Gunner’s Mercy (Saint’s Outlaws MC: Pensacola Chapter #2)

Prologue

Several Years Ago

T wisting the cap off, I take a drink. Nothing beats an ice-cold beer on a hot day. If there’s one thing Pensacola has, it’s hot days. Today’s been exceptionally humid, making the sweat roll down my body as we try to clean up our new clubhouse and shop. It’s coming together faster than we planned, which means we will be bringing in money sooner rather than later, something I think we are all looking forward to. That and getting a real bed. I could have had one brought in like Smoke, but I didn’t see the point. Not until the walls were gutted and redone. That and the floors.

Really, the whole building needed renovating. It looks so different now. The walls are a light gray with hints of green. It feels very much like the mother chapter, but with its own twist. When Ghost asked Smoke which color he wanted for his chapter, I think Smoke enjoyed picking a green just different enough to show they were different chapters, but close enough to make it known that he didn’t abandon the place he grew up.

I’m proud of my best friend. He could have stayed and fought with Ghost. It was a losing battle, but in his teens he would have done it out of spite. Now he is flourishing, running his own chapter. Not only that, but he found the love of his life. None of that would have happened if we had stayed in Boston.

Laughter has me looking over my shoulder. Smoke has his face buried in Kelly’s neck as she has her head tilted back while she laughs. They look so fucking happy and are completely consumed with each other. I’m happy for him. She seems like a great girl.

While I genuinely like Kelly, I can’t help but think he’s making a mistake. I would never tell him that, but it’s a feeling inside me that won’t go away. I know it’s my own trauma, though. The same shit that had me joining up next to Smoke as soon as I could.

Women have a way of betraying you when you least expect it. I can’t help but have this feeling that Kelly is going to turn on him and shatter his heart. No matter how sweet she seems, there is always the chance that one day she will change. People change all the time. It’s part of life.

Still, this distrust for women will always be inside of me. At least, it feels that way.

For me, it started with my mother. She dropped me off at the clubhouse to spend the weekend with my pops when I was six. I cried as she drove away, begging her to come back. My ma knew it was the last place I wanted to be, but she had plans. It’s not that I hated my father, but he was stern. He had a view of what men should be, and even though I was six, he held me to it. My mother promised me that she would come back and get me on Sunday night. I remember counting the hours, staring out the window every chance I got. It wasn’t until my father pulled me away from the window I realized the truth.

She didn’t want me anymore. She dropped me there because she knew my father would take care of me so she didn’t have to. Sometimes I still think about her, but I never tried to find her. She was my first heartbreak. The one that hurt the most because she was the one who was supposed to stay and she didn’t.

Then I grew up. I didn’t hate girls, but I had trouble with them. I didn’t want to believe what they said. So when I was in high school, I surprised myself when I fell for a girl on the dance team who was exceptionally bendy. We dated for almost a year and had made plans for the future. We even said the L word to each other. I wasn’t a patched member of the club yet, but she knew I would be. She used to say she liked the bad boy side of me. I made plans to give her a property of cut on my eighteenth birthday. I was all in with her.

Only her version of love was a little different than mine. I found her in bed with the guy next door. The worst part? He was a football player. Complete opposite of me.

While she cried and promised me it was nothing, he told me that they had been sleeping together almost as long as we had been together. For his honesty, all I did was break his jaw and dislocate his shoulder. His parents ended up pressing charges, which led to a stint in juvie.

You would think my father would have been ashamed of me, but he was proud. Even put my mugshot up on the wall at the clubhouse and boasted about me like I won some prestigious award.

Life is fucked, and women can’t be trusted. That’s what I learned.

Now I only use women for what they are good for. Down on their knees, sucking my cock or bent over while I plow them from behind. They know the score.

“You okay, brother?” Smoke asks from next to me.

“Of course. I think I’m going to go find a warm hole for the night,” I tell him as I stand.

Kelly giggles. “I can’t help it,” she says when I look at her. “You are so polite to me, so when you say shit like that, it makes me laugh.”

I shrug. “You’re my best friend’s woman. I would never disrespect you in that way, Kels. These other women, though? Snakes. All of them. Might as well use what they are offering before I get rid of them.”

She shakes her head, laughing as I wink at her.

Walking off, I let the smile fall.

Kelly might break Smoke’s heart, but that’s his battle to wage.

As for me, I’ll never let a woman in again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, well, that’s on me, and I’ll never be a fool again.