Pick

Lounging back on the couch in the compound while my brothers joked and laughed around me was nothing new. I enjoyed nights like that, just chillin’ and drinkin’. I never used to. After my brothers-in-arms found out I was double crossin’ the boss, my life had turned to shit.

For a while there, before I redeemed myself in Talon’s eyes, in turn my brothers’, I was glared at, smacked about, spat on and shouted at. All of it I could take, all of it was well deserved and all of it was nothing compared to what my hellish life already had been. And that fuckin’ said something.

Because what most of my biker brothers didn’t know was how my life before Hawks had been a fuckin’ nightmare.

My fuckin’ mum was a bitch. Christ, bitch was too simple. She was true evil. From an early age, she was nothing but a bad dream. I was beaten, starved, and my body was sold so my mum could stay high or drunk.

What made my stomach churn, every fucking goddamn day, was the thought of not stopping her control sooner.

All I could think was that she was my mother, the one who birthed me. No matter how much shit she put me through, I should be there for her. She had no one else.

I wish I’d been smarter.

Guilt had the better of me for eight years. From when it all got worse at the age of twelve, when she started to sell my body to women and men for money. Which lasted for two years until I had the physical strength to say no. However, those two years were what night terrors were made of. I had been touched, groped and taken in every way.

Fuck. Just thinking of it made bile rise in my throat. It made my body sweat and chest pound, even now twelve years later. I quickly took a pull of my beer, closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the couch.

Stupid motherfucking memories. I wished I could wipe them all out. I wished I could forget.

The only thing that eased any of it was...

No, I couldn’t even go there, because then other memories would rise, even when they were good. When they were the cleanest and most precious ones I had in my sad fuckin’ life.

Hell, they weren’t even that momentous, but they made me smile. They made me feel.

Shit. I couldn’t think of them because none of what I wanted, what kept the bad dreams at bay, would happen again.

She was gone.

And he didn’t want anything to do with me.

Instead, my mind drifted back to the years after I stopped the selling of my body. When I took to stealing. The one bad thing about that was when I got caught and charged. Thank fuck, I was only sixteen so only had to do a small amount of time in juvie. The only good thing that came from stealin’ happened after I got out of juvie. In the small amount of time I was away, my stupid mum had racked up an even bigger debt. So I went back to stealing, which was what led me to Talon, my boss and brother.

He’d caught me trying to knock off some of his tools in the Hawks’ mechanical business off the compound. He beat me, but while doin’ it, I was taught a lesson. In the end, he gave me a job working on cars. It helped a fuckload with getting money in. Still, after a year, it wasn’t enough. Mum was an addict. She no longer survived without her fix and if she didn’t get it, she made my life hell. Christ, if it wasn’t her making my life shit, it was her suppliers coming around taking stuff out on both of us.

Finally at twenty-two, I kicked the habit of supplyin’ Mum with money after I saw my errors from that one night.

And after I risked my life for two gay guys.

How-fuckin’-ever, before that, I had fucked up big time by helping a bastard get his hands on Zara, Talon’s woman. I’d let those pricks take her and the retribution I got in return for my fuck-up was earned. Having the crap beat out of me was nothing. I deserved more.

At least I was back in my brothers’ good graces. I had proven myself in many ways with the help of Zara, Matthew and Julian. Fuck, not only them, but Zara’s ‘rents, and most of all Talon.

He was the one who knocked more sense into me. He was also the one to pay off all debt my mum had. In return, I stopped all contact with her, which suited me just fuckin’ fine.

Didn’t stop her from trying though.

Not a week went by that I didn’t hear her pleading messages about helping her out.

But no more.

I was done.

My life and my family was the brotherhood of Hawks.

For them, I would do anything. They had my respect and alliance.

My head straightened from the couch. I opened my eyes, because even over the music, we all heard the front door to the compound slammin’ shut behind someone. My brothers and I turned to the hall and when Talon’s scowling, hard face stepped through, I knew something was wrong.

The whole room tensed.

Griz was the first to stand and then Blue.

My hand around the beer bottle tightened as Talon’s eyes searched the room. Fuck, when they landed on me, my heart pounded once again and I clenched my jaw. “Office, now,” he ordered. I sent a chin lift and stood from the couch.

“Someone’s gettin’ another spanking. What you done this time, Pick?” Dodge asked.

Snorting, I replied with my middle finger and made my way down the hall that led to Talon’s office at the end. Opening the door, I found Griz and Blue already in there.

“Boss, what’s goin’ down?” I asked.

“Fuck,” he hissed. A hand ran down his face as he stood stiff behind his desk. Griz sat on the couch in the corner and Blue leaned against the opposite wall, both were waiting for the shit news to be dealt. “Blue, go get Billy.”

