Reaper's Promise: A Wild Reapers MC by Kiki Leach (3)

He grinned. "Not at the moment, no."

"Okay then, I'll see you this afternoon." I wrapped my left hand around the door to pull it shut and he whistled, which stopped me in my tracks.

Then he pointed. "That's a pretty nice rock on your finger there," he said. I stared down at my left hand for the second time in less than thirty minutes and brushed my thumb across the diamond. "Whoever gave it to you must've been set back a pretty penny."

"I guess." I lifted my eyes back up to his and he pinched his brows.

"How many karats is it?"

"I don't know exactly," I lied.

"Huh. Well, any idea where your... I'm assuming fiancé, happened to pick it up from?" he questioned. I remained silent for a few seconds, unsure of his motivation for even asking about it. And then he chortled. "The thing is that I'm planning to propose to my lady soon and I'm betting that she would probably love something just like that for herself. Perfect timing that I managed to catch a glimpse of it before you headed back inside. Even more that I was able to show up here to see you today instead of my ex."

"Sure. Um..." I paused. "Congratulations to you on the soon-to-be engagement, but -- and I hate to burst your bubble on this -- but just as I don't have a clue about the karats, I also have no idea where my now husband picked it up from."

Slowly, he raised his head and stared me straight in the face. His upper lip twitched and his jaw tightened. I swallowed hard, confused by the action and his reason behind it. "Your husband," he repeated, his tone flat and suddenly dark.

"Yes." When one of the students called for more markers and crayons, I breathed a sigh of relief. All signs pointed to this awkward as hell conversation between us needing to end ASAP. "I'm sorry," I told him, my voice more anxious than I was hoping to let on, "but I should really get back in there and start my lesson for the day."

"Of course." He flashed another quick smile, though something about it seemed much more devious this time, more sinister. "I'll see you again later this afternoon, Mrs...?"

"Coleman."

His entire face twitched and his head jerked back. "Is that your married name?"

"No, that would be Starvaski. But Coleman is what the students, parents and other teachers know me by, so-"

"Alright then, Ms. Coleman," he said, purposely interjecting before I could finish. "As I said before, I'll see you again later this afternoon." He immediately pivoted and headed toward the front of the building, exiting through the doors that lead straight out to the parking lot.

What a strange man, I thought before returning to my classroom. Something about his entire demeanor was completely off-putting despite his best attempt at appearing otherwise. I had hoped to keep from seeing him again this afternoon because he hadn't given me the best initial vibe for that reason alone. But I knew I wouldn't have such luck in this being our one and only time meeting over the course of the rest of the school year.

 

Roman

I moved around to the front of the car I had been working on, the seventh one brought into the garage in less than two hours' time earlier that morning, and wrapped my hand around the base of my chin while staring down at the parts beneath the hood. "I don't think I can fix this one either, brother."

Atom shook his head at me in the same way my old man used to when he was disappointed in shit I couldn't manage to get done on time, or at all, and groaned. "Shit." He took a swig from his third beer and muttered something else under his breath. I looked over my shoulder at him and grimaced. Then he pointed. "You realize if you keep fucking up like this today that Riggs'll put your ass back on the line at the junkyard with those dumbass prospects who still need help in being able to tell the difference between a screwdriver and needle buried deep inside the center of a goddamn haystack, yeah?" He paused and lifted his shoulders. "What the fuck is going on with you today, brother?"

I sighed and turned away from the car. "Nothin'." I pulled a rag from my back pocket and wiped the grease from my hands, then tossed it aside and headed in the garage for my own beer. Atom followed.

"Something, motherfucker," he hollered out from behind me, "otherwise you'd have had every single car finished before noon as usual. It's almost 1:30 and you haven't even gotten to that truck back there to bring home to ol' wifey like you say you promised."

"Yeah. I might still have time to get to that shit before the day is over. This other can wait 'til tomorrow."

"Yeah -- yeah, I'm sure Riggs'll be real good with that shit, brother. It's certainly what the hell he pays us for, slacking off and pushing things off to the side 'til the next goddamn day."

I wagged my head and cracked the lid on the bottle of beer, then tossed it in the trash and leaned back against one of the tables covered in tools and old biker mags, and gulped some of it back.

Atom took a step forward. "Start talking, motherfucker -- What's the deal?"

I shrugged. "I told you it was nothin'," I said again. "There's no deal."

"Jesus." He sighed heavily. "Alright, listen." He sat his beer down on top of a stool and folded his arms. "You may not realize this, but you've been acting like a real piece of shit since rolling in here this morning and hopping into that raggedy assed jumpsuit." I looked down at the brown coveralls I had put on over my clothes before getting started on the cars, then lifted my head to stare him in the face. "You're lucky the other brothers are out on business at the D&C with Riggs and hadn't seen you like this, fucking around with motors and headlights and shit instead of actually fixing what's broken while I supervise, otherwise what's going on around here right about now wouldn't be so goddamn kosher." I gulped back more of my beer and rolled my eyes up toward the roof of the garage. "Now start talking like I said," he told me, "or in about 2.9 seconds you're gonna be forced into defending your road name right here on the grounds of the club."

I lowered my eyes back down to his and yanked the neck of the beer from between my lips. Then I wagged my head and muttered, "It's this shit with Colette."

He shoved his brows together, confused. "What shit? She already getting on your nerves or something?"

I grunted. "No."

"Then what is it to the point of making you unable to do your goddamn job around here?"

I sat my beer to the side and dropped my hands inside my pockets. "You know I told you about her saying Jeremiah's name when we were out there in Vegas."

"Yeah? So? Is she also calling out his name when you two are fuckin' or something?"

"Jesus Christ, brother, no. Goddamn -- the shit ain't even like that."

"Then what the fuck is it?!" he asked me again, his frustration growing in spades.

"Alright, I told her this morning that I didn't want her having the key to my house anymore that he had given to her; I switched 'em out and gave her my key instead."

"And what, she was pissed or something?"

"No. She was happy about it, especially in knowing that she's the only woman I'd ever given one to."

He blinked up at me, then looked aside. "Okay, brother, I'm not managing to follow any of this shit at all. So far, everything that you're telling me has been a 'good' thing. So what's the deal?"

"The deal is that on the way out here after dropping her off at the school this morning, I got to thinking about how I still haven't told her anything regarding what really went down, the shit she can't remember in saying yes to my proposal."

"Rome," he said. "Does it even really matter all that much anymore now, brother? I mean with you being the one she always wanted in the first place over your brother? Who gives a fuck if she said his name when it's your ring on her finger and she's got no desire to take it off?"

I grabbed my beer again and held it tight inside my hand. "She might not take it off, but there's a chance she might start questioning shit if I let her know anything of what Cherry mentioned to me about Jeremiah the other night."

"What did Cherry have to say about your brother outside of his cock being too small to make it all the way in?"

I finished off my beer and tossed it into the trash along with the lid. "She told me that he paid her to fuck."

He laughed. "No wonder she went along with that shit. I knew she couldn't have been willing to do it on her own."

"No, old man," I said. "He paid her to fuck because he wanted to use her to bust up with Colette."

"Why?"

"Because if what I'm thinking is correct, and all signs are so far pointing to the fact that I just might be, he needed to make a clean break outta town after ripping off some of Lorenzo's cash."

"Are you fuckin' serious?" he asked me. I nodded. "Jesus."

"Him working those books and then giving up some dough for pussy? The shit makes all kinds of sense."

"Fuck." He snaked his fingers through his hair and locked his jaw. "How much did he end up giving her that night?"

"According to her, about ten grand in cash."

He whistled and lowered his eyes, then peered. "And you're sure there's no way -- I mean no chance in hell that it couldn't have just been some money he had saved up over the years or something? Maybe from when he was working part-time out here for Riggs or from what he earned at some point during his casino visits or the infirmary?"

"Nah. Everything he ever earned out here from working behind the bar and doing offhand mechanic shit was spent in maybe two or three years' time. The infirmary has never paid him enough for his skills and he lost more than he's ever earned while playing those slots. Probably one of the reasons why it was so easy for him to hook up with Lorenzo in the first place. Walk in unassuming and thick-headed about how shit works out there when it comes to earning cash playing those games, come out with a suitcase filled with so much green that you start thinking you're richer than God Himself."

"Christ. This means that we are genuinely fucked then, yeah?"

"Yep. My guess is that at some point down the line, if he hasn't already or won't by the time he gets here Friday, this son of a bitch will try and pull some shit with Riggs to get us to pay up in place of Jeremiah."

"And if he does, it'll be a win all around for him now just 'cause of this dumbass deal Prez made with him behind our backs."

"Mm-hm. And I'd bet every dime my brother stole from him that Riggs didn't even bother considering the fine print of that thing. For all we know, he could own us lock, stock and barrel and we wouldn't have a clue about it. Tracker could be right."

"Does your stupid ass brother realize just how much he might have fucked us over with this shit?"

"What the hell do you think his other reason was for taking off, old man? He doesn't give a flying fuck about any of us anymore."

He grinded his teeth. "Your old man must be rolling around in his grave over this asshole." I bobbed my head. His words hit me straight in the gut because I knew they were true. "You know Lorenzo's gonna find him at some point and have him killed, yeah? Might even break down and try to do it himself at this rate."

I looked away from him and sighed. "Yeah, I know."

"And are you good with that shit?" he asked me. "Because I know he's your blood and all, but--"

"Blood means shit when it leaves you hanging out to dry like he's done. And now that I've got Colette, it's putting a whole lotta things into perspective for me these days."

"Like what?"

"She's vulnerable to all this and he didn't even bother thinking about that part before he got his cock sucked and ducked out. In talking to Cherry, I thought he was trying to save her in some way -- make it look as if she had no more connection to him to keep Lorenzo from trying to take a swipe at her. But the truth of the matter is that he was only trying to save himself from start to finish, no more, no less. The rest of us were gonna be fucked up the ass with a lead pipe regardless and he didn't give a shit about any of it."

He raised his head to stare me in the face and glowered. "You know, brother, part of me gets the feeling that if he were standing right here in front of us right now that you wouldn't have a problem taking him out yourself."

"To tell you the truth, I don't think I would."

"Take him out?"

"Have a problem with doing it," I said.

We stared at each other for a few seconds in silence until the honking of a horn broke right through it. As a silver Town Car with blacked out windows rolled through the front gate, we both headed out of the garage and moved around the car that I was working on, sitting right in front of it.

Atom threw his hand out toward the lot and narrowed his eyes. "Who the fuck is this asshole?" he said. "Mayor of the goddamn city?"

I shook my head. "Nah, Mayor wouldn't roll up on us like this unannounced," I told him. "Looks like some other asshole in need of a tune up."

He snickered. "Well he better hope that he won't need this shit back in less than 28 to 48 hours or more with the way you've been working on things out here."

"Eat a dick, old man."

"You offering up to me, youngin’?" he shot back.

I didn't say another word to him after that as the car rolled to a complete stop in the center of the lot. I folded my arms over my chest and flattened my hands against my sides, then bent forward trying to get a glimpse of who the hell was behind the wheel. And that's when the back door flew open and a pair of black alligator shoes stepped out and to the ground.

"Holy. Christ." I looked over at Atom as he suddenly clamped his teeth together and locked his jaw. Then he swallowed hard and sucked in a deep breath. "It's motherfuckin' Lorenzo," he said. I glowered and turned back to the car, only to see that he was right. It had been a good few years since I had seen him in person, but no doubt that this was him.

