by Addison Jane
The first guy was heavy-set and had blood smeared down the side of his face and into his light-colored beard. It was thick, bushy, and unkempt—much like the sorry excuse for a leather cut he had on, and his jeans which were ripped and torn and looking like they had never been washed. He was also cradling his arm. His hand seemed limp and floppy, and the hard glare he was trying to hit each of us with was more of a painful cringe.
The second guy was a lot scrawnier and had a few more teeth missing. He had a gash in the side of his head, and the way his lip curled up as he dragged his boney ass from the truck remind me of a rabid squirrel that needed to be put down.
He slumped down on the ground next to his buddy rubbing his leg and wincing in pain.
Shake walked around behind them, eyeing their colors with a raised brow. “Red Riot MC,” he announced, tilting his head slightly to the side. “Cute name. Riots are meant to be scary, red is an angry color. I get it.”
Myth screwed up his nose. “Sounds like a bad fifties rock band.”
I snorted out a laugh and shook my head. “Sounds like every woman at that time of the month.”
The guy with the beard sneered up at me, his lip curling. “Fuck you.”
“Fuck me?” I taunted, an excited grin taking over my face.
God, I loved it when they were bastards.
“You’re not my type,” he growled back.
I looked over his head at Shake who was smiling from ear to ear. “Sasquatch got jokes.” I laughed, raising my gun at the same time and aiming it directly at his kneecap.
Bang.
The gun recoiled and vibrated in my hand.
Sasquatch screamed in horror, the limp and broken hand he was cradling seconds ago was completely forgotten as he reached for his leg. His buddy tried to pull back as he stared down at the fresh gunshot wound, eyes wide and his body shaking.
“You got any more jokes?” I asked casually, my eyebrow raised, daring the dumb motherfucker to push me a little further. When he didn’t respond, I moved my aim to his other knee. “Go on, tell me another.”
He was sweating, huffing and puffing like a raging bull, and I was waving a red flag.
“That’s enough,” Shotgun warned as he crouched in front of the two men. It wouldn’t be long before Sasquatch began to feel light-headed with the amount of blood that was seeping out onto his jeans, especially with the way he was working himself up. No doubt imagining all the ways in which he’d attempt to kill me. Attempt. “I have a message that I need to get to your club president.”
“He’s gonna come looking for you after this,” the scrawny shithead warned, but his voice was trembling, and his entire body was shaking as his eyes flicked from one of us to the other.
Shotgun lifted his gun and placed it right between the guy’s legs, flicking off the safety with his thumb. “That’s what I’m hoping for.”
KENNEDY
My hands gripped the sheets beneath me fighting to keep my body still as Pipes held a rolled-up dollar bill to his nose and inhaled the line of white powder off my navel. He pulled back quickly, throwing his head back and shaking it. “Holy damn!” he crowed, the sound followed by his cackling laughter as he tumbled to the bed beside me.
I took that as my cue to finally escape. Climbing off the bed, I went in search of my clothes, picking them up one piece after another.
Pipes groaned on the bed and stretched out his body like a cat who’d just had the best sleep of its life. “Fucking your pussy is addictive, Kenz,” he drawled, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and reaching for his pants. “I dunno what you do to keep it that tight after all the fucking you do. I’ve fucked a fair share of whores in my life and sure as hell ain’t felt none as tight as yours.”
Snorting loudly, I tried to ignore him as he rattled on and on about my magical pussy and made quick work of my panties and jeans before standing up to put my tank top on.
“All you useless motherfuckers get the hell out here!” Crow screamed sounding even more furious than his usual self, his heavy footsteps shaking the walls as he stormed down the hall. “Church, now!”
Pipes didn’t give me a second look before he grabbed his club cut off the bed and rushed toward the bedroom door, not looking back for a moment—I’d quickly become an afterthought. His president was calling, and when Crow called, these guys knew to fucking move or end up facing the consequences.
I watched him rush from the room, holding my breath for a few seconds before slipping out the door, making sure to head in the opposite direction than the men were going.
Ducking and dodging around the twenty men who were rushing toward church, I made a beeline for the club’s rear exit.
The second I threw open the old metal door and stepped out into the night, I inhaled deeply, allowing my lungs to revel in the cool night air. My body shuddered, but I pushed my shoulders back and headed out through the junkyard maze which was hidden back there. It honestly reminded me of a junkyard with old bike parts, car parts, pieces of building structures, and old barbecues and shit.
No one ever came back here.
No one really cared.
Which suited me just fine because the dark pit of destruction had become mine. It was the place where I got to take a couple of minutes to myself. The place where I found the strength to keep going. And these days that concept was growing harder and harder with every day, with every hour, and with every damn breath.
I didn’t feel ashamed about what I did for the club. It didn’t hang over me like a swirling mess of dark storm clouds, which is what some of the girls here tended to let happen.
They let it get to them. They let it eat away at them inside allowing themselves to think this was all they were worth, there would never be a way out, and they could never have something more.
I wanted something more.
And I was willing to fight for that something.
