Consequences (Deranged Drifters MC #20)

1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Griffin’s Beach Beckett

S ince Lane Dalton’s funeral, Beckett Cohen hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the woman who got away.

Shannon Walters. His beautiful redhead who was always off-limits when they were younger.

She was just a few years too young, and he went off to join the military before she turned eighteen. The stars never quite aligned.

He hadn’t seen her in more years than he cares to remember, but she surprised him by sitting in the clubhouse eating a burger one night over a year ago. He thought he’d finally gotten his chance.

Shannon is everything he’s ever wanted. An annoying preteen when he was freshly fourteen and too cool for her grew into a beautiful woman who slipped through his fingers when he finally got his chance. They’d been so close, but her way of surviving proved an obstacle that pushed her away from him.

Not even twenty, Shannon was on the streets, doing whatever it took to put food in her belly and a roof over her head. Something Beckett didn’t know until she’d nearly died and was brought back to his clubhouse for safety. If he’d known, he would have done everything to help her.

“That was weird,” Felicity Short says as she walks into the clubhouse, her face scrunched as her recently fucked, dark hair falls out of the mess on the top of her head.

When Ky’s wife walked outside fifteen minutes before, he assumed she left.

Things between her and the club have been rocky, to say the least, since she went psycho bitch after learning Ky slept with her now-dead sister and lied about it.

Not that Beckett can really blame her for being upset. He’ll never say that to Ky, though.

“What happened?” Ky asks. “Is Gracie okay?”

The man stands at least five inches taller than Beckett, and he’s one of the tallest in the club.

He has an intimidation factor Beckett never will, but it means nothing when it comes down to brass tax.

With the special ops training Beckett’s had, he knows he could drop Ky like he was nothing more than a gawky preteen.

Something only a few in the club know he has the ability to do.

“No, Gracie’s fine,” Felicity says, reminding Beckett that their sixteen-year-old daughter is pregnant.

“There was this woman outside. I thought she was dirty, but when I got closer, she’d been beaten.

Her face looked pretty swollen, and what I thought had been dirt was dried blood. And she asked for Psycho.”

“What did she look like?” Colt Nichols asks as he walks over to join the small group.

Beckett has to give Colt props. His cordial regard toward the woman who not only attacked his wife but nearly waged a full-out war against her says a lot about his character. Even though the two women have made up, the tension and resentment in the club are still high.

“Um, red hair in a bun that looked like it’d been yanked on in a fight. Probably to help beat up her face. Really skinny, and she was devastated when I said Psycho was in Black Valley. I know he likes redheads, so I was a little apprehensive at first.”

“Did you offer to help her?” Jennings Molloy asks. The man who still looks strange wearing a kutte without the President patch.

Giving him an annoyed glare, she shakes her head. “No, I just sent her on her way. Of course! I threw out a few names, and then she panicked. Told me to forget she was here and disappeared before I could stop her.”

“Did she give you a name?”

“Shannon?”

Beckett jumps up, his eyes wide. “She just left?”

“A bit ago. My daughter called, and I had to talk her down from the latest pregnancy side effect she was panicking about. The poor girl has just about everything there is to have, including near-permanent morning sickness.”

“How long ago?” His hands itch to grip his motorcycle handles and race after her.

“I don’t know… Ten minutes, maybe?”

Turning to Brock Bradshaw, the club’s tech guy, Beckett feels his heart rate skyrocket. The shaved-head man nods and says, “On it,” before hurrying to his apartment.

“Do you know Shannon?” Felicity asks.

He just nods, not trusting his voice. The woman he’s been looking for over the past year was right here under his nose, and he missed her. How could he miss her?

“Okay, it looks like our girl,” Brock says and walks out with his laptop.

Setting it on the bar top, he doesn’t mind the way Beckett hovers and looks over his shoulder. Not that he says, anyway. The woman he’s been chasing stands right outside, and her face is most definitely swollen. She took one hell of a beating.

“My God,” he mutters.

“She kind of freaked out when I mentioned your name, Beckett,” Felicity says. “It started with the bikes. I just said the names of the owners I saw right off the bat. Why was she looking for Psycho if you know her?”

“Because Psycho saved her life when he had to take out someone for Diego,” Beckett mutters, hating the fact she sought out another man for help.

He can’t be that mad about it, though. It’s how she came back into his life.

To help fight off their rival, the Savage Slashers, Psycho called in a favor with a former cellmate with connections to some of the scariest men in Mexico.

In return, Psycho needed to take out someone Diego’s men needed dead, and Psycho stumbled upon that asshole with Shannon. Saved her life.

“Which way did she go?” Beckett asks.

Clicking around the various cameras, Brock finds the last image caught of her heading west. “There’s a homeless shelter not far from here in that direction.”

The sentence barely leaves his lips before Beckett runs outside to his bike and races to the building he’s checked more than once looking for Shannon.

The temps at night have risen, so the place is less crowded than it has been previously Beckett looks around and spots Shannon in the corner on a cot, her arms wrapped around her knees as she rocks slightly.

“Can I help you, sir?”

“I’m looking for her,” he says, moving towards his girl.

“Sir—”

He doesn’t care and just continues past the woman to his redheaded angel. The way she flinches when she sees him makes his entire chest ache, but the relieved breath lets him know she’s not scared of him. She’s clearly scared of something, though.

