Chapter 36
Speeding down the highway, I grip the handlebars harder. Camryn’s taste is still in my mouth, on my tongue. Her wet, shredded panties are still in my pocket. It all lingers, taunting me. I hurt her. The accusation in her eyes gutted me.
My heart isn’t completely black because I feel some shame and guilt over what I said, but I did what I had to do.
I can’t have Camryn close to me. I can’t risk her.
Two souls are already on my conscience, and as much as Camryn makes me feel more than I have in a long time, I have no business tainting her, corrupting her with the parts of me that aren’t fit for humanity, especially a woman with a bright future.
She’s so young and so free to start her life off right.
My baggage is too heavy for her to carry. I’m barely managing under the weight of it all.
So as soon as I heard the slam of her upstairs door, I walked back into the tattoo shop. Onyx was tattooing one of his clients. Fortunately, she wears headphones when she gets inked. Most times, she falls asleep. “Did Jace hear us?”
Onyx paused and looked up at me. There was no judgment in his eyes. “The music was turned up. He didn’t head to your office. I told him I didn’t know where you were or where his sister was.”
He lied for me, and it is one more mark against me. “Fuck.”
Onyx looked back down at his work and didn’t say another word to me. It was his way. So I left before I went back upstairs and begged for her forgiveness. The last woman I begged to forgive me was dead, murdered for the same reason: her association with me.
I went back to my office, my chair. The seat was still wet.
Another glaring reminder. When I spotted her discarded panties on the floor, I picked them up, bringing them to my face.
It reminded me of the first time I met her and saw her panties hanging in the shower at her brother’s house, and now another pair of her panties are in my hand.
But these mean more. These are mine, cut from her body with my knife.
With them gripped tightly in my hands, I got on my bike, the need to blow off some steam was strong.
I could have gone to my cabin, but Iv’s ghost is always there and I don’t need more reminders tonight.
Chaotic thoughts crowd my mind as I cruise down the highway.
Maybe I just need to fuck her right out of my mind and erase the taste of her on my tongue.
She was so responsive, so fucking hungry for what I offered her.
Her cries still ring in my ears. I’ve never enjoyed eating pussy more than I did with her.
Pulling into the long driveway, shrouded by trees, heart-thumping music reaches me.
Before I get closer, two Lords come out, eyeing me up and down.
Both of their faces are expressionless, but I slow down and brake, bracing with my feet.
They approach me, and I feel the hairs on my neck raise at the man I don’t recognize.
I don’t move for my gun, but my knife is close enough to pull out if I need to.
“Stone.”
“Cade.” I nod at the man who was part of our raid last week. He is the son of one of the older members. He just turned 30, but he already looks hard, his eyes dead, knowing.
The second man approaches me, much less friendly. “You have an appointment?”
“Didn’t know I needed one,” I reply easily, pulling out a cigarette. It’s either that or I whip out my knife.
“You do now. Hadrian’s orders.”
I hold in the urge to choke this bastard, cut off his balls, and stuff them down his throat. “Orders?” My lips curl, and I blow the smoke into the air.
“Yes. Hadrian’s orders. He’s in charge, El Búho,” he says with a sneer, and I outright laugh now.
I hoist my leg off the bike and move my kickstand in place, straightening to my full height. I like the fear I see in his eyes as he steps back.
“Let him through,” Cade barks, crossing his arms.
“But—”
“Shut up, Banks.”
“He’s not going to like it.”
“I don’t really give a fuck,” Cade mutters. The man, Banks, walks away and doesn’t challenge him. Cade is even bigger and bulkier than me, and it wouldn’t be fun getting into a tangle with him.
The smaller man walks away, and I hide my grin at the disgust on Cade’s face. He can’t stand Hadrian, and I know it burns him to follow the man’s edicts, but for now, we all have to kowtow to him on some level.
“You sure I can’t put a bullet in his brain?”
“Not until we find El Jefe. But you may have to get in line. I think Riggs wants that honor.”
I kick up the stand, climb aboard, and cruise past Cade. We try to keep our interactions to a minimum. Right now, I need to get to Riggs and get an update.
I parked my bike behind the large clapboard house.
