Chapter Nineteen
Ghost
February 8, 2025, Diamond Creek, Nebraska.
“Where are we on Kelley?” King asked as he walked into the room, slamming the door behind him.
Well, this was off to a great start.
“The son of a bitch is hiding. The girl at the motel claims she doesn’t know where he lives. And I had her call him with a bullshit story that some guy was causing a scene, beating on a woman. He said he’d handle it. But I sat there for two hours and he never showed.”
“I want him found.”
“Workin’ on it,” I muttered.
“Something you want to say?” King asked as he glared at me.
“Nope. Just confirming I haven’t forgotten my fucking job.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” King asked, surprised I had mouthed off to him. I didn’t mouth off to the president.
Ever.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? You’ve been walking around like an angry bull. Someone put a rubber band around your fucking balls?”
Everyone snickered, but no one would say out loud what we were all thinking.
Grace.
Grace had a hold of his fucking balls, and he wouldn’t do shit about it. It had him in a constant bad mood. Fuck this shit. I was tired of King’s attitude. We were doing the best we could with what we had.
“You want my job? You want to wrangle the whole fucking club, the club girls, the old ladies, and deal with Reaper and Montana up your ass, asking questions you can’t answer?”
“No, I don’t want your fucking job. What I want is for you to get fucking laid, so you chill the fuck out.”
King pinched the bridge of his nose and while his lips weren’t moving, I know he was counting to ten in his head. He had a short fucking fuse lately, and we were all at the end of it.
“Nav, what have you found on Kelley?” King asked, ignoring my tirade.
“Nothing good. He’s got ties to O’Malley.”
“Everyone has fucking ties to O’Malley,” Blade moaned.
“How?” Cash asked, ignoring Blade’s snide comment.
Turning to look at my brother, I could see he was somewhat sober. Of course, I had noticed he stopped drinking a few hours before church each week and picked back up again as soon as we were done.
Once church was over, Cash would beeline for the bar and sit at the opposite end to Bane. I swear, the two of them thought it was their job to hold the fucking thing up like a pair of bookends.
“He’s a cousin to Nolan Kelley, O’Malley’s brother-in-law. The leader in New York. Well, former leader. Sal’s looking for him. Not sure what he did other than skip town on his wife and daughter.”
“That alone could be reason enough for Sal to hunt him down. You know how the Irish are about family,” Jingles pointed out.
We all looked up at King. It was no secret that O’Malley wanted a relationship with his son. But King kept him at arm’s length.
“Fuck off, all of you,” King cursed. “Do we know if he is even in the goddamn state?”
“No,” Nav confirmed.
“Call Boston and see if anyone up there knows who he is and where he might be.”
“Shouldn’t you be the one to—” Blade shut his mouth when King turned his ice-cold glare toward him.
“I want to buy the motel once we find him.” Changing the subject before fists started flying.
“What the fuck for?” Gunner asked.
“To add to our businesses. I need something to fucking do,” I said.
“Something to get your mind off the magic pussy that ghosted you?” Jack snickered.
“Fuck you, Jack.” I held up my hand, giving him the one finger bird.
“Maybe she’ll show up here one day like Sam, with a kid in tow,” Blade joked, shoving Jack’s shoulder.
“Asshole,” Jack muttered without heat.
The two of them constantly went back and forth, busting each other’s balls. Jack just had to be careful what he said about Beck when King was around.
“We can decide once we find this asshole. Until then, he owns it and there’s nothing we can do.”
King was right. I could think about the motel all I wanted, but until we found Kelley, I couldn’t do shit. Once we located him though, I was pretty sure I could convince him to give me a good deal.
I smiled to myself, thinking about all the ways I could convince Kelley to sign the motel over to me.
“What are you smiling about?” Jingles whispered.
“Just thinking about how I can persuade Kelley to hand over the motel.”
“Thought maybe you were thinkin’ about your magic pussy,” he sniggered.
“Fuck off. You just wait. You’ll meet a girl one day who will knock you on your ass.”
“Not a chance,” he insisted.
“Hey, tweedle dum and dee. Something you wanna share with the class?” King asked, his patience wearing thin.
“Nope,” Jingles assured him, and I sat back in my chair, focused on my president.
By the time church was over, we spread out in the main room. Sitting at the bar, nursing a beer, I thought about Lyssa.
She was magic.
It wasn’t just her pussy though. There was something about her I just couldn’t let go of. The way she held her own as I fucked her with my eyes on the dance floor and then my cock in that bathroom.
She was confident. She knew what she wanted, and she went for it. Until we got outside. Something changed between the bathroom and the exit, and damn if I knew what it was.
“Hey, Ghost.”
“Hey, Amber.”
“Why are you drinking all alone?”
“I’m not; you’re here.” I tipped my beer against the one the prospect set down for her.
“You know what I mean. The girls are a little whiney.”
