4. Butch
CHAPTER FOUR
BUTCH
I t’s been a week since I extended my offer to Candy to use my space as her own. She has yet to accept my invitation, meaning I’m still at stage one of claiming my wild woman.
As frustrated as I am with the lack of acceptance on Candy’s part, it’s not unexpected. I didn’t woo her with romantic poems or lavish gifts, like a lovesick simp. I literally stalked her into her secret hiding space, submitted on my knees, and vowed to give her vengeance on her enemies.
Most women would run away screaming if a man came swooping into their private bubble, confessed to spying on them, and offered to off someone on their behalf. Totally acceptable response.
When Candy reacted with intrigue instead of fright, my spirit soared. I assumed I went up a rung on the ladder to her heart.
No such luck. But she didn’t run, meaning there’s hope. And it’s that hope I’m hanging on to for dear life.
However, like a creeper, I continue to track Candy’s movements throughout headquarters on one of my monitors at my workstation in the tech cave where I work alongside my best friend and fellow MC brother, Ziggy.
Chase—head of intelligence for Mercy Ravens Security and third-in-command in our MC—sits across from us. No doubt Chase is monitoring Simone—the club president’s sister-in-law, who owns his balls. It makes me feel less like a sick bastard, knowing my fellow brother is as infatuated with his woman as I am with mine.
Is it wrong to follow Candy on the security cameras scattered throughout the MC headquarters?
Yes.
Do I give a shit?
Abso-fucking-lutely not.
When I don’t have eyes on her, I grow restless. My insides become jittery when she’s not in my sights, panic slowly filling my blood stream. I’ve tried to limit how much I watch her, tried to go cold turkey, too. Like a junkie, my pulse races and palms sweat as my fingers creep toward my computer, eager to locate her. And like so many addicts, I cave, scrambling to find her and not relaxing until I see her cross the screen on the camera feeds.
There’s no use hiding my need for her. I no longer attempt to cover my monitor or close out the screen when others walk by my workspace. All my brothers know I’ve staked a silent claim on the pink-haired beauty. Hiding my attraction for her feels…wrong, like I’m ashamed for wanting her when I feel anything but shame for my strong woman.
Besides, Candy is aware I watch her on the other end of the camera. Dare I say she seemed pleased I was monitoring her with how well she took the news and her smile fighting the corners of her pretty petal lips?
Continuing to hide my—for lack of a better word, obsession—seems pointless when the woman who’s grabbed my attention knows it. Therefore, I won’t.
My eyes hungrily focus on Candy as she approaches the door to my suite. This isn’t anything new. Since the day I grew a pair and followed her into the storage closet beneath the back stairwell, I’ve often spotted her approach my room, only to speedwalk past it and retreat to the closet on the ground level .
Today is different.
Candy slows her pace, stopping in front of my room. She eyes the door to my private domain, teetering on her heels.
With her tiny white teeth worrying her bottom lip, Candy reaches a tentative hand out to the knob…
YAAASSS!
Like a racehorse, my heartbeat accelerates into a sprint. The pulse in my ears drowns out the loud hum of our heavy computer equipment in the room, growing louder with each second. I lean closer to my monitor, unable to believe what I’m seeing.
Watching Candy take my offer to use my space for privacy has me gripping the armrests of my chair, digging into the tough leather on the padded cushions.
Her dainty hand closes around the knob, and I nearly groan with anticipation. She’s close.
As if she can sense me watching her from the camera in the hallway’s corner, her eyes dart towards the lens.
“Go inside,” I beg.
There’s movement at my side, but I ignore whoever is lingering near me. I’m too engrossed, watching the woman of my dreams taking the first step in trusting me.
Candy holds my stare through the camera, her big brown eyes swallowing me whole. She has the kind of gaze that could crack through my breastbone and cradle my heart in her hands.
She looks back at my door before looking back at the camera.
I nod at the monitor like she can see me, encouraging her to trust me enough to use my space as her new sanctuary.
Candy’s thin brows pull together, her face morphing into a sad pout. Her hand drops away from the knob at the same time her face drops from my view. She walks away quickly, like her ass is on fire.
“Fuck,” I spit through my teeth, throwing my pen across my desk out of frustration.
