Big Daddy

by Alexis Abbott

  I feel so strong. I feel safe. Even with the sad realization that my own brother ignored my request for him to attend my wedding. Oh, and the fact that Diesel is maniacally evil. I used to think he was just regular mean, the kind of elbow-in-the-ribs obnoxious everyone’s big brother seems to be. But over time, it’s become more and more obvious that he isn’t a harmless jerk. He’s a dangerous jerk. And I shudder to think that I just let him into our home, in the same room as our delicate, overly forgiving mother.

  “You look pale,” Daddy says suddenly, bringing me back to the current moment as we step through the doorway of the suite we’re staying in. He lays a gentle hand on my shoulder and I lean into him instinctively.

  “Sorry. Got a little lost in my thoughts for a minute there,” I assure him, forcing a smile.

  But he’s not dissuaded. As usual, he can see right through my facade. He gives me a serious, contemplative look as he closes the door.

  “Thoughts about what? Clearly something is upsetting you, Juliette. You can tell me things. We are married now,” he reminds me, not without a hint of amusement.

  “Good point. But that doesn’t mean you have to listen to me whine about my fears and worries,” I say.

  “Do I have to? No. But I want to. Let me help you, sweetheart. You know I can,” he reminds me.

  I smile, more genuinely this time.

  “I know. You’ve shown me that again and again,” I relent. “I guess I’m just a little, shall we say, bummed.”

  “Bummed? The ceremony went off without issue. We were convincing,” he says.

  “Not about that. The wedding was fantastic. You’re fantastic. The way the Heartbreakers have embraced me is fantastic. All of this is...so much more than I deserve,” I gush.

  “You deserve only the best. Always,” Daddy says firmly. He brushes a loose tendril of hair back out of my face, peering into my eyes with pure affection. I know it’s futile to try and hide my feelings from him.

  “Diesel didn’t even show up,” I admit. “I really held out hope that he might listen to reason and come to the wedding. At least roll up in time for the toasts.”

  “Well, he’s never been especially attentive to the wants and needs of others, even the ones closest to him,” he answers astutely.

  “I know. You’re right. It’s just hard to accept that someone I grew up with, who’s known me since I was born, could brush me off so easily,” I sigh. “I thought maybe he would put aside this warring faction crap and just come see his sister in white.”

  “Well, you did wear black,” he remarks.

  “True. Maybe if I wore white he would’ve shown up,” I joke half-heartedly. I can’t even joke about it quite yet. It’s still a little raw.

  “It’s his loss,” he assures me. “And remember that you are not responsible for the shitty choices your brother makes. You’re not his keeper. You don’t have to worry about anybody but yourself.”

  “What about my mom?” I venture quietly. I haven’t realized until this moment how nervous I’ve been about that. But as usual, Daddy knows just how to coax me out of my shell. I don’t know how he does it.

  “She’s being looked after. She’s doing fine,” he reassures me. “I promise.”

  And somehow, despite the nagging little voices of doubt in the back of my mind, I believe him.

  “Thank you. And I’m sorry I’m so full of worry,” I mumble.

  “You’re used to taking care of everybody else,” he says accurately. “But you don’t have to worry about that anymore. I’m here now. You’ll never have to worry again. I’ve got you. And I won’t let you fall.”

  He pulls me into a tight embrace. I tilt my head back to smile up at him. /My eyes lock with his and immediately I can feel all the anxiety easing out of my body. I feel lighter and brighter just having his arms around me.

  “Wow. I’m your wife,” I murmur, totally awed.

  He grins and strokes my hair gently, leaning in to kiss me.

  “Yes, you are,” he growls. “And I will protect you no matter what. You’re mine now.”

  “I was always yours. Ceremony or not,” I mumble against his lips.

  He kisses me deeply, his hands smoothing down the slope of my hips and around to grab my ass. I feel a sharp tingle of desire roll through me. He lights me up without even having to try. But when he lifts me up and carries me in my black bridal gown to the bed, it’s more than innocent affection coursing through my veins. I want him with a fierceness I’ve never known before, and he gives me back the same exact energy.

