I saw the motherfuckers before they had the chance to see me, thank fuck. However, I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do now that I have obtained this knowledge. Circle the joint while the two MCs get their men into position to take me out? Umm, I think not. I didn’t raise no fool, and yes, I said I. Because I fucking raised myself. And, while that statement may not be totally accurate, it’s the way I fucking see it. In reality, I was raised by several different MCs.
The first half of my life—the half I refer to as my red half—I was raised believing I bled blood as red as the red on my cut. My pops was a part of that life, but that’s a part of a different story. I wondered how long it’d last. How long I’d be able to step back and forth between my red life and my life with no colors at all.
No Name—No Colors.
The way it fucking should be. The way it always should've been.
When we were kids, just barely fucking twenty, and Jacques acted funny about that girl I raped—I knew when I had to tell him she was faking, that that’s how she wanted it. I knew then he and I would never see eye to eye. Therefore, I waited for him to walk away to snap her little neck. Thankfully, Rox was there to help me clean up the mess. Like always. If anyone in any of this deserves anything, it’s my Roxy Bell. I don’t know how I went so long so completely blinded by Eden.
And the entire time, she’d been sleeping with Jacques. My own goddamn cousin.
Roxy was scared to death—for me, for our club. Roxy’s always had her finger on the pulse of the SOS MC. If anything was ever going down, if there was ever anything being rumored about and you wanted the facts, you went to Roxy. And, if Rox trusted you, she’d let you in on what she knew. And I said IF.
When Rox met me in Clearwater, I was only there to get what I thought was mine. I thought my only competition would be Josh, the fucking newest prospect in the Clearwater chapter. And I knew that Eden’s kid wasn’t his; the damn girl had just met him. Hell, I know for a fact she was already pregnant when they hooked up! Josh didn’t give a shit who she belonged to. He made it a point to tell me. All he wanted from her was what she had between her legs. And I understood that—I did. That’s why I let the motherfucker live. At least until he started making too much ruckus when Eden didn’t make it out of the abortion Rox and I made her have. I didn’t know the dumbass punk would try to rally his brothers up and then force Rox and me out of town.
We didn’t have shit to call home after that. The whole damn SOS MC put out an APB to the other MCs. One of my men said they’re asking for us dead or alive…
I snicker under my breath as I make my way onto the interstate headed anywhere but towards New York City. And I’m supposed to believe that Jacques still has Roxy stashed away somewhere? I’m supposed to fucking swallow his lies—trust he’s kept her safe and alive? He failed to mention the APB. That’s where he fucked up. Or that’s where he would have fucked up had my plan stayed on track. I didn’t foresee her going into preterm labor, and I’m not sure how Jacques is gonna handle that. But she’s his damn problem now, isn’t she?
After she’d passed out in the middle of smoking her dipped cigarette, I tossed her over my shoulder and carried her into the small room in the back of the RV. A split second of her flailing through the air passed, and she landed on the bed before I dragged her body towards me by her ankles, making sure she felt my erection pressing into her as I leaned over limp frame.
But, when my knuckles hit something sticky on the bed, I jerked her up and stood. Then I tossed her onto a chair next to it.
“Please.”
I thought I heard her murmured word, but when I looked back and saw her slumped over, still seemingly unconscious, I left her where she was, turning to the mess on the bed.
“Did you fucking vomit, Vagabond? God, you’re nasty!” I stripped the bed while taunting her just in case she could still hear me. “Ugh! This is so disgusting. You’re just like your sister. Both of you are a pathetic, nasty waste of time. You know that? I had to clean up her fucking mess too!” I toed the chair my prisoner was in until it flipped back and she spilled out of it.
After getting a few good giggles of my own in, I toed her forehead a few times with my boot. Then my hand circled her upper arm, and for the first time since I’d taken her a week ago, I realized how much weight she’d lost. I’m not sure when it happened, but I cleaned her vomit off the bed and it’d been stripped and was bare when I tossed her limp ass back on it.
