Demented Sons Series Volume One: Books 1-4 (Demented Sons MC Iowa)

by Kristine Allen

  The smile on my face died a slow death as I walked around the corner and stopped dead in my tracks. Pounding out a staccato rhythm, my heart nearly ruptured and my hands shook at the sight before me.

  “So good of you to join us, Serafina. Ty here has been missing me, haven’t you, son?” His voice was screeching nails on a chalkboard as I screamed in my head for him to take his vile hands off my baby boy. Words escaped me as I watched Ty look up at Lawrence and smile. Innocence in the clutches of evil. When his cool eyes left my son and rose to me, I almost passed out. “What’s the matter, darling, cat got your tongue?”

  Eyes furiously darting around for Em, I was terrified of what he may have done to her. “Where’s Em and Rose?” Cursing the quiver in my voice, I tried not to act as terrified as I was, but by then I was trembling head to toe. Nausea roiled in my guts.

  “Mmm, the girl is sleeping. The mother is, um, indisposed. Come, sit.” Command dripped from his words, and I knew this was bad. So very, very bad.

  As I made my way around the table, I reached my arms out to Ty. “Hey, baby, Momma missed you. Come give me a hug.”

  When Lawrence’s arms tightened on him, Ty quit his movements to follow my request and looked at Lawrence in confusion.

  “No, he’s going to stay with me for the moment. Once I get confirmation that you understand everything I’m telling you, he can go to you. Do you understand me?”

  Nodding, I prayed someone would show up to help us, but in my heart I knew we were probably fucked.

  “We’re going for a little ride. You’re going to take Ty in and put him to sleep in the mother’s bedroom.” He paused. “Unless you want him to go with us?” The venomous words seeped from his mouth and were spoken in such a friendly voice, one might’ve been fooled into believing he was an old long-lost friend if they didn’t know him like I did.

  “No. He can stay here. You want to have a sleepover with Em and Rose, Ty?” Smiling as if my life depended on it, I did my very best to sound excited for Ty. His innocent little face brightened at the prospect of having a sleepover, and my heart broke at the very real concern that I may never see him again. Dread infiltrated every cell in my body as I scooped Ty up in my arms, careful not to touch even a hair on Lawrence’s body as I did.

  “Hurry, my sweet Serafina.”

  A sob burned in my throat, but I wouldn’t let it escape and scare Ty. Stepping into the hall to place Ty in Em’s room, my sharp in-drawn breath had Ty looking in the direction I was facing to see what I was gasping over. Before he could see Em sprawled on the bathroom floor, I pressed his face to my chest and hurried to the bedroom. My friend had been facedown, with a small pool of blood seeping out and blending with her chocolate-colored locks where they were spread around her head.

  Shaking hands stroked my son’s small face, committing every detail to memory. Certainty in my demise had me kissing him and telling him to always remember how very much I loved him. Of course, he asked if Kayde was calling him. My heart broke. “No, little man, not tonight. He had to work late, but he said to tell you he loved you to pieces and he’d talk to you soon.”

  As I made up a story about a little prince who was so loved by his mother and then rescued from the evil dragon by the unsuspecting knight, he began to appear sleepy. His eyes were heavy, and he was dropping off to dreamland before I kissed his soft cheek one last time. Visions of Em’s body lying crumpled in the bathroom had me crying silent tears. Sending up an apology to her for inadvertently pulling her into the shitstorm of my life, I thought at least she would be with her love. With great sorrow, I mourned the loss of both of Rose’s parents, feeling guilty at being the cause of her losing her mom. The thought of the little girl being raised by strangers and both kiddos being raised without their momma or daddy made my chest feel like it was caving in.

  Just as I was standing, I remembered my cell phone was in the pocket of my running pants. Glancing over my shoulder to see if Lawrence was there, I remembered something I had seen posted on Facebook. Pressing my power button over and over, I was surprised when it worked, and I was directed to an emergency call. Right when I heard someone answering, I jumped at the sound of footsteps in the small hall. In a rush, I shoved the phone in the covers, praying Lawrence wouldn’t hear the voice of the person on the other end of the line, but that the person would hear me.

