Bear’s clubhouse was an old two-story apartment complex with a courtyard in the center and a small, kidney-shaped pool that had been graffitied a million times over.
Plastic patio chairs with gaping holes in the seats and backs, some missing legs, were scattered everywhere. A few were floating upside down in the deep end the pool in a foot of green sludgy water. There was no sophisticated speaker system. An ancient boom box sat on top of a small round table blaring Johnny Cash. Its cord ran into the shallow water of the pool and across the courtyard where it was plugged into a wall outlet inside one of the rooms.
Scantily clad women were everywhere, and bikers of all ages, shapes, and sizes lingered about in various states of drunkenness. Two muscle heads wearing their cuts with nothing but their bare chests underneath, arm-wrestled in the corner on top of an overturned laundry basket.
Two women with matching bleach blonde hair, both topless, were making out on the second floor balcony against the railing, while a skinny prospect stood close by looking on with heavily lidded lust filled eyes, with a hard-on he wasn’t even trying to hide, straining against his jeans.
Bear was the first person to greet us. “King, you motherfucker!” he shouted, standing in the open doorway of one of the motel rooms, his arm draped around the neck of a girl with innocent chubby looking cheeks, but a very weary look in her eyes. “In here!” He waved us over and practically shoved the girl out of the room. She would have landed face-first on the concrete if Preppy hadn’t caught her and set her back on her feet.
“Thanks,” she said, looking up at Preppy. Preppy scrunched his nose as if he was confused by her thanks, then stepped around her. She looked back at him as she walked away.
“What the fuck was that?” I asked.
“No fucking clue,” Preppy said seriously, his usual humor nowhere in sight. “Let’s get this party started.”
“Doe, baby! You’re here!” Bear exclaimed, pulling Doe into a hug that lasted a beat too long. I clenched my fists. Bear didn’t seem to notice, and if he did, he didn’t seem to care. “Bump, get my friends a drink!”
A freckle-faced redheaded prospect I’d seen a few times before, filled three red cups from the keg and handed them to us.
“Got anything in a bottle for the lady?” I asked, emptying my cup in just a few swallows.
I needed something to take the edge off, but I wouldn’t put it past one of these little prospect fuckers to try and slip Doe something. We were friends of the club, but some of these newbies may not know the extent of which we weren’t to be fucked with. I was about to explode out of my skin. Why did we come here again? Oh yeah, because Doe wanted to.
I was turning into such a fucking pussy over this girl.
“You heard the man. A bottle for the lady,” Bear ordered, taking the cup from Doe’s hands before she had a chance to lift it to her lips.
Bear chugged the contents of her cup while Bump handed her an unopened bottle of beer. I discarded my cup and used the buckle on one of the belts around my forearms to pop off the cap for her. “Overreacting much, buddy? Wouldn’t let anything happen to her. Not on my watch. Not at my place. You should know that.”
I shrugged, and Preppy chimed in before I could say anything. “Don’t get all fucking butt hurt about it, Bear. King doesn’t even trust me around her, and I only wanted to take her out on a date, and maybe put the tip in a little, but noooooo.”
It was a lie. I hope Preppy knew that. I trusted him with my life, and I knew he wouldn’t do anything with Doe that meant upsetting me. But that didn’t mean I didn’t want to slit his throat every time he smiled at her. Especially when every single day since the day I decided I needed her in my life, I’d felt like my every move had to be thought out around her so I wouldn’t send her running scared.
Or worse, accidentally tell her the truth.
“You wanna get this shit started?” Bear asked, holding out his hand he pointed to an old nightstand where several lines of white powder were already cut. I shook my head. I hadn’t touched anything but alcohol and weed since I got out, but Preppy stepped up and did two lines. He knew me better than anyone, and he knew that a bump was the last thing I needed with all the adrenaline already coursing through my veins. But he also knew that doing coke with the bikers, especially Bear, was like their version of bringing a nice bottle of wine to a dinner party. A show of respect. Biker etiquette, if that makes any sense. I lit a cigarette and glanced over at Doe, who was looking around the place like she was discovering the lost city of Atlantis.
Another one of Bear’s crew popped his head into the room. I recognized him right away as a guy named Harris, who’d been voted in just before I went away. “Bear, your old man’s here. He wants to see you and said to bring King and his crew so he can say hi. He’s back in the office.”
Bear chugged his beer and let out a long belch. He threw his now empty cup at Bump. It bounced off his head and landed on the ground.