I was heading from the room, towards the kitchen, when I glanced over my shoulder at her. And the angle of her face—or maybe it was the way the setting sun shone through the broken blinds and barely brushed across her dark hair and smooth complexion. But her beauty—while it was so similar to Eden’s, it was different. It was captivating, odd...yet poignantly mesmerizing. And, somehow, even in and out of consciousness, she captured me, enrapturing me in the middle of my task!
It’s easy to see why Jacques loves her. The thought entered my mind as my feet slowed, and for the first time, I stopped and really looked at the woman carrying my cousin’s child. It was easy to see why he’d finally let go of not only Roxy, but his flock of bed warmers, too. Eve is beautiful. The thought barely whispered across my brain as I tugged her tank top down. Then her bra. And, after her tits had spilled out, I slapped at them before plucking her nipples as tight as I could between my thumb and my forefinger.
“You like that, you dirty bitch?” I continued taunting her even though her lack of response was beginning to bore me. I’d been dying to get my hands on her since the flight home though, to be completely honest. “Did your dirty-ass sister tell you she was carrying his fucking kid too? It’d be alive right now, you know it? Fuck, and if it’d been mine?” I gagged, remembering when Rox had spelled everything out for me in Clearwater.
The old motherfucker who’d been keeping her in nice digs and new rides wasn’t her fucking father. No way in hell. I don’t know how Ilsa pulled that shit off. I’m not sure what that woman held over him. Hell, maybe he was as thick into the skin biz as me and Pops were. I don’t know. But there’s no way in hell that albino-looking motherfucker had anything to do with Eden being conceived. As dark as that girl turned out? Nope. I didn’t raise a damn fool, like I said.
“It was yours, you fucking crazy asshole,” my little, caged animal muttered, rolling onto her side.
Her angry words fuel my excitement, causing it to flood my belly.
“Oh my god, it hurts—” Her shoulders shook and her head bowed as she came up on all fours.
But I didn’t give a shit. Let her cry. Hell, she should have been fucking crying.
“I cleaned up your vomit, you nasty cunt. Don’t think I’ll do it again, either. I’m not your fucking maid!” I spat the words at her and turned to move, but the dark circle or stain I spotted growing beneath her stopped me and caused my brow to furrow. I stepped back towards the bed and shoved her. “Move! What’d I just fucking tell you!?” I screamed at the bitch. “Are you pissing?!”
“Ben, there’s something wrong. Please.” Her words were pleas and all muttered around her sobs. She was barely able to pull air in and out of her lungs when whatever the hell was happening must have finally stopped. Whatever had seized every muscle in her body moments before released its hold.
When she was as still as I’d ever seen her, my eyebrows crept up and I nudged her.
“Hey. Get up. I’m not cleaning up piss. From now on, if you make a mess, you clean it up. I’m not having you releasing yourself all over the place. That’s fucking disgusting.”
“Please.” When her pale face rose, her eyes met mine.
Even though she was still, I knew she was hurting. The look on her face alone told me that something really was very wrong, and I would've probably felt an inkling of remorse had I not held a thousand other crying women prisoner before.
This wasn’t my first rodeo. Why the hell do you think I’m so fucking good at it?
“Get up, bitch. Or I’ll hose you where you lay!” I shouted before snatching her up. I ran my hand across the stain on the bed and then sniffed it as I carried us through the RV, towards the lighted sitting area.
Once I’d dropped the wet bitch in the chair next the kitchenette table, I grabbed some clothes out of the K-Mart bag I’d brought earlier and quickly changed her clothes for some dry ones.
“What the fuck? It’s not piss…” I muttered, stripping the damp clothes from her legs and smelling the crotch. “It’s clear, whatever it is.” After throwing the offensive, wet material on the floor, I slapped the fuck out of her across her face with my hand and then finished dressing her “You pass back out?” I chuckled when her only response was to dribble a little bit of drool.
