3.
Dahlia
“T ake a seat,” he said, his hands moving to the cigarette pack in front of him. He pulled out a cigarette and put it to his lips before lighting it, blowing out a long trail of smoke. He waited patiently for me to do as I was told, but when I didn’t move, he chuckled. It was a low deep sound that made the hair on the back of my neck tingle with fear.
I had forgotten all about the prospect behind me until I felt a heavy hand gently push me forward toward a chair.
“Drink?” JD asked, though the prospect, Asshole 2, was already sliding a glass of amber in front of me.
I picked it up immediately and threw it to the back of my throat. It burned my tongue and clung to my gums and teeth, and I swallowed, feeling the fire burn its way down into my empty belly to mix with the rest of the alcohol.
JD glanced at the prospect and nodded almost imperceptibly, and I put the glass back down on the table, never taking my eyes from JD, as the prospect refilled it for me.
“Needing a little Dutch courage there, darlin’?” JD finally asked. He blew out another mouthful of smoke, flicking the ash into the glass ashtray in front of him. “I don’t blame you. Killing a man ain’t no joke. It takes guts. It takes balls of steel. It takes a real sense of grit and determination. But mostly it means that you don’t have any value for your own life anymore. Because, you see, the only way for you to come out of the situation you’ve got yourself in is by coming out in a body bag, or bein’ buried beneath the soil out back.”
He took a long drag on his cigarette, watching me casually the whole time. My hands were in my lap, away from the trigger of the gun at my back, but I could feel it there as a security. Though I knew I wouldn’t be able to pull it out and fire it before the prospect behind me shot me.
“So, which one is it, Dahlia? You got balls of steel, or you just don’t value your life?” JD asked, his thick droll tone putting me on edge.
“Neither,” I finally replied.
I picked up the glass of liquor and took a sip, tasting the alcohol this time.
JD chuckled, his laughter almost like a rattlesnake warning. “That’s a good answer. A fine-ass answer if ever I heard one.” He coughed and stubbed out his cigarette before picking up his own drink and taking a long drink of it. He winced and put his glass down, his tongue darting out to lick his full lips.
“So what can I do for you then, sweet Dahlia?”
I felt the air behind me move and JD’s gaze flicked to the prospect. I waited to feel the pinch of death before my life was taken from me. Hoping it would be black beyond this world because I didn’t want to see or feel anything else ever again. I wanted my death to be nothing, just like my life had been.
“He’s gone,” I said, the words coming out choked and full of misery. I felt the tremble of my chin. Felt my shoulders stiffen and my body tense. I wanted to hold the gun in my hand. I wanted to point it at JD. I wanted him to feel fear. I wanted him to know my loss and my pain.
“That he is,” JD replied.
“You took him from me,” I countered, my chin lifting so I could look him in the eye.
JD was a terrifying man. Partly because he never lost his temper, so his actions could not be predicted. But I had also heard the things that Alex had told me over the years. The things JD had done to other people. He didn’t care if they were men or women. He didn’t care if they were children. He extinguished all threats to his club with a swift snap of his fingers.
JD tutted. “Did I?”
“Yes. You took him from me. Why couldn’t you just let him go? Why couldn’t you just let him leave with me?”
Memories from years earlier where I had once begged JD to kick Alex out of the club so that we could truly be together flashed before my eyes. It had been stupid and reckless, but JD had heard me out before giving me a one-word response and walking away.
“Did he want to leave?” he asked.
I blinked back tears.
“He could leave whenever he wanted to, darlin’, but as far as I was aware—as far as any of us were aware, he was happy as a pig in shit being a King.” JD pushed back from the table and stood up.
He moved to the window, looking out at the darkened world beyond the glass. His body was shrouded in shadow and his large frame filled the space. I watched his shoulders rise and fall as he took a deep breath.
“No, he was happy with us. He loved you more than I ever understood why, but we were his family. I think you know that. I think that’s what kills you. What’s eatin’ you up inside, ain’t that right?”
His back was still to me, and I wondered if I would have the chance now to get my gun and shoot him in the back. I had wanted him to see me shoot him, to see me end his life, but this would be okay too. This would suffice.
I began to slide my hand around to my back when the prospect cleared his throat. I couldn’t decipher if the sound was a warning or a threat, but my hand stopped moving of its own accord.
“You and him never had a family, and that ain’t your fault. No one blames you—he certainly didn’t. Think he might have even blamed himself for that one. But you can’t blame a man for making a family elsewhere,” JD continued. Each word felt painful. Like a tiny slice to my flesh. To my arms and legs, my chest and back. Hundreds and hundreds of tiny, painful stabs to my body. I was bleeding out, my pain oozing around my feet in a puddle. I knew I would never survive this. His words were too close to the bone. Too real and true.