“Clean that shit up,” Bear ordered, leading us from the room. “Come on, kids. Let’s say hi to my old man and get it over with.”
Bear’s dad was the president of the Beach Bastards. One day, he would take the gavel from him and become the man in charge.
When we walked into the office, the door closed behind us and a clicking noise echoed in the room. Preppy turned back to the door and turned the handle, but it was already locked.
Shit. Bear swore.
Behind the desk, on the far side of the room, a chair sat, facing away from us. It slowly turned, and where I’d expected to see Bear’s dad, was Isaac.
“Motherfucker,” Preppy swore.
Isaac’s feet were propped up on the top of the desk. He was caressing his long braided beard. A toothpick hung haphazardly from his bottom lip. His eyes immediately narrowed in on Doe.
Fuck.
His eyes darted from me to Doe as he spoke. “And who is this?”
I felt my face getting hot with rage. If I ever saw that cocksucker Harris again I was going to tear him limb from chubby limb.
It was at that moment I realized how stupid bringing Doe to the party really was. Isaac was a dangerous man, and although I thought I had time before he rolled into town, I’d known him being around was a possibility. I’d planned to send Doe to Grace’s house in a couple of days, at least until this all blew over.
Obviously, it wasn’t soon enough.
It was a complete lapse in judgment on my part. My brain had been put on hold because all the blood had been in my cock, which for the better part of a week had been deeply lodged inside Doe’s tight as fuck pussy.
“She’s with me,” I answered, keeping my voice as casual as possible. Trying not to let my words scream SHE’S WITH ME, IN A FOREVER KIND OF WAY SO BACK THE FUCK OFF OF HER, ASSHOLE. Instead, I kept my face hard and unemotional. “They with you?”
I gestured to the two blondes with sketchy looking matching pink BITCH tattoos on their biceps. They were making a show of touching each other’s huge fake tits.
“I guess they are,” Isaac said with a laugh. He clasped his hands together and gestured to the chair in front of him. “Have a seat, Mr. King.”
I sat and pulled Doe down onto my lap where I kept a hand possessively around the back of her neck. It was a gesture that said she was with me, but it was disrespectful enough to Doe to tell Isaac that she wasn’t all that important. She let out a surprised little yelp, and I rubbed the back of her neck with the pad of my thumb to comfort her. Her pulse raced in her neck.
Isaac’s gaze roamed up her calves and settled between her legs where I was sure he’d caught a glimpse of her panties. I wanted to cross her legs or throw her off of my lap so that he’d stop looking at my girl like he wanted to eat her, but that would show him that she was my weakness. Instead, I slightly parted her knees with my hands to show Isaac more of her. He licked his bottom lip, and his gaze met mine.
“It’s been a long time, KING,” he said, his eyes glimmered with amusement. I pushed Doe’s legs back together.
The way Isaac said my name sent chills up my spine. Doe went along with what I was doing. She trusted me and thank god for that, but the way her body tensed, I knew she was horrified over what I’d just done.
So was I.
“It has. I hear you recently lost your nephew in a tragic construction accident. My condolences,” I offered.
Isaac smirked. “It was tragic, Mr. King, but it was no fucking accident. Wolfert was stealing from me. Simple as that. So, I had his throat slit and buried under three feet of concrete. The only real tragedy of it was that I was stupid enough to give him a chance at all, and that his mother calls me weeping three fucking times a day.” Isaac lit a cigarette and scratched his head. “I’ve learned my lesson, Mr. King, and I won’t be that stupid again. The number one rule in this business is to make sure that the people who fuck you over get fucked right back, or get dead real quick.”
Doe stiffened.
Isaac waved to the blondes who brought over a bottle of expensive whiskey. One of them poured while the other passed around shot glasses. When she got to me, she made a show of brushing her fake tits up against my hand. I was about to tell her to get the fuck away from me when out of the corner of my eye I noticed Isaac watching my every move.
I grabbed the shot glass from the blonde and set it in the other blonde’s cleavage. I made a show of licking the salt off her breast before dipping my head between her tits to bite the glass with my teeth. I threw back the shot all while holding Doe tightly to my side. I waved my hand dismissively when I was done, tossing her my empty glass and then redirecting my attention toward Isaac, who for the meantime, seemed satisfied.
Preppy and Bear stood in the back of the room. I had an uneasy feeling about the situation, and obviously so did they because they were in position to where if the shit hit they fan, they would be able to shoot their way out.
