2.
Dahlia
I was drunk.
“Drunk as a skunk!” I slurred with a giggle. “That’s what you would have said, right, Alex?”
I staggered through the kitchen, my hand gripping the worktop as I stumbled over bowls and broken dishes on the floor. From somewhere in my subconscious, I was aware that I was bleeding. My hands and my feet felt hot and sticky with it, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t feel it right now.
I wasn’t sure how much I had drunk, but I hadn’t puked or passed out, so I reckoned I still had my sense about me enough that I could drive. Standing up I went to the small cupboard under the stairs and pulled out Alex’s leather jacket before sliding it on. It was far too big and far too heavy and yet I felt so much comfort wearing it that I didn’t care. I needed to feel that he was with me. His arms around me. And I got just that as the smell of his aftershave and the leather from the jacket washed over me. I breathed it in deeply. Loving it and hating it. Despising that I needed it right now. Grabbing the keys from the dish by the door, I staggered outside to Alex’s big black truck, leaving bloody footprints in my wake.
I had forgotten my shoes, but it seemed irrelevant right now.
Night had fallen and the stars were out, glinting peacefully in the jet-black sky. It was what I had moved here for—the sky and the stars—and I stopped now to stare up at it, wondering, drunkenly, if Alex was up there watching me.
The city had been big and loud, and I loved the anonymity of it, but I hated not being able to see the sky. I had never felt grounded without being able to see the stars at night. I had gone to college believing that I wanted the big city life, but I had come home knowing that it wasn’t for me.
I giggled then, giving the sky my middle finger, because if Alex was up there then that was all he deserved. My middle finger and a giant fuck you. He would be laughing at that, no doubt. I wasn’t one to curse or drink—he did that for the two of us.
“Fuck you!” I yelled, head tilted back, eyes wide open, hoping to see one of the stars blinking at me in response. “Fuck you for dying!”
The curtains on several houses twitched and I laughed some more and gave them the middle finger too before climbing into the truck. It was big and it took me a while to adjust the seat and mirrors before I reversed off our driveway and headed away from our house.
I had never driven to the clubhouse before. I had always refused to go inside; on the rare occasion when I was with him and he had to go, I had always stayed outside in the truck. And Alex had always driven us—either in the truck or on his bike. Though no one would ever be riding his bike again. It was in pieces, from what the police had said. How could it not be? It had hit a tree on a tight bend at eighty miles per hour while being driven off the road by one of their enemy clubs. Every bone in his body broken. A closed casket, no doubt.
I would never see his beautiful face again.
He had no children. No living blood to pass on his DNA to. He was gone for good, only ever living in our memories now.
The journey to the club was quick, despite every touch of the pedals on my injured feet hurting, and I pulled into the clubhouse grounds in less than five minutes. Or at least that’s what it seemed like. I stared at the large, squat wooden building, the Kings’ skull logo hanging outside, lights blazing from every window, music blasting from inside, and I waited. I wanted to be calm when I walked in there. I needed to be calm. I desperately wanted to speak to JD alone, in his office, and if I was drunk and obnoxious I already knew they wouldn’t let me near him.
Two prospects sat outside smoking, oblivious to the lives this club ruined. Uncaring that their lives would be ruined by it one day too. They must have eventually recognized Alex’s truck because they nudged one another and one of them went inside.
Taking a calming breath, I finally turned off the engine and slipped the gun into the waistband of my tight jeans before climbing out of the truck, and then I staggered slowly toward the door.
“Is JD in?” I asked, trying to stop my slurring.
“He’s busy. Go home,” the prospect drolled, a lit cigarette between his fingers.
I looked at his patch and laughed. “Listen, Asshole 2, I need to speak to JD, now, and I won’t take no for an answer.”
He was short but he was built like a bear—broad shoulders, thick thighs. He could do with skipping leg day at the gym. He took a step forward, jabbing a thick finger in my direction.
“Go home, bitch. Club’s dealing with some stuff and we don’t need no crazy in here right now.”
He obviously didn’t know who I was. Most of the men there didn’t. I never came around for family barbeques. I never turned up to the club nights. I had never wanted any part of the club life, and I had made that clear to Alex from the day we started dating, hopeful that one day he would see sense and leave.
I had no friends there; if anything I only had enemies because I had tried to make it as awkward as possible for Alex to spend any sort of time there, which for a VP I knew had been tough on him.
The club hated me just as much as I hated them.
The other prospect came back out, the music going louder momentarily as the door swung open and closed behind him. He leaned in to speak to Asshole 2, saying something too quiet for me to hear.
They both looked at me, their expressions remaining neutral, and yet I saw the pity in their eyes.
“I didn’t know,” Asshole 2 said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
The second prospect—Asshole 3, from the patch on his cut—tried to look contrite, but it was hard to look sincere with the way his face pulled to one side from the long scar along his jawline.
