Six
SIX
CHAOS
I’ve forgotten how peaceful it can be. To stand alone. To remove yourself from the crowd.
To get back to nature.
I let my fingers drift over the seedheads as I walk through the field closest to the farmhouse. Marianna advised against coming back here until the deal was final, but nobody lives in the fucking place—what harm can it do? When else will I get time without the noise and activity of a thriving club to plan what our future looks like?
I left the madness of a typical weekend at the clubhouse behind and rode out the gate, not sure where I wanted to go—I just needed to be away from the noise. But the damn woman from the cafe kept flickering in my mind, and before I knew it, here I am, waist-deep in overgrown grass while I stare at her house and try to work out what the fuck the opportunity of a new home will bring for us.
Do we continue down the same road we’ve always traveled, or do we take the opportunity to pursue more traditional and legal avenues of income?
Would the brothers accept a balance of the two?
I close my fist around the seeds, stripping a stem of its life as I move. The tiny beads bite against the roughened skin of my palm, tumbling free when I span my fingers wide.
The moon is full tonight; its white light catches the studs on my jacket as I move. I tip my head back and stop walking, focusing on the mild breeze that caresses my face like a long-lost lover. It’s nice—the delicate touch. The wind isn’t so kind when she’s beating at your face at seventy miles an hour.
Twelve years, I’ve officially dedicated my life to the club, and it’s only in the last two that I have questioned the rules and traditions I adopted with eager ease in those early years. All I wanted to do was please my father. All he wanted to do was shape me into a better version of himself.
Given how my momma cries when she sees me these days, I’d say he succeeded. Except there’s one trait of his that I’ll never adopt.
You couldn’t pay me enough to turncoat on my brothers in the club.
Unlike my father, my soul isn’t for sale.
I sigh and drop my head forward, bringing both hands to knit my fingers at my nape. Buying this property is a fresh start. It’s a step away from the fucking microscope of criticism we’ve faced the past few years being located in an urban center. The Kings of Anarchy had co-existed with the good folk of Temperance for decades before the scales of justice shifted.
Fifteen years old and nothing to do with our club. But all the citizens saw was a kid in a leather jacket tangled in a wire fence, his motorbike in three pieces down the narrow sealed road.
He wouldn’t have idolized the lifestyle if it weren’t for us, they’d said.
He wouldn’t have felt he had anything to prove without our presence on the streets.
He would have been a good kid, focused on his studies and attending church every Sunday, if not for our insignia being visible on his walk to and from school every day.
They can blame us all they like, but nothing changes the truth—that kid’s decisions had nothing to do with the Kings. It more likely had everything to do with the white-collared fuckers who bullied him at school for being the good kid. Likely had a shit ton to do with the rise of toy bikers on TikTok glorifying the lifestyle. With the testosterone-fueled teenage need to make the girls turn their heads when he rode past on a Friday night.
If the kid had come to us, he would have still ended up on the wrong side of the law, but at least he’d be alive, supported, and with a brethren of men who’d teach him the right way—the safe way—to do things.
But no. Judge us at face value, please. Because that’ll protect your boys while they become men.
“Fuck!” I holler the word into the night, my voice echoing off the nearby tree line.
I took the presidency because I wanted to use the fucking club to do better. I wanted to do everything my father should have done. I saw how a tight-knit unit of loyal men and women could instigate change in the community. But all that’s happened is our fucking world caught fire, fanned by the flames of the winds of change.
My gaze lifts to the distant light of the cottage as I tug a pack of smokes from my jacket pocket. It’s well after midnight, and my latest side-quest is still awake. I pop a stick between my lips and repocket the packet. A lighter turns in my palm as I gauge how far away her place is. Did she hear me just now? Was the light on before? Or did I wake her?
I duck my head, light the smoke, and then start toward her house. Fuck it. Might as well get something done while I’m here. As soon as I leave, there’ll be no hiding my presence. Nineteen- hundred ccs of growling horses tend to wake the dead at this hour of the night.