  “Are you done? It’s getting late.” His voice made me cringe. I couldn’t believe I had ever been attracted to him in any way. My every sense was on high alert, and my body was poised for flight.

  “Lawrence, I don’t want to go with you. I can’t leave the children here unattended. What if they wake up and find Emily like that? Why did you have to kill her?”

  “Shut the fuck up, Sera. Maybe you should have thought of that before you ran away. Their situations are on your hands. You’ve been very disobedient, and it’s time I showed you that I won’t tolerate that from anyone. Especially you. Get up. Let’s go.”

  Hesitating, I considered acting like I was kissing my baby good night and grabbing the phone to have it with me. Then I wondered if it would be better to leave it here so the authorities could get to the babies before something happened to them while they were unattended. Making the choice to leave the phone with Ty, I leaned over to kiss him and whispered, “Help me.” Before he could come closer to my innocent son, I stood on legs that threatened to buckle under me.

  “You can’t just kidnap me, Lawrence. People are going to find out I’m missing and come looking for me.” At the increasing strength in my voice, he stalked closer, grabbing my arm in a punishing grip.

  The blatant fury in his face was terrifying, but I tried like hell to maintain calm. Grinding his teeth, he flared his nostrils and growled, “There won’t be anything for them to find. Let’s fucking go, bitch.”

  As he shoved me in the front seat of the same car I had abandoned when I left him, terror engulfed me, and I instinctively tried to lunge out of the door. His fist to my face had me falling back into the seat as black spots swam in my vision.

  Sobbing, I curled into myself as tight as I could, praying for either rescue, which I was pretty sure was futile, or a quick death, which I knew was a wasted prayer as well. He was going to string out this punishment as long as he could, ensuring my suffering was maximized.

  Oh, Kayde, I love you so much, and I never even told you. You poured out your heart to me, and I tossed it away. I should have listened to you. I should have gone with you. Please help take care of my baby boy for me, and don’t let him forget me.

  “Believe”—Staind

  BEING AWAY FROM HER had been killing me day by day. FaceTime, texts, and phone calls weren’t nearly enough to feed the raging addiction she had unknowingly cultivated within my veins. For the billionth time since I left her standing in the small apartment, I had to reconsider my motives for leaving. She had looked so small and lost as she stood with her arms wrapped around her middle, those damn tickets sitting on the coffee table in the sterile-looking place I had arranged for her through Javier and the club. What I hadn’t told her was the reason I was able to get her a place there. It was because my brothers there in San Antonio believed she was my woman. While my brothers here at home, with the exception of Hacker, didn’t know she existed.

  Not that I had lied outright to them. Fuck, if I had my way, it would be 100 percent the truth. The problem was I needed to figure out how to make that a reality. What if she didn’t want that though? What if she didn’t feel the same way about me? The small niggling spark of doubt crept its insidious path along my spine, spreading its wicked blackness until I questioned my worth, her feelings, and my sanity. She hadn’t said she loved me, and I hadn’t repeated it since the day I laid my heart out for her. It was altogether possible that she had used me out of necessity and convenience. Believing she could be capable of that type of selfish carelessness didn’t sit well with me. It didn’t fit with the goodness she’d always carried in her heart.

  After I
left and she didn’t show up at the airport, I literally felt like someone carved out my heart. Like a fool, I waited and waited until the last possible second to get on the plane, hoping like hell she would show up. When they announced the final boarding call, I knew she wasn’t coming, and I dejectedly boarded. The two seats next to me were conspicuously empty, making me want to throw up.

  When I saw a young family boarding, trying to figure out how to handle the flight because evidently by the time they had booked, the only seats they had to choose from were split up, I had the flight attendant offer them my seat and the two next to me. I thought the young mother was going to cry as she held her little girl close. The kid couldn’t have been more than five or six years old. The father shook my hand as he thanked me profusely, and the mother whispered, “God bless you,” as I reached up into the overhead compartment to grab my bag. Flattening my lips, I nodded, but didn’t bother telling her God had forsaken me a long damn time ago.

