Chapter Johnnie #2
“Not a hypocrite. Just Kendall. Fiery, determined, and amazing. I’m so fucking lucky to have you.
But be honest with me and yourself that you wouldn’t do the fucking same and welcome Johnnie with open arms if he started behaving.
You’d leave me in the fucking dust and not look back. Even if we slept together.”
“Probably.” Kendall longed to be happy again and for Johnnie to love her as best he could. “Sometimes, I’ll go in his closet and just inhale one of his jackets. Smell the lingering scent of smoke and his cologne. Him.”
“Bailey live in my fucking head, too, Red. I dream about her and wake up, and she not there. It’s just breaking me, little by little. Maybe I could’ve got through to her if Johnnie hadn’t fucked with her.”
“I know, Mortician, and I’m so sorry.”
“You already apologized. A dozen fucking times. That’s not your place. Only Johnnie can do that and fucking mean it. Stop being a motherfucker.”
“Would you forgive him?”
“If I got my wife back and she loved and trusted me? In time. I don’t know if I’d ever trust him again.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Kendall—”
“I am,” she croaked. “He’s the reason we’re with each other right now. If that motherfucker acted like he had a fucking brain, we wouldn’t be seeing each other…differently. Of all the things left for him to fucking do, he chose to fuck with your marriage. And I’m so very sorry.”
“Stop, baby. Just stop. I don’t see you no different because he a motherfucker and you still love him. You been loving Johnnie, through all his motherfuckery and stupidity. The only fuckhead blind to that is him. It’s why you wanted Prez so much. For Johnnie to see you and to care.”
“He’s hurt so many people that I love. I try so hard to stop loving him. Maybe it’s dependence because I can’t truly love a motherfucker like him. Only a stupid bitch would do that.”
“And you not a stupid bitch,” Mortician said around laughter.
Kendall giggled.
“It don’t matter if it is dependence or real love,” Mort said, sobering. “You don’t have to explain to me. I don’t think no less of you. You probably wish he was sitting next to you right now instead of me.”
She did, but he probably wouldn’t be as kind to her as Mortician. “The one night I need him to hold me, he hasn’t even called to check on me. He’s at the clubhouse, drinking with his traitorous friends, cursing the day he met me.”
Mort gave her a thoughtful look, then nodded to the round table across the room. “How about we play a little poker and have more beer? In between, we can cry over Johnnie and Bailey’s desertion of us.”
Kendall would cry when she was alone again. Right now, she wanted Mortician’s kindness. “Can we dance first? I have the perfect song for us.”
“Can I withhold my answer until I hear the fucking song?”
“No, silly.” She got to her feet and held out her hand. “Just trust me.”
“I have a fucking feeling I’m going to regret this, Red,” he said, placing his hand in hers and standing.
Instead of calling out the title for her device to play, Kendall used the app on her phone to find the song, not wanting to spook Mortician.
“For fucking real, Kendall?” he demanded when the sound of rain emanated from the speaker.
“Please?”
He wouldn’t turn her down. He never did, unless he had to do something with his family or for the club.
Scowling, he took her into his arms just as Janet Jackson sang the first notes of Funny How Time Flies. Kendall laid her head on his shoulder, following his lead, trusting the movements of his body, feeling safer and more secure than she had in months.
When Miss Jackson began speaking in French and moaning, his cock stirred against her and he released her, ordering the device to stop the song.
Kendall tipped her head back and held Mortician’s gaze. Just for a moment, they connected on a different level, saw each other in a different light, but she knew reality would tear them apart and she’d lose him forever when their bond was the one constant in her life.
Their lips touched, a short, barely there kiss that righted their world again and put their temporary madness behind them.
She stepped out of his arms and cleared her throat. “Beer or vodka?”
“Another beer.”
“You get the cards out of the drawer.” She pointed to the drawer in question. “I’ll get our drinks.”
“Deal.”
Mortician and Kendall spent Tuesday together.
When no one could find Kendall that day, Johnnie hadn’t made much of it, especially with everything else going on and Mattie so upset.
Yesterday with time on his hands and time to ruminate about all that happened, Johnnie pulled up the information from Kendall’s tracking devices. Her car had been at the office, but Beams told him she’d left on the back of Mortician’s bike, so Johnnie pulled that motherfucker’s information.
As an officer, he had access to whoever Christopher tracked. On a daily basis, it was their family, but when there was important business one of the brothers went on, he tracked them too.