“Let’s not sit in here and hash this shit out right now,” Preppy said. “Let’s party tonight and schedule a formal meet for tomorrow, when we’ve all had a chance to get drunk and get some pussy.”
I could sense Preppy’s wariness. I was able to read him better than anyone, and what he was really saying was let’s get the fuck out of here.
Bear chimed in as well, “Yeah man, let’s go out to the courtyard. Strippers should be here by now. Bump and the boys are setting up mud wrestling out back. Let’s get loaded, and get our dicks wet before all the serious talk goes down.”
“Sounds good.” I stood and started toward the door, dragging Doe with me.
Right when we reached the door, two of Isaac’s men stepped into the room and closed it, blocking our exit, raising their guns.
When we turned around, three more of Isaac’s men emerged from the room right behind the desk. Their pistols drawn and aimed.
“That’s it? You fuck me over and expect that I would just party with you and forget all about it?” Isaac asked. He stood and walked in front of the desk. “You can’t just shit all over a business I’d spent decades running. I’m not your whore. You can’t choose to get in bed with me when it best suits you then leave me hanging after you have thoroughly fucked me.”
“I was locked up,” I argued, knowing that wouldn’t be a good enough reason for Isaac. “You wouldn’t deal with Prep. We needed to earn. We didn’t cut you out. We made a business decision. A temporary one. I’ve been trying to reach you since my release, but you’ve had your balls in a knot. I’m not your girlfriend, Isaac. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Now, let’s move the fuck on, and if you want to talk, we’ll talk. But let them get back to the party.” I waved my hands at my friends and Doe. “That way, they, at least, can enjoy themselves tonight.”
“You think it’s that fucking easy do you? This county may belong to you, but this is my coast. Anytime one of you little trailer trash bastards wants to so much as take a shit, you need my fucking permission!” Isaac spat, pounding a fist onto the desk. His face reddened. He turned his head to the side and passed the heel of his hand against his face, cracking his jaw from side to side.
Bear went for his pistol but he wasn’t fast enough. One of the men who blocked the door pressed his gun to the back of Bear’s neck.
“Don’t even fucking think about it,” he warned.
Preppy spoke up, “What the fuck do you want, Isaac? You want us to make it up to you? You want money? Fine, we’ll up your cut. Make you richer than you already are. I honestly didn’t think you’d care. We’re small-time compared to your other operations. King was locked up. The idea was all mine. This entire thing is on me.” His voice grew louder as he got bolder. “You want someone to blame? Blame me.” He wasn’t cursing, and his tone was serious. That worried me more than the guns to our heads.
Preppy was being reckless.
And he was doing it for us. So he could take all the blame and all the punishment.
I couldn’t allow him to take all the blame, and I couldn’t’ allow this motherfucker to shit all over us like he ran the world. I wasn’t a fucking drug lord, but I wasn’t someone you could point a gun at and not pay for it with your life. I held Doe’s hand and gave it a squeeze, trying my best to reassure her that I would protect her.
I very well intended to.
“But once I knew about it, I didn’t stop it,” I chimed in. “The Money was good, man. But we’re ready to go big time. Need your help to take us there.” I tried appealing to Isaac’s sense of business. But there was a reason Isaac was successful. He cut down everyone who’d ever stood in his way like an angry lumberjack.
Even his family.
Isaac bent over and cackled like a possessed witch. The girls on the sofa scooted to the far edge in an effort to escape. “Stay right the fuck there, ladies!” Isaac warned. His laughter vanished instantly. Deep lines etched themselves into his forehead. His lips pursed. “This won’t take very long.”
“This ain’t on them,” Bear said, nodding to the girls and then to Doe. “Let all three of the bitches leave, and we’ll handle this in any way it needs to be handled. Don’t forget this is my house, my people. I don’t know what you think is gonna go down, but it ain’t going down without a fight. I got a few dozen of my brothers out there that don’t sit idle when they hear gun shots.”
Isaac strutted toward us. I instinctively shoved Doe behind me. Bad idea, because with that move, I showed Isaac she was more important to me than myself. It was instinct to protect her, but in that situation, instinct wasn’t doing me any favors.
He smiled as he approached.
“King of the Causeway,” Isaac said, quoting the air with his fingers around the label that had been given to me when I’d started to make a name for myself in Logan’s Beach. “You ain’t King of shit! The only King around here is me, and if you fuck with what’s mine, the only way I see it is that I need to fuck with what’s yours.” He turned toward Doe. “Or fuck what’s yours.”
