I should have stood by and let Beth take responsibility for her actions, but I hadn’t. Now I’ve got to live with that. I only hope she knows how she’s fucked up my life.
Would I rewind the clock if that were possible?
Of course I fucking would.
A drunk rolls over, falls off the concrete slab covered with only a thin plastic mattress that serves as a bed. He’s so out of it he doesn’t even wake up. I move over to take advantage of the suddenly vacant space. An automatic action which doesn’t interrupt my train of thought.
I imagine Beth sitting in a similar cell, along with whores and drunken women. I see her cringing, her arms wrapped around her long legs as she tries to make herself invisible. I can almost hear her quiet whimpering of fear as she faces the unknown. Then she’d go to jail and become someone’s bitch and be bullied and ridiculed. She wouldn’t fight back, she wouldn’t know how. It wouldn’t take long for that sparkle in her eyes to dim, and for her joy of life to seep out of her.
She’d deserve it.
I conjure up Beth’s face, but surprisingly it’s not the image of her lying beneath me as I thrust into her that’s the strongest memory I have. I’m not recalling the way her tight cunt squeezes my cock. No, I’m remembering just talking and listening to her, the way she smiles, the feel of that long silky hair, and thoughts of that evening I spent with her and her mom.
I’m in here because my instinct was to protect her, like an old man does his old lady. Rhythmically, I start banging my hand against my head. She’s not my old lady, not yet. But it seems a part buried deep inside me believes that she is, and it was my duty to care for her.
I’d known in an instance Beth wouldn’t be able to cope, locked up. Me? Well, I’m better equipped. I can look after myself. Mentally, would I last? I’d have to.
If Beth is the woman I believe her to be, if she got caught up in something it was impossible to stop, then no, I wouldn’t want to turn back the clock. My only regret is that she didn’t feel she could come to me.
It’s just sex, I’d told her. How was she to know it had turned into more?
But if—again I bang my hand against my head—if she’s involved in running drugs. If I’m taking the rap for something she did willingly, then… I grin evilly to myself… the club is going to make her life a fucking misery, or what’s left of it. Her life, for the best years of mine.
She must have an excuse.
A man, clearly locked up for being drunk and disorderly, awakes and noisily uses the open toilet on the other side of the room. The sound wakes a couple of others, one rushes to push him away and vomits, but misses the bowl. My surroundings are dirty, disgusting, probably vying with some places I’d been on my tours for the worst I’ve ever seen.
The thin plastic mattress I’m sitting on feels sticky with substances I don’t want to imagine when I accidentally touch it with my hand. The jeans I’m wearing, I’ve already decided, will go straight into the trash.
That’s if I have the choice. I may be exchanging them for an orange jumpsuit any day now. All for the sake of one woman. A woman who should be here instead of me.
Tonight should have gone smoothly. Tomorrow, I should have been teaching Beth how to ride a bike, then, taking her to my room and fucking her. If it had gone to plan, I’d have suggested us starting a relationship, and one day soon, asked her to be my old lady. What would she have said?
Ignoring the unpleasant sights, sounds, and odours around me, I let my mind run amok.
“Yes, Ink. I’ll be your ol’ lady.”
“Ink, I’m pregnant.”
“Ink, we’re having a son.”
As I summon up the words that I once thought would make me run a mile despite my environment, there’s an unidentifiable feeling churning inside. Something that has a kernel of excitement, of expectation and… longing. Now when my future is distinctly likely to involve me doing serious time and I’ll have lost any chance of ever hearing those words from Beth, I admit they wouldn’t make me jump on my bike and ride as far away as I could. No, I’d want to stay and hear her repeat them. If, that is, she’s the woman I thought.
Could there be a good reason why she was there tonight? Could I forgive her?
I imagine myself doing just that. Imagine holding her in my arms.
How would her voice sound when she tells me she loves me for the very first time? Would her hoarse whisper echo the emotion and reverence in mine?
Love?
What a fuck of a time to admit that’s where my feelings were going. Maybe had already arrived. What other emotion would have driven me to step in last night except for an affection so deep I’d do anything for her.