He placed his hand on top of the door and hopped out of the car, removed his sunglasses from his face and eyed the entire lot from one end of it to the other. Son of a bitch was more than likely sizing up the space already for himself.

After shuffling around the door and closing it shut, he jerked the lapels of his suit and started making his way toward us. Atom folded his arms and tucked his fists beneath them, I figured to keep from throwing a punch. "You think Riggs knows about this shit?" he asked me, leaning in.

"Probably not," I muttered. "Otherwise, why would he bring his ass here first?"

"Well." Lorenzo stopped in front of us and opened his arms wide. "It's been a long time since I've seen this place in person, or either one of you in action." He turned to stare me in the face, then eyed me up and down. "Looks like being a grease monkey still suits you, Rome."

I snickered. "And being a walking piece of shit seems to do the same for you. Matter of fact, uh..." I looked at Atom and plugged my nose. "Turns out that smell wasn't the toilet that's been backed up inside the clubhouse, it was you coming to town and making your way back to our lot, unannounced and uninvited."

He placed his hands in front of himself and shrugged. "I was invited."

"You weren't supposed to be here 'til Friday, asshole," said Atom. "Does Riggs know you're in town yet?"

"No. I was hoping to surprise him with that fact. Is he around?"

I shifted my eyes from him and grinded the back of my teeth. "He and the other brothers are at the D&C."

He nodded and pushed out his fat bottom lip. "Probably trying to get shit ready for me," he said. "Make it look somewhat decent before I have to go in there and start tearing everything a part."

"What exactly are you doing out here before Friday?" I asked him. "Did somebody on your end happen to get shit all mixed up?"

He shook his head. "No. I was all good with the idea of meeting up here on Friday, but plans changed."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Atom snapped.

Lorenzo stared him in the face and chuckled. "You've gotten funny in your old age, old man."

"Yeah, I'm a real motherfuckin' riot around here. Give me a clown suit and a cannon and we'll see what I can make do with your ass standing here."

Lorenzo chortled and shook his head again.

"So what are you doing here ahead of the scheduled date?" I asked him.

"My kid," he said. "I've got an ex that moved down here a few months ago with our daughter. We normally switch back and forth every other weekend but this upcoming Saturday is the ex's birthday and she wanted her home, so I agreed to take my kid this past weekend instead."

Atom snarled. "That shit's sweet and all for your kid, but it means that you knew before making that agreement with Riggs to come out here on Friday that--"

"I'd be making it in a few days early? Maybe," he said.

"Son of a fuckin' bitch."

"I'm hoping that you're speaking of yourself in that respect," Lorenzo told him. "Because I genuinely like my mother."

Atom lunged forward as his face turned bright red, but I threw the back of my hand into his chest, shoving him back. "You are a real asshole," he said. "You know that?"

"I guess in some cases, it takes one to know one."

"Yeah, but I don't go around dressing all my bullshit up in Armani suits and shoes that you had to go and kill a gator to get!"

"No, the brown coveralls do you well," he retorted. He darted his eyes over to me and snickered. "You too."

"Motherfucker, look." I stepped forward and flexed my arms. If anything, this prick was pissing me off to the point that I was ready to throw my own fist up his ass myself. "Let's just cut the bullshit, alright? We know that my dumbass brother is the reason you got hooked up with Riggs in the first place as far as the D&C goes. And I've also gotta a pretty good hunch that you're the reason he skipped outta town a few days ago too."

He smiled wide and rubbed his hand back and forth across his chin. "What makes you think I'm the reason for your brother skipping town?"

"Because he either knows that you're planning to screw us over and didn't want to be caught in the middle of potential gunfire--"

"Or?" he interjected.

"Or..." I stopped and swallowed hard. "He knew that he had to get the hell outta town before you came here and jacked him up for stealing from you. When I thought you were coming on Friday, I assumed that he was just getting a head start. But I'd bet every dime he more than likely stole from you that he knew about your ex's birthday and that you had planned to switched out your weekends. Him getting the hell outta dodge two days ahead instead of six sounds much more like Jeremiah."

There was a string of silence before he responded.

"Yeah, your brother is reallyyyy fucking smart, but also?" He looked straight into my eyes and grinned again, then he laughed to himself and dragged his hand across his mouth. He nodded. "He's is a stone cold motherfucking snake in the grass asshole. Just a vile and worthless piece of shit who didn't deserve half of what I ever gave to him. He came looking to me for a chance at a gig that paid him more than nine dollars an hour after seeing me around here a few times and down at my casinos when I'd make time for coming around to check them both out on the ground floor. But I kept blowing him off because he came off like a desperate bitch looking to bust my nut."

"Alright so if that was the case, what the hell changed your mind?" I questioned.

"After my original bookkeeper quit to go and start her own family and some other shit, I figured it was better to have a man for the job, seeing as how he couldn't get pregnant. Bastard was never at the top of my list, but he came calling me up after hearing that the spot was vacant and said that he was willing to get paid whatever just to help me out." He dropped his hands around his waist and adjusted his slacks. He cleared his throat. "I told him a single fuck up, I could let it slide, because there I times in which I can be quite generous before gutting an asshole to his death. But any more than that and he was out. For three and a half months, I thought we were all good and then I started noticing little changes in the numbers. Shit being typed over, written over, splotches of white-out being dabbed in clumps on top of damn near every page he would hand over to me at the end of the day. I wanted to believe him because I didn't have any actual proof of him stealing anything from me, except maybe a coke or some shit from a few broken vending machines. There was nothing on the cameras at either place and each count of money came up correct every night. And then two weeks ago, I get a call from him asking me to help out your Prez." He pointed. "I told him I didn't think it was a good idea businesswise to get involved with the Reapers and your D&C because I work in the business of making money, not in losing it. But after talking to Riggs, I was somehow convinced to draw up a contract and sign on the dotted line." He turned to Atom and smirked. "I own 51% of that shit now, by the way."

Atom threw up his hand and shook his head. "Jesus CHRIST!" He turned to me and exhaled. "You see?! I fuckin' told him this shit would happen. So did Tracker. Fuck." He ripped his cell from his pocket and stormed off into the club.

Once the door was closed, I turned back to Lorenzo and glowered. "How the hell did you manage to get away with that shit?"

He bellowed. "The simple fact that your Prez can't read anything less than 10point Arial font on a piece of paper."

"But Tracker can."

"I'm aware, which is why I was determined to make sure he wasn't around when this deal went down," he said. "Look, your brother fucked me over. I don't necessarily blame you for that shit, or your club. But until I find out just where the hell he is, I'm going to need some collateral, as well as a return of my funds. Unfortunately, that leaves you and the rest of the Reapers stuck in the middle of this shit. Along with his wife."

I blinked and furrowed my brows, convinced I had misheard. "What?"

"His wife. When he initially told me about her, she was just his girlfriend then, but after meeting her today outside her classroom and seeing that giant rock on her finger -- no doubt paid for with my money--"

"Hold up a second, are you talking about Colette?" I asked him. He nodded. I leaned my head aside and peered. "What the fuck makes you think she's his wife, asshole -- And what the fuck were you even doing up there at her school?" I stepped closer to him, balling my fists and grinding my teeth.

He lowered his eyes down to my hands and shifted his jaw. "You need to calm the hell down, alright? My kid is enrolled in her class."

"Since when?"

"Since my ex became a permanent resident of Culver City a few months back, just like I fucking said," he told me. "Jeremiah's the one who tipped me off about Wayland Academy and Colette, saying that she was one of the best grade school teachers around. I passed the info onto my ex and our kid was enrolled in her class the next day."

"Did Colette know who the hell you were when she saw you?"

"No clue until I told her," he said. "My name anyway, she doesn't know anything else, nor does she need to. Until or unless any of this shit just so happens to go south."

"Is that why you went up there today, to check her out?"

"Something like that," he replied through a chuckle. "But you know, she's a cute one. Looked really good when I saw her today, nice tits and a good ass. I've only had a few chocolate bars in my life, but I guess there'd be no harm in trying another. And if she fits nicely around my cock, well then--"

I pulled back my fist and slammed it into the center of his nose before he had the chance to say another word. Son of a bitch went flying across the lot like a baseball hit during a homerun and landed on the pavement near a pile of engine free bikes. His driver jumped out of the car as soon as he landed and started running toward me while screaming in another language I couldn't understand. He looked the size of a small dog, so when I turned to look him in the face, narrowing my eyes and snarling like an animal in need of a rabies shot, he stopped and started shaking. I snapped my fingers and jutted my chin toward the car, and in the time that it would take a cat to flee from the street as soon as it saw a hungry dog on the loose, he ran back to the driver's side and hopped in, slamming his door shut and locking the rest.

I headed over to Lorenzo as he rolled over on his side, groaning and clutching his nose with his right hand to keep the blood from gushing out onto his shirt, suit and tie, which were already ruined by dirt and oil from the ground. When he realized it was no use in trying to keep his shit clean, he dropped his hand to the pavement, spit pools of blood from the corner of his mouth and wiped his nose with the sleeve of his jacket.

"This shit cost me five thousand dollars!" he spat, his front teeth clinched.

I stared down at my coveralls and made a face. "This shit cost me five." I dropped down to a squat in front of him and lowered the toe of my right foot on top of his fingers as they lay flat on the ground. He hollered out as the pressure turned his hand dark blue, then I leaned in and hooked my index and middle fingers up into his nostrils. A fighter was never something he was known for being. Handling money and guns was all he and his crew were ever good at doing which is why for so many years he had been hoping to take over a club that would handle all the muscle for him while he sat back looking like the waxed statue of Al Capone. "The chick you've been describing of wanting to spin around your limp cock, motherfucker is my wife, not Jeremiah's. Mine," I emphasized. His eyes grew and his brows lifted. He tried swallowing but couldn't since he was forced to breathe through his mouth and instead coughed up more blood. "You ever come around here saying some shit like that about her again, I will gut you like a motherfuckin' fish, yeah? I don't give a fuck how many assholes you send out here after me in retaliation for it -- I will gut you like a mother. fuckin'. fish. And as far as seeing her again, that shit's not gonna happen either. I find out that you even drove near that school, and it's over for you. Are we clear?" He quickly bobbed his head.

I yanked my fingers out of his nose and he fell straight to his back on the ground. I pushed myself back up to my feet and stood over him. "And the ring she was wearing was bought with money from my own goddamn pocket," I told him. "If my brother did anything with the money he stole from you, it was handing it out to random pussy to help get him off." He rolled his eyes to the corner and tried staring up at me. Then he coughed up more blood and turned his head to the side to spit it on the ground.

"I'm supposed to pick up my kid from school today," he said, his voice strained. "Straight from her classroom."

"Find somebody else to take your place," I demanded. "I'm not fuckin' around about what I said."

He inhaled as much as he could and tried shaking his head against the ground. "You're gonna regret this shit, asshole--"

"Yeah, maybe, but I guess that's just one risk I'm willing to take," I told him.

"All for a chick?"

"All for a chick." I paused and took in a deep breath. "How much did my brother manage to steal from you?"

He coughed again and sniffed before responding. "500k."

I closed my eyes for a few seconds and rattled my head. "Jesus."

"And I need it back in full." He swallowed back some of his blood and blinked up at me. "By the end of next week."

"We can't get our hands on that kinda cash by next week!"