“You’re not going to fucking touch her!” I roared, stopping just short of taking Isaac down when I felt the barrel of a gun at my back and Issac’s knife at my throat. My gun was still lodged behind my belt buckle in the waistband of my jeans.
There was no way of getting to it without getting us all killed.
Isaac waved to his one of his men. “Bring her to the back room.”
The man stepped up and grabbed Doe, pushing her forward. She stumbled in her heels and fell onto her knees. The shoes fell off her feet and clattered against the floor.
With just a little fall, all my baser instincts screamed at me to go help her, protect her. But I was surrounded, and I couldn’t do shit.
I’d never felt so weak in my entire life.
Isaac’s man yanked Doe up by her arm and threw her forward. She landed with a smack, her cheek against the door. I growled. He opened the door and pushed her inside. Isaac followed her in and turned back to where I stood surrounded by guns aimed at my fucking head.
“Fuck,” Preppy swore. We were utterly helpless.
“Like I said, KING. You fuck me. I fuck you. And since I’m not into cock, your girl here is going to have to do.”
He shut the door.
* * *
Doe
A man came up behind me and grabbed me by the arm, shoving me forward into a dark room, slamming the door shut behind me.
A small cot sat in the middle of high walls lined with empty shelving. I peered around Isaac, who entered the room after me and spotted King who mouthed IM SORRY as the door slammed shut.
Then, we were alone.
Dark and alone was my worst fear.
This was worse.
My only family in the world stood in the other room with guns pointed at them.
How fucking ironic was that? Because on the way to the party both Preppy and King were so concerned with my safety, they made me recite their rules to them several times over.
#1 Don’t go off on my own.
#2 Make sure one of them was with me at all times.
#3 Don’t take drinks from anyone but them.
We hadn’t even been there an hour, and what they thought was the worst thing that could happen to me was in no way as bad as what was really happening.
They were worried about me being drugged and date raped.
What happened was so much worse.
Isaac wanted revenge on King, and it was obvious he’d planned it all out before we’d showed up at the party with the help of someone in Bear’s MC.
King and Preppy could be killed.
They could’ve already been dead.
I couldn’t feel my limbs, but I could hear the blood rushing to my head.
Maybe, it was all for show. I silently hoped that Isaac just wanted to prove a point and that his intentions weren’t as bad as he’d let on.
No. They weren’t as bad. They were worse.
Much worse.
Because the second the door closed behind me, the reality set in. I looked around for a weapon, something I could use to ward him off, but it was too late. I was on my back on the cot with Isaac’s hand wrapped around my neck, silencing the guttural scream I didn’t even know was coming from deep within my throat.
With one hand trapping my wrists, he straddled me, his thighs caging me in. He released my throat to roughly tug down my dress, exposing my breasts. I let out another scream, which was rewarded with his fist cocking back then landing square on my jaw. My brain rattled around in my head. I saw stars and my vision blurred. My insides were in full defense mode.
Every bit of adrenaline I had was being used to fight him off. But being dazed from the blow to the face, my efforts weren’t enough because he released one hand from my wrists and fumbled with his pants, his fat, little limp cock rested on my thigh as I tried to buck him off with all I had.
He wasn’t as big as King, but he was big enough to do whatever it was he had planned for me without much trouble. Fighting back with all my strength was nothing more to him than a slight amusement and minor annoyance.
I wasn’t about to give up. There was no way King would be able to rescue me, this time. I was on my own and was going to survive this, even if that meant I had to rip his dick off with my fucking teeth.
In the meantime, I bit at any body part of his that came near me, my mouth landing on his wrist bone, rattling my teeth and barely piercing his tanned and tough skin. Immediately, I felt something cold against my forehead.
“I will fucking blow your brains all over this room if you don’t stop biting me, bitch. Then, I’m going to have my men shoot your boys out there in the head and dump them in the fucking swamp. Is that what you fucking want?” he breathed, pushing the gun harder against my head.
“No,” I gasped.
“That’s what I thought. King needs to learn his place. He needs to know that when he gets in bed with me I’m the one who calls the fucking shots, and what’s his is mine. These are my streets, my product. This is my fucking clubhouse. These are my fucking tits.” He snaked his cold, wet tongue around one of my nipples, and I had to swallow down the bile rising in my throat. “That’s why I’m going to fuck you right now. I’m going to fuck you without a rubber and send you back out there with my cum dripping down your leg so he can learn that he is the King of nothing.”