Her blue hair made me look at her twice. Her personality a third time. Her shapely, athletic body kept my eye. Her love for her mom, support for her brother even though he’s an ass, everything about her showed me Beth’s one in a million. I’d have been a fool to turn my back on the woman I’d thought she was.
A dream snatched out of my reach.
It was my perfect woman herself who tore it into pieces.
I huff a mirthless laugh. Always knew bitches were bad news. Best I forget all about her.
Despite my misgivings about the mattress, exhausted after the long night, I lie down and turn on my side, my eyes closing as I tune out the disgusting sounds around me and my traitorous mind conjures up thoughts of riding with the wind in my hair and Beth’s arms tight around my waist. Or, better still, her on her own Sportster riding along beside my Fat Bob, glancing at each other, sharing the enjoyment of being free and out with just nature and our bikes.
Jeez. For fuck’s sake get out of my head woman.
Who’s going to teach her to ride now?
There may be a chance I’ll get out.
Yeah, and I just saw a flying pig through the bars of the too high up and too small window of the cell.
I turn on my other side, but it still doesn’t put a brake on my thoughts. Wishful thinking or not, maybe Beth’s innocent. Maybe it was her brother who got her into something way over her head. Would it be too much of a leap to assume her brother had something to do with the drugs in Pueblo and somehow persuaded her to get involved? If he’d heard word the cops were out in force tonight, last night, I correct seeing daylight brightening the room, he could have set her up. I think back to when I’d so briefly met him. Was he a man to throw his sister under a bus to save himself? Yeah, I could believe that he was. I’m going to fucking kill him if he did, or, as it’s unlikely I’ll get the chance to do it myself, get the club to dispatch him to meet Satan by proxy.
If Beth is the woman I believed her to be, I’ve got a problem. If she’s as sweet natured as I thought, there’s a good chance she’ll sacrifice herself to give me a chance to walk free. That certainly wouldn’t work. Cops cheer when a biker goes down, and they’ve got me, caught red-handed. She wouldn’t free me, she’d only convict herself.
I’ve got to convince her to let me go down. How the fuck do I do that?
I could do my time as long as I knew she was happy and free. Cops can’t stagger across a hint of anything that connects me with her. But how?
I’ve got to cut all ties with her.
No visits. No enquiries. No putting herself in the sights of the cops. It’s the only way I can protect her.
Fuck, but I must have it bad. Even knowing she’s the reason I’m here, and I’m unclear as to her motives, there’s still this urge inside to keep her safe. If I can’t enjoy my life, knowing she can, will make up for a lot. Even if she deserved the punishment, I can better serve it. If she has made a mistake, this is her chance to learn from it. Do my time knowing she’s happy and protected? There may not be much sense to it, but it makes me feel easier.
My club will know what to do.
Suddenly I turn on my back, my arm flung over my face. Am I being a fucking idiot? The club’s not going to throw themselves behind Beth. Not when she’s the reason I, their brother, is inside.
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She’s new to the club, and I haven’t led anyone to believe she’s anything to me but a casual fuck. I sit bolt upright. What would I feel if Mace or Liz were in jail when it should be their fuck buddy instead? Christ. Will they blame her? Running it through in my head, I realise of course they fucking will. Instead of protecting or helping her, they might already have banned her from the club. Or worse, sort their own retribution on my behalf. Especially if they think she had anything to do with the drugs.
A drunk farts loudly, a few seconds later the foul stench reaches my nostrils. But even that doesn’t distract me. How can I get the club on Beth’s side?
Ask them, tell them what I want. Hell, I’d probably sound as deranged as I think I am. Especially when I come up with the answer, the one thing I can do to extend my protection to her when I’m not there to do it myself. I claim her.
I almost laugh aloud at the ludicrousness of it. Me, claim a woman? Commit to her for life? If I was a free man, that could be where Beth and I would be heading, but I’d have taken my time and made sure it was right. Fuck knows if she feels the same way, we hadn’t exactly discussed it. In fact, we discussed anything but that, and persuaded each other we were happy with a few fucks. If I claim her it would be in name only. I couldn’t expect her to wait three decades until I get out.
