Chapter 3
THREE
Dempsey
The clubhouse felt ominous being so quiet and dark.
This place was always on or someone was always here.
It was situated in the middle of the woods, and hidden from view unless you came down the long road to get here.
Most Uber drivers wouldn’t come out this way anymore, and it was how they liked it.
I got off my bike and moved up to the clubhouse steps.
The buildings off to the side had been completed now, and looked like they had warehouses off to the side of the clubhouse.
They’d also extended the clubhouse to include more rooms. Once I stepped inside, I saw there were a few lights on in the back, leading to the room they held church in.
I stepped through the clubhouse and into the room, and saw Wolf sitting off to the side, my brother Alex, or Bear as he was known here, was in his seat and next to him was Hawk, the VP. I motioned my head over to them in an acknowledgment and stood at the end of the table.
“Sit, for fuck’s sake,” Alex said. “We’ve been in contact this whole time, I’ve been asking you to let me help you and now I have to hear how much shit you’re in from Wolf?”
“I didn’t want to drag you into it if I could have handled it myself, little brother.”
“Fuck off with that shit,” he said. He had the anger my father had. A good man but once riled up, you’d better clear out. “I am not a fucking teenager, Dempsey. Sit the fuck down and tell us what we need to know.”
I nodded and took a seat at the end of the table.
Hawk was oddly quiet, letting Alex do the talking.
Alex had a lot of respect from his Prez and VP, and I know it was because they grew up with him, a fact I was jealous of as well.
I wished I could have grown up with him, but his mother had been an absolute bitch and cut us off because my dad wouldn’t leave my mum.
“What exactly happened?” Alex asked.
“You know I am an Outlaw, yes?”
He nodded, looking briefly at Wolf, before he looked back at me. “Yes.”
“Okay. I joined them a while back, before Mum passed, but I hid it from her. She never wanted me to be a biker, she never wanted us to be mixed up in all of it but I felt the call and when I was approached to join the Outlaws, I jumped at it. I’ve been under the radar for years.
It’s why I work so well among the MC’s. Anyway, I got the call to go and help the Reapers.
They’d said their territory was being encroached on, and I knew how much the Reapers were territorial so I took the job.
I soon realised just how nasty they were and the territory they assumed was theirs was not.
Before this job, I’d been with the Nomads for a few months and I had heard stories of what the Reapers had done to other clubs.
I pieced a few things together and reached out to a contact in the Nomads to make sure I could get the information out to the MC’s that were in danger.
I knew it went against my vows but I had to stop them. ”
“You told Shae,” Hawk finally piped up. I looked over at the hulk of a man, remembering Shae telling me she and he were once a thing. I wondered why they didn’t stay together, and somehow, I felt a shot of anger lace through me.
Where the hell had that come from?
“Yes.”
“It related to us.”
“They wanted Kilkenny.”
“Why didn’t you just come to me yourself?” Alex asked. It was a good question and were I in the same position as him, I’d be hurt he hadn’t trusted me either.
“She and I were in constant contact,” I told them honestly. “It seemed easier.”
“You were fucking.”
I shot my eyes back at Hawk. His expression was unreadable. I couldn’t tell if he was jealous or just simply asking.
“That’s not fucking important,” Alex said, saving me from answering. What I had been doing with Shae was more than that. I’d been in fucking love with her. The only woman to bowl me over into a million pieces.
The only woman I had ever wanted to put a ring on her finger and call her mine.
Fuck.
“What are you doing back here?” Alex asked me.
“I come back every now and then to check on Tierney.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. Why did you come back this time?”
I knew what he was doing. He was leading me to admit that I was done running.
“I want it to end,” I told him. “I’m done. I just…needed to say goodbye…properly.”
“No one is going to kill you, Dempsey. You have the Rebels behind you.”
“I’m not a Rebel, Alex. I can’t expect that of you. I know what I did, I broke the vow to my club. I will face up to what I need to face up to.”
Alex looked behind me to Wolf before he ran a hand down his face, just like our dad did when he was frustrated. “You’ll stay here tonight. There’s a spare room down the hall. We’ll discuss this in the morning.”
“I can’t stay here,” I said.
“Yes, you can and you will.”
Alex stood up, and so did Hawk.