"You can if you shut the club down starting tonight and re-open." He stopped to cough again. "Get information..." He turned his head and spit. "Get information out to the masses around here -- mainly the high rollers."

"Unless we get 5 people in there worthy of 100k each, there's no way in hell you're getting your cash that fast."

He turned his head to look me in the face again. "Your club needs to figure shit out as quickly as it can. Because this money wasn't just stolen from me. The casinos are family run businesses. I've got people I'm answering to just as much as you've gotta answer to me."

I ripped my eyes away from his face and rattled my head. "Even if we get you this money, you're still holding onto us as collateral for Jeremiah?"

He swallowed and tried nodding his head. "I can't not until I find him. Motherfucker stole from me. Getting my cash back is a necessity, but the shit he pulled requires more than that... Sorry."

"Yeah, you're fuckin' sorry... Shit." When I saw him struggling to move, I leaned down and wrapped my hand around his arm, then pulled him up to his feet. He wobbled forward, but caught his balance after latching onto one of the old bike handles behind him.

"Jesus Christ. What the fuck happened out here?" I turned my head as Atom moved over to us, arms open in question with his head moving back and forth. "Did your stupid ass trip over the shine in your shoes?" he asked Lorenzo.

"No, but I can use that shit when people ask," he replied. "For now." He stared me in the face and rubbed his hand across his nose again, then started moving toward his car. "Let your club know what's up with all of this, Rome. Tell Riggs I'll give him a call about it later."

After sliding back into his car like the snake that he was and slamming the door shut, his driver rammed the car into reverse and sped through the gate, leaving a zig-zag of skid marks across the lot.

Once they were out of sight, Atom moved in front of me and made a face. "What the hell happened to that stupid son of a bitch?" he asked, pointing behind him.

I wagged my head and lifted my shoulders. "You guessed it when you said he tripped over the shine in his shoes."

He shoved his brows together. "You know that you just fucked up with this shit, yeah? Even more than what it's been fucked with already."

I wiped the blood on my hand that had come from Lorenzo's nose against the leg of the coveralls and muttered, "Yeah."

"'Cause he's gonna want blood now. Jeremiah's and yours mixed up with it--"

"He started talking about wanting to fuck Colette after seeing her at the school today."

"What the hell was he doing at her school? He looking to get his own lessons now since he apparently can't count his own money?"

"His kid goes there; she's in Colette's goddamn class."

"Shit."

"Yeah. He started talking about what she looked like and what he was wanting to do with her... I wasn't gonna just stand there and let that asshole degrade my wife just 'cause he thought she was married to my brother instead."

"Listen, brother, I don't blame you for wanting to protect your girl, yeah? I probably would've done the same in your shoes, but Riggs might blame you for it, Tracker might blame you for it, which might lead to the rest of the club doing the same."

"I know," I told him. He stared up at me with concern, but I cleared my throat, attempting to dismiss it. "Did you get Riggs on the phone to let him know about that 51% bullshit?"

He nodded. "And he is fuckin' pissed about it. They're on their way back from the D&C right now."

I sighed. "I was supposed to pick up Colette from the school in a few hours."

"No way you can make that shit now."

"Yeah... Listen, do me a favor and call up Perla, see if she can make it out there to get her for me instead."

"Brother, why don't you just have one of the prospects hook her own car up to one of the tow trucks and he can take it out there to her instead?"

I gave him a look and clinched my jaw. "Can you just do me the favor of calling up your wife to have her go and pick up mine? She'll get her car soon. Shit, it might be good for her to spend some time with more of the old ladies anyway. She's used to only looking at it from the outside and now I'm gonna need her to be all the way in." Atom inhaled and nodded at me. "Alright, good," I said. "I'll call up Colette and let her know what's up."

"You plan on telling her anything about what you did to Lorenzo and why?"

"If I do, the shit won't be over the phone."

"If you do, you better make sure that Riggs and Tracker don't find out about it."

I bobbed my head at him and said, "Yeah."

As he crossed to the other side of the lot and dialed up his wife, I pulled my cell from a back pocket and did the same.

 

Roman

When the brothers finally made it back from the D&C, we met up in the chapel where me and Atom let them know about everything that had taken place with Lorenzo and why. Including me busting him in the nose.

"Did you break it?" asked Riggs.

I shook my head at him and said, "I don't know."

He sat back in his chair at the head of the table and rested his hands on top of his stomach. "Maybe you should've hit him twice just to make sure that you had, and for the club this time, not just your girl."

"I told you this shit smelled bad the minute you put it out there on the table in front of us," said Tracker. "I told you that this motherfucker was gonna fuck with us, didn't I?! And now we're stuck with this shit of being forced to pay him back with money that we don't have and no way in hell of even getting anything close to it within LESS THAN A WEEKS' TIME!"

"It sounds like he never planned on fucking with us until after Jeremiah screwed him over," said Smack.

Tracker slammed his hand down on the edge of the table and pointed. "He was planning to fuck us over the whole time -- Did you not hear what they just said about the contract he had drawn up for the D&C?! He snatched it out from underneath us long before he ever realized that stupid prick was a thief. The fact that he's now expecting us to pay him half a mil in conjunction with it is just the icing on top of his already snake filled cake. FUCK!" He turned to Riggs. "And all because you didn't have me around to help you read through the fine print of that thing or bring in the attorney for the club to make sure shit was legit, we don't even own our own business anymore." He jumped up from his chair and shuffled across the room. "We are FUCKED as a club! Goddamn!"

Axel bent forward and cleared his throat. "I think you might need to chill out somewhat about this, brother," he said. "Losing your shit on Prez or any of the rest of us won't change what's happening around here."

Tracker turned to him and leaned over the table. "You want me to 'chill out', young buck, is that what you just said to me, to fuckin' chill? This club has now been put at risk, are you not getting that shit? Our Prez practically climbed into bed with the devil himself behind all our backs and now we're being forced to suck his dick because of it along with this one's" -- he pointed directly at me -- "brother being a thief and coward for taking off right after, leaving us all behind in this mess. And you want me to just sit back and chill?!"

"Being calm about this shit can lead to better thinking about the moves we need to make next."

"We can't make any moves!" Tracker hollered out. "That's the point of all this shit -- this son of a bitch has got us all by the goddamn balls! We're collateral, asshole. Which means even if by some miracle sent down to us straight up from God Himself that we can get him his money in this stupid as hell two-week period, we're still under his thumb and he still owns the larger portion of the D&C. Are you getting this shit now? We. Work. For. Him. That's it. He owns us until further notice. That's it!"

Everyone looked at each other in the room. We all rattled our heads and turned to Riggs. Tracker did the same before recapturing his seat.

"Listen brother, I'm just trying to find other ways of going about this that don't include screaming our goddamn heads off at each other," said Axel. Tracker dragged his hand back and forth across his forehead and sighed. "We start tearing through the club and it's over. He's got us more than what he does already."

Tracker leaned back and took a deep breath in, then released it. "You know what, I hear you, Axel," he said, his voice more calm, steady. "I do. You've got this sunshine attitude bullshit going for you that always seems to remind me of the other brothers I used to get high with back in 'Nam. But in this case, I'm not wanting to hear it, alright? The facts are that we're getting fucked up the ass like bitches by guards in prison cells here. What's going down with Lorenzo is the real deal. People like him, Fontaine and the like, they don't screw around when it comes to their money; you fuck up once with it and it's a bullet to the head, slit to the throat. Jeremiah must've been on his hands and knees and praying every night while stealing that cash 'cause he got lucky as shit Lorenzo even bothered to keep him on for as long as he did despite knowing something was off."

"Jeremiah got lucky on top of being smart for a time," said Riggs. "Which makes me start to wonder if he only decided to hook me up with that son of a bitch to make shit easier for himself."

"I wouldn't put it past him," said Chute from the other end of the table. "Motherfucker left his own brother hanging out to dry, along with his girl; he doesn't give a shit about the rest of us. Probably never did."

"I think he did," I said, speaking up. All eyes in the room turned to me. I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms. "I just think that along the way, money maybe became more of a priority for him, above family, above Colette, even above pussy. He might not have been a member of the brotherhood in the same way that we all are despite my old man trying like hell to get him to patch in. But there was a time when he gave a damn about all of us."

"That time has long since passed, brother," said Tracker.

"And I'm keenly aware of that shit," I replied. I glanced at Riggs from the corner of my eye. He was staring me straight in the face. "I understand what's gotta happen with him and believe me, I'm in no way trying to stick up for him or have his back in any of this shit. But he's still my blood whether I wanna continue copping to it or not."

Tracker raised his hand. "I'd like take 'NOT' for $500, Alex."

"Jesus Christ, asshole, cool your jets!" said Atom. "You're not the only one being affected by this shit."

"I'm the VP which means that this shit hits me harder than anybody else outside of the Prez himself."

"It's hitting Rome harder than anybody else, dipshit," he said. "The club, yeah, we're fucked. But at some point, we're gonna be able to recover from all this shit. How? Fuck if I know, but it'll happen. Once Jeremiah's outta the picture, we, along with Colette, are all that he's gonna have left."

"Yeah, Colette," he replied. "Another jagged piece to the puzzle."

"You're not bringing her into this shit," I told him.

"Brother, you brought her into this shit the minute you put that ring on her finger and declared her yours for eternity out there in Vegas. She's gotta suffer the consequences of being hitched to us just like the rest of our ladies had and have to."

"Alright, enough of this back and forth bullshit," said Riggs. "This is a club, not kids pissing each other off at recess. We know who's to blame and we know who isn't. Now what we need is to put our heads together and try to figure out just how in the hell we're gonna be able to come up with half a million dollars by next week."

"Maybe prostitute some of the girls out at the D&C," said Reefer. "Charge a couple grand for each; on the low."

Riggs shook his head. "No," he snapped. "We can't start charging for sex in a strip joint in Culver City, this ain't Nevada."

Smack chimed in. "Maybe we should start upping the prices on a few things around here, general car repairs, oil changes, shit like that."

"We can maybe work with that," replied Riggs. He looked at Reefer as he sat slumped over his chair at the end of the table. "That's a workable idea." Reefer shrugged.

"Maybe we can have something up here too," said Atom. "Something that'll help us raise some cash. The girls can put together a BBQ or something like that and sell off some plates to the people around here. Or maybe even have something at the park."

"We could do that, but you know 5-0 will be around in a heartbeat asking just where that money we're putting in a jar is heading off to."

"We could always lie," said Tracker, his eyes focused down on the table, his head tilted to the side.

"'Cause that shit has been working out real well for us so far, yeah?" said Riggs. "Look, whatever we come up with, it's gotta be soon. It's gotta be clean and it's gotta be under the radar. That'll be your homework for tonight, boys. Thinking of a way to help save this shit before a snake oil salesman takes off with it and runs us into the ground along the way."

"We're done?" asked Poker.

Riggs nodded. "I can't take any more of this shit right now. I'm tired and I need to get my cock sucked before passing out." He picked up his gavel and slammed it down. "Meeting adjourned." As everyone got up from the table, Riggs looked at me and shook his head. I sat back down in my chair, then glanced up at Atom, who shifted his eyes between the both of us.

"Something going on Prez?" he asked.

Riggs looked up at him and arched his brow. "Nothing that concerns you at the moment, brother," he told him. "Unlike those seven cars out there that've yet to be worked on."

"Those seven cars were Rome's job to do this morning."

"We'll brother, Rome'll be in here with me and you'll be out there with the rest, so round the boys up and get to gettin'."