“Oh yea?” I knew what she was getting at. When I got back from Oklahoma, the club girls held no appeal. I wanted Lyssa. She was all I thought about for weeks.
When it was clear I had no hope of finding her, I gave in and spent a few nights with Tiffany and Jade. Even gave Crystal a shot once she turned twenty. But all I could think about was the princess in the tight jeans.
So, the only action I’ve gotten for weeks was my fucking hand.
This was not how a biker lived. If she was here, or I knew how to find her, it would be different. But she broke my fucking dick.
Sure, it still worked. But only with visions of her in my head. And while the club girls were here for a reason and of their own free will, I still felt like a dick using them that way.
“Yup. Word on the street is you’ve been celibate.” She took a drink of her beer. When she set it back on the bar, she leaned her chin into her palm, held by her elbow while she looked at me.
“What do you want me to say?”
“So, it’s true?”
Amber wouldn’t know. She doesn’t sleep with us older guys. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen Amber with anyone for quite a while.
“What about you? Who’s warming your bed?”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Show me yours, I’ll show you mine?”
“I already know yours. I know a lovesick man when I see one. You and King are two peas in a pod.” She giggled.
I felt a little stir inside my jeans, but it faded fast. Amber might be beautiful with her dark brown hair and green eyes, but she wasn’t who I wanted. There was just something about a woman when she giggled that turned me the fuck on.
“Difference is he knows where his girl is. But he wants to play the fucking martyr,” I snarked.
“Yea. Well, we all have our reasons.” Amber sighed and once again I felt like a dick.
“I’m sorry, Amber. I didn’t mean—”
“Pfft. We all have trauma we’re dealing with. Having Haizley here helps. Though I do miss actually getting to leave the clubhouse.”
“It was good while it lasted, huh?”
“Yea.” Amber looked around the room. What she was looking for, I wasn’t sure.
“Do you have any idea why King locked you down?” I asked, hoping for some hint at what King was hiding.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him; I trusted that man with my life. But we could protect Amber better if we knew what the fuck we were protecting her from.
“I don’t.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“No. I know I’m safe here. The guy who held me in that cell is dead. My father is dead. The only guy left is Dan. And I can’t see him coming to look for me. I’m convinced the reason he sold me when he did was because he was done with me. So, what is there to fear? I’m nobody. Especially here.”
“You aren’t nobody, Amber.” I slipped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “We love you. And obviously someone else does too. Or at the very least, wants you. Without knowing who or why, they could walk right in and hurt you.”
“I know you guys would never allow that. Besides, I have no footprint. No way for anyone to track someone who doesn’t exist.” She looked around and then leaned in and whispered, “Amber isn’t even my real name. It’s Bethany.”
“Really? You don’t look like a Bethany.”
“Yea, well, you don’t look like a Ghost,” she disputed, and then giggled again.
“How many beers have you had tonight?”
“Too many,” she said, placing the bottle on the bar.
“Archie! Walk Amber to her room.”
The prospect hurried over and put his arm around Amber’s waist. She swung her own around his shoulders and asked, “Wanna spend the night, Archie?”
“Maybe another time, Amber.”
Amber pouted, and I nodded to Archie. That was the right fucking answer. She may be a club girl, but we still required fucking consent.
And when Archie disappeared down the hall with a very drunk club girl, I waited and made sure he came back in a reasonable amount of time. Archie was a good kid. He was smarter than the other prospects, but some of the guys thought he was weak. He was a skinny kid, with not much muscle.
Honestly, being a biker wasn’t about size. It wasn’t about intelligence either. Thank God.
No, it was about brotherhood and riding. The rest of the shit was just noise. However, Archie was often put on old lady detail. Not just being at their beck and call, but protecting them.
He was often the one chosen to watch over the women when they left the clubhouse.
I had seen him shoot. He was good with a gun. Hit his mark every time. The kid was fucking accurate. But a gun wasn’t always an option. He needed to know how to fight, and he needed to bulk up.
When he walked back into the main room, I called him over.
“What do you need, Ghost?”
“I need you to meet me at the gym at five tomorrow morning.”
“Uh, what for?”
“You’re gonna learn to fight.”
“I know how to fight,” he muttered.
“Then you can show me tomorrow morning.” Standing from my stool, I left before he could talk back. Not that he would. Like I said, Archie was a good kid.
The next morning, Archie met me in the gym so he could show me what he could do. The little shit knocked me on my ass.
Twice.
We didn’t know a lot about Archie.
Nav had done a deep dive on Gary Ashford when he showed up at the gate looking to prospect. He was an average kid from a middle-class family. Not unlike Cash.
But this kid was anything but average. I wondered what secrets he was hiding. You didn’t just one day leave suburbia and decide to join a club.
Ok, Cash did.
But Archie wasn’t Cash.
“Where’d you learn to fight, kid?”
“In the trenches.”