She was so damn close this time .
Defeated, my head falls back against the headrest of my computer chair as I grumble my curses.
“That was anticlimactic,” Ziggy surmises beside me.
Turning to face my best friend, I glower at him. “Do you mind?”
Ziggy chuckles, pushing his wavy blond hair out of his eyes. “Not at all. You made Candy Cam my new favorite show. I was ready to bet money she was going to go inside this time.”
Me, too.
With a tired sigh, I return to my actual work, checking in on all our MC brothers assigned to intel cases. It’s one of the easier parts of my job, making sure all team members are safe and accounted for. I’m able to complete the task quickly before focusing on my other obsession—finding the men who hurt Candy.
Luca Amato—aka Lucky Luca—can’t be far. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is hunting his ass after he and his mob boss—Lorenzo Bianchi—attempted to abduct the Prez’s wife, along with her mother and sister. I already put out my local feelers. It’s a matter of time before he’s caught.
The other two will be harder to find, yet not impossible. My focus is on trying to find the thug Candy called Cú Sidhe. If he was the ringleader of the assaults on Candy, the other is likely circling in his orbit, if not attached to his hip.
Deep dives into the dark web are not my forte. That’s Chase’s specialty. I would ask him to help me, but he has enough on his plate helping Atlas track the man who murdered his parents. Ziggy helps where he can, though most of this investigation is a solo project for me, on top of my regular work and MC duties.
Candy deserves justice, and I pledged to deliver it to her.
Unfortunately, there’s not much to go on other than the names, meaning I have my work cut out for me.
Mistaking my heavy sigh as dejection—which, I guess, I’m kind of glum—Ziggy says, “Give her time, bro. She’s been through some shit. Trust isn’t easy for her.”
Frowning, I glance across my desk to see if Chase is paying attention to us. This isn’t the time or place to have a heart-to-heart. Not that Chase would judge me for my feelings toward Candy—he’s not a jerk. I’m an extremely private person who prefers to keep the intimate parts of myself to myself.
Chase has taken a private call on his cell, too engrossed in his conversation to listen to us.
“I know,” I murmur, typing away on my keyboard. “It’s...” I don’t see Ziggy looking at me, but I can feel it.
“What?” he probes.
It’s just that I don’t want her to reject me like all the others.
Unwilling to share my fear, even with my best friend, I shake my head and continue to work. “Never mind.”
Few understand rejection to the slicing level as me. I was what you’d call an unplanned pregnancy in a child-free relationship. My parents screwed around and found out what happens when you don’t wrap it up.
Out of moral obligation, my parents decided against terminating the pregnancy. And what I assume was fear of being persecuted by their friends and acquaintances was motivation to keep me.
Though as soon as my umbilical cord was cut, my parents handed me over to the care of a nanny while they went about their lives like mine never existed.
Like most neglected children, I spent my childhood years craving my parents’ attention, only to be rebuffed as soon as I came into their perimeter. Excellent grades, sport victories, and praise from members in the community weren’t enough to sway their attention toward me. Showering them with hand-drawn pictures or homemade gifts was tossed out as soon as I’d hand them over. Their indifference cut as deeply as any harsh word could.
When being good didn’t earn my parents’ affections, I acted out. Little things, like shouting at them to notice me or interrupting their dinner parties when I was supposed to stay out of sight. It got their attention alright. In my adolescent head, bad attention was better than no attention. Yet, it was never lasting .
On my fourteenth birthday, I pleaded with my parents to spend the day with me—just once. I wanted the experience of being in a loving family, if only for a fleeting moment. My mother rolled her hazel eyes—the same hazel eyes she passed down to me—before asking my father to book them dinner in the city for the two of them.
After countless rejections, this was the last painful nail hammered into the coffin, killing all my hopes for any meaningful relationship with my parents. Like a rubber band pulled too taut, I snapped. I grabbed the nearest thing—a fire poker—and went about smashing everything of material value in my sight. My parents screamed for me to stop. But I didn’t stop swinging until my arms grew heavy and the poker slipped from my grasp, collapsing in the debris I left in my wake.