Once he left the room, Riggs put both of his hands on top of the table and looked me square in the eyes. "Are you planning on telling your girl about any of this shit?" he asked me. I rattled my head. "That's good. Because I like Colette. She's always seemed like a real good person; and she's a damn good cook, which is rare to find in a woman these days. But I also know that she's never been a fan of the club life."

"I think she's learning to adapt to it," I told him. "She's starting to come around."

"And that's all well and good too, son, but I still need you to be on your P's and Q's with her as far as all this shit goes."

"I understand, Prez."

"I'm just making sure. Because I got the feeling after hearing about you going off on Lorenzo that you might be thinking of telling her some shit that--"

"I'm good." I pushed myself up from the table and gulped. "That it?"

He looked up at me with caution in his eyes and said, "Nope." He paused and glanced toward the door. "You plan on finishing that truck anytime soon that you were saying you wanted to take home for the two of you?"

"I don't know. I might have to get to it tomorrow."

"What about her car? That shit has been sitting out there for the last three days. If nothing's wrong with it, it needs to be moved because I've got folks already coming in and asking if it's for sale."

"I'll..." I moved my head from side to side. "Get it towed off the lot at some point."

"Is she sick of driving it or some shit? Or you just don't want her having any access to something that she could possibly leave you in at some point?"

"She won't leave," I told him.

"Okay. Then get her goddamn car off my lot and give it back to her already."

I headed for the door, "Yeah, alright," I mumbled, leaving the chapel. When I stepped out, I noticed the other brothers hanging around outside, checking out each car that had yet to be taken care of.

Atom stood by the bar and waved me over, then he leaned in and lowered his voice when he realized Riggs had yet to leave the room. "What the hell was all that about?" he asked.

"He just wants to make sure I plan to keep my mouth shut about this shit to Colette."

"He's right. Just like the rest of them, she's on a need to know basis and right now, she doesn't need to know shit. In the meantime, Perla headed out to pick her up. Said that she wants to bring her back to our place for a bit, just to get to know her better as your wife now and instead of just Jeremiah's 'play thing', which is apparently what some of the girls around here had been calling her behind her back."

"Jesus--"

"But not Perla," he said with reassurance. "Or the old ladies. The general pussy on the other hand was another story." I groaned and lowered my eyes to the floor, then massaged my forehead. "You might want to keep on doing that."

I stopped and lowered my hand. "Why?"

"Because she also told me about having a few of the girls over for some beer and a poker game earlier; one of which included Cherry."

"Fuck."

"Yep, and they were still over there when I called. But I explained the deal regarding what happened, and she's gonna do her best in what she can to prepare Colette in seeing her. And maybe play referee if need be."

"Why doesn't she just take Colette back to our house to avoid all this shit? We've already got enough going on around here as it is."

"In the words of Axel, brother, chill your ass out. If Colette happens to deck her a few times, it's no big deal. You know Cherry won't be fighting back knowing she's your old lady now."

"Cherry doesn't know that she's my old lady now."

He looked up at me and held his breath for a few seconds, then quickly released it. "Shit. I thought you might've mentioned it to her the other night when you were talking?"

"It never came up because I was too busy trying to find out shit about her and Jeremiah. Fuck."

"Just call Cherry up and let her know about it real quick. Or call up your wife and let her know--"

"Know what?" I asked him. He looked at me with question, then nodded his head and turned his attention elsewhere. I grabbed a beer from behind the bar, popped the lid and drank it back. "I'm gonna need more than double what I had the night we got married if I wanna keep her from going off on me about this shit when I finally get home to her tonight."

"Just a solid word of advice, brother. Keep it tucked in when you go to bed tonight if she's not speaking to you the minute she walks through the front door."

"What if she comes through yelling at me?"

He shrugged. "You've got a better chance of getting laid than getting your dick cut off in that case, which would be the other alternative."

I nodded and drank back the rest of my beer, then reached behind the bar for a handful more.

 

Colette

When Roman first called to let me know that he wouldn't be able to pick me up from the school once my last student had gone home (though I was happy as hell in not seeing Mr. Bourne again, I was also somewhat suspicious when Abigail's grandmother came to pick her up instead), along with the fact that he still had no plans to send my car along so that I could drive home on my own, I hated to admit that I almost feared who he had planned to send in his place.

Luckily when he mentioned Perla's name, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief and relax a little. I hadn't known her all that well outside of the few times Jeremiah would bring me along to hang around the club with the others, but she was always polite to me. And despite being well over sixty years of age, often dressed in the highest of heels and shortest of skirts as if she were ready to walk the runway. Today was shorts and a light blue tank with flats, and even though it looked somewhat simple on the surface, she still looked ready to strut across the nearest catwalk and give her best pose if asked.

After piling into her blue pickup, she mentioned that with me now being Roman's wife instead of someone just known for dating his brother, that I needed to be more integrated into the 'old lady' fold, which included taking a trip to her house to meet a few more of them before heading back to mine first. I was hesitant at the start but figured that unlike Roman, she was at least nice enough to tell me about it first.

The main women of the club (meaning anyone who wasn't a nameless club whore and had an actual title or high ranking status within) were like a family of sisters in the same way that the men were like brothers. Everyone looked out for one another and because so many random women who often made their way to the club during parties were looking to hook up with our men in the hope of someday taking our place, sticking together through thick and thin while having each other's backs always was a must. If you found your sister getting into an unnecessary scuffle with another woman, you pulled her back. If instead she needed your help in taking someone down or out, you either jumped in at all cost or made sure you were behind the wheel of the getaway car and ready to burn rubber across the road.

"I didn't exactly realize there were so many 'rules' in being the wife of a brother," I told her.

"Well, they're not so much rules, darlin'," she replied, her voice soft and somewhat demure; motherly. "It's more or less just our way of life." She looked over at me and smiled and I saw the tiny crinkles forming in the pale corners of her ocean blue eyes, a pair that seemed to tell a story filled with pages and pages of wisdom and titles that read 'Don't Make the Same Mistakes I Did When I Was Your Age, Twice'. She wore heavy mascara that more than likely would've made anyone else look like a complete clown, but on her it somehow worked, and almost too well. The thickness of each lash made her eyes pop like a set of diamonds and suddenly I found myself envious of not being able to pull off such a look in the same way.

As she turned back to the road, I leaned back in my seat and settled in.

"Your way of life," I said. "I can understand that. I guess the truth is that some things I always expected from it just from what I had always seen in hanging around, and some things I didn't."

"Such as not being able to have access to your own car when you needed it?"

I laughed and nodded. "Yeah, something like that."

She chuckled. "You know, you're not exactly a prisoner inside his home," she told me. "If you wanted to go and get your car from the club, there are ways of making it happen on your own."

"I know," I said. And then nervous laughter escaped and I cleared my throat, somewhat embarrassed of what I had planned to say next. "To be perfectly honest, I think there's just this part of me that kind of likes the fact that he fears I might leave him." I turned to look at her and she smirked while keeping her eyes focused on the road.

"And why is that?"

"Probably because I've never had someone give a damn like that about me before. My grandmother when she was alive, sure, but--"

"Never a man," she interjected.

"Right." I swallowed hard and shifted my gaze to look out of the window. "Jeremiah never cared whether I was coming or going, even if he was at my house instead of his own."

She sighed. "Well, Jeremiah always seemed... troubled. Not a bad person but something of a mess. I've known him since he was a little boy, and even then, he always needed to be told his direction."

I nodded. "Maybe that's why for most our relationship, he constantly said things that he didn't mean. 'We're gonna get married someday' and 'I love you' were just words to him with absolutely no meaning behind them. He was told they were the right things to say and so he said them to me; probably just to shut me up."

"If you don't mind me asking," she said, pausing to turn onto a dirt road, "how exactly did you two manage to get hooked up in the first place? I don't think that's something in all these years that I've ever known."

I laughed and dropped my hands in my lap. "It sounds cliché as hell, but I met him at the mall. In the food court as a matter of fact. Every time I walked past, he whistled at me. I knew that he was older and that there was something dangerous and mysterious about him and I kind of liked that. A few months in, I had heard about his reputation with the different women around town, but I didn't care. I liked him and I was determined to make it work no matter what," I said. "I wanted to be the one who changed him, reformed and made him better than he was. Then again, I was only nineteen, which probably means that I didn't really know any better after all."

She bobbed her head. "I know that all too well, honey, and believe me when I tell you that it doesn't just stop at nineteen. But the one thing I've learned in my sixty years since is that you can't change a man who will never be willing to change for himself first."

I thought about that for a moment and smiled. "I used to think things like that were bullshit," I told her. "Instead I was convinced that the power of love or sex or both could change a man along with just trying to help him be better as a person. But the fact is that you're right. There's no way in hell that we can change a man who isn't willing to change for himself first. What's funny is that Roman of all people has allowed me to see what that truly means."

"Has he?" she asked. I peeked over at her and she grinned.

I nodded. "Yeah. I wasn't sure about him when I first met him. Hell, I wasn't sure about him the second or third times I met him. Something about him drew me closer to him anyway, but... never in my wildest dreams did I think I would end up here, being his wife and having the most mind-blowing sex..." I stopped myself when I remembered exactly who I was talking to, and that I had been saying these things out loud. "Sorry," I told her. "I don't even know why the hell I started thinking about that, let alone actually saying anything--"

"It's okay, darlin'." She snickered and wagged her head. I winced. "Really, it's fine. I can imagine Roman being something of a 'wild reaper' in bed," she told me through a laugh. "Atom's still the same way even at damn year sixty-five years of age. So, you've got plenty of time to continue enjoying all of that."

When we finally pulled up to her house, I wasn't exactly surprised to see how large it was, but just at how nice it happened to look from the outside. It was red brick with two stories, shutters on every window that were bright white and clean as if even a spec of dirt had never touched a single one. She had an elongated front porch that seemed to wrap all the way around to the back, with a single porch swing situated on one side while three lawn chairs graced the other.

After hopping out of the car, and leaving teacher's bag behind while taking my purse, she walked me up to her six-foot tall red front door, then pushed her way inside.

I stepped in right behind her and as my eyes moved around the room, my mouth dropped. Clean wooden floors rested beneath bright red walls with pictures of her family as well as Atom and the brothers, hanging high from each one. Two chandeliers swung above our heads, one made with long pointed crystals while the other was somewhat smaller, with the crystals resembling tiny bulbs. It was what Perla called the 'grand entrance' before entering the living room which looked about ten times bigger.

"Wow," I said, not even realizing the word had escaped me until she glanced at me and smiled.

Atom seemed like a nice enough person and somewhat well-kept, but never struck me as someone who had been willing to spend more than a few hundred dollars a year to keep his house in order, and sure as hell not like this. After closing the door behind me, I was half expecting for someone to come out from another room and guide me to the nearest spa.

"Now." Perla moved over to me and stared straight down into my eyes. Her face suddenly became serious, grim. "Remember that I told you about a few of the women from the club being here? Old ladies and the like?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, one of them happens to be the like," she said.

"What does that mean?" I asked her

"AHEM." I glanced over her shoulder and shoved my brows together in disgust when I noticed Cherry leaning against the frame of the wall that lead into what looked like the kitchen. She was holding a pitcher of lemonade and glaring. "We're out of ice," she said. I eyed her up and down and sneered at her high heels and short-shorts. Not to mention her white blouse which was practically see-through. Who the hell was she trying to impress, exactly? "And there's none frozen inside the freezer yet."