  “I know exactly what you need,” he purrs.

  I brace myself up on my elbows as I watch him push up the skirt and netting of my bridal gown. I bite my lip, already tensing with anticipation of what’s to come.

  Big Daddy

  I’ve never known peace like this.

  It’s like I can feel myself sleeping, but time doesn’t mean anything as long as I feel that warmth by my side. That’s the brand of abstract bullshit that goes through my head over the night after the best sex I’d had in my life.

  Maybe I held command in bed last night, but Juliette still knocked me back onto my ass harder than I’d ever fallen before. And goddamn, I’m glad she did.

  It was impossible not to think about the fact that we’re legally husband and wife. That was my wife I was feeling wrapped around my thick cock last night. Just the memory of it in that weird state between dreaming and sleeping got me hard again. Every second of the day is burned into my mind, and I can’t help but play it over in my head in my sleep. I can’t control my dreams, and they’re focused on one thing alone.

  She’d be a perfect wife. That’s not even my wishful thinking, that’s a statement of fact. She doesn’t take anyone’s shit, she’s smart as hell, she’s funny, and she can handle herself when the going gets hard.

  The hard truth is I don’t think there’s any man in the world who could keep up with her. As for me, well, I only just married her. But lying here in bed next to her after a consummation like that has made me wonder what’s on her mind for the future. I can’t imagine she’ll play along long after this war is over. Time will tell.

  Just as those warm thoughts are turning to doubt, the sounds of the usual morning stirring upstairs wakes me up at last. I flex my hands under my pillow, smiling warmly as I feel my nude body in the warm sheets, and I reach over to scoop Juliette into my arms.

  My hand brushes over an empty, cool patch of sheets.

  Eyes springing open, I sit up in bed and look around. I’m alone. Juliette is nowhere to be seen. Confused, I look to the door and see it shut. Her bridal gown is still here, but her daytime clothes are missing along with her purse.

  My face pales. No, you’ve got to me shitting me, right?

  I get dressed in a hurry and head into the hall, pulling my kutte over my shoulders as I pass Kate at the bar on her cell phone.

  “Hey, how’s the new husband?” she asks cheerfully as I walk by.

  “Looking for the new wife,” I grunt. “Have you seen Juliette anywhere?”

  When she shakes her head, I get a bad feeling, and I head upstairs with my heart pounding. I search up and down the clubhouse, the conference room, both the bars, and even everywhere upstairs in a near frenzy.

  I’m almost six and a half feet tall, when I get to stomping around the place like I’m on a mission, people make way for me. And I’m thorough. She’s not here.

  I step outside, running a hand over my head with a clenched jaw as the cold morning air greets me and wakes me up. At the end of the parking lot row, I see Skid, one of the members, about to light up a cigarette while sitting on his bike. He’s a scrawny little guy, but he has a good head on his shoulders.

  “Hey,” I grunt.

  “Hey man, congrats!” he says, giving me a wave as I approach. “I prolly got a cigar around here somewhere left over from last night if you want.”

  “I’m good,” I grunt. “You were on guard early this morning, weren’t
you? Did you see my wife anywhere?”

  “Oh yeah,” he says, and my heart pounds twice as hard. “She was out here just before dawn when she slipped out. She’d called a cab, said she was going to grab her car. She left it parked by the uh, city hall or whatever, where the wedding was.”

  “Did she come back with it?” I ask, feeling a vein pulse in my forehead.

  “N-no,” Skid said, slowly realizing something is very wrong. “What’s up, chief?”

  My first instinct is to reach forward and rip Skid’s head clean off his neck, but I hold myself back. I have to remember that the rest of the gang doesn’t know she’s a prisoner. Everyone but the officers and Tank thinks that wedding was totally real, and that I’m a happily married man to a loving wife. To him, there was nothing suspicious about what Juliette did.