Now it was my body’s turn to stiffen.

Billy the Kid. That was what he was named when he joined the Hawks MC because he was patched in as prospect at the age of fifteen. Now he was twenty-two. His real first name was Eli, last name Walker.

Eli Walker was...fuck, too much.

“Pick,” Talon said to get my attention from the floor. They’d named me Pick because I was able to pick any lock. Nothing could stop me from gettin’ in. My real name was Caden Adams. When my eyes met Talon’s, he asked, “You okay?”

Obviously, I hadn’t hidden my reaction of hearing Billy’s name. Why I reacted was because I thought once Billy could mean something to me. I had been wrong and since then, I hardly saw the guy. We steered clear of each other and that was fine by me. What also didn’t help us was the fact we both loved the same woman.

Just as I sent a chin lift to boss-man, the door opened behind me. My hands fisted at my sides as Billy’s heat appeared beside me.

“What’s up?” Billy asked, his voice gruffer that usual. He didn’t like that I was in the room. Well, tough fuckin’ shit. I was over it all.

The next word from Talon had both Billy and my attention tenfold.

“Josie,” he said, and then stopped as if he wanted it to take affect and Christ, it did, because Josie was the woman we both loved. “Nancy rang me earlier. She wasn’t herself so I knew somethin’ was up. Josie is havin’ some trouble at school.”

“What sort of trouble?” I asked through clenched teeth.

“Some dicks won’t leave her alone. We all know what Josie is like. She hates any type of attention, especially from men.”

“What’s the plan?” Billy asked.

“I need the two of you to go to Melbourne, find out what in the fuck is goin’ on and fix it. No one causes shit for a Hawks family member. You hear me? Fix it good,” Talon ordered.

“Done,” I hissed.

Knowing someone was fuckin’ with our woman caused my blood to boil. My ears rang from the sudden rush to the head. I wanted to find the fuckers and hurt them.

“Why the two of us?” Billy asked.

Closing my eyes for a second, I breathed deeply and opened them to the floor. He didn’t want to work with me. Christ, I couldn’t blame him. He knew what I wanted from him. He knew what he did to me and he knew my eyes followed him everywhere.

Only he didn’t want any of it.

Instead of Talon answering the obvious, Griz did, “Josie trusts the two of you.”

“She trusts you lot as well,” I said.

“Maybe,” Blue started. “But not like you two. She’s more herself with the two of you, like she is with her parents and Wildcat. No one else will get the job done.”

“And because of the way you both feel about her,” Talon added.

Fuck. They all knew.

“Will you both be good boys to fix our girl’s shit?” Talon asked with a smirk.

Bloody motherfuckin’ hell. They’d all noticed things weren’t right with Billy and me since Josie had left.

Billy and I...yeah, I had feelings for the kid, but he wouldn’t let anything happen without Josie.

Josie was what made us stick.

Otherwise, Billy didn’t want anything to do with a wanker like myself. I had too much baggage. He’d found that out after the one night we’d shared together, after he’d sucked me off one drunken night and I’d become addicted to his touch.

Shit. Thinking of Billy’s mouth around me was not a fuckin’ good idea.

I was dirty. I was wrong in so many ways.

Wished I had time to go to the club where I had no trouble gettin’ sucked off or thrustin’ into any pussy I wanted. It went either way at club Enchanted. If I wanted some random guy or woman, I could have either or both at the same time. But shit, I had no time for it. I was itchin’ to get on the road, to deal with the dicks gettin’ at Josie.

Lettin’ our past go was what I had to do. Not thinking of Billy and Josie as my salvation was what I needed to focus on in order to fix Josie’s problems and work as a team.

Then after, I could go back to being the sad sack of misery, waiting for my happily ever after like my brothers had found.

Instead, I had to face the fact it was never for me and it never would be.

“I’m fine,” I growled.

“Yeah, Josie needs help. Once she’s good, we’ll come back.”

“See if you can bring her back with you.”

Griz scoffed. “She won’t have it. She’ll think she’s a failure.”

“Then we’ll make sure she doesn’t. She’s my woman’s sister, which means she’s mine. She needs to be home with her family. She can study here in Ballarat where we can keep her safe.”

“Deal,” I said and walked toward the door. I went straight to my room.

Not having a house of my own, I lived in the compound. I liked it that way. It was easy for me to be there and help when shit went down.

Grabbing a bag out of the walk-in-closet, I started packing it with random clothes, my mind not really on it. Fury burned in my veins, my attention focused solely on Josie and the shit hand she’d been dealt once again.

Not for long though.

I knew Billy and I would do anything to stop her worries, make it right.

We’d risk anything...even our lives.