Perla rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and nodded without even turning around to face her herself. "There should be a fresh bag in the other chest out back," she said. "You'll just have to dig through all of the beer placed on top of it."

Cherry looked me directly in the eyes, completely unapologetic over what she had done, before darting them away from me completely and turning on her heel to head back outside. I crossed my arms over my chest as tight as I could to keep from reaching out and throwing my fists into something I knew I shouldn't. I suddenly felt as if I couldn't breathe and was convinced that she was the reason.

"I didn't know that she was going to be here."

"If you had, you wouldn't have come and I'm aware of that now. I wasn't before I got the call from Atom about picking you up."

"Then you know what she did with Jeremiah."

"Yes," she replied. "And I can understand why you might want to throw a glass upside her head for it. But the thing is that she's considered to be part of our family."

My brows pinched. "Really."

"Believe it or not," she said. "Cherry's been around with the Reapers for at least twelve years, before a lot of the other women ever came along. In fact, she often likes to brag about just how much she knows these boys in ways that even I don't."

"You mean Biblical?"

She closed her eyes for a moment and chortled. "Not all of them, no."

"Has she ever been with Atom?"

She looked aside, then rolled her eyes down toward the floor. "Years ago, she admitted that she tried one night while they were all out there at the D&C, but he would never budge on her."

"She tried to hook up with your husband and you're still willing to let her inside your home?" I asked.

"It sounds crazy, but this is just the way things are with us. And I know that she might not seem like it, but deep down the girl really is a good person. She's just young and well-known for making a lot of mistakes, many involving her vagina, which happens to speak much more than her heart."

"If that's the case, it might be in her best interest to start keeping her legs closed," I said. Perla laughed aloud, then placed a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound, and rattled her head. I chuckled but was still somewhat annoyed in being forced to put up with this woman and the memory of what she had done to me.

Once Perla pulled herself together and caught her breath, she placed her hand on top of mine and gave it a tight squeeze. "If you start to become uncomfortable, just say the word and we're out of here sooner before later," she said. "I'll take you back home, no questions asked. But I would like to introduce you to the other girls as Roman's wife, at least. They deserve to know the other woman of the club worthy of respecting."

"Who else is out there?"

"Chute's old lady, Vetta, along with his girlfriend, Nancy. They got into it a bit earlier, but they should be fine now," she told me. I nodded, despite still being as confused by that situation now as I was when I had first heard about it years ago from Roman. Apparently Chute, short for 'parachute' because he loved jumping out of planes, thought was divorced from Vetta when he had gotten together with Nancy, but something about the paperwork hadn't gone through and was incorrectly filed. Once the truth came to light, neither woman was willing to give him up and of course, he was unable to make a true decision between who he wanted versus who he just liked spending time with every now and then, and opted for continuing to have both. "Then there's Poker's sister, Rebecca," she said. "She's only been around a few times and is somewhat of the quiet type, but I think you'll like her. Tracker's ex, Sheila, is out there as well. They don't get along anymore but we're still close and I try my best to invite her to everything that I can; it's something that I've forced him to put up with over the years even if he doesn't like it all that much. Then there's Prez's ex, Renatta. I think you might've met her a few times at the club, but she never stays long during the parties once she sees Riggs dragging off one of those young girls to the back, which I don't blame her for."

I bobbed my head. "Is that all of them?"

"For the most part," she replied. "At least the only ones I've ever been willing to invite out here to my house. The boys will have a girl come and go from time to time, but I can usually tell within the first meeting if she's going to stick around and if I'm going to bother in putting up with her for however long she says."

"What did you think of me when we first met?" I asked her.

She grinned. "I thought that you were sweet; too much sweetness for someone like Jeremiah."

"And what do you think about me now in being with Roman?"

"I think you could help to balance him out. And with any luck, will help to keep him sane. Now." She took me by the hand and tugged at my arm. "Why don't I get you outside to the gazebo so that you can meet the girls all over again while having a plate of good food." I agreed.

After reintroducing me to the women as Roman's wife, AKA the 'newest old lady of the bunch', which in any other circle would've caused sneers, smirks and overall dirty looks given who they knew me as before, I was kissed on the cheek and hugged (by all except for Cherry, thank God) and welcomed with open arms. They immediately wanted to get to know more about me as a person and were eager to know more details about the wedding itself. I didn't have the heart or the guts to tell them that I couldn't half remember how the hell it even happened, so I started making things up as I went along. Then I realized that with each word coming out of my mouth, about the flowers I was holding while walking down the aisle and the kiss we had after saying 'I do', and so on, that I wanted it all to be real. At least enough for me to remember it this time.

After each had a nice long and quite possibly envious look at my ring, I got up to make myself a plate and headed over to a table on the opposite side of the lawn. It was completely covered with trays upon trays of food, enough to fill an army. Turkey, dressing, ham, chicken, ribs and an assortment of vegetables, fruits and deserts. I was positive that it couldn't all have been for us alone, but Perla assured me that it was. Though she followed up with saying that anything left over would be sent to the local food shelter. She informed me that the Wild Reapers were big on giving back to the community, which was something that I knew a little of but not enough. "They might be outlaws," she said, "but they're outlaws with hearts of pure gold."

Once I finished fixing my plate, I moved over to the assortment of drinks, which included red wine, tea, fruit punch, and something called a 'Reapers Hurricane'. I opted for a glass mimosa to be on the safe side and started heading back toward the other women.

"I hear that your meat is supposed to taste better with red wine."

I stopped in my tracks upon hearing Cherry's voice and turned to look her in the face. "Excuse me?" I said.

She pointed at my glass. "The mimosa won't do anything for your taste buds as far as your food goes," she told me. "Red wine is supposed to make the meat pop inside your mouth or something."

"I'll take my chances on it." I slightly rolled my eyes and turned on my heel.

"Colette--"

"Where the hell do you get off even speaking to me?" I asked, spinning back around to face her. I could feel the other women staring at us now but I couldn't bring myself to look over at them. I also couldn't bring myself to back away from telling this woman just exactly what I thought about her. I understood that she was family. I understood that her role in this club was to basically be a fluffer for any and every willing member it had. However, it sure as hell didn't mean that I had to like it. "You know the last time I saw you, in both my house and bed, you had your legs in the air with Jeremiah planted right between them."

"I know--"

"And then I see you here and I have no right to tell you to get the hell out because it isn't my place to do that, just as much as this isn't my house. But I can and will tell you to get the hell out of my face."

"No," she told me.

I guffawed. "No?" She remained silent. I sat down my plate and glass on the edge of the food table and folded my arms. "What the hell is it that you have to say to me?"

She gulped. "I want to tell you that I'm sorry."

"That's rich--"

"Please," she interjected. She stopped and deeply exhaled. "Please." As I stared into her eyes, I noticed the whites turning red. This woman was either being truly sincere for maybe the first time in her entire adult life, or she was the best actress worthy of both the Oscar nomination and win. "What happened with Jeremiah that night wasn't planned."

"Maybe not by you, but it was obvious that he was looking to screw someone that night and for whatever reason was hellbent on me seeing it. Otherwise he would've taken it straight to his house and not brought a single drop of it into mine."

She swallowed hard and muttered, "Like I said before, I'm sorry."

"Whatever," I told her, unable to hide just how pissed off I was becoming. "The fact of the matter is that I'm over what you did. What I can't get past is that as a woman, dick was more important to you than the thought of actually backstabbing a potential ally."

She swallowed hard again and slightly bobbed her head. "I know that I fucked up that night, okay? Gravely."

"I get the feeling that you have to give apologies like this to a lot of women which is why it's starting to sound so rehearsed."

"I don't have to give out as many as you might think," she snapped. "And as much as you might continue to believe about me as a woman, I'm not exactly proud of myself for the things that I do, especially when it comes to something like this."

"Proud? God, I would hope not considering that in this case you sought out an unavailable man and had open sex with him without a single care about anyone else's feelings but your own."

"Colette--"

"But I guess if you got satisfied, me suffering from having to see it didn't matter all that much to you, right?"

"Are you suffering?" She lifted her head and wiped a fallen tear from her face. "Really?"

"What?"

"Are you really suffering?" she asked me. "Because the truth is that in less than twenty-four hours of busting up with Jeremiah, you headed out to Vegas and married his brother. And given how much older and better looking Roman's has always been, and I could only imagine incredibly gifted in the sack, I want to know, are you really suffering from all this? From what I did to you? From what Jeremiah did to you? Because from the outside looking in, it's as if we just set you both free."

"Oh my God." I looked away from her and laughed if only to keep from completely scratching her eyes out. "You're standing here and honestly trying to turn what you did to me into something positive? Having sex with my boyfriend inside of my house and bed freed me from the burden of, what? Staying with him for longer than I needed?"

She raised her hands again and stepped back. "I didn't say all of that this time. That was you."

I narrowed my eyes and wrinkled my nose while staring up at her. "You didn't free me from anything," I said.

"Maybe not intentionally," she replied. "And maybe when it comes down to it, the facts of the matter are that you freed yourself. Because let's be honest with each other; you never loved Jeremiah all that much in the first place. At least not in the same way that you love Roman."

"Where the hell do you get off?" I snapped. "You don't have any idea what my relationship was like with Jeremiah."

"Not entirely, but I know from experience that the only reason someone would choose to stay married to another person who proposed to them while in Vegas isn't doing it out of some strange obligation for themselves." She paused. "Jeremiah saw it too."

"What?"

"He once told me that he had a feeling something might have been up between you two."

"That's bullshit."

"It isn't," she said. "I used to see the way that you two would look at each other when I'd visit the club. Just from the way you would talk and stand so close while within the same space; not to mention how he often stared at you when you weren't looking, and how you often stared at him when he was talking to another woman, one he more than likely was never going to sleep with anyway." She bent her head to the side and arched the corner of her mouth. "Most of us saw it but never said anything given--"

"That it wasn't your place?" I interjected.

She nodded. "I realized what he felt for you was deeper than most a few months back after trying like hell to get him to take me home one night after one of those parties." She stopped. "But he wouldn't leave, I don't think until you were gone."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because from where I was standing, I could see that he was so busy watching you that even with my tits practically hanging in his face, it didn't matter."

I stared at her for a long time, then frowned. Part of me was happy in hearing all of this, in knowing just how deeply I affected Roman and for how long. While the other part of me wanted this woman to just shut the hell up already about how she tried getting him into bed.

"Why are you telling me all of this?" I finally asked her.

"Roundabout way of offering you an extended apology."

"Or just a flat-out way of telling me that I don't actually need one because of how I've always felt about Roman and vice/versa."

"None of what I said was meant to come out in that way," she replied. "Colette, I respect you as Roman's wife. And not just because I'm technically obligated to now, but because I honestly think that you deserve it. And not just from me, but from everyone else within the club."

I rested my hands at my sides while begrudgingly muttering, "I appreciate what you're saying to me. It means something when you didn't have to say anything at all." She smiled. "But. And I want to make this clear; what you did isn't something that I'm just going to be able to sweep underneath the rug and forget about. It’s going to take a long, long time for me to move past and ever trust you with anything, ever.”

She nodded. "I understand."

"Good. I won't try and deck you or anything for it, but if I ever catch you even looking in Roman's direction like you would a piece of meat, I'm karate chopping your ass to the ground."

"Fair enough."