“Prez will see you. Follow me,” Asshole 2 said, gesturing for me to follow him inside. He smiled, a gold tooth glinting at the front of his mouth making him looking almost scary. And maybe under different circumstances he was. But right then I didn’t feel any fear. Maybe that was the beer, or maybe it was just my grief and anger controlling me. I didn’t know and I didn’t care.
I didn’t bother to reply; instead I silently followed him inside. I swallowed, feeling the heat of the gun against my lower back as I walked. I wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol that was making me feel dizzy or the thought of what I was about to do. Yet either way, I knew I wasn’t going to back down. I had made my choice, just as Alex had made his.
Inside, the air was warm but not uncomfortable. The heat from people was more stifling than the summer heat that the A/C chilled. I knew all about the clubhouse and yet I had never been inside. It was infamous for its parties. For its women and beer and drugs. For the barbeques and family days. Yet it was just as much a strip club and a whore house as it was a family day out—it all just depended upon which day you turned up. I had never been inside though. I had never seen it with my own eyes, always preferring to stay as far away from the place as I could get. Preferring to try to keep Alex away from it, despite it being almost impossible to do so.
The club was more modern than I had expected, though, especially given its rickety, dirty appearance from the outside. It looked more like a cow barn from the outside, and I had expected it to look as such when I went inside. Yet I felt strangely taken aback, because it was relatively clean looking instead of dirty. The stench of beer and weed hung heavy in the air and there were worn-looking sofas scattered about, with large TVs playing in one corner and an old stereo in another, but the walls were painted in fresh paint, framed prints were hung on the walls, and there were a couple of rugs by some of the sofas. A long bar sat along one side, with an array of glass bottles filled with various different drinks hung behind it.
Several men turned to look at me as the prospect walked me across the room. Some I vaguely recognized from when they had been to the house, but others I had no idea who they were. They sat slumped on sofas with scantily clad women across their laps, while others nursed amber liquids at the bar. No one seemed happy, though, despite the music in the background. Somber gazes met mine briefly before moving to my bare and bloody feet and the trail of footsteps I was leaving behind, before turning back to their drinks.
No one saw me as a threat.
We passed down a long hallway with several doors on either side, and at the end of the hallway it split both left and right. We went left, coming to a stop in front of a large, carved wooden door painted a deep mahogany. The club logo was carved into the center, surrounded by depictions from the Bible. The devil crawling up from earth, fallen angels falling from the sky, their wings stretched wide either side of them. My eyes roamed the images, searching for something, though I didn’t know what. It was horrific and yet strangely beautiful too.
The prospect knocked twice on the door and a deep voice called ‘come in’ from the other side. He pushed on the door, and we went inside.
The room beyond was different from the main clubhouse. The feel was off somehow. The mood deeper. It was a large enough room to hold a rectangle table that could comfortably seat twenty men, and empty chairs sat around it showing just that. The lights were dim, small lamps lit at various points in the room giving it a soft amber glow. Overfilled ashtrays sat at various points on the long table, and empty glasses were scattered about. There was a scent of leather and smoke and hard liquor in the air—a scent I knew far too well—and for a moment I couldn’t breathe. The scent was too familiar, almost warming to my soul. It smelled like my Alex when he would come back from a club meeting half drunk and stressed out, unable to tell me the things that they discussed. His heavy leather jacket hung off my shoulders, and the weight of it and the feel of the worn leather made it seem like he was there with me. That he had his arms wrapped around me and was holding me close. If I closed my eyes I would be able to feel his lips against the side of my neck. Feel his kisses against my throat, whispering that he wanted me tonight. That he needed me—my body—to comfort him after a long, hard day.
But it was all a mirage.
None of that was real, because he wasn’t there—not anymore. Instead, he was in the Rocky Pines morgue, his body torn apart, embedded with tree and bike in equal combinations. Killed doing the thing he loved the most, on his way back home to me, the person he loved the most.
The grief almost overcame me again, a tidal wave of sadness and anger that threatened to tear me apart and send me to the same place Alex was.
I swallowed it back down, trying not to show my nerves or my resentment.
My eyes moved around the room, finally looking to the top end of the room where the man I hated more than anything else in the world sat. He sat, his long, dark hair hanging limply to his shoulders, his eyes finding mine in the dim light of the room. His expression was impassive, and that made me hate him all the more. I wanted to see him crying, begging for my forgiveness for getting Alex killed, for not letting him go. I wanted to see something, anything, in his cold gray eyes, but he looked empty.
“Dahlia,” he said, the deep rumble of his voice reaching me with little effort.
“JD,” I replied.
I tried to keep the emotion out of my voice, my expression as neutral as his, but even I heard the tremble as his name slipped out. We stared at one another, a silent battle stretching through the air between us. I reached behind me, my slender hand on the heavy gun at the base of my spine. My fingers wrapped around the handle.
This club and these men all deserved to know what real loss was.
And this man, he deserved to pay the price for my pain.
JD was the president of the Kings of Anarchy, and he was the man I had come to kill.