Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
LUCIFER
The clubhouse smells like stale beer, gunpowder, and the faintest trace of weed when I shove through the front door.
My gaze shoots toward the large bar that takes up the length of the right wall in the common area, and I spot Dread, the secretary of the club, perched on a stool all the way at the end.
A glass of whiskey sits untouched in front of him, the amber liquid catching the light from the neon Budweiser sign that hangs crooked above the mirror behind the bar.
He’s got a joint pinched between his fingers, smoke curling lazily above him as he offers it to Homeboy—the prospect who has been trying to earn his colors for the last two months.
Homeboy reaches to pluck the joint from Dread’s fingers, but he’s too slow for our secretary, and as Dread snatches the joint out of his reach, his gaze turns in my direction.
“Mammon here?”
Dread takes a pull, holding the smoke in his lungs, and exhales through his nose before answering. “Trailer.”
I turn and head back out the door, crossing the gravel lot to where the trailer that acts as the club’s office sits on the compound.
The aluminum steps groan under my boots as I take them two at a time.
My hand wraps around the doorknob, and I shove it open so hard it slams against the interior wall with a bang, nearly taking the flimsy thing off the fucking hinges.
The whole trailer rattles from the impact, and Mammon’s head snaps up from behind the desk. As soon as his eyes land on me, he leans back in his chair and lets out a low whistle.
“Jesus, Prez, what did the door ever do to you?”
I don’t bother answering him. There’s no time for pleasantries, and even if there were, I’m all out of patience.
My boots hit the cheap linoleum as I close the distance between us in three strides, planting my palms flat on the desk as I lean in.
My gaze flits across it, noticing the open ledgers and the bottle of Jack that’s holding down a stack of invoices.
Seems like I caught him at the right time.
“How much cash we got in reserves?”
Mammon stares at me for a beat, his mouth curling at the corners as if I’ve just told him a joke he hasn’t decided is funny yet.
“Is that a trick question?”
“Take a good look at me, Mammon. Do I look like I’m in the mood for fucking games? Answer the goddamn question.”
The smirk dies on his face, and he clears his throat, his gaze dropping to the books in front of him. “We’re tapped out, Prez. We’re lucky if we got about ten grand at our disposal right now, which is going to be a real problem if we decide to rebuild Rodeo Roundup.”
That gives me pause. My fingers curl against the desk’s edge. “What do you mean? What about the insurance?”
Mammon’s mouth twists into a grimace. “I filed a claim, but I wouldn’t bank on them covering anything considering it was arson.
They’re going to drag their feet, investigate, and eventually deny the claim.
” Tapping his pen against the ledger, his gaze slides back to me.
“It might be in the club’s best interest to just cut our losses.
You can bring it to the table, and we’ll take a vote on it, but I don’t see a viable path forward. ”
“Fuck,” I hiss.
The blows just keep coming.
I push off from the desk and pace the small confines of the trailer. Ten grand isn’t even enough to cover what I already owe the hospital, let alone the upcoming surgery.
“It sucks,” Mammon says, pulling my attention back to him.
“But we just dropped a ton of money into Meadows Ranch. Everything we made from our last rodeo season at Steel Horse went towards the purchase of the ranch. We would’ve probably been okay if we hadn’t changed the initial deal.
Sinking that extra five hundred k for Shadow’s dude ranch depleted our funds. ”
I stop pacing and turn to face him.
When Maddox proposed a partnership with the club to save his ranch, the dude ranch wasn’t part of it.
My VP, Shadow, went behind Maddox’s back and came to me a few days later with a business plan Della had drawn up.
I knew the man was thinking with his dick, wanting to make his woman feel purposeful, and I still fucking agreed to dump more of the club’s money into that fucking ranch.
I know the return on our investment is going to be plentiful, but it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
We gave the ranch enough cash to climb out of debt, but it’s going to be a long while before we recover our initial investment, and even longer before we turn a profit.
“You might want to talk to Maddox. With everything going on—Della being taken, and all that shit—there is no way they broke ground on the dude ranch. Tell him we’re strapped, that the build on the dude ranch is going to have to wait. If we get those funds back, we can rebuild Rodeo Roundup.”