"I think that's more than fair." I grabbed my plate and drink from the table and shuffled around her. "Oh, and by the way? You said that you could 'only imagine' that he was incredibly gifted." She stared. "Close your eyes and picture Mount Everest inside your head," I told her. "Do you see it?" She quickly bobbed her head. "Well imagine trying to climb that thing. And then think bigger." Her eyes popped open and when I saw the green in them nearly turning black, I knew that I had just sucker punched her ego.

 

Colette

After having a few more plates of delicious food (mostly ribs and turkey with a side of veggies and fruit) and gulping back binge worthy mimosas while listening to hours and hours of 'old lady' gossip, most of which included the other wives within various clubs around the area, I was about ready for Perla to drive me home, anxious as hell to spend some reclined quality time with Roman before the night was over. I gave all the girls except for Cherry, who seemed pretty pissed at my Mount Everest joke (probably because she knew that I wasn't kidding), a goodbye hug, promising to see them again soon, then loaded up a plate to take home for Roman since I wasn't that much in the mood for cooking him dinner, and hopped back into Perla's truck.

The ride back was nice and somewhat quiet, though we chatted back and forth a few times about the girls and how much we all seemed to enjoy each other's company. When we finally pulled into the driveway, I was completely flabbergasted to see my car sitting to the left of Roman's bike. It looked slightly tricked out with a set of new rims along with a full set of brand new tires and tinted windows. "Wow."

"I guess he finally got the memo in realizing that you weren't going anywhere anytime soon, hm?" asked Perla. She looked over at me and winked.

"Did you know that he was bringing the car back tonight?"

She rattled her head. "No idea. But I assume that he either came to his senses or Riggs told him to remove it from the lot since it wasn't broken down. Either way, you've got a piece of your freedom. Use it wisely."

"Thanks," I told her. "And not just for the ride or from picking me up from work earlier, but for everything else in between that you've done for me today; introducing me to the girls and allowing me to have my peace with Cherry."

She nodded. "I figured that you might need that. Like I said, most of us have been there with her and after this, I have no doubt that she's learned her lesson with you too. You come off with a slight 'don't fuck with me attitude' that's hidden behind a smile. I like that," she said. "I envy it. And in fact, I think I might start using myself in that way from here on out."

"You come off with the same kind of attitude," I said.

"Sometimes I like to think so, but oftentimes, darlin', I'm not so sure." She smiled at me, then extended her arm and leaned in to wrap it around my back for a hug. I squeezed her tight because even though she was so much older than me in age, everything about her personality just screamed young. I could only hope to be the same someday. "You take care of yourself until the next time I see you," she said, pulling away from me. "And take care of him too. Something tells me that he's going to need it more than the others."

"I will. Thanks." I grabbed my purse, teacher's bag and Roman's plate, then quickly hopped out of her car and headed up the porch. After searching for and finding my keys, I opened the front door and gave Perla a quick wave to let her know that I was safe and inside. Once she backed out of the driveway and pulled off, I closed the door behind me and tossed everything but the plate to the side and headed into the kitchen where I found Roman leaning over a pot on top of the stove. He looked as good as he did this morning, maybe even better. "Hey," I called out to him. When he turned his head to stare at me, I gulped. How the hell this man was so often able to take my breath away just from a single look in his eyes was almost astounding.

He pointed down at the plate in my hand, then turned his entire body toward me and jerked his chin. "You brought home a doggy bag?" he asked, his voice so low and devastatingly delicious.

I released a shaky breath, then swallowed hard and rolled my tongue between my lips to hold back a grin. "It's a doggy plate," I corrected. "She didn't have any bags available, so I left the bones for you underneath this napkin." He snickered and wagged his head and pressed the 'OFF' button for the stove. "Were you actually planning to cook something for yourself tonight?"

"Yeah, and maybe you too just in case Perla decided not to feed you out there. Wouldn't have been much though since damn near everything's frozen." He nodded. "What's on the plate?"

"Well..." I lifted my hand and smirked. "Why don't you just come over here and see for yourself." He lowered his eyes down the length of my body and as his lids hooded, I suddenly felt like dinner, dessert and breakfast the next day for him as opposed to what I was holding on that plate. When he finally made his way over to me, I dropped back against the fridge and rolled my bottom lip between my teeth. He brought his hand to my face and dragged his thumb along the edge of my lip, then tugged at it a few times until I opened my mouth for him. My breathing instantly became shallow. My fingers and toes went numb. My sex was aching for the taste of his cock.

When he lifted my chin, and pressed his body against mine, I reached up with my free hand and tugged at the center of his shirt, pulling him even closer to me. Because God in heaven, no matter how hard I tried to keep myself in check, I still could never manage be close enough to this man.

"How was school?" he asked in a much darker voice now while shoving his knee between my legs, forcing me to spread them apart. Something about the way he said it sounded so completely dirty and wrong but at the same time, it was so sexy and I was so turned on by him that I didn't care.

"It was fine," I breathed, unsure if I had even said the right thing.

He brought his other hand up to my face and lifted my jaw even higher, and pressed his forehead against mine. "Everybody knows who the hell you belong to now, yeah?"

"They know I'm yours, Roman," I said, my voice quiet as I could hardly find the strength to even breathe anymore. "They'll know I'll always be yours. Always."

"Good." His full lips split into a wide grin and then he kissed me, slow and deep, and that's when I dropped the plate directly to the floor. I gasped in reaction to it as his lips continued to cover and massage mine; but he didn't flinch and in fact drove his tongue even deeper, shoving it so hard against mine that I nearly came. My sex muscles twitched like crazy, desperate to know the feel of him against me again; on top of me, naked and deep inside me just as much as his tongue.

I rested both my hands against his chest as he moved his hands into my hair, then slowly dragged them down the front of his shirt before easing them around the back and dropping straight down to his ass. This man had a wonderful ass, so full and perfect but firm. When I squeezed him, he grunted and shoved himself even harder against me. That was like a signal boost for me and after bringing my hands down to my skirt and hiking it up as high as it would go, I lifted one of my legs from the floor and wrapped it around his waist. When his length pressed against my sex through my panties, I grinded against it with such an urgency that if he didn't unleash inside me soon, I was going to lose my mind more than I had already.

He moved his hands to my breasts, giving them a light, then hard squeeze through my blouse. I whimpered against his tongue, "Please take me," sounding so completely breathless and desperate that if I didn't love this man with every bit of who I am, would've absolutely mortified the hell out of me. "Roman..." He ignored me and began unbuttoning my blouse with an ease and quickness that I had never seen. As he slid it down my arms, I lowered them for half a second, allowing it to fall to the floor, then snaked my arms around his neck and continued grinding against him, lessoning my pace but making sure that he could feel me with each hard push of my pelvis.

After a short streak of silence, he mumbled something about removing his own shirt. We stopped kissing only temporarily to pull it over his head, then went right back to it and with much more need this time. Two seconds later my feet were off the ground as he had lifted me up into his arms. My legs situated around his waist, and as he moved us into the living room, he stopped directly in front of the nearest couch and slowly lowered me down on my back. Then stood up straight to his feet. I draped one leg over the arm of the couch and dangled my foot while staring up at him. The man looked like a god and every part of him belonged to every part of me and always would; even if I never knew much about my life or anything else, I knew that. When he tugged at his jeans, I peeked down at the bulge of his penis pressing against the fabric and sat up. I reached out and started tugging at them myself. He moved closer to me and grunted, then slid his hand beneath my chin and lifted my head back.

"I love everything about you," he said. "Every goddamn thing and I always will, Colette."

I smiled up at him and as he brushed his thumb back and forth across my mouth, I replied, "I know." He grinned. "You loved me enough to finally bring my car back."

"Yeah," he muttered with a quiet chuckle.

"You were still afraid that I would leave?" I asked him. "That I would still change my mind about us being married and want out?"

I saw his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed hard and grit his teeth. Then he nodded. "Yeah."

"No one's ever loved me like this before, Roman. It's almost obsessive and controlling and crazy but exciting to the point that it should scare the absolute shit out of me, but it doesn't. I think about you and I can't even breathe -- I see you and I feel like fainting." I stopped to swallow while continuing to look up at him. "You touch me and every part of me suddenly feels warm and soft. And I can never get enough of you... get enough of this." He lowered his hand to my throat and lightly pressed his fingers into my skin.

"Babe, everything I've ever felt for you..." He circled his thumb near my pulse. "The shit does scare me. That's not something I ever wanted to admit aloud; felt like it made me sound like some kind of weak assed motherfucker."

"It doesn't," I told him. "This thing between us is so strong and always has been... and I never realized it. Never knew that other people saw it too, that they could feel it just as much as we did and still do."

"What other people, darlin'?"

"Cherry," I said. "She was at Perla's when we showed up."

He exhaled deeply and gulped. "How'd that shit go?"

"It was okay," I said. "I got to tell her how I felt about everything."

"You made peace with her?"

"Not exactly. I just promised that I would remain civil. As much as I can, anyway." He brought his other hand up to my face and I frowned in noticing something I hadn't seen on his knuckles before: light purple bruising. "Oh my God." I yanked his hand away from my face and held it inside my own. "What the hell happened to you?"

He looked down at it and glowered. "It's nothin'."

"It doesn't look like nothing to me -- what the hell did you do? Punch the door on a car that you couldn't fix?"

He sighed. "Babe." And I could tell by his tone, which had become annoyed, that he wanted me to just drop it so that we could go back to what we were doing before. But I couldn't.

Instead I fell back against the couch and crossed my arms. "What the hell happened to your hand today, Roman?"

"Jesus Christ." He turned from me and moved across the room. "Shit like this can't concern you, babe."

"It can't concern me?"

He took a seat on the other couch and leaned forward. "No."

"So if you happen to come home with a black eye the next time or God forbid something worse that you'll need to be taken to the hospital for, I won't be allowed to ask about any of that either?"

"Not when the shit pertains to the club. Like I told you before, club business is club business."

"Yeah well, when you start bringing the 'business' aspect of it home with you, that kind of shit doesn't work out too damn well for me," I told him.

"Well, it's gonna have to."

"It won't." I stood up from the couch and started making my way to the bedroom, but was stopped when he jumped up, rushed across the room and wrapped his hand around my arm, gently pulling me back and whirling me around to face him. "Don't." I tried shoving him away as I could feel myself already succumbing to his touch. I hated it but needed it all at the same time. "Roman." He wrapped his other hand around my other arm and pulled me to his chest. I closed my eyes and lowered my head to keep from staring him in the face, to keep from looking into his eyes. I was already on the edge of just giving into my desire for him again, giving him every bit of myself despite how I felt, and this closeness, how he held me, how he touched me, was in no way helping at all.

"I need you to understand the rules of the club," he said. I felt him staring at me even though I couldn't see him. I tried pulling myself together and gradually inhaled, then exhaled. "Shit like this, I can't talk about with you."

"If you could, would you?" I asked him, lifting my head and forcing myself to look into his eyes without falling even deeper, even harder in love with him. When he didn't respond, I turned my head and sighed. "Would you tell me if I was in danger?" I asked him.

He made a face and knit his brows. "In danger of what?"

"I don't know. When I was talking to the girls at Perla's--"

"What kinda shit were they filling your head with out there?"

"Nothing," I said. "But one of them said that if there were things I felt I needed to know, then I needed to step up and ask."

"Which one of them said that shit to you? Vetta?"

