Shoulda known it was comin’.
She’d been too good, too Louise Lafayette in a smokin’ hot bod wearin’ Loulou Fox’s tight, barely-there clothes. She’d been too content to straddle our sketchy line between devil and devotee. The girl was followin’ my rules, even the no touchin’, and doin’ it with a smile.
Shoulda known and shoulda braced for it but, fuck me, I was surprised.
Honest to Christ, never expected the girl to give me a damn strip-tease on the stage of The Lotus like she’d been takin’ her clothes off for a livin’ for years.
The second the lights went out and the spotlights cranked on, shoulda told my brothers to get the fuck out.
But then that fuckin’ song came on. “Sink the Pink” by my favourite fuckin’ band AC/DC. She’d done it on fuckin’ purpose, knew from our letters that I loved the band, listened to the lyrics and knew they’d mean somethin’ to me.
And they did.
So insteada kickin’ my brothers out or puttin’ an end to the whole fuckin’ thing like I shoulda, I was frozen when Lou went struttin’ out on the glossy black stage, wearin’ pink and blue light, a little girly skirt that barely covered her ass and a tiny bra with cherries on it.
How the fuck she’d known about the cherries was beyond me. It couldn’ta just been a good guess that she’d dress like a little girl. Had to have known my dick was a fuckin’ steel pole in my pants the second I saw ’er, so fuckin’ young and so fuckin’ ripe for the pluckin’.
She had to have known that I was fucked in the head ’cause the sighta her like that was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.
Then she moved.
It was clear she’d learned some moves from her stripper sisters, but it was also clear as fuckin’ day that my Lou was a ballerina ’cause the way she flowed from one move to another didn’t just make my dick hard, it made my heart stop. She was so goddamn sexy and so goddamn pure it was like watchin’ two different girls up on the stage.
I wanted both. The princess and the sinner.
My mouth was drier than a morning-after hangover when she flipped upside down against that pole and dropped those long gold legs into the splits.
No man could withstand the sighta that.
Any man says different, he’s fuckin’ lying.
But it was over for me the second she reared up like some beauty on the bow of a ship and undid her bra. Her big round tits fell into the candy-coloured light like fuckin’ gumdrops.
“Out,” I tried to yell but my voice was gone probably ’cause my breath was gone.
The brothers at my booth, Nova and Bat, ripped their eyes away from Lou, blinkin’ like they’d looked too long at the sun
My fuckin’ sun.
“Out,” I growled.
Never seen Bat scared but he noticed the seriousness of my threat immediately and started to push Nova out the other side.
Nova—the fuck—tried to reason with me.
“She’s just a kid, Z, take it easy on her.”
Fury tightened like a fuckin’ collar round my throat as I turned my glare on him and watched him flinch, just slightly but it was enough fear to appease the beast in me. The beast that wanted to rip out his fuckin’ eyes for seein’ Lou anywhere near to fuckin’ naked.
“She look like a kid to you?”
Even in the dark, Nova paled and swallowed roughly.
“Fuckin’ out!” I roared.
Thank fuck my brothers knew me enough to know when I meant fuckin’ business. Within seconds, Curtains had the music and spotlights off and the club lights on, and the rest of my lingering brethren were makin’ quick for the door.
They didn’t dare look up at Lou as she slid from the pole and crossed her arms under those fan-fuckin’-tastic tits.
“Gonna have your hands full with this one,” Bat had muttered to me, clapping a hand to my shoulder as he moved past me. “Good fuckin’ luck, brother.”
I didn’t need luck.
All I had was the force of my fury carrying me forward as I took her over my shoulder. The force of possession makin’ me splay her out on my table and finger fuck her ’til she creamed all over my hands. And then only the force of my fuckin’ need for her when I dragged her into my arms and told her she was mine.
I’d cleaned her wet pussy with her broken panties before shovin’ them in my pocket ’cause I was sentimental that way. Then I’d sent her to get dressed and called Mute who’d been waitin’ outside the entire time like he’d said to give her a ride home.
I wanted to be the one to give her a ride home.
No, fuck that, I didn’t want her to go home.
Now that I had her, I wanted her at my side under my fuckin’ roof.
I wasn’t a patient man and I couldn’t see that changin’ now after thirty-six years of it, but I had more pressin’ concerns so I shoved thoughts of claimin’ Lou as my old lady and what that all would mean to her and me and my kids, and I slid into my role as Prez. I’d been at the club only as an alibi just in case anyone wanted to put up a stink about the disappearance of a fuckin asshole dealer. You never knew with the Entrance cops just how invested they could get in takin’ The Fallen down, so I liked to cover my bases.
Now though, and especially after what I’d just had with Lou, it was time for some fuckin’ vengeance.
“You good?” Blackjack asked when I showed up at Angelwood Farm just outside of Entrance.
It was a hundred acres of fertile land I’d bought and gifted to my old prison cellmate Dixon when he’d got out three years ago. He’d liked the farmin’ we’d done as prison labor and I needed a safe place to bury bodies so it worked. I gave ’im the land, he bought a shit-ton of pigs, and we were in the body-disappearing business.