My last act of rebellion got my ass shipped from a penthouse in New York City to a boarding school dormitory in West Virginia. Calling it a school was a stretch—it was more of a commune for parents to send their poorly behaved teens to be rehabilitated into “fine” young men. Beatings and starvation tactics to control the students were common practice, anything to make you comply with their strict rules. I learned early in my stay to keep my mouth shut, biding my time until I could leave the hell my parents imprisoned me in.
By the time I turned eighteen, I was a hardened young man, and silence was my companion. With my parents’ legal obligation to me complete, I was served papers from their attorney, stating I wasn’t welcomed back to my family’s home and to stay a minimum of five hundred feet away from them, or they would press harassment charges.
What a fucking joke. Like I would go back to them after they threw me away.
Instead, I enlisted in the navy. It seemed like a good fit when I was already excellent at taking orders and keeping my opinions to myself—it helped me excel and rise in the ranks. Within a few short years, I completed my training and was a SEAL under Captain Maceo “Atlas” Tabares’s command.
Becoming a SEAL was the best goddamn thing I ever did for myself. It got me an education in information technology and data security, and it’s where I met the men I now call my brothers. When Atlas retired from the navy, the rest of us followed and joined the Mercy Ravens MC, working as mercenaries and protection detail for the club’s security company. My IT background made me a perfect fit for the tech protection division of our club.
I have no complaints about the choices I’ve made for myself since walking away from boarding school. I have a secure job, filling my bank account. The SEAL in me still gets to play hero when we go on mercenary assignments. And my brothers have given me a family of choice, one I don’t take for granted.
Still, I crave more—to mean everything to someone else.
And that someone is a pink-haired bombshell with an exterior as hard as mine.
I can only hope Candy won’t reject me like others in my life have when I ask for something deeper. It’s my fear of my hope being crushed that halts me.
“What’s holding you back, Butch? Is it your neck? Your voice?” Ziggy presses, ignoring my earlier cue to drop it.
Annoyed he’d pointed out a source of contention for me, I grit my teeth. “No. My scar and voice aren’t an issue with Candy. She doesn’t seem to mind it.”
Our conversation from the closet pops into my mind. She says my voice wasn’t “monstrous.” At least it’s not to her, something I didn’t realize I needed to hear from her until she said it. With her experience with hideous men, I didn’t want my voice to scare her like it does with many others. I didn’t want my voice to be grouped with anyone she feared, and I was relieved to learn it didn’t frighten her.
Ziggy nods approvingly. “Good. Chicks should dig a scarred war vet with a raspy voice. It’s hot.”
Typical Ziggy, always trying to make vodka out of potatoes to make me feel better. Unfortunately for my friend, I’m not in the playful mood.
“Don’t you have a man to bother instead of me?”
Ziggy’s cocky smile stretches from ear to ear. “And not help my bestie? I mean, yeah, I do. But Jared’s busy working over at Prez’s house. Lucky you get to have me all to yourself today.”
“Lucky me? You’re a pain in my ass,” I grumble, attempting to ignore him again.
Ziggy isn’t having it. He rolls his chair next to mine, inserting himself into my space like he always does when it comes to my nonexistent love life. He plops his elbow on my desk, resting his chin on his knuckles, with a dreamy look in his eyes. It’s an odd look on most bikers, but not Ziggy. The man is whimsical—a whimsically muscled biker in well-worn leather and ripped denim.
“Jared is everything. And he’s all mine.”
Cue internal groan.
“Thank God Atlas hired Jo and her team to build headquarters, or I might not have met her general contractor. You should try the relationship route, Butch. It’s better than the occasional hookup.”
And now I’m more agitated.
It’s hard listening to your friend tell you how happy they are with their partner when you’re still yearning to get the one you want to be yours.
Rolling my eyes, I try to concentrate on my computer screens. “Rub it in, why don’t you, dickhead.”
“Sure thing, asshole. I’ll add some salt to your sour mood and make a margarita, too,” he claps back, not missing a beat. “You sure as shit could use a drink to relax.”
If Ziggy wasn’t my best friend, I would yeet him across the room for disrespecting me. Lucky for him, I tolerate his rude ass. That’s what club brothers do.