My life was full of stepping stones, and this was part of it—it was just another stone on my way to a better fucking future for my sister and me. All I had to do was take a stroll through hell first.
I waited nervously out there as the twenty minutes ticked by. And the second the clock officially hit midnight, I made my escape around the side of the building. I tried to keep my feet light and moving quickly. It wasn’t that I was going to get in trouble for leaving, my hours were done, but the last thing I needed right now was for a patched member to decide he wanted to use me as a nightcap.
Luckily when I slipped past the prospects out front, they barely took a second look at me as I made my way across the gravel to the front gate. The guys must have all still been in church.
Obviously, some kind of shit had hit the fan and they were making a plan.
Maybe some bigger, better club had actually decided these assholes needed to be fucking squashed into the ground.
I laughed under my breath as I jogged out onto the street.
Yeah, like I’d be that fucking lucky.
It took me eight minutes at a steady jog to make it the couple of blocks to the apartment block we lived in. My heart raced the entire way and not because of the physical exercise. Every shadow, every movement or sound had me looking over my shoulder and moving a little bit faster.
I turned the lock to the front door and pushed hard, forcing it open. My little sister’s surprised scream had me suddenly alert.
“Brook?” I questioned with a frown, trying to force my eyes to adjust to the darkness, and at the same time, reaching for the light switch.
“Oh shit!” a male voice cursed followed by a hard thump of something—or someone—hitting the floor. I instantly reached for the gun I had taped under the small table beside our front door. The table itself really held no other purpose other than a place to hide a weapon in case an unwanted someone came knocking.
I whipped the small weapon from the strategically placed holster and pointed it straight ahead while my other hand hit the light switch. I was blinded for a second, but unfo
rtunately not long enough for the teenage boy in the middle of my living room to get his fucking pants on. He froze, his eyes shooting open wide and his hands instantly ditching his pants and shooting into the air.
“Kennedy!” my little sister hissed as she rushed out of the bedroom doing up the button on her own jeans and only wearing a bra on the top half of her body. Her hair was all over the place, and I wasn’t even about to start when it came to the marks that were all over her neck and chest. “Can you not point a gun at my boyfriend!”
Uh, no fucking way.
“Boyfriend, get hell out,” I ordered, lowering the gun in my hand but refusing to put it away until this little fucker dragged his dumbass out of my apartment. I stepped to the side, grabbing the door handle and wrenching it open. “Now.”
He looked over at Brooklyn who was glaring at me, tears welling in her eyes. He quickly cleared his throat and tugged his jeans up over his boxers, buttoning them up before reaching for his t-shirt that seemed to have somehow ended up tossed over the television screen.
Jesus Christ.
I gritted my teeth refusing to say anything as he nervously scampered like a fucking little bug toward the open door, not daring to look me in the eye or apologize, or even say goodbye to his ‘girlfriend’ for that matter.
The second he was out, I shoved hard against the door. It slammed shut, the noise so deep and loud that every single person in this apartment building probably fucking heard it.
“You didn’t have to be like that,” Brooklyn instantly yelled at me, folding her arms across her chest like she was suddenly aware of her lack of clothing. “He’s never going to speak to me now. And he’ll probably tell everyone at school how fucking crazy you are and how they should stay away from me.”
Trying to keep calm, I replaced the gun underneath the table and strapped it back into its holster. Then I slipped off my shoes, pushing them to the side before turning around to lock the door.
“He’s not boyfriend material,” I answered simply, knowing that right now there were tears streaming down Brooklyn’s cheeks.
“You don’t even know him.”
I spun around, narrowing my eyes. “I know when I pulled that gun, for a few moments, he had no idea who the hell I was yet, he didn’t have one fucking concern for anyone but himself. I know that not once did he try and protest or ask if you were okay. I know he didn’t even fucking bother to say goodbye, kiss you on the cheek, ask if you would rather he stuck around, or even offer to take you with him. He just walked right out the fucking door, not even looking back. He doesn’t give a shit about you.”
“He does give a shit about me,” she argued furiously. “How the hell would you even know what it looked like when a man cared about a woman? It’s not like it’s something you’ve ever felt.”
“Brooklyn,” I warned, but I knew she wasn’t hearing me.
She was trying to protect her feelings.
I’d been a fucking bitch, and she was about to bring my dumbass back to earth.
“No, honestly, how would you know?” She was struggling to breathe. Her tears were heavy. Her words even heavier like her tongue was trying to stop her from saying them. “It’s not like whores have emotions. You’ve spent the last four years numbing them and fucking your way through the population of creeps and psychos in this city. And let’s not even start with captain sociopath himself, Crow, and his sick obsession with you. So you tell me how the hell would you know what it looked like to have a man actually give a goddamn about me?”
Yup.
Ouch.
We stared at each other across the room.
I wasn’t ready for her to be this age—the age I was when I took that first step into the depths of hell. I was fighting the tears that were clogging the back of my throat. I wasn’t prepared. I’d fought so long to protect her while at the same time going through fucking hell, being used, abused, and treated like shit.