“Good,” I repeated as I fell into step with him.
Blackjack grinned. “Heard Foxy’s givin’ ya a run for yer money.”
“Foxy?” I asked even though I knew he was talkin’ about Lou. It was only a matter a time before they give ’er a nickname but didn’t mean I had to like it.
He shrugged. “It was either that or Barbie but she threatened to cut off Boner’s dick when he suggested it and you know how fonda that thing he is.”
I smiled at the thought of my girl sassin’ Boner, who was lean as hell but carried about nine concealed weapons on his person even in peace times.
It wasn’t peace times though, which brought me to the reason I was even at Angelwood and not in bed discoverin’ my Foxy girl.
“Callin’ King home this weekend. Cress too. Gotta have a family dinner to talk about this shit and get it sorted. King won’t want a bodyguard but I’m thinkin’ of sending a brother down there to keep an eye,” I told Blackjack.
He wasn’t a lieutenant but I’d known B.J. almost as long as I’d known Bat and that was sayin’ somethin’. He’d lived across the street from my uncle and his dad had been a member of The Fallen too, so we’d hung out at family BBQs and charity fundraisers. He was a decent guy, not so pretty ’cause of a car accident as a kid, but loyal to a fuckin’ tee. He’d taken my side in the revolt ten years ago when I’d exposed what a bastard my uncle was and taken the presidency from ’im. A bunch of old-timers had left, includin’ Blackjack’s dad, but my brother had stayed.
He proved how well he knew my family by sayin’, “Queenie’s gonna freak, she figures out yer sleepin’ with Foxy.”
“Not sleepin’ with her yet, brother, and don’t plan on doin’ any sleepin’ when I got her in my bed for a good long fuckin’ time.”
He laughed even as he shook his head at me. “Luckiest fuckin’ man I ever knew.”
My grin turned into a grimace. “Try tellin’ me that again when Queenie and H.R. rip into me about Lou.”
His laugh was even louder. “Fuck but I’d like to see that.”
“Makes one of us,” I muttered.
“Yer serious about the girl, then? I mean, can’t blame ya, I got young pussy like that lustin’ after me,” he whistled, “Well, I’d near to sell my soul for a shot’a that.”
I grunted as we came to a stop at the doors to the storm shelter round the side of the farmhouse. “Give ya a pass on that one, B.J., but next time you call my woman ‘young fuckin’ pussy’ I’m gonna have to tear a strip off you.”
His pale eyebrows shot into his pale hair but he laughed as he held up his hands. “You got it, Prez. This one means somethin’, good to know.”
I nodded at him, done with the conversation because talkin’ about Lou had reminded me of the rage eatin’ away in my gut at what that fucker dealer had done to her. I’da been pissed he played those fucked-up tricks on any one of the girls at The Lotus but that it was Lou made me feel like skinnin’ the man with a dull blade. I let the anger dope me up like a shot of heroin as B.J. held open the doors to the storm shelter. The air hit me like it always did in the deep cellar, earthy and decomposing. I rolled my shoulders and cracked my knuckles as I descended into The Fallen owned corner of hell where we kept the worse kind of sinners.
Traitors.
“Quentin!” I called out happily as I rounded the corner into the big concrete room and saw the drug dealer danglin’ by his shackled hands from a metal hook in the ceiling.
Priest had already gone at ’im. The right side of his torso was purple with bruises, red with blood and lumpy in a way a man’s ribcage should never be.
He’d left Kade’s face for me.
I nodded at my brother in gratitude as he cleaned his bloody hands over at the sink against the wall. The blood was the same colour as his hair and it always seemed kinda poetic to me that the club enforcer had hair like that.
“Did the rat bastard give us anythin’?”
“Nah, boss, he was feelin’ real tight-lipped. Was about to take out the pliers when Axe-Man told me you were on your way.”
I nodded as I pulled my tee up over my head from the back of my neck. No reason to get blood on anythin’.
“Oh Kade, you think you’re gonna get outta this alive? Let me tell you,” I said conversationally as Priest handed me my favourite brass knuckles and I fitted them to my fingers. “You’re gonna tell me everythin’ you know about those motherfucking Nightstalker bitches and you’re gonna do it screamin’, then garblin’. Why’s that, you ask? ’Cause I’m gonna cave your motherfuckin’ face in for playin’ fucked up games with my girl.”
“Your girl?” the rat bastard finally sniveled, fear sparking so fuckin’ pretty in his eyes. “She told me she was nothin’ to you!”
I grinned, flexed and released my fist as I drew closer to ’im and then reared it back as I said, “She’s every fuckin’ thing to me.”
My bronze fist hit him straight across the left cheek. I felt it crumble under my force. Heard the brutalized scream of the man a second later and knew, a second after that, when my fist reared back to connect again, I’d hear the pathetic excuse for a fuckin’ man break and start fuckin’ talkin’.
“They’re comin’ for you,” he said through his tears. “And this time, they’ve got help.”