But, if the club know she’s mine, they’ll have to support her. To give me peace of mind, knowing she’s safe and being cared for while I’m locked up, it’s the only answer.
Then what would she do? Act like an old lady? Would they allow conjugal visits in prison? Or would I have to marry her for that? Perhaps I wouldn’t mind putting a ring on her finger if it gave me her cunt to look forward to while I was doing serious time.
My mouth twists slightly upwards, then turns down when I realise the problem. I can’t have the cops looking into Beth, not if I’m right about Connor. Who knows how deeply he’s dragged her into his world? Nope, don’t want the cops to go sniffing around her. They can’t have any idea she was there last night.
She’ll be feeling guilty. So it won’t be much of a stretch for her to believe I want nothing to do with her. If I was in my right mind, that should be where I’m headed. I’ve got to make her believe I hate her.
I shake my head slowly. She’ll never know I’ll have done the stupidest thing in my life. I’ll claim her to get her the protection I can’t provide. Her believing I’ve cut her loose is the only way to keep her out of this mess. If she gets arrested and goes inside too, my sacrifice would have been for nothing.
Fuck being sensible. The thought of never seeing her again hurts worse than any other sentence I could be handed, but I can’t see any other way around it.
Hate. Love. One coin, two sides. She’ll never know which landed up.
“McNeish. You’re wanted.”
It was only a matter of time.
Standing, I walk to the door feeling the indignity of my pants slipping down as I’m missing my belt. My motorcycle boots have buckles so at least I don’t need to shuffle in the way I’ve seen men who are missing their laces have. Hoisting up my jeans as best I can, I straighten my shoulders and follow the guard down the short corridor and step into the room that he opens. I let out a breath as a sigh of relief when I see who’s waiting and step forward with an outstretched hand.
“Sykes. It’s good to see you.”
He shakes my hand automatically. “Fuckin’ Sunday. Why’s it always a Sunday? If you could have heard my wife—”
“What you get for us paying you an extortionate amount to be our lawyer.”
“There is that.” He nods, seriously, then points to a chair one side of the desk. “How about you sit down, and I do my job and get us both out of here as soon as I possibly can?”
Sounds good to me. Impossible, though it may be. He’ll soon be going home to his wife and me? Well, I’ll be going back to my cell, and from there to a penitentiary.
“So, Damon—”
“Ink.”
He knows us well so doesn’t argue. “Ink. What happened?” He stifles a yawn suggesting he has indeed been pulled from his bed.
“This room got ears?”
“Shouldn’t have. Lawyer-client privilege. But I do need to know everything that happened, then I can best prepare your case.”
“What am I looking at?”
Sykes shrugs. “The charge will be possession with intent to sell. You had two kilos on you. Depends whether they try to link you with large-scale heroin distribution, if that’s the case it could be anything up to thirty-two years. At the other end of the scale, the minimum is two.”
“It was heroin?” As I ask for confirmation, I huff a mirthless laugh. I hadn’t even known what was in the bag.
At my strange question, Sykes sits back and folds his arms. “Mexican brown,” he confirms. His eyes sharpen. “That you didn’t know what you were carrying suggests there’s a story there. Now give me something to work with.”
For the next half hour or so, I explain why I had been there in the back alleys behind Tits Up, and how I’d come to so briefly be in possession of two kilos of a controlled substance.
“Unbelievable,” he says at last. “You’re prepared to do serious time for a woman you’ve known only a couple of weeks? Who could be up to her neck in this business?”
“She’s not,” I say firmly. I don’t know why I’ve come around to that opinion, but while I can’t think of the explanation, I’ve become convinced there must be a good reason why she was there last night. “I don’t know what went down or why, but I do know she doesn’t have anything to do with drugs.”
He rolls his eyes as if I’m the biggest idiot he’s ever seen, and working for the likes of us, he’s seen quite a lot. “You had the bag for less than a minute?”