It’s always been this way between us, squabbling like brothers. Back in the navy, when we were going through SEAL training, we connected right away. Ziggy was outgoing and friendly, where I was quiet and reserved. Perhaps we were bunked together because we balanced each other out. Whatever the reason, I’m grateful we got paired together.
When Ziggy retired from the navy, I was right behind him. Missions weren’t the same without my partner in crime, and dealing with the red tape preventing me from helping all who needed it wore on my psyche. Ziggy joined Atlas—our former Navy SEAL captain—and his mercenary biker crew. He didn’t need to twist my arm to convince me to patch into the Mercy Ravens MC brotherhood.
Working recon, intel, security, and mercenary missions while making bank? Sign me up.
But it’s moments like this, where my best friend chips away at my cool exterior to get to the root of my insecurity issues, that make me question all my life choices.
“Stop torturing yourself, and go get your woman already.”
“I won’t behave like a Neanderthal and manhandle a woman who has a past with abuse, Zig,” I chide, with a huff. “Besides, that’s not my style.”
“And stalking the woman you want through the cameras is?”
“Dude, will you get off my nuts already? I’ve talked to her?—”
“After a year of pining for her silently,” Ziggy mutters cuttingly.
“She wasn’t ready for what I’m offering,” I argue in a steely whisper.
“What? A submissive man?”
It takes all my strength not to slap my hand over Ziggy’s mouth. Out of fear of drawing Chase’s attention away, I keep my hand to myself. “Keep it down, asshole.”
Ziggy rolls his eyes. “You can’t still be hung up on the guys finding out your sexual preferences, are you?”
“What I prefer in the bedroom is my business, Zig.”
As much as I love my MC brothers, I’m not sure how they’ll receive the news. I can handle ribbing. But let’s face it. Guys can be dicks, especially with sexual topics they have no clue about.
Submitting to a woman is not something they’ll be able to grasp without a lot of intrusive questioning. If, by some miracle, Candy becomes my old lady, I don’t want her on the receiving end of their jokes or questions. She’s dealt with enough bullshit from men—she doesn’t need the crew falling into the same category as those pricks who abused and shamed her.
Nu-uh. Not on my watch.
As if he can read my mind, Ziggy says, “The crew won’t give a shit if you like being tied down and spanked, Butch. I’m a gay biker, playing house with Jared, and no one says shit to me. They don’t care as long as you’re happy. This isn’t like how it was when we served as SEALs. This is our family. And we accept our family as is.”
“Zig, I swear to hell below, if you don’t lower your voice?—”
“You’ll what? Make me? Better get the order from Candy first,” he taunts.
While I’m imagining strangling Ziggy’s neck, I nearly jump out of my seat when a hand slaps down on my desk. My eyes widen, seeing Chase stand over me.
His smile is feral, showing all this pearly whites and lip ring. “Suit up. We’re going hunting.”
I feel my own lips pull across my face into a tight grin.
Chase and I may work intel together, but we aren’t mission partners. Like Ziggy and I are a duo, Chase and Punk—head of security in the MC—are a similar duo.
The two of us teaming up can only mean one thing.
We found Lucky Luca.
Chase has his reasons to end the fucker as much as I do. He’s gunning for Simone, and she had a rough encounter with Luca once, just not to the same degree as my sweet Candy.
In fact, Chase must have been on the phone with a tipster. It explains why Chase was too immersed in the conversation to pay any mind to my and Ziggy’s conversation.
My guess is, it’s someone from the Hell’s Horsemen MC out in Pueblo, Colorado, wanting to claim the ten-thousand-dollar bounty I put out on the former mafia prick. I have the cash—one perk of working as a mercenary. Dropping a cool ten grand means nothing to me if it gets results. And money has a way of getting those results fast.
I check my text messages as I leave the souped-up intel cave, heading downstairs to our locker room to get geared up for the mission. Sure enough, there’s a new message from Hawk—the Hell’s Horsemen enforcer.
Pay up.
With a smirk on my face, I transfer the money through an overseas account to Hawk. Best investment I ever made, especially when I know the private bank can never trace the funds back to me or this club. I may not be the hacker Chase is, but I’ve certainly picked up a few tricks from silently observing him.
Eager to get my hands on Luca, I hurry to the basement, whistling Blondie’s One Way or Another .