  “Nothing,” I grunt in a tense voice thick with restraint. “Just...worried about her is all. I’m going after her, if you catch wind of her, you call me immediately. Not Breaker, me,” I say, jabbing a thumb at myself with a fierce look as I stride over to my own motorcycle.

  “You got it, chief!” Skid calls before I start the engine and roar off.

  After a short ride through town, where I see the cleaners have already taken down all the mess from the wedding and the procession, I reach the town square and the garden. The arch is still up, and I come to a stop at a position where I can look through it to the town hall that Juliette came down, and it brings a smile to my lips and a break from my fears for just a moment.

  Those fears come back hard. Her car is nowhere to be seen. I remember seeing it during the wedding yesterday in passing, and that whole lot is empty now. I drive by the impoundment lot just in case, but it hasn’t been towed, either.

  I come to a stop on my bike by the roadside and lean on the handles with one arm, rubbing my temples with the other.

  “Fuck,” I murmur. “Fuck!” I roar more loudly, unable to hold back the frustration.

  She saw an opening, and she took it. I can’t fucking believe it. It’s impossible, I must be missing something. But the evidence seems pretty fucking damning, and I’ve got no one but myself to blame. She played me, and I should have seen it coming. If it had been anyone else, I’d have seen it coming.

  But not from her. I don’t feel betrayed, I feel angry at myself for not expecting it. The one time I let my guard down, it bites me in the ass.

  I’ve always been a suspicious guy, but she found a way to relax me that I’d never known before. That can’t be meaningless, there’s got to be another explanation for what she did. I take out my phone and check it, but unsurprisingly, there are no messages from her, just the same wave of congratulations from the club members I saw when I checked this morning.

  I call her, and it goes to voicemail over and over again. I send her a curt text asking where she went, and as I do, I hear the sound of another motorcycle rumbling behind me.

  I turn to see Bones coming to a halt at my side, giving me finger-guns. “What’s going on, brother? Heard you ran this way in a storm after your girl, everything alright?”

  “Everything’s not alright, Bones,” I grunt. “She’s gone.”

  Bones’s jaw drops, and the mirth leaves his face. “Shit,” he murmurs. “Like-”

  “Gone gone,” I say. “It was smart. I should have kept her prisoner. Should have had the wedding private. At the cabin.”

  “Hey,” Bones says as he jabs a finger at me. “Stop beating yourself up before I start beating you up.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” I growl.

  “Alright, easy Goliath, I know you’re tense,” Bones says, taking the joke out of his tone. “We’ll find her. But the real reason I’m here is Breaker wants a meeting, and that means we need to get back to the clubhouse. Four heads are better than one, and they’ll want to know too.”

  That sounds as good as anything else to me right now, so the two of us roar off back to church.

  Downstairs in the conference room ten minutes later, the tone is no more grim than the rest of the morning has been. Breaker has the map of the state down on the table in front of us, where Ironside and Bones and I loom over it. The only welcome sight in the room is the mountain of breakfast biscuit sandwiches Ironsides brought along for the meeting.

  “Here’s where we stand,” Breaker says in a firm, clear tone--an authoritative tone he only uses when he’s prepping the troops for battle, I’ve come to learn over the years. I don’t blame him. That time is upon us.

  “Diesel has thrown our peace offer back in our faces without a second thought,” Breaker starts. “He did not walk out of that meeting we had without knowing exactly what it meant. There’s going to be blood. He’s giving us no choice. Ironside, I had you scouting out strip clubs out on the western borders of our territory, update the others on what you’ve told me.”

  “We know at least three places Diesel and his riders use for their operations,” the veteran tells us, pointing to three knives stabbed into the map (the table has seen its share of abuse over the years). “We also know that his latest base of operations isn’t safe for him anymore thanks to us, so he’s on the move again, but we know he uses these places in some form or another.”

  “They’re drop-off points,” Breaker says. “And we have a tip that a new victim is being moved through the state as we speak.”

  “Are we sure about the tip?” I ask.

  “Very,” Breaker says, “I’ve got one of their civilian contacts on take.”