The grass swishes against my jeans and jacket as I move, my boots crunching the debris on the ground below. I slow as I near the road, minimizing the noise. No shadows move through the light, no flicker of a TV. Either she’s in bed with the light on, or worse, she’s fallen asleep before checking that the house is secure.
Hands on the top wire of the fence, I press down. The thin metal creaks through the staples at the posts, and I wince, smoke from the burning cigarette curling into my eye. Whole thing’s gone to shit already. I should call it quits and pick another night to do recon, but something urges me to keep going. I lift my leg and set a boot to the wire, launching myself over the fence line.
Her light clicks off.
I freeze on the roadside, exposed in the shorter grass with my goddamn cigarette burning a beacon in the night. I draw back two large lungfuls and then drop the fucker to the ground, crushing it beneath my boot. There’s no point going about this shit half-cocked, so I tug my phone out and set that fucker to silent as well before I venture across the road. The gravel crunches beneath my stiff soles no matter how lightly I tread. I take three enormous strides to limit how many times my feet hit the ground and pause when I reach her side of the road.
No car in the short driveway. Nothing parked out back from what I can see.
The grass is flattened in a worn path to and from the front gate, indicating that her walking to town wasn’t a rare occurrence. It looks more and more like she lives alone. Perfect.
I veer right and make my way up the driveway, taking stock of the windows along the side of the house to draw a rough floor plan in my mind. Bedrooms to the front, I’d guess, with a bathroom at the rear and a kitchen likely on the other side. A typical worker’s cottage. Basic. Square.
And noisy as fuck with old floorboards and doors that have sagged out of line over the years. Great.
I keep moving into her backyard, slipping between the unused garage and the back porch. The pathways are paved, weaving between vegetable gardens raised above ground level. Stakes mark the corners of each plot, fairy lights strung between. This bitch doesn’t make it easy to sneak up on her, that’s for sure. The plants are a mixture of thriving and dead, which tells me this was a project she’d only partially invested in.
I move for the back porch and stall at the base of the short steps.
A chair to the left houses a few pairs of used running shoes. A couple of old timber crates sit stacked beside it, a folded rug atop. The right-hand side is a riot of potted plants in various states of care, shoved together on the decking and hanging from the roof.
She seems to like the idea of being able to keep things alive, but whether she’s any good at it is yet to be confirmed.
I run my hand through my hair and wet my lips. I should wait until she’s not home. I’m supposed to be back at the goddamn farm planning out where our fucking operations will go and what buildings we need to erect before we take possession. Yet the brass handle of her back door shimmers in the moonlight like a goddamn invitation.
She’s one woman. A fragile shell of a human being. All reasoning would dictate that she’s no threat to our existence. Yet, the groups of women I’ve witnessed outside the council chambers protesting our existence prove that the most influential people sometimes come in the smallest packages. For the club. I need to do this for the club.
At least, that’s the bullshit I feed myself as I step across her porch and test the door handle.
It halts a quarter-turn around. Locked. I go to pull my hand back when my grip jiggles something in the mechanism. An extra twist, and I force the handle to push past the lock. Fucking love old houses. The brass makes a clang as I shunt the door ajar, the noise a thunderclap against the otherwise quiet night. I freeze, measured breaths sawing in and out of my lungs while I wait for any sign of movement. Nothing . I give the door a little shove and almost fucking shit myself when a streak of grey blazes past my legs.
The critical gaze of a long-haired cat meets mine, the furry fucker sauntering into the garden as though I’m the one acting weird by taking my time and not just bulldozing inside.
Fucking animals.
Her back door opens into a kitchen space, facing the cooktop on the opposite wall. A sink sits beneath a small window to my right, and a long counter divides the kitchen from the cozy living area on the left. I tread lightly over the polished floorboards and gently shut the door behind me, letting it rest slightly ajar so I don’t need to force the lock against the plate again and risk waking her.
Something sweet and floral assails my nostrils.