He’d been so distracted he hadn’t enjoyed castrating and disemboweling Wally, Jr. It was a disappointment anyway because the motherfucker was already dead. Instead of respecting Johnnie and summoning him to Tee’s, Mortician killed Wally, Jr. To score points with Kendall.
Fury, laced with distaste, flowed through Johnnie.
Mattie was his daughter and, from what he understood, Gypsy was already fucked up. Mortician didn’t have to kill that fuckhead. Something else for Johnnie to resent the enforcer for.
He’d deprived Johnnie of vengeance and the sight and smell of spilled blood that sent him into a frenzy. He’d wanted to make Wally, Jr. suffer. Cry. Beg. Plead to keep his cock attached and his intestines inside his abdominal cavity.
But, no. All Mortician left for him was a fucking corpse. Fucking asshole.
Tipping his head back, Johnnie glanced at the star-dotted sky.
Progress hadn’t touched this area of Hortensia as much as it had almost everywhere else, so artificial lighting didn’t affect the nighttime panorama as much.
He could walk to the side of the clubhouse or a few yards near their private access gate and gaze at the moon’s beauty or the interplanetary gleam.
Maybe wish upon a star and have his life return to happier times. An annoyance had turned into chaos. Now, that chaos was at a boiling point threatening to explode into an unrecoverable rampage.
Lately, all of Johnnie’s efforts fell apart.
He still couldn’t believe how Kendall smashed his gift.
He probably could’ve chosen better words to express his feelings, but he’d just wanted her to know that he admired her maturity and that Bash’s tactics reminded Johnnie that he’d fight to the death for her and to keep her at his side.
His nostrils flaring, he backed into the shadows, leaned against the wall, and lit a cigarette.
All around him, groups of brothers laughed and joked.
The men he’d courted didn’t hang around long nowadays because they realized Christopher didn’t give a fuck.
Even the prospect of being voted out couldn’t stop him. Because of Megan.
Johnnie had overplayed that fucking hand, something else he regretted. But she was her father’s daughter. He should’ve expected her ruthless viciousness to emerge.
Fuck her and her unpredictability. Johnnie was so fucking glad he hadn’t ended up with Megan. She would’ve driven him fucking crazy. One day, she’d act sweet and loving and the next fucking day she’d want heads rolling.
Fuck her.
Fuck.
Her.
Swallowing, Johnnie shoved thoughts of that blonde aside, drawing on his cigarette and wishing for a blunt.
Memories of Kendall’s earlier devastation overtook his admiration and annoyance toward Megan. Kendall was such a good mother. Unlike Megan, who only punched, Kendall was willing to swing that bat herself in her quest for justice. Megan would’ve sent Christopher or Diesel to do her bidding.
Fuck her.
Bash wanted to fuck Megan just to humiliate her. With Kendall, he admired her brain and beauty. She was a real woman. Megan was just prey.
Fuck her.
If Kendall had been negotiating with Johnnie to save Bash and Celia—and Christopher—she wouldn’t have had to beg and plead like Megan.
She wouldn’t have had to place her trust in Bash and offer herself while Johnnie held a gun to Celia’s head.
She would’ve stood up to Bash and Johnnie like the grown woman she was.
Megan was a pathetic cunt.
Fuck her.
Thank everything in the fucking universe that she hadn’t become his wife with her fertile pussy and her love of fucking. Johnnie bet that even during her supposed pussy lockouts, she sucked Christopher’s cock.
Bitch. Fucking little slut.
Fuck her.
Christopher could have that fucking trainwreck. She was a fucking cocksucking nightmare.
Johnnie should’ve stuck his dick down her throat instead of just having her jerk him off.
His breath hitched at the idea of her mouth on him and his cock throbbed. He hated that little bitch so fucking much.
Whatever happened to Kendall, Megan always blamed him. Johnnie was almost certain she had somehow gotten into his wife’s head during the LA trip and convinced her to have an affair with Mortician.
Mortician.
Fucking fuckhead.
Like Christopher, that motherfucker had lusted after Kendall from the beginning. Flicking his cigarette away, Johnnie remembered the exact moment he realized Kendall and Mortician were together at a seaside town, hours away.
All the better to hide their fucking.
“Motherfucker,” he snarled.
“You okay, Veep?” Torrin called.
Even if Johnnie wasn’t okay, he’d never admit it to that motherfucker, Diesel’s best friend.
“Perfect,” he responded, not sticking around for any more questions.
Halfway to his house and the lonely room Kendall exiled him to, Johnnie halted, inspiration hitting him. He’d gotten to Bailey once. He could do it again, despite Kendall’s order to “fix” whatever he’d done to her precious Mortician’s marriage.