“Sparky will back me up.”
“You didn’t know it was even drugs.” It’s a statement, so I stay quiet.
“Right, what’s her full name?”
I don’t give him his answer but explain instead. “I don’t want her dragged into this, Sykes. I don’t want the police to get her in their sights. I can deal if I go down, she can’t.”
“She could prove your innocence—”
“Only by trapping herself. As you said, they’ve got me on possession. I’m a Devil, they’re not going to cut me loose. We’ll both end up fucked.” Or not, I think with disappointment.
“You don’t make my life easy.”
“That’s why we pay you so much,” I mutter under my breath.
“This brother of hers. You think he might be involved? Have you got the club checking him out?”
“I haven’t spoken to anyone in the club.” I haven’t had a chance.
“Of course, you haven’t,” he confirms. “It’s early. Forgive me. I’ll speak to Demon and give him the heads-up. Trouble is, Ink, we don’t know how much the cops saw. Did they see you take the rucksack from someone? If so, they’ll be trying to find out who it was.”
“The fucker who was expecting the delivery held a gun on me,” I tell him. “They might have seen that. I had no option but to pass the bag over.”
“Useful.” His hands move in the way the prez’s son, Theo, does when he wants something. A ‘gimme more’ gesture.
“I found the bag and was taking it to the cops? The dealer saw me?” I think more. “A fucker was coming along, saw me and Sparky, dropped the bag and ran? That’s why I picked it up?”
“That’s something I can work with. Of course, it all hinges on how much they witnessed. Any cameras that might have picked something up?”
Fuck. Again my thoughts go to her and not me. Where had Beth parked? Was there CCTV on the street? “Tell Demon to get Cad reviewing footage. I’m serious Sykes. I want Beth kept out of it.” If she’d driven there as I suspect, her car might have been clocked all over Pueblo, but only if they’re looking for it. They couldn’t follow up every vehicle driving last night, so Cad just has to try and doctor sightings of her in the
vicinity. Even while I won’t be directly able to speak to him, I know my computer expert brother will do what needs to be done.
Suddenly Sykes leans forward. “Throw her to the wolves, Ink. You barely know her, and I earn my money for the club. My instructions are to get you out of here.”
I shake my head. “No. I’m claiming her. She’s mine.” She just doesn’t know it, and unless I get out, never will. “Her being brought into it doesn’t exonerate me, just makes her an accomplice, and she’ll go down as well.”
Sykes breathes in loudly through his nose. “I can’t guarantee you’re not wrong in that. Okay, I’ll stay away from her. But she may come forward herself, if what you obviously feel for her goes both ways.”
That’s my worry, the nail he’s hit right on the head. “She’d do it for anyone, Sykes. She’s not the type to see an innocent man locked up. But in this case, she has to be persuaded she has to, for her sake and mine. If we’re going with the flimsy story of the man who dropped the bag and ran away, she’d only make things worse if she starts telling the truth.” It’s hard to tell him what I’ve decided, but it’s for the best. “I’ve got two messages for Demon.” I pause while my eyes find those of my lawyer’s and wait for the jerk of his head that shows he’s noting what I’m saying carefully. “First, impress on him she’s mine, I’ve claimed her. Second, get him to tell her to keep the fuck away. Hell, let her believe I hate her if that’s what it’s going to take. She’s got to understand I don’t want to and won’t see her.” Fuck, it hurts, but to protect her, Beth must believe whatever this was is over between us.
His brow creases as he jots down some notes. “You clearly think a lot of her, Ink. If she’s of the same mind, might be hard keeping her away.”
“Then Demon will have to find the right words to say. He’s got to convince her.” He’s inventive and resourceful. It’s why we voted him in as the prez.
A warning knock, and then the door opens.
“Detectives Barker and Hastings are ready to speak with Mr McNeish.”
Sykes raises his brow, I give a returning raise of my chin. Guess I’m ready as I’ll ever be.
Ink's Devil: Satan's Devils MC Colorado Chapter #5 Page 20