I don’t give a fuck about rebuilding the bar, but Mammon doesn’t know that.
He also doesn’t know I need the money now.
Telling Maddox to halt the construction on the dude ranch won’t get me what I need to ensure Jess has her surgery, but the hospital bills are only going to keep stacking, and I’m going to need a lot more than a hundred grand in the coming months.
I can’t imagine he’d give me any trouble, but my VP is another story.
Shadow won’t take kindly to disappointing his woman, and that’s going to cause a problem with Howdy-fucking-Doody.
I just don’t have it in me to give a fuck.
I make a mental note to speak with my new business partner and rack my brain for another solution that will get me the cash I need quickly.
My mind immediately wanders to the stockpile of guns we have in an underground bunker thirty miles north of Saddle Ridge.
We’ve got crates of Glocks, AR-15s, and enough ammunition to supply a small militia.
Without so much as another glance in Mammon’s direction, I storm out of the trailer and make my way back to the clubhouse. Dread and Homeboy are still at the bar, the joint they were sharing long gone.
Dread’s eyes lift as I approach, and he must see something in my face because he sits up a little straighter.
“Homeboy,” I don’t even look at the prospect, “get lost.”
He hesitates for half a second—just long enough to make my jaw clench—before pushing off the bar and shuffling toward one of the couches on the other side of the room.
I slide onto the stool Homeboy vacated and turn to face Dread. “We need to talk.”
Dread takes a slow sip of his whiskey, his gray eyes studying me over the rim of the glass. “Figured as much when you came storming in here looking like a bat out of hell.”
“I need to move the inventory at the bunker. All of it.”
Dread sets his glass down and blinks at me. “All of it?”
“Every last fucking gun. I need cash, and I need it fast.”
Blowing out a breath, he leans back on his stool and rubs his jaw with one hand.
The man is an asset to the club. He can move product like nobody’s business, and he’s got connections in places most people don’t even know exist. Not to mention, he’s got judges and ATF agents indebted to him for God knows what.
“How much, and just how fast are we fucking talking about?”
“A hundred grand, and I needed it yesterday, but a couple of hours from now will do. I know we can’t go to our usual buyers.
If they know we’re liquidating everything at once, they’re gonna smell blood in the water and lowball us into the ground.
That’s why I’m thinking we reach out to the Satan’s Knights.
Word on the street is the Knightdale charter is trying to expand their arsenal.
They got the cash and their president, Maverick, has the appetite. ”
Dread scoffs. “Even if they want a bite at the apple, there’s no way we’re moving that much product in a couple of hours.” He pauses for a moment. “What the fuck is going on, Lucifer? Why do you need the money so badly?”
The words sit heavy on my tongue, and I know the second I let them out, there’s no taking them back.
My brothers know Jess as the girl who works at the bar.
The poor soul who got caught in the fire.
They don’t know that she’s been living rent-free in my head since the first time I laid eyes on her.
They don’t know I’ve been parading around the hospital as her pretend husband, holding her hand every night, promising to make it right.
Now, I’m about to drain the club’s assets for her.
I drag my gaze up to meet Dread’s, and I see the question still burning behind his eyes. He’s waiting for an answer, and for once in my goddamn life, I don’t have a lie ready.
“It’s Jess.”
Dread’s brows pinch together. “The bartender?”
“Yeah.”
Dread’s expression doesn’t change, but something shifts behind his eyes. A flicker of understanding, maybe. Or maybe it’s pity. Either way, it makes my skin crawl.
I clear my throat and avert my eyes.
“The hospital bills are piling up. She’s got no insurance, no family, and the hospital won’t move forward with her surgery until I settle the account.
” I run my tongue over my teeth. “I already wrote a check for fifty grand. It’s gone.
Now, I’m in the negative, and they won’t do her first surgery until I clear that up and hand them another ninety grand. ”
Dread lets out a low whistle and reaches for his whiskey. He takes a long pull, then sets the glass down with a deliberate click.
“Why are they coming after you to pay her bills?”
Something about his tone makes me wonder if he already knows the answer to his question, and for a second, I contemplate avoiding the truth.
I’m not really in the mood to have him haze me over my insane decision to play Jess’s husband, but I am fucking desperate, and desperation makes a man do stupid things.