He slid his hand up my leg and grabbed a hold of my panties. When I screamed, he again he covered my mouth and straddled me with a knee on each side of my rib cage, squeezing his legs together so tightly I heard my rib crack at the same time I felt the explosion of pain in my chest. With his free hand, Isaac reached into his boot and produced a long hunting knife. He raised it into the air, and then brought it down into my thigh until I felt it hit bone.
Twice.
When he pulled the serrated blade out, he took chunks of my flesh with it. “I told you not to fucking scream, you fucking cunt.”
Pain coursed through my leg and spread to every nerve ending in my body until it felt like my entire leg had been stabbed, not just my thigh. Tears poured out of my eyes as I struggled to see past the pain-induced blurry vision.
Isaac’s hands were back up my dress, yanking my panties down, the cool air blew over my newly exposed parts, letting me know that Isaac had successfully removed them.
He settled himself between my legs and reached down to position his cock at my entrance. “You fight me, and they’re fucking dead,” he said, looking me in the eyes.
There was nothing about his demeanor that would make me believe that he wasn’t the kind of guy who didn’t follow through with his threats. He meant every word. If I screamed, if I fought him off, the only people in the world who I loved would be dead.
King would be dead.
“That a girl,” he hissed as I dropped my knees to the sides. With a whole lot of effort, Isaac managed to push himself inside of me. He was struggling. My body was so dry it was like it was fighting its own fight to keep him out. He spit on his hand and reached between us.
I closed my eyes tight. Maybe, if I didn’t see it, it wasn’t really happening.
But it was. Because although I couldn’t see it, I could feel it.
He entered me, fully violating the body I’d finally taken possession over as my own. It wasn’t just a violation of my body. It was an invasion of my soul.
Pop Pop Pop Pop.
The sound cracked through the air from the other room.
“What the fuck?” Isaac roared, lifting off of me just in time to turn his head toward whoever had just opened the door.
Pop.
Isaac’s head exploded above me like a sledge hammer to a watermelon. My face became coated in thick, warm, red. The full weight of his limp body fell onto me, knocking the wind from my chest. Shrapnel of flesh and bone that used to be Isaac’s head, landed in my open mouth, and I immediately turned my head and heaved into the floor.
King suddenly appeared beside me, gun in hand. He rolled Isaac off of me pushing his lifeless body to the floor, finally freeing me from his penetration.
King had lost his shirt and was only wearing a black wife-beater. Every inch of available skin on his arms and neck was covered with blood as if he just slaughtered a cow.
Or people.
King’s eyes went wide when he looked down to my state of undress. Then even wider when he noticed the blood pumping from my leg.
“Fuck!” King aimed his gun at Isaac and fired twice, his lifeless body jumping when each bullet made contact. “Motherfucker,” King muttered. “I am so sorry, baby. I am so fucking sorry.”
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked. I was losing blood fast and getting more lightheaded by the second. King lifted me up into his arms. “Where’s Preppy? Where’s Bear?”
“Cover your eyes, Pup,” King ordered.
“Why?”
“Because you may think differently of me if you keep them open,” he whispered, carrying me into the other room. “It’s not a pretty sight out here.”
I knew I should have listened to him, but a part of me, a very stupid part of me, needed to see. But no matter how much I warned myself what was on the other side of the door, it wasn’t nearly enough to fully prepare for the reality of what was in front of me.
Bodies.
Bodies. Everywhere.
Slumped over one another on couches, chairs, the floor. The white linoleum was covered in sludgy, dark red footprints.
Preppy sat in the doorway looking pale, clutching his side with one hand, blood saturating the area of his shirt his hand was trying to cover. Bear stood over him with his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath. Preppy looked up as we approached and scratched his head with the barrel of his gun. He flashed us a pained smile. That was so Preppy. Smiling while seriously injured in a room full of dead bodies.
“So…you guys ready to party now?” he asked, his usual loud and chipper voice was raspy, his breathing shallow.
He turned ghost white in a matter of seconds. The blood draining from his face at al alarming rate. His smiled faded as his eyes rolled back in his head until his pupils were replaced with only the whites of his eyes. Bear lunged to catch him as he fell face forward onto the cement.
Preppy exhaled on a strangled moan.
I would have given anything in the world for that smile and that breath, to have not been his very last.