It looks innocent, something straight out of the suburbs, but there’s nothing sweet and innocuous behind closed doors.
I study the lawn littered with trash. Members are sitting around on lawn chairs, drinking, laughing, and smoking.
The energy is jovial considering the backdoor deals that Riggs’s brother is involved in with Los Mestizos and El Jefe.
Ignorance is bliss in their world right now. As long as they get to fuck, fight, smoke, and drink, they are complacent and cooperative.
Only a handful are fully aware, those being the old timers and Hadrian’s inner circle.
No one stops me as I enter, but I feel their eyes.
They know what my cut means. They know I’m one of the originals, and right now I need that reputation to keep them out of my way.
The rage is simmering, like always, but with the unfulfilled arousal pumping through my veins, even I know I’m a hairsbreadth away from erupting, needing to hunt and hurt someone.
The smoke clouds the air when I walk down the hall.
I glance around for Riggs. Women and other members loiter, playing pool, watching something on the huge flat screen TV.
I head to the kitchen and spot Riggs sitting alone at the kitchen table with a bowl of pasta in front of him.
He eats methodically, staring off into space.
I continue toward him, and he raises an eyebrow, chewing.
He sets down his fork and cleans his mouth before leaning back in the chair.
He looks exhausted. The last mission took days, and from his reporting, El Jefe is planning on moving cargo further north.
Seventy-five percent of their merchandise might be transported upriver and along the less patrolled part of the Canadian border.
If that happens, then it will be nearly impossible to rescue the women and children, some as young as four.
I can’t imagine what they will be used for.
Sex services, black market sales of organs, you name it, I can guarantee Los Mestizos have their hands deep.
“What are you doing here?”
I sit down, and he slides his still-full beer bottle. I pick up the beer and take a gulp. Fuck it. I won’t drive back tonight anyway. It’s too dangerous for me to be around her, with only wood and drywall separating us. Without answering him, I ask, “Where’s Hadrian?”
He shrugs, not the least bit interested in his half-brother’s whereabouts. “Probably fucking some newbie or snorting coke up his nose.”
“Jesus.” I shake my head.
He picks up his fork and finishes his food.
He rinses his plate. His mother was a stickler for cleanliness.
Before Riggs’s mother passed away, his father was a great president, not allowing drugs in the clubhouse.
If you wanted to partake, you did it on your own time.
Dean McKnight ran a tight ship. Yeah, the club was involved in illegal activities.
Selling and buying drugs was allowed, stolen weapons, and even prostitution were okay, but those were businesses, and they weren’t part of everyday life in the Legion Lords, and they were not to be brought into the house.
Murder and mayhem were done efficiently without hysterics beyond the walls of the club.
That would have continued until Dean’s first son, Hadrian, came back into his life.
For years, Dean had no idea where his oldest son was.
Hadrian’s mother left with him and raised him in California.
When Hadrian was 20, he returned to New York and saw his father.
He is 7 years older than Riggs, and when Dean lay dying of stomach cancer, his dying wish was for his sons to take over as president and vice president of the club.
So far, Hadrian and Riggs have followed their father’s orders.
As the oldest, Hadrian took over, but that’s where any loyalty to his father ended.
Dean McKnight has no idea that his oldest child is running his once structured motorcycle club into the ground, allowing chaos to fester.
It is his youngest child who is trying to upload the legacy of his father.
No one expected that Hadrian would turn out to be a psychotic addict with a hair-trigger temper.
I would know, since I also have blood lust for torturing, killing, and then skinning rapists and abusers.
But that’s where our similarities end. I would love to teach Hadrian about pain.
He has a penchant for roughing up women without them enjoying it.
I may hate the man on principle, but there’s been bad blood between him and Riggs, deeper than even I know.
“Are we all set for tomorrow?”
Nodding, I sigh into my drink and don’t follow him when he gets up.
Walking out of the kitchen, I make my way deeper into the house.
I find one of the many unoccupied couches in the back living room.
I try to center my thoughts, but a woman appears, and she’s next to me.
I don’t recognize her, but bodies are forever moving in and out of the clubhouse.
“Hi.”
Her sultry greeting makes me turn toward her.