“They think I’m her husband.”
I brace myself for the ridicule. For the what the fuck were you thinking that’s surely coming. After all, it’s not every day the president of the Fallen Demons proposes liquidating his club’s arsenal for a girl far too young for him ever to claim.
But he just stares at me, and somehow that’s worse.
“I got a hundred and twenty thousand at my mother’s house in a safe. That’s every penny I have to my name. Say the word, and it’s yours.”
There’s a lot to unpack there.
“How do you even have that kind of cash on hand?”
He shrugs. “Been putting it away since I got out of the can. Figured I’d buy a piece of land one day. Maybe build something. But land ain’t going anywhere, and this seems like a matter of life or death.”
It is, but I can’t take the man’s life savings.
“I just told you I’ve been pretending to be Jess’s husband, and you’re offering me your life savings? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Dread takes another sip of whiskey. “Brother, I’ve seen the way you look at that girl.” He sets the glass down and turns to face me fully. “You’ve got it bad. Real bad. And I ain’t ever seen you like that about anyone or anything.”
I open my mouth to argue, but he holds up a hand.
“But me offering you the money is a temporary fix. Even if we deplete our stock over the next few weeks, those bills are going to keep adding up. You need a plan, and selling all the club’s assets isn’t it.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I’m fully aware I’m up shit’s creek without a paddle. I just need to get her this first surgery before I figure out how I’m going to sell my soul to get the rest of the funds.
“There’s a simple solution to this. You’ll still need the money to get the hospital off your back, but you have medical insurance. You just need to add her as a dependent.”
I stare at him like he’s just grown a second head. “How the fuck do you suppose I do that?”
Mulling it over, he reaches for his glass once again and rolls it between his palms. The amber liquid sloshes around, spilling over the rim and dripping down his hand. Then he lifts the glass to his lips, and his gray eyes lock with mine.
“You marry her for real.”
All the air leaves my lungs, and for a second, I think I’ve misheard him. But Dread doesn’t blink. He just sits there on that barstool like he didn’t just suggest the most insane fucking thing I’ve ever heard.
You’ve lost your goddamn mind.”
“Have I?” He knocks back his drink, draining his glass in a single gulp. “You’re already pretending to be her husband. Might as well make it official. You can reap the benefits and spare yourself from going broke.”
“She’s in a coma, Dread.” The words come out rough. “She’s been unconscious for days. I haven’t spoken more than a few fucking words to her in my entire goddamn life, and you’re suggesting I marry her?”
Hell, I don’t even know her real last name. Everyone’s been calling her Mrs. Holland. I know fucking nothing other than the little Tori divulged.
“It’s the most practical option.”
He wants to talk about practical when I’m standing here with my guts in a knot over a girl I’ve never had a real conversation with. A girl who doesn’t even know I exist beyond being the silent, brooding bastard who owns the bar she worked at.
“She can’t consent, Dread. She’s fucking unconscious.”
“I said it was practical. I didn’t say it would be ethical or legal.” He reaches into his cut and pulls out his phone. “We’ll need to call in a few favors.”
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes. The weight of everything—the fire, the guilt, the mounting bills, the helplessness—presses down on my chest until I can barely breathe.
Maybe I’m having a heart attack.
Lord knows, it would serve me right.
I draw in a deep breath and drop my hands to my sides. When the pressure in my chest starts to ease some, I glare back at Dread.
“And what happens when she wakes up? What do I say to her? ‘Hey, sorry about the third-degree burns and the months of your life you lost, but by the way, I married you while you were in a coma’?”
If she wakes up and finds out she’s married to me, she’s going to think I’m every bit the monster Tori accused me of being.
“You tell her the truth. That you did what you had to do to make sure she got the care she needed.”
He makes it sound so fucking simple.
“The truth,” I repeat, a bitter laugh escaping me.
“The truth is, I’m a selfish bastard who couldn’t keep his distance from her.
The truth is, she wouldn’t have been in that bar if I hadn’t hired her.
The truth is, I’m the reason she’s lying in that hospital bed, and now you want me to legally bind her to me without her knowledge or consent? ” I shake my head. “I can’t do it.”
The devil himself wouldn’t cross a line like that.