“Alex…”
“Wolf, show him to a room, will you?” Alex aimed behind me. I felt Wolf move closer to me and I resigned myself to doing what they wanted. I had a warm bed and no threat of being offed in my sleep. I couldn’t say no to that. “We will talk about this in the morning, brother.”
He left the room then, followed by Hawk, and I turned to Wolf who gave nothing away. He never did.
“Come with me.”
I followed him through the darkened clubhouse and toward the rooms. It was the newer section of the clubhouse with the new rooms off to the side.
He opened the door and I stepped inside.
It was just like the other rooms; a bathroom to the side, a large bed made up with dark quilts and blockout curtains on the window, a bedside table and a chest of drawers.
A TV sat on the wall above the chest of drawers.
“Thanks, man.”
He nodded and moved out to the hall again before closing the door. I sat down on the edge of the bed, grabbing up the remote from the bedside table and turning it on to an old style movie. The kind they ran late at night for the insomniacs.
The weight of the last few days was heavy on my shoulders as I let my worry and fear go. Tomorrow would be the start of the end, I just knew it, but for right now? I could relax and get some serious shuteye.
Shae
I got off my bike once I’d pulled up alongside the boys’ bikes at the compound.
Tonight had been a fucking clusterfuck. I couldn’t wait for my apartment to be ready for me, so I didn’t have to worry about my fucking creeper landlord who didn’t want to fix a damn thing in my beaten up unit.
The fucking water from the unit above me had been leaking all damn day, and I came back to a puddle where my carpets should be.
I’d worked at the shop until ten tonight, so having to deal with the constant dripping as well as the squelching whenever I needed to walk over the carpet had done me in.
There were a heap more rooms at the clubhouse now, so I could easily just grab one and deal with everything in the morning.
I moved down the empty lot and toward the clubhouse. A bike sat near the door, one I instantly recognised.
My heart started to beat a little faster.
It was his.
He was here.
Why hadn’t anyone told me?
I took a few deep breaths as I looked over the familiar bike, my hand smoothing over the back of the bike, and remembering how he would lay me out over it and fuck me senseless.
Stop it, Shae.
I moved up the steps and in through the door that no one ever locked. Who would be stupid enough to steal from the Rebels?
The clubhouse was empty, and the lights were off. My head was buzzing frantically, annoyed still from the apartment shit and now this.
I stormed down the hall, but no one was here.
Moving to the newer section of rooms, I headed down the hall, hearing the faint sounds of TV behind a door, followed by the distinct sounds of moaning.
Did he have a whore in here with him?
I raised my knee up and kicked at the door, watching as it splintered and flew open.
A flurry of activity erupted as I watched him jump from the bed, naked, his phone flying to the side of the room and the sounds of the porno he was watching loud in the room.
I looked around for someone else but it was just him and his phone.
His eyes met mine, and I saw those brown depths that I had fallen for looking up at me with horror followed by longing. The mirrored longing I knew was reflecting back at him.
“Shae.”
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. My jealousy had hit me hard in the chest when I thought he’d been with someone else, but we weren’t a couple. He’d left.
He left me.
I backed out of the room and toward the bar, pulling a bottle of Jack from behind the bar and cracking the top to take a long swig. I could feel him enter the bar area, but I refused to look. Tears burned my eyes as I let the whiskey do its thing.
“Shae…”
“Why are you here?” I asked him, unable to look over at him. He was still naked, having chased me out here. God, how I wanted that cock inside me again. If I looked, I’d fuck him, and then where would I be? Pining over the son of a bitch again when he ended up leaving town.
“Please look at me.”
He moved beside me at the bar, his arm resting on the counter, his fingers inches from mine. I could see he wanted to touch me just as much as I wanted to be touched, and yet he gave me the space I needed.
Slowly, I lifted my eyes up to his and immediately I saw the sorrow behind them. I’d fallen so head over heels for this man and here he was, looking at me like a lost puppy. A lost puppy who just happened to break me apart a year ago.
“Why. Are. You. Here?”
I hadn’t meant it to sound so menacing, and yet it did. He flinched a little and sighed, running his hand through his hair. It was longer than it had been, and his beard was scruffy as if he hadn’t had a decent shave in a while.
“I needed help from Alex,” he said. “I didn’t mean for you to find out. I know I hurt you, Shae, but you have to believe I thought I was doing the right thing for both of us at the time.”