Yup. I sighed as I stood to my full height and glanced around the RV. How long had it been since I had taken her from outside her father’s hotel? I did the calculations in my head, and I figured she was well over seven months pregnant—so it very well could be her water broke, but I didn’t know what the fuck to do with that. So, after I’d gotten the place as cleaned as I could, I scanned the small confines of the vehicle and the surrounding campsites. Once all the evidence of me had been erased, I set up a few of my own triggers and traps. Just in case.
I snort, remembering my frame of mind prior to the fucking triggers going off. I’d thought we were in the clear. All I had to do was find out how to get Rox back. The triggers were just for precautions, a lot like the fucking traps I set out. I was expecting a goddamn deer on the camera screen feed on my cell. Not Jacques fucking Cain! How the hell had he found me? The guy from the online store said the fucking phone Rox had given me was trace-proof! It’s fucking worthless if it’s not.
The piece-of-shit cell phone rings in my hand, pulling me from my thoughts. When I look at the time, I curse and answer it.
“Fuck! I say we pull the plug. Take the bikes tonight, open the boneyard, and pull out every fucking one. Rox put the bike keys in our safety deposit box, the ones from the file she jacked from Jacques’s room.” I chuckle, suddenly proud of her for her braveness that night months ago.
Then the same familiar pang hits my chest, reminding me how much time has passed since all of this shit started.
We knew we’d get separated. We knew the time apart would suck, but we’d made our peace with it. It was for the greater good. I know she didn’t like the fact that Jacques would finally and eventually have to be taken out. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
I don’t know how much longer she’ll believe that that’s the endgame, either. But that fight is for another day. Like, maybe the day after the day I find her. Alive and safe, if Jacques hasn’t turned into a goddamn liar.
“...then Keane and Gordy left. There’s only me and Jeff here in New York. You sent everyone home after we r-r-rounded up King’s pregnant kid—just like you promised.”
The stuttering bastard? REALLY? Gordy left this motherfucker in charge when he left?!
“I-I need more men, boss. Have you t-talked to Gordy, by the way? H-he was looking for y-you.”
“Look, stuttering Shawn, I don’t want to hear anything about what you need. I want your plans. I need this shit fixed! Do you hear me! She’s GONE!” I finally tell him.
“Sh-she? Sh-she who, boss—”
“Vagabond, you fucking idiot!” I scream into my phone. “Call the brothers. Tell them there’s a mandatory meeting tomorrow night and whoever isn’t at my condo in upstate New York by five p.m. is out!”
“V-vagabond? You mean the g-girl?” he asks.
But I just can’t. Not with stress this high. Nuh uh. I click end on my phone and settle both hands on the steering wheel before focusing back on the road.
I’m trying to decipher why exactly the fucking punk called my phone in the first place when my mind decides to get hung up on a way to fix the shit I’m in. I don’t know if that’s even a possibility. Not now. And what sucks more than anything is, six hours ago, I was on top of the world.
I will never be used to the breakneck speed of life. Never.
I’ve heard other people describe time as moving slower when they were young, but that never was the case for me. My childhood—really, my whole life—can’t be similarly described to anyone else’s I know. Because, unlike Eden, I was raised by my biological father. And, if anyone knows Chase Cain, it’s me—his son.
The youngest Cain brother was always referred to as the odd one. He grew up being told everyday by Archer Bishop Cain the first, “You’re a fucking weird one, ya know that, kid?” So the writing was on the wall even when my pops was knee-high to a grasshopper. And, if your brother was also Arch Cain the second, not only would you introvert and learn to hide your failings, but you’d probably fall further towards the dark side too.
Chase Cain’s brother continued to set his eyes on the next step, not only succeeding at every feat, but breaking records in sports and going on to do shit like graduate from high school even though it wasn’t necessary—not for kids who lived our lifestyle. We didn’t have to abide by the rules of civilization. None of us did.
None of us do, even now. But you can’t tell Jacques Cain that shit. No. Not with all of his rules.
I wasn’t even old enough to know what was going on the first time I walked in and realized my father was Satan himself. I couldn’t have been twelve; I’m certain of it.