I scan the surroundings, noting the simple yet fancy furnishings, and find the source of the aroma: a glass jar with incense sticks protruding from the top and liquid at the base. Not bad. I’ve never cared for the finer details of housekeeping, but I can always appreciate a nice perfume when I come across it.
Her decor is curious. Timeless elegance yet with a gothic twinge. My favorite item is an enormous painting of a crow with a top hat and monocle above the open fireplace. Framed in ornate gold, it commands the space, more than the stacked bookshelves lining the far wall, two slimline windows inset amongst the titles.
I’d hoped to get inside and set my mind at ease. To reassure myself that she’s nothing more than a dull loner with no inclination toward causing trouble.
Yet, the deeper I go, the more I find reason to continue.
Theresa’s newest hire becomes more intriguing by the second.
A receipt sits on the counter beside my left hip. Chinese takeout. For two. Interesting. She could stock up to save the need to cook later in the week, but she may have also had company, which I like the idea of less. I scout the room again for any signs of masculine influence and, thankfully, find none.
What’s more disturbing is the distinct lack of photographs anywhere in the house—not a single one in sight. There are no family snaps, no nostalgic childhood memories.
Nothing for me to know her better by.
It’s like a fucking show home in here. An Insta-worthy shot of what life could be.
The curated facade that hides the ugly truth.
My eye settles on a few sheets of paper atop the black coffee table in the center of the living area. I move toward them, careful where I place my feet. A fucking short pile rug sits beneath the table, swirls in it from where somebody has moved over the surface. I lean forward, bracing myself on the arm of a nearby chair to see what’s on the papers without leaving a shoe imprint on the carpet. Health records. That’d be disappointing—finding someone so intriguing just for her to be sick.
Another page lies beneath, likely with her details atop, but I’d have to move the stack to read it, which gives away my presence here.
I move around the outskirts of the room instead and carefully open the cupboards and drawers in the cabinet under the TV, even perusing potential hiding spots among the bookshelves. But there’s nothing of interest. Nothing that tells me what sort of woman she is.
No indication of her name.
My ass hits the cushion of a teal chair, high-backed with rolled arms. Fingertips caressing the detailed wooden caps, I view her living room from the resident's point of view. Everything’s positioned so that there are no significant open spaces. It’s cozy, which I like, but I like more the visibility from the vantage point.
I can see every fucking corner of the room from here—even the doorway through to the front half of the house.
There are no surprises when she’s at rest. Interesting.
My thumbs slide back and forth over the arms of the chair, committing its velvety texture to memory. The pillowy softness of the upholstery sears into my awareness. She sits here. Her bitable fucking ass rests on this cushion. I squirm, partially aroused and partially disgusted at how easily she fucking affects me.
You don’t even know her name. Not that I need it to find out how she tastes or hear her breathy moans. Jesus fuck, Chaos. I jerk out of the chair before I give in to the urge to leave my mark on it.
Swallowing hard, I hesitate at the doorway of the short hall that runs to the front of the house and glance at the two doors—one left side, one right. The bedrooms, I guess. Focus on the point of this fucking visit. The light came from the one to my right when I stood in the field. I should head for the bedroom on the left and see what’s stashed away for safekeeping, yet the burning need in charge of my fucking limbs makes me veer right toward the half-open door. Just a peek.
She sleeps with one curtain open, the moonlight highlighting the hills and valleys of her curves beneath the thin blanket.
My heart beats an even tempo as I count the minutes frozen before her doorway, attention fucking glued to the temptation atop the bed. Not a goddamn noise comes from her. Could she really be that quick to drift off? If she’s had a long day at the cafe, I guess. If she uses sedatives to get to sleep, sure. I won’t know unless I take a closer look.
I move toward the gap in the door, settling my left foot off the side of the hallway runner.
The goddamn floorboards creak.
A wise man would stop fucking moving. A smart man would get his ass the hell out of Dodge.
But this guy? Yeah. I never pretended to be smart.
I move toward the nearest shadow—in the corner of her room.