  “Wonder if this is the girl who went missing right out of Yellowstone,” Bones says.

  “I’d bet money on it,” Breaker says. “You saw her on the news, she’s exactly the type they’d go for. And if it’s the same girl, she’s been missing for little enough time that we might be able to catch her at any three of these points as they move her across the state. They know we’re at war, but they don’t know we’re watching their supply lines.”

  “Hit ‘em where they tried to hit us,” I say with a menacing smile. “We can have eyes on the westernmost outpost here, Point A, since that should be the first place she’s headed. As soon as we get word that they’re moving her to Point B, we have some riders raise some hell at Point C. The Buzzsaws will send riders to Point C, we retreat, and meanwhile someone will have hit Point B hard and fast and get the girl out of there.”

  The others pause for a moment, staring at me, and Breaker has a smile on his face.

  “Alright, General,” Bones finally says with a chuckle. “You’re making the rest of us look bad!”

  “I like that plan,” Breaker says, crossing his arms. “Solid advice, I think we should put some serious thought into it. Everyone else?”

  “Aye,” the other two say in unison.

  “You seem different,” Ironsides says, always straight to the point.

  “Think that might have something to do with the elephant in the room,” Bones says, giving me a nod, and the smile fades from my face as I look to Breaker.

  “I have bad news,” I say. “Juliette is gone.”

  Breaker’s face darkens. “What do you know?”

  “She slipped out at dawn, got her car, and I haven’t had a chance to pick up the trail since,” I say. “But she’s been gone for hours, she could be anywhere.”

  “Any idea why?” Ironside asks.

  I’m silent for a few moments. I know what my instinct is, but that’s not me anymore. The guys are right, I feel different than usual. It’s subtle, but it’s strong, and with a clear head, I know what I need to do.

  “No,” I say. “But I don’t think she has betrayed us.”

  That draws raised eyebrows all around the room.

  “This looks pretty traitorous, I’m not gonna lie,” Bones points out.

  “It does,” I say, looking him in the eye. “But even though that wedding was a sham, I know her better than anyone else in this room. We need to look for her, but she’s my fucking wife, and we will not treat her like any less than that until I g
et proof otherwise from her own mouth.”

  Breaker looks more impressed than anything. “Granted,” he says simply.

  “I’ll look for her personally,” I go on. “This is a situation I started without club permission, and I accept the responsibility for handling it.”

  “What does this change mean for all this?” Ironside says, gesturing back down to the map.

  “It could be nothing,” Breaker says, frowning down at the map. “She might run off and go back to her old life after this.”

  “Or she could tell Diesel that whole wedding was fake,” Ironside says. “That’ll make us look weak, and he’ll know to come after the town twice as hard.”

  “I’ll find her before she can do that, if that’s what she’s planning,” I say firmly.

  “Alright,” Breaker says. “That’s enough for now, we’ll regroup tonight after the search. Bones, Ironside, you two give us some privacy,” he adds, and as the two nod and stalk out, I stare at Breaker across the table in silence.

  “You care about her,” Breaker says bluntly when the door is shut.

  “Yeah,” I say bluntly. “I do.”

  “You’re serious about this?” he asks raising an eyebrow. “You think it’s not just you? I need you to be sure. Damn sure. There are lives at stake in this war, and whether you like it or not, the two of you are tangled up in the middle of it. I need to know where you stand.”

  I slowly walk around the table to Breaker and look him in the eye.

  “I care about her enough to stand by her as her husband and look out for her by any means necessary,” I say. “Even if that means tracking her down and taking her again.”

  “You’re my enforcer, brother,” Breaker says, nodding to me. “I trust you. And I can tell this is more than just a one-time thing, I can see it in your eyes. I just needed to hear it from your mouth.”

  A sudden pounding at the door gets our attention, and before we can say another word, a pale young man sticks his head through the door--one of our scouts. “Shit, sorry to interrupt,” he says. “But there have been shots fired on some of our riders out by Ucross!”