“I’m not you,” she whispered, the suddenly soft-spoken words cutting through my heart like a knife. Her big blue eyes stared back at me. The anger was gone, and all that filled them now was pain. It wasn’t even her own pain, it was my pain she was feeling. “And he’s not one of those bastards from Riot.”
Brooklyn saw right through me. I knew that logically I was being fucking ridiculous. She wasn’t the same young girl I gave up my life to keep safe. She wasn’t the same young girl I rocked to sleep every single night when our mother died, and our father checked out.
She was older now.
She’d seen things no one her age should ever have had to see.
She already knew things about the world that a lot of people would never in their lifetime have to experience.
“Go to bed,” I whispered before dragging my suddenly extremely heavy body to the kitchen.
“Kenz—”
“Go to bed, Brooklyn,” I snapped, my hands gripping the countertop as I struggled to keep some kind of control over my emotions. “Just go to bed.”
I didn’t look up when I heard her gentle sniffles and the soft patter of her feet as she retreated to her bedroom.
I actually managed to keep myself together until I heard her door click shut.
Then when I was alone, I broke.
REPO
“I forgot to ask, how did things go when you went down to visit the fam last week?” Myth asked as we made our way down the stairs, heading for the makeshift gym we’d set up in the far corner of the workshop.
It was only five o’clock in the morning.
At this time, even the sun was like no thanks, I’ll pass.
We were pretty used to it, though. Myth and I had been getting up to train at this time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday since I could remember. With Myth being a hardcore fighter, you could find him in the gym every morning at that time, even though he didn’t fight anymore. He’d never really given up his drive and his passion for it, even when he decided to back away from the sport.
“It was good,” I answered with a shrug. I didn’t talk about my personal life much. Myth knew my story, at least he knew the details I’d told him. and he knew why I was the way I am.
At first, it had made it difficult when we would spar because the second he actually hit me, I would lose my fucking shit. Since then, we’d changed things up.
Now, we both take turns holding the pads while the other goes hard, and Myth tries his fucking best not to miss those pads, although there have been times when he’s made a slip. He learned pretty quickly that his slip up was a sure-fire way to get himself a black eye.
“Just good?” he questioned, stepping into the workshop and flicking on every single light. “‘Cause when I was talking to Digger the other day, he told me he was on his way to a meeting with Josiah.”
I paused on my feet for a second while Myth kept working.
That was probably a good idea.
“They say women like to gossip,” I snorted, shaking my head. “I don’t think women have anything on a bunch of fucking bikers. Honestly, you can’t do or say one fucking thing around here without everyone finding out within seconds. Clubhouse full of fucking old women.”
Myth started to laugh, turning to me and holding his arms out. “You say this like you’re only just fucking figuring it out. You gonna tell me about Josiah or not?”
I knew if I said no, he wouldn’t give two shits. Myth wasn’t one to dwell. But on the other hand, it wasn’t really my information or my issue to share. I gritted my teeth but forced my body to continue forward.
If there was anyone who would understand the situation, it was Myth. He knew most of my story and most of Josiah’s too. They’d even hung out a couple of times at club family events. But the thing was, this was a whole new level.
It was one thing having my brothers hang out with my actual blood brother at a fucking barbecue or something, it was another thing to be asking them to kill someone for him.
I finally got in the ring and went about putting on my hand pads.
“You know what he does?”
Myth nodded, standing in the corner fitting his gloves to his hands and strapping them up. “He works with some rich kids at some crazy expensive private school, right?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed, pressing my lips together before I answered. “A handful of the kids have come to him in distress… and more than one of them told him in confidence that one of the teachers could occasionally be inappropriate.”
That grabbed Myth’s attention, his eyes growing wide. “I know you ain’t saying what I think you’re saying.” I snorted and nodded as I lifted my arms up over my head, stretching out the muscles. “And Jo is asking the club to help… intimidate the teacher?”
“I think as far as Josiah is concerned, that would never be enough,” I disagreed. “During my trial, do you know how many people came forward saying they had been abused in some kind of form by that pastor? Sure, maybe he could be scared straight, but why give him another opportunity to ruin someone else’s life?”
Myth nodded, holding up his gloved hands. “Man, I hear you,” he affirmed. “Let’s get this shit started, sounds like we both need it.” Myth moved onto his toes, bouncing and rolling his shoulders. I raised the gloves trying to shift the focus of my attention.
Conversations about my past always took me to a shitty fucking place. I went through a lot of crap after I was arrested. I was looking at, at least twenty-five years behind bars. The process was long, but eventually, the judge decided to lower the charge to manslaughter and gave me five years.
It was the best outcome and for more than one reason. When I was eighteen and finally taken from juvie and put in a general population low-security prison, it was at that point I met Alias.
Alias was a member of the Brothers by Blood MC in Dallas. He was pushing sixty years old at the time and quickly became kind of like a father figure to me at a time when I desperately needed it. Alias taught me about the club, about their beliefs, the things he’d done for them, and the way he viewed his choices.