“What are you doing here, Beckett?”

“What happened, Shan?”

“What do you care?”

“I care,” he says and crouches in front of her. “I’ve been looking for you ever since you left the clubhouse. Until tonight, I’ve always been just too late to catch you.”

Swallowing, she looks at the ground. “I’m fine. Please, you have to leave. You’re drawing attention to me.”

“Come back with me. Please?”

“No, it’s better if I stay here. He won’t expect me to be here again after he found me last night. I need to stay hidden.”

Hidden? The scent of blood and sweat fills his nostrils, and he fights back the murderous rage boiling inside him. A shower and a meal would go a long way for her, like killing the bastard who did this to her would go a long way for him.

“Who are you hiding from?”

“Just go away.”

“Come to the clubhouse with me. We’ll get you cleaned up and some food for you. You’ll be safe there, I promise.”

Tears fill her eyes, but she doesn’t look away like he expects her to. Eye contact is his bet to get her to see that either she comes willingly, or he’s carrying her out of here. Either way, she’s not staying in this place. Never again, if he has any say in it.

“Fine,” Shannon relents and follows him out to his bike.

Even though she puts on a front, he feels her body relax against his on the drive. He catches sight of her looking around in the mirrors, and he needs to know who she’s looking for. Who she’s running from.

They walk into the clubhouse, and Shannon crosses her arms over her dirty white tank top. She looks at Felicity with such disgust and shakes her head. “I told you to forget I was here.”

“Yeah, well, you obviously need help. Sorry, not sorry,” Felicity says and shrugs. “Do you need anything?”

She asks the question to Beckett, not Shannon, and he nods. “Any extra clothes you have that we can give her would be great.”

“I’ll grab some from Ky’s apartment and set them outside your door.”

Maybe she’s not as bad as I thought.

“Come on, Shannon, let’s get you in the shower. Then I’ll find you something to eat,” he says.

“Look, it’s not safe for you to have me here,” she says. “Once I shower, I’ll be on my way, okay?”

He opens his mouth to object, but Colt surprises him by beating him to the punch. “No can do, Shannon. You came looking for Psycho to help you, and while we aren’t him, we are his brothers. Who are you running from, sweetheart?”

The last thing Beckett expected was Shannon bursting into tears, and he looks around in panic when she does. Her hands fly to her face, but she shrugs off his advance when he reaches out to comfort her.

“Look, I’m not proud of the things I have to do, okay? I know what it makes me, but sometimes it’s all you can do to survive.”

“No one’s judging you, darlin,’” Jennings says.

Shaking her head, she sniffles and wipes at her eyes.

“You are. I know you are, and I don’t blame you.

Hell, I judge myself. I just never quite found my footing, you know?

And then this rich guy comes around, and it seems like my luck’s changing.

And it did for a couple of weeks, but then he changed. ”

“Changed?” Colt asks.

“He scared me. The things… I tried to end it, but he refuses. He won’t me leave me alone, and last night, he told me that I either belong to him, or I’m dead. I took off when he fell asleep and never looked back.”

“We won’t let him get to you. What’s his name?”

She sniffles, and her lip trembles. “He only gave me the name Kiefer. I know it’s not his real name, and we only ever stay in the hotel. He’s rich, and he’s powerful. And he really likes me, for some reason.”

“Let’s get you a shower and some food,” Beckett says. “We’ll look into this guy.”

She just nods and follows him back to his apartment. Felicity meets them, and she gives a small smile as she hands him a pair of shorts and T-shirt. “Here. If you need anything else, let me know. I’ll take care of it.”

His resolve to hate the woman melts away. “Thanks.”

“I’ll get something to eat and bring it by.”

He just smiles, thankful he doesn’t have to worry about how he’ll make sure Shannon doesn’t disappear out the back door while he goes to find her something to eat. “Thank you.”

“Don’t worry,” Shannon says once the door closes behind them, “I won’t try and suck your cock in the shower again.”

The memory of her warm mouth around him makes him half-hard, but this isn’t the time or the place. “Shannon,” he says, following her into the shower.

“You want a free show?” she asks, stripping down with no hesitation or modesty.

The bruises on so many areas of her skin make him forget whatever he’d planned to say to her. Her face, it turns out, is only the tip of the iceberg, and he takes in the full extent of her injuries.

“What did he do to you?” he whispers.

“I’m tougher than I look,” she says before stepping into the shower. “This is nothing. He’s done worse.”

Time disappears on him as Beckett stands there, lost in his own world. She steps out and grabs a towel, and he has to know. “Why didn’t you come to me?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No?”

“You’re not into me. It’s fine. But I felt like gum on the bottom of your shoe the last time we saw each other.”

Sighing, he leans against the wall. “That’s not it at all. I want you more than you know, and I’ve wanted you for longer than I probably should have. It felt like you offered yourself up as payment, and that cut deep. That’s not how I wanted to have you for the first time.”

Shannon stops and stares into his eyes. Her mouth opens and shuts a couple of times before she bursts into tears again. “I don’t know how I got here, Beckett. How did I let my life turn out this way?”

He wraps her up in his arms, and he just holds her, letting her sob. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. I’ve got you. It’s all going to be just fine.”