"It doesn't matter," I told him. "I know that I'll be safe with you, Roman, that's not something that I'll ever fear. But your brother built a relationship with me that was stacked with lies. Our foundation was rocky for too long before finally toppling over because of it, and I don't want that for us, ever."

"There's no way in hell we're repeating any of that," he said. "What you got from him is not something that you'll ever get with me. I need you need to know that shit."

"Then tell me what happened to your hand. And if there's ever something that I need to know about your club, even if you're not supposed to tell me about it, that for my safety, you will." I gulped. His face, beautiful and filled with so much passion, hovered over mine. And as much as I just wanted him to just kiss me instead of answer, as much as I wanted to know the taste of his tongue all over again, I stuck to my guns and held my ground. "I want to stay married to you for the rest of my life," I told him. "I want to be the mother of your children. But I won't bring them into a life that I can't trust. And we can't move any further than we have already if you don't start letting me in on certain things that should matter to the both of us, not just to you. You're not in this alone anymore, Roman, and that's what I need you to know and understand."

Silence enveloped the room and slowly, his hands loosened from around my arms. "I punched a motherfucker at the club today," he finally told me.

I jerked my head back and shoved my brows together, confused. "Why?"

He sighed and dropped his hands completely, then sat down on the couch. He rested his arms on his knees and balled his bruised fist, pressing it into the palm of his other hand. "Did you know anything about Jeremiah working the books for some casino's out in Vegas?" he asked me.

"What?" I questioned. "You mean actually working and not spending 90% of his time at the tables or playing the slots?" He nodded. "No." I took a seat beside him and peered. "When the hell did he start doing that?"

"According to Riggs, it'd been a few months between his shifts at the infirmary," he said. "I guess the weekends he made it out there were meant for screwing around on the slots while during the week he was trying to get paid in other ways." He brought his elbows up to his knees and folded his hand over the other. "But there was somebody in particular that he worked for that he ended up stealing some money from right before taking off." He looked over at me. "The shit that went down at your place that night before you came out to the club to chew my head off about it, with him and Cherry?" I nodded. "Jeremiah set that shit up for you to see it."

I leaned away from him and shook my head. "I knew it... None of it seemed to add up, even for him. Why the hell would he do it?"

"I'm guessin' because he didn't want you to try coming after him when he finally decided to take off. Boning Cherry in your house and bed was a surefire way to make that shit happen."

"How do you know all of this?" I asked him.

"The other night, Cherry showed up to the club. I asked her about what happened and she told me that Jeremiah paid her to go back to your place with him."

"What?"

He nodded. "Everything she did for him was because he waved some green in her face to make it happen."

"Oh my God." I dropped my face in my hands and rattled my head. I couldn't believe what the hell I was hearing. What's worse is that part of me was a little relieved in hearing some of it because it justified my reasons for damn near everything. "So Jeremiah paid her to sleep with him to force me away from him? All because of some money that he had stolen from the person that he was working for?" When I looked into his eyes, I could tell that he was studying my face, trying to figure out something that I wasn't too sure of, then he nodded his head again. "Who the hell is this person?"

He swallowed hard before muttering, "Lorenzo Bourne."

My heart plummeted to the pool of acid sitting inside in my stomach. My blood ran cold. "Lorenzo... Bourne," I said.

"Yeah, darlin'," he replied. "Same asshole that showed up to your school today bringing his kid."

"How do you know about that?"

"Because he came to see me at the club this afternoon." He paused and took in a breath. "A few weeks ago, Jeremiah got Riggs hooked up with Bourne. Our business is not doing all that well and Riggs was looking for outside sources to help us out."

"I thought the garage was doing fine?" I said, dumbly.

He lifted the corner of his mouth and shook his head. "Not that one, darlin'. The D&C."

"Oh." Their local strip joint. I swallowed back the sickness I felt building up from that and cleared my throat. "So Lorenzo was brought in as someone meant to help you out with... that."

"Yep. We've known him for years off and on, but never once thought to do business with him. At least most of us weren't."

"How much was Jeremiah able to steal from him?"

"At least 500K."

"Wow."

"Yeah. Problem is that now since he's MIA, we're the ones expected to pay that shit back. On top of the fact that he now owns a larger portion of the D&C than he was supposed to."

"How the hell did that happen?" He wagged his head and I realized that was something I truly didn't need to know. "Okay, then, when is he expecting for you to have it paid back?"

"By next week."

"Does the club even have that kind of money?"

"Nope. We could all put our funds together but the shit still wouldn't amount to what he needs by then."

"So what happens now?"

He shifted his entire body in my direction and exhaled. "Now I wanna start sending a prospect with you to work as a form of protection, at least for a little while."

"Protection from what?"

"Lorenzo's the motherfucker I clocked today," he told me. "Son of a bitch started running his mouth about having seen you up there at the school, then started saying stuff that pissed me off and I decked him so hard, he went flying across the lot like a goddamn bird." I didn't want to admit it to myself but hearing what he had done to him turned me all the way on.

I moved closer to him. "What did he say to you?"

"Doesn't matter. The shit was inapporpriate," he answered, his tone clipped. "I told him to stay the fuck away from you from here on because of it, but I can't trust that he will because I don't trust him. Especially since I lost my shit." He stared down at his hand again. I took it in the both of mine, then bent forward and kissed the back of his bruised knuckles. I brushed my thumb across them and as I held him close to me, I remembered how both of his hands felt wrapped around every part of my body, how large they were, how strong while at the same time gentle.

To know that he could be so careful with me one moment with these same hands and then the next, use them to smash someone's face into the ground was almost something that I couldn't even imagine. It was like night and day with this man, as if he were two different people living inside one body. One was the man that I couldn't get enough of, his kisses were insatiable, his touches were electric and erotic. The other was a straight up biker thug who could easily beat someone that pissed him off to a complete pulp. Call me pathetic, but dear God, I so desperately wanted them both.

"There's something else," he said.

"What is it?"

He went dead silent before responding to me again. "When we were out there in Vegas, at certain points during that night, you'd call me Jeremiah."

I ripped my attention away from his hand and stared directly into his face. "What?"

"We were in that bar and about to go at it... when you kept telling me to touch you, you called me out by Jeremiah."

Mortified, I released his hand completely and sat back. "Did I ever correct myself?"

"No."

I guffawed, feeling even worse. "Obviously, I was drunk as hell--"

"That's not all," he interrupted.

"What the hell else is there?" I wanted to crawl into the nearest shell and hide myself from everything and everyone for the rest of my entire damn life.

How the hell could I even think he was his brother?

Granted, they favored in being related but the fact that Roman was so much older in age (thirty-six to be exact, as well as the fact that he was practically a giant in comparison) should've told me better no matter how the hell drunk I was.

"I proposed to you despite that shit," he said.

I blinked up at him and frowned in confusion. "What?"

"I knew that you were calling me Jeremiah. That in your head with all the liquor you were throwing back that you genuinely thought I was my brother for a bit. When you kept asking me the next morning what happened, I couldn't force myself tell you the truth about it because the shit--"

"Sounds absolutely crazy?" I said. He bobbed his head. "So I said yes to you in thinking that you were Jeremiah...." I shrugged. "But Jeremiah isn't who I married. Jeremiah isn't you, thank God."

"Babe--"

"No," I told him. "I don't want your brother, Roman. Whatever the hell I said, I was out of my mind."

"They say the truth can come out during times like that," he told me, his voice low, his tone cautious and unsure. "Alcohol can be a truth serum or something like it."

"It wasn't for me. Us being out there together right after I found him in bed with Cherry -- He was obviously on my mind because of what he had done and how angry I was, but that was the extent of it."

He arched his brow. "You're sure?"

"Of course."

He dropped back against the couch and sighed. He rested his hands in his lap and shifted his eyes across the room. "I know there's no way you'd ever go back to him," he said, though he didn't exactly sound as sure as I think he had hoped to. "But there's still history there, maybe old feelings and wounds that haven't healed up just yet. When Cherry told me about him paying her, I'd convinced myself that he had done that shit for you."

I raised my brows and looked aside. "That... he... had... sex? with her for me?" I asked him.

He grinned at my response. "I know it doesn't sound like it, darlin', but my initial thought was that he was doing it to keep you safe," he replied. "If Lorenzo came around and started asking you about him, you'd have no idea where the hell he had gone."

"You think even if I told him that I didn't know, he would've believed me?"

"There might've been a chance." He paused and leaned his head. "Before I decked the shit outta him." I laughed. "He came up to the club thinking that you two were the ones married. After decking him, I corrected him on that shit." I smiled at him before staring down at the ring on my hand again. "What is it?" he asked me.

I shook my head. "Nothing. It's just... I want to marry you again. Eventually, I mean. When all this stuff with your club dies down, if it ever does. When I was talking to the girls today, they were asking me about the wedding, and I realized that they had no idea that I couldn't remember anything because I was so damn intoxicated from it. It was embarrassing, so I just started making things up and they were swooning over every word. But I want to have that feeling with you for real. I want to be able to remember and treasure everything about the day that I became your wife for the rest of my life."

He looked into my eyes again and when I stared into his, they softened. "Yeah, darlin'." He reached out his hand and wrapped it around the back of my neck, brushing his hand up and down against my skin. "I want that shit too." He grinned. "Making you my wife, as me this time." His grin widened. "There's never been anything else in my entire damn life that's ever measured up to the way I feel about you, babe. And I'm realizing now, not even the club."

Shock crossed my face and I suddenly felt like crying, but I sniffed back any potential tears that could've made their way to the front of my eyes. I knew how much his club meant to him, how much his brothers meant to him. I knew how much that life meant to him and that he would've been damned to ever give it up for anything or anyone for any reason if asked.

At least until now.

"This life is hard, babe," he went on. "Damn hard. Between the things I've done, the things I'll have to do, between who I am as a man for my brothers and the man I'll always wanna be for you... It's hard as fuck sometimes to keep up with all that shit."

"I know," I told him.

"Yeah, I know that you do. You feel that shit, understanding it in a way that I've always known nobody else ever could. You accept all of this and me for who I am, babe."

"I told you that I always would."

"Forever and always, yeah?"

I bit down on my lip and eagerly nodded my head. "Yeah..."

He pulled me to him then, and kissed me so softly, so sensually that I had to catch my breath a few times and pull back from him. "You alright?" he asked, bringing his other hand up to my face and stroking my cheek. I kept my eyes closed and brought my hands up to his chest to keep my balance, then nodded my head. He brushed the hair away from my face and I draped my leg over his thigh. I situated myself right on top of his dick through his pants and immediately felt it rising against my sex.

My eyes peeled open and when I looked down into his face, I saw lust, anger, passion and greed; desire and fire... sex, love, need and want all wrapped up in one beautiful package that was him. I slinked my arms around his neck and pulled him to me. Then as I dug my nails into his back, I started gyrating against him, slowly, pressing my sex as hard as I could against the extreme length of his rock-solid penis. My entire body felt as if it had just caught on fire and though my breathing went from faint to damn near nonexistent, I couldn't stop. Seeing the need in his eyes, tasting it in the air as he parted his lips and exhaled; my body called for his, ached for his in ways that I knew could never ache for anyone else's ever again.