We didn’t know why we hadn’t had kids, why the magic of life hadn’t happened for us no matter how hard we tried, and it had hit us both hard. Harder, I realized, than I had known at the time. Until eventually we had just stopped trying. We had fucked and we had made love, but we had stopped doing it with any intention for a baby and instead done it for the pure release. To remove the tension from our bodies. For the endorphins and the dopamine hits.
“You’ll be compensated for your loss. The club looks after its own. And,” JD turned to face me, his cold gaze colliding with mine, “like it or not, you are one of ours. And trust me when I say I’m about as happy about it as you are.”
I shook my head, the movement completely involuntary but automatic. “I’m not yours. And I’m not the clubs.”
JD smiled picked up his glass from the table. He took a long drink, finishing what was left in the glass in one swallow before putting it back down on the table.
“I don’t want your blood money,” I continued. I pushed up from the table and felt a hand come down hard on my shoulder, pushing me back down to sitting. I glanced over my shoulder at the prospect, wondering why he was there and not one of JD’s other men—someone more important, like an enforcer.
I knew who the enforcer for the Kings was—it was Moose. A man known for being too large to pass through normal doorways. Alex had told me stories of some of the Kings. Not of the things they had done, but times they had shared. Times when he had gone to the family barbeques and I hadn’t. I think he had been trying to convince me to go, but it did the opposite.
JD sighed and reached for a bottle of something from a shelf beside him. He unscrewed the lid and swallowed deeply from the bottle.
“Rocky set things up for you. Things are in place already, whether you like it or not. I’ll get it arranged in the next couple of days, and I’ll be in touch.” He sat back down in his chair, the bottle still in his hand, his casual droll still heavy and present.
I started to stand and this time no one stopped me. “I don’t want your fucking blood money. I don’t want anything from you or your club.” I spat the words out angrily, tears threatening to spill.
JD shrugged. “I don’t give a fuck what you want, Dahlia. All I care about is what my brother wanted, and he wanted you taken care of, so that’s what’s happening.”
Rage was filling my veins, and I could feel my breaths coming in and out faster and faster. “Fuck you.”
JD chuckled. “All right.”
“Fuck you,” I screamed, the explosion of sound coming out so suddenly that I scared myself. “Fuck you and fuck this club and fuck you,” I said, swinging around to the prospect behind me. I reached for my gun and pulled it out. No one stopped me. No one even tried to.
My hand shook with the weight of the weapon. Not just the physical weight but the mental weight. The fact that I was holding something that could take life. That likely had taken life. Alex had never shied away from violence—it was why he loved this life so much. And equally, it was why we fought so much.
JD sat in his chair looking calm and collected, his bottle of whiskey in his hand. The amber liquid sloshed from side to side as he spun the bottle gently. The prospect’s eyes were wide, and his hand was on his hip where his own gun was. But no one moved.
“I hate all of you,” I sobbed.
JD nodded his acceptance, a look of understanding on his face. I should have felt some satisfaction that he felt some responsibility for what had happened, that he was accepting my hatred, but all it did was make me angrier.
“You took him from me. You should have let him go, but you kept him. You and all these men kept him and now he’s dead. Now he’s gone and he’s not coming back, and I have nothing.” The tears escaped, hot flurries of them pouring from me as I held the gun shakily.
JD sat slumped in his chair and casually swigged from the bottle. I despised him. Loathed every inch of his flesh and bone. I aimed the gun at him, and he didn’t flinch.
“You’ll be taken care of. Rocky made sure of it,” he said like he wasn’t listening to anything I was saying. “You should go home now, before you get hurt.”
I scowled and sniffled, even more irritated. “I have a gun.”
He smiled almost sadly. “That you do.”
“I have a gun, and I could kill you in seconds.”
“And I have a clubhouse full of men ready to send you to ground with a single nod of my head.”
“I could kill you right now and if they killed me afterwards, I wouldn’t care because at least you would be dead.”
He sighed and sat up straighter. “You wanna kill me, go ahead. I’m right here, Dahlia. But my guess is that you can’t shoot for shit. You’ll miss and then my prospect will put a hole in the back of your head before you’ve even realized that you’ve missed. Then you will be dead, Rocky will be dead, and everything he left for you will go to some moose sanctuary or some shit, because he didn’t have any family.”
I swallowed, knowing that what he was saying was true. I had fired a gun a few times with Alex, but my aim was always bad. But maybe if I squeezed off all the rounds at once I would get him and kill him.
“So what’s it gonna be?” JD asked, swigging from the bottle again. “I ain’t got all night. I’m mourning him too, and you’re beginning to piss these men off.”
His words hit me like a punch to the chest. He was mourning Rocky, they all were. Alex—Rocky—had been JD’s right-hand man, the club VP, and their confidant. Their friend, their family…but he had been my husband, my world.
I squeezed the trigger, hoping my aim wasn’t as bad as JD thought it was.
I hated this club and everything it stood for, and I hoped they all rotted in hell.