She’s pretty, with heavy makeup and those duck lips that seem to be the latest fashion.
Her box-blonde hair, red lips, and thin eyebrows make her look like one of the actresses from the 1930s movies that my mom and Ivory used to watch late at night.
Before my stepfather. Before everything went to hell.
When she scoots closer, brushing her large breasts on my arm, I don’t feel a goddamn thing.
I could pretend. I could pretend she’s Camryn and sink my cock inside her, but my dick rejects that idea, shriveling at the thought of her hands touching me.
The desire to fuck anyone but my countess is cold, blanketed.
“I’ve heard about you. That you won’t fuck anyone but Denise, but she’s getting up there, too old to give a man like you what he needs. Some of girls say you can fuck all night. Is that true?”
I don’t answer her, so I pick up my beer bottle and sip. The less I talk, the better.
She gets even closer; her overpowering perfume makes my nose twitch.
She must bathe in it. It’s not soft like Camryn’s sweet florals.
Feeling my ire rise again when the image of Camryn crying out my name materializes.
“There’s an empty bedroom on the second floor.
I’ll bet I can do things Denise couldn’t dream of.
” She slides her hand down my thigh, and I grab her wrist. I’ve had enough. “Listen—”
“You bitch! Fucking whore!”
When she’s roughly grabbed up and yanked away from the couch, I sigh, knowing Riggs is going to be pissed when I kill one of the members.
“Who the fuck are you?” The drunk man yells, pointing in my direction, Blondie’s hair in a tight fist. I stare at her. There is terror in her eyes. Dammit. The tremor in her voice has me standing.
“Please, AJ. We were just talking. I promise.”
“You’re lying, Simone! I saw you cupping his cock. Dirty cunt giving it to everyone!” He drags her up and punches her across the face. She drops to the floor with a hard thud. When she lifts her face, her cheek is already swelling, her lower lip bloody. She crawls away crying.
I stare at AJ, assessing him. He’s young, drunk, and high.
I would almost feel pity for what I’m going to do, but I can’t find sympathy as I quietly remove my blade in the dim room.
The black matte surface doesn’t glint the way regular metal does.
I react, too caught up in thinking about Cam, desiring Cam.
Frustration is riding me hard; my body is begging to fuck, but I let my fists be the only part of me that releases.
I lunge at him and slip the blade into his spleen.
He’s too drunk, too slow to dodge my attack.
I hug his sweaty body close, whispering in his ear like a lover.
“Thank you. I’ve enjoyed killing you. Now move.”
He curses, and I cover his mouth with my hand, smothering his voice.
He tries to wrestle away from me, but he’s not strong enough, and my rage is too potent.
I pull him along to the back door. Once outside, I push the knife deeper, and when he slumps forward, I rest him against the side of the building.
He’s bleeding out quickly. I slide my knife from his body and find the bandana I always use to cover my face when I’m riding in my pocket.
I clean my knife and sheath it. From my expertise, AJ has around ten minutes before he completely hemorrhages and bleeds out due to peritonitis.
The leaked contents from his spleen, combined with his other internal bleeding, will lead to a slower demise.
“How the fuck am I going to explain this?”
Sliding my knife back into my sheath, I stand over the body and watch life fade from his eyes. Once he’s dead, I turn back to Riggs waiting behind me, and I shrug. “Don’t explain anything.”
“Fucking hell, Stef. You’re killing me.”
“Since when do you have a conscience about assholes like him?”
“I don’t, but Hadrian already takes exception to you, and now that you’ve killed one of his members…” He trails off and kicks the boot of the man’s still-warm corpse. “What the fuck has gotten into you?”
I lean against the wall and stare at the darkening sky.
“Jace came by and almost caught me with his sister.”
“Well, fuck.”
Yeah. Fuck.
“But, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner.”
“Not supposed to happen at all.”
“Well what the fuck did you expect, Stef, you’re obsessed and you need to figure it out. He might use it against you.”
“Jace won’t find out,” I argue. “I won’t touch her again.”
“That’s a lie and you know it, but Jace is not the one I’m worried about. Now let’s get moving. Because of your crazy ass, I have to bury a fucking body tonight.”