  I ended up crammed next to a little old lady who wanted to talk my ear off, so I pretended to fall asleep. Even that was better than sitting next to those fucking empty seats.

  When my phone rang after I landed, I saw it was her and I shut my phone off. I didn’t want to hear the same old excuses. I didn’t want to hear about how everyone else was more important than her. And I certainly didn’t want to hear that she wished she loved me enough to get on the goddamn plane.

  Had she really used me? Sure, she cared about me. We’d been friends almost our whole lives. But I thought she felt the same way as I did. If someone had asked me, I would have sworn I saw love in her eyes every time she smiled at me. Then again, the abuse she had suffered could change people.

  Self-preservation could be a motherfucker for those around the person struggling to just stay afloat. I was living proof of that. Moving to Iowa had effectively cut me away from everyone in my family, but I had needed to stay away from them, her, and the temptation she represented. At the time, I knew I was too dark, too dead inside to be good for any of them.

  If my actions after Tyler’s funeral weren’t proof enough, I don’t know what was. Fucking her before her husband’s body was cold in his grave had been the lowest of low for me. Regardless of what she said, I was wrong to take advantage of her like that, but hell if I wouldn’t do it again if given the chance to go back.

  After about a month, her number showed up on my screen. Initially, I hit the “fuck you” button. Then I felt bad. When she called back after a few minutes, I reluctantly answered. Just in case something was wrong, I told myself.

  Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe I should’ve never answered that call. But I did. All it took was hearing her voice over the phone and my nerves were zinging. It was like motherfuckin’ magic slid through the phone lines and infiltrated my head and body. Just like that, she owned me again.

  Every freaking day, like clockwork, I called and talked to Ty before he went to bed. Then she called me, and we’d talk for fifteen minutes, or sometimes hours, depending on if she worked the next morning.

  Daily, I worried about her safety. Just because there’d been no word from her psycho ex didn’t mean he’d given up. It ate at me and nearly crippled me when I thought of him finding her. But it wasn’t just the worry and regret that consumed me. Her smile stole through my vision, blinding me. Her laughter echoed in my head and robbed me of hearing. The scent of her skin was on everything I owned, whether it was real or in my head. So even though I had been busy as hell between shit with the club, dealing with the asshole who had tried to rape Kassi, and all the loops I’d had to jump through to close the deal to buy the tattoo shop, she haunted my every spare thought and dream.

  When that crap went down with Kassi, I lost my shit. Looking back on it, I know I was experiencing a serious case of transference. Fuck, I thought I was going to kill that dickhead who messed with her. The cold, emotionless killer had begun to take over that night, and it took DJ pulling me off him to get the murderous glaze to clear from my eyes. In my mind, he was that asshole, Lawrence, and I just kept hitting him and hitting him, even after he’d quit fighting. His face was a bloody pulp, and my hands weren’t much better.

  Then Hacker fucked it up again and let her go. Sometimes I wanted to punch that idiot in the throat. I loved him, I did, but damn was he a stubborn dumbass. It was like he was smart as hell when it came to computers and bikes, but common sense eluded him when it came to that girl.

  On a good note, the studio was finally mine. There were only three of us in the shop, but I hoped to change that. Roy and I did ink, and Joey did piercings and was a decent artist, but was new. With the right mentors, he could be great. Roy and I worked on that. The end goal was obviously to expand the shop itself as well as the staff. The club and I now owned the entire building, and the T-shirt shop next door wasn’t renewing their lease at the end of the year because they were moving into the Emporium. Cool by me, because I wanted to open the shop up into the whole building and add several more artists.

  Hacker laughed in disbelief when he found out I could ink, because I hadn’t started until after he got out. When I moved up to Iowa to be near him and the club, I saw the ad for an artist at the shop and got hired based on my portfolio I had built over the past couple of years tattooing part-time when I wasn’t gallivanting around the world in camo. All my life I had loved art but never did anything with it because… well, let’s face it, I grew up most of my life in Texas. In Texas, football was king, and a dude who drew was just a starving artist.

