. Thor is his name. The guys here have all served in the military at some point or another, and they all served under Jackal. He was their leader in the service and he’s their leader here. But he’s earned that title and no one would ever disrespect that. As far as staying here, you will be safe here. We live here under their protection but for the most part, they are good honest men. They don’t hurt the women or kids here and they don’t tolerate the idea of abusing women and kids. Right now, they are working to make Baton Rouge a safer place than it was before. You’re probably safer here than in the city.” She motioned toward her bruises. “Whoever did that to you is out there and if he was looking to kill you he might try again, at least your safe here, from that.”
Noelle looked around the clubhouse. For some reason, she did feel safe here. She couldn’t explain it but here she felt she could breathe.
Maggie patted her arm. “Try and eat at least a few bites if you can. Would you like some more coffee?”
Noelle shook her head. “I really don’t drink coffee. Dane never let me.”
Maggie cocked her head. “What do you drink then?”
Noelle shrugged. “Tea?”
Maggie smiled. “We can do that.” Then she got to her feet and went back to the kitchen.