My stomach had hurt all night the evening before, but still, when my pops told Jacques and me that it was time for bed, I headed upstairs. But that was one of the first nights in the beginning when Jacques’s mother was sick. It was like she got a cold one day and it just kept getting worse. Until she never got better, and then she couldn’t breathe anymore, so she died.
Jacques usually came up to the compound on weekend nights and would stay overnight with me, sleeping on the top bunk. But, that night, he was too worried about his mother, so after tossing and turning for a while, he ended up calling his dad, who picked him up.
I thought, after he and his dad had driven off, that was it—I took off for bed. It was almost one a.m. when my uncle’s brake lights lit up before he took a left out of the parking lot.
I’d made it through the boneyard and crossed the threshold of the ground floor’s entrance when several bikes and a van pulled up. Even though I’d ducked, it hadn’t been fast enough. The van’s headlights shone through the bushes, and a split second later, a car door slammed.
“Saw ya, kid. Get out of the fucking bushes.”
The sound of the older man’s voice was my first wholesome taste of fear, and some might argue that this is where my mental downfall began. At twelve and a half. I’m not certain I’d claim that. However, we’re nowhere near the end of this story, so only time, I guess, can tell.
Another man’s voice shot through the night. “Wait. His kid is cool, right? Chase’s kid?”
“Yeah. Was he redheaded? Or did the little fucker have black hair?”
“I dunno. Kid, get the fuck up! Or I’m gonna start popping some bullets in that bush...”
The fear in my gut mixed quickly with the burning bile, turning it to lead. I abruptly stood, and after awkwardly holding my hands up, I apologized.
“I’m sorry. I’m just trying to go to bed. My cuz—I mean, my friend just left. Right before you guys pulled up.”
Someone must have switched the lights to high beams, because suddenly, I went from hardly being able to see to not being able to see the hand in front of my face when I brought it up to block the light.
“I’m sorry. Please don’t tell my pops. He just got back in town today, and I really don’t want to piss him off!” I whined as my nausea worsened and the bile began climbing up the back of my throat.
I dropped my hands out in front of me and wobbled forward, making my way through the bush, towards the sound of their laughing and taunting. They knew my uncle; everyone in a mile radius of this club knew him. So surely they wouldn’t hurt me. My pops wasn’t a saint by any means, but I definitely wouldn’t have called him Satan. At least not that night.
No, that knowledge—the knowledge of my father not only being capable of doing the devil's work, but also being evil enough to fill his shoes on his days off—I learned over the next few months.
As the wheels on my stolen Cadillac slow to a stop on top of the gravel outside the old rickety barn on a piece of Gordy’s property, my gaze follows the roof line of the house I came to learn so well as a child.
Thanks to my father and his unhealthy proclivity to capture and torture young girls and women, I was shoved into a Hell I didn’t understand at an age much too young. Then the realization hadn’t set in that they were waiting…all those girls and women. Just waiting until it was time for them to earn their stay or be transferred to a permanent home. The first victim of his I stumbled across was so much younger than I was at the time. She couldn’t have been more than five or six; she was too small. And I should have said something to someone. I know I shoulda let my uncle Arch know or mentioned it to Jacques because the whole thing was sketchy. The girl... The way my father hovered over her but remained defensive. Screaming at me to get the fuck out.
“Get the fuck out! Shit, why do you have to snoop so goddamn much, kid?! Ya just can’t mind your own business like your cousin, can you?”
My father pushed himself off the small girl huddled on the raggedy, sheet-less mattress, and I’ll never forget the look on his face before he struck me. Never. I didn’t even let it leave me while I blew the back of his head off last spring. I’ll always remember when I first realized my father, Chase Cain, wasn’t just a good man edging on bad. He was a bad man pretending to be good. My uncle Arch—he was good man. I’d seen it in his acts of daily kindness. The way he treated his club members. The way he carried himself with pride even though he knew he had flaws. And, up until that night when I was twelve years old, I’d always thought I wanted to be a good man. Like my uncle and my father.
But, like I said, there’s another part of this story…
One I’m not certain I can trust you with yet.