  What started as a really stupid dare with a bunch of the guys from my squad, ended up becoming a passion. We had all been back from a deployment for all of three days. Of course, we’d all gone out drinking and tearing up the town when a few of the guys decided we should get inked, commemorate our fallen brothers from the team and all that sappy shit. Okay, it wasn’t sappy shit. It was real shit, and I wouldn’t sit there trying to pretend I wasn’t messed up in the head because of it. Fuck, I’d give my left arm to have those guys back. Anyway…

  Enter Lewis, who’d found out I drew when I was killing time once at a dusty-ass FOB in Afghanistan. Fucking Sergeant Lewis. That motherfucker stepped up and said, “I want Maguire to do mine.” Everyone laughed. I laughed. The guy with the tattoo gun laughed. I tatted Lewis.

  Seven big fuckin’ Marines could be pretty convincing. Yeah, the guy knew he shouldn’t have let me, and I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but what the hell, right?

  It didn’t look great, but it didn’t look bad. We all got it. The same one. Three small words around our lower right forearm. A band that was well within tattoo regs, a full two inches above the wrist and all that. Celer, Silens, Mortalis. “Swift, Silent, Deadly.” Our motto.

  Anyway, it started off my interest in tattooing. Weird, huh? But the thought of putting my artwork on someone permanently had a certain appeal. Fed the secret inner-narcissist in me, I guess you could say. A lot of people thought tattooing was easy and any idiot with a “gun” they ordered online could do it. What they didn’t realize was it really was an art. At least if you wanted to be a truly good tattoo artist. The challenge of getting artwork to lay right over the body’s curves, varying skin texture, positioning and placement, it all went into maximizing the aesthetic appeal of a tattoo.

  Of course, if someone insisted on having something in an area that I didn’t think would be conducive to a great tat, I’d do my best to talk to them and explain my theories and thought processes. It’d gone both ways. I’d even straight-up refused to ink someone in a certain area and I’d refused to do certain tattoos. My ink I placed on people was my brand. It was my biggest and most effective advertisement. A good tat could proliferate your business, where a bad one could be a career killer.

  Glancing at the time, it felt like the hands on the clock were crawling to when I could call Sera. Without any real reason, anxiety began to churn in my stomach, and I was tempted to call her early. Shaking the feeling off and telling myself I was being fool
ish, I resumed working on my customer and letting my thoughts drift as I finished his ink.

  Shutting off and setting down my machine, I cleaned the new tat and sat back, stretching my back. Leaning over for two hours, even with breaks, could be killer sometimes. That was the other thing about tattoos: the locations aren’t always perfect. It wasn’t like painting on an easel. Yeah, I had a table and it was adjustable, but I still leaned over a lot.

  “What do you think, man?”

  My customer, Doug, was a regular. He’d already received two other tats from me, so when he decided on this one, he wanted me to do it too. Looking at his chest in the mirror, a slow grin appeared, barely showing through his thick blond beard.

  “That’s fucking badass, dude.” Obviously, he was pleased. It was pretty sick, if I did say so myself. Like me and several of the other members of my club, he was a veteran. This design was a 3D style, which had become popular. It was made to look like someone ripped the word “warrior” in his chest, and his various unit patches showed through from underneath, along with what looked like muscle and steel behind them. This was his third and final sitting for this piece.

  “Cool, let me wipe it off again, coat it, and cover it. You know the care instructions by now, so I won’t waste your time going over them. If there’s anything you forgot, it’s on our new webpage. And thanks again for being so patient with me having to reschedule.” This wasn’t his first rodeo since he had two full sleeves and his legs were partially inked too. Still, I handed him my new card, listing me as the owner and displaying the shop’s website. That was new since I took over, because this was the digital age and everyone wants to go online and see what you’re about, when you’re open, see the work you do. The former owner was old-school and didn’t have a webpage.