When I swerved my hips, he dropped his hand down to my waist and shoved against me. Our clothes created an intense friction against each other and as the need for him built up between my thighs, burning me up from the outside in, I could feel my chest becoming tight, my mind falling away from me, my breasts swelling, my nipples hardening. He yanked my skirt back up to my stomach again with a sort of vengeance this time, grunting and grinding as his penis became so erect that the zipper of his jeans was beginning to slide down all on its own. He dipped his head forward and sank his teeth into the center of my neck. God, it hurt like hell, but the pain somehow only made me that much more turned on. Whether I was a masochist, crazy or just completely sick in the head for wanting this so badly, I wasn't sure. All I knew was that I did and knowing that he wanted it too made it that much more desirable.

"Oh my God, Roman." As the heat accelerated between us, as his skin became so hot that it was practically burning against me, as the tightness in my chest collapsed, I snaked my fingers through his hair and willed him to take me as his woman, his wife, his everything right then and there. He reached around to unhook my bra, never taking his time in removing it and in fact, tossing it across the room so that it wasn't even sitting between us after. As I arched my back and lifted my breasts, he moved his mouth back and forth between them, sucking and biting my nipples, gradually nibbling the skin around each one as he tugged them into his mouth. This man was such a fantastic lover that in the back of my mind I knew that if I ever even wanted anyone else, I would never find someone who could practically make me come without even being inside me first.

As my breathing heightened, he dipped his hands inside the back of my panties and squeezed my ass. Then he dragged me closer to him before pushing me back, dragged me close, then pushed me back again. And that's when I realized that he wanted to guide me against his cock himself; he wanted to control this, control my need for him and how we moved against each other; control me. This feeling was so electric, the mild domination and soft seduction -- my God, I had never been more aroused.

My panties were soaked against him, completely soaked. I reached down for his pants then, my heart beating at such a rapid speed that by now, my breathing couldn't even keep up. I lifted to my knees and pulled them down along with his briefs, then waited impatiently as he yanked at my panties, so hard that they ripped in half. I laughed but was stopped by his tongue as it practically destroyed my mouth like a boat that had been traveling across rocky waters and washed up ashore in pieces. This kiss was hard and heavy, no longer soft and sensuous but still sexy all the same.

I wrapped my hands around his neck again to hold onto him, and when he finally pushed his hard dick inside me, so far in that his balls immediately slapped against my ass, I cried out in so much delight that I was sure I had pierced his eardrum or bitten his tongue in half. But he made no effort to show me that he was in any pain and instead began thrusting against me, moving in and out of me at such a slow speed to make sure that I felt every inch of him as always, before gradually upping his pace. He lifted me a little, wrapping his hand around my waist to perfect his dick inside me while holding me steady, and I dropped my hands to his thighs, digging my nails into his skin as he so effortlessly reached my G-spot. I was about five seconds away from completely blowing any and every fuse that I managed to have left, and then he shoved his other hand between my thighs and began vigorously massaging my clit with his fingers. My head fell back and I swallowed hard, not even realizing that my mouth was completely dry until it dropped open.

And then he started pumping into me hard. My breasts bounced against his chest, his balls slapped even harder against my ass. We were moving in sync at such an insane but perfect rhythm that as he continued to lift me higher and higher on his body, fulling me until I thought I would nearly collapse on top of him, I was certain that we would go flying right through the roof.

"Oh my God, Roman... God -- Jesus, I'm gonna come!"

"Me too, babe... Fuck," he rasped, his breath so warm and wet against my skin that I shivered. "Jesus Christ, and with you being so tight around my cock, just... Goddamn, like a vise... just like a motherfuckin' vise – goddamn, fitting me perfectly – Jesus." He leaned in to suck my nipple back into his mouth and my body jerked.

As the pressure between us grew to a level of unspeakable measures, my sex clinched around him and his balls drew up tight. I lowered my hand to grab onto them and with a quick squeeze, he drew back and released, exploding inside of me like a geyser. My orgasm tipped and I came not long after, blowing like the whistle on a tea kettle; I shuddered against him as he did the same. We were completely covered from head to toe in each other’s sweat; happy but exhausted; blissfully exhausted. My heart was still pounding, racing so hard that even as he cradled me in his arms and lowered me down to the couch on my back, it had yet to find its normal speed.

I placed my hand on top of it and smiled up at him. I wanted to tell him how amazing it was, but couldn't; not only because I could barely speak, but 'amazing' didn't exactly feel like the right word. It couldn't explain the feelings I had rolling throughout my entire body as he worked me over and pushed me so far to the edge that I not only tipped but fell all the way in and felt like I was drowning. I was drowning in the sea that was this man, and I never wanted to be rescued ever again by anyone else. Not even him.

When his dick began to soften, he pulled out of me, slowly, as if to continue savoring the moment we had just shared; exhilarating, exciting, euphoric, memorable. Even those words didn't seem good enough to explain what this was or how I felt in finally having it all for myself; having him all for myself, forever.

And then he brushed his fingers over my breasts, allowing them to harden against him again. I wanted to tell him how good it felt, but I still couldn't. I could barely even moan, my body was so worn, so weak, so unbelievably and deliciously sore in some places while completely numb in others. The man had officially fucked me speech and senseless. Even if I wanted to in that moment or had to, there is no way in the world that I would've been able to even scream.

I looked up at him again and he stared at me with love in his eyes. So much more than before if that were even possible; it was a feeling I knew would last inside of him forever now, until the end of our lives together and far beyond it.

 

Roman

"If we don't have the money for this asshole by the end of this week, what the fuck are we gonna do then?" asked Tracker. We were gathered around the table in the chapel and staring at each other like bumps on a pile of logs as he turned to Riggs, shrugging his shoulders and expecting answers in return much like the rest of us.

Nine days had already gone by since Lorenzo stepped back onto the lot for the first time in years and we were no closer to having his money than we were the day I sent him flying across it with the help of my fist for running his mouth about Colette.

To make shit even worse, I was starting to get a bunch of random phone calls from different numbers at all hours of the day and night that I was sure belonged to nobody else but my idiot brother, except he never left a message, voice or text, and each time I tried answering, he just hung up in my face.

"We need to figure out what the next move in all this shit is gonna be, Prez," said Chute. He leaned back in his chair at the far end of the table and opened his hands. "Otherwise, this asshole is gonna continue owning us 'til we've got both of our goddamn feet in the ground."

"Chute's right," said Axel, bending forward. He rested his arms on the table and glanced around at all of us, rattling his head, unsure. "I'm normally one for being optimistic and with shit working out in our favor, but not this time. The truth is that I think we're fucked if we don't come up with something soon."

Riggs lifted his hand and turned in his chair. His eyes shifted across each of us before he lowered them to the giant Wild Reapers emblem that had recently been carved into the center of the table, solidifying us as a club 'til the end despite Lorenzo's bullshit, and sighed. The old man was tired and worn down, we could all see it, feel it from how dejected he had been since that day of telling us what was up and how it all came about. He was pissed for allowing himself to be suckered by this asshole, pissed that he bothered listening to my brother and pissed that because of his actions, everything that he had helped to build from the ground up with Atom, Tracker and my old man was just a few days away from being permanently put right back down into it.

"I'm all ears," he finally said. "Open to any and all suggestions at this point."

"At this point?" replied Tracker. "Fine time for you to start coming to your senses about all this shit, don't you think? Jesus."

"What the hell do you want me to do about it now, asshole?" he replied. "I thought it was a good deal, but I fucked up. I own that shit just like I told you I would. You want me to write you an apology note in blood?"

"Would you even be able to see what the hell you've written?" Tracker muttered. Riggs balled his fists and swallowed hard. Tracker continued, ignoring him. "As a matter of fact, I thought you said that if this shit went south, not only would you own your shit but the head of the table would be mine just as much as your seat?"

"I lied," Riggs shot back. "The only way you're getting this seat is if you put me in the ground for it."

"Or we vote," he replied. "We vote to put you out of it."

"Come on, brother," mumbled Atom as he clinched his teeth. He glanced over at him and shook his head. "We've got enough shit going on right now that we don't have time to spend on your dick measuring contests. Prez is staying in his seat and you're staying in yours as VP. That's the way it's always been and it'll continue on in that way until--"

"'When?" asked Tracker, his eyes narrowing as his jaw went stiff. "'Til he fucks up like this again? Maybe even worse next time when one of us is being struck down by a goddamn bullet?"

"We live by the sword and we die by it too; and if one of us goes down, we take that hit just like the rest; just like we did in 'Nam. In the meantime, if you think that you'd be any better in that seat than him while holding onto his gavel, or that the shit in running a bunch of dumb fucks like us is somehow easier than it looks, then I think you'd be in for one helluva rude awakening. I wouldn't mind testing that theory out on your ass at some point, but today ain't it. Today, let us just deal with our issues at hand with the club and Lorenzo, and move on already, alright? Check your Texas sized ego and eraser sized dick at the door and get back to business."

Tracker stared him in the face and sneered.

Riggs looked at Tracker and smirked as he bent down on the table. "So you got anything else you wanna say to me right now about this shit, brotha?"

Tracker's face burned bright red. He hated being called out by more than one brother at a time and 'checked' for his attitude and temper but the fact was that we were all sick and tired of his shit because it wasn't helping us in getting any further than we needed to be. So when Atom finally spoke up, son of a bitch was speaking for every brother in that room.

"No, brotha," he finally told him, shaking his head despite looking as if he wanted to blow a gasket. They stared one another down until Tracker finally turned away and focused his eyes around to the other brothers.

"Alright then," said Riggs. "Now, if there's anybody else in here with any legitimate suggestions as far as how we might be able to come up with the cash for that prick, speak now or forever hold onto to your peace like this one" -- he pointed at Tracker -- "should've."

"Maybe we can talk him into pushing back the reopening," said Patch. "The shit's supposed to be Friday but even with all the legwork and time that me and Poker have put in along with those dumbass prospects, it's been hard as hell in trying to get the high rollers interested in coming to our place for more than an hour and spending real dough on these girls."

"Well maybe if we finally started investing in some high-quality pussy," replied Smack with a chuckle. "Chicks like Cherry are only bringing in a certain kinda motherfucker these days; mostly the usual’s and pricks with no real cash to spend outside of a few dollar bills for a quick lap dance to get 'em hard before they have to go back to work, or home to a sleeping wifey that'd kill him if he tried waking her up for a midnight blow-job."

"What about those new twins she's working with?" asked Reefer. "They seem like the kind that would bring in some top dollar, suit wearing pricks and goddamn do they know how to suck some cock."

Tracker sat up and leaned forward, turned his head and with pointed eyes, stared down the table at Reef. "When the hell did you get your turn with those two?" he asked him.

Reefer carelessly lifted his shoulders and glared. "Last week when Cherry first brought them out here to see if they were good enough for even working at the club with her. Why?"

His chest descended as he exhaled. Then he turned straight ahead and fell back in his chair. "Nothin'," he mumbled.

Reefer looked between Smack and Axel and chuckled. "Did you not get your chance to have a spin with them?"

"Prez was talking about suggestions -- let's just continue on with that shit," he replied. He glanced over at Riggs, who had arched his brow and made a face.

"Alright, so high quality pussy," said Limb. "Great, now just where in the hell do we find it around here? Because shit like this is what Lorenzo was supposed to be helping us out with, was it not?"

"It went south when he realized that us being collateral and paying back his dough became more important," Tracker told him.

"That's my point. He wants his money back, but he's not doing a goddamn thing to help us get it."

"Because he wants us to fail, brother. Haven't you figured that shit out by now? He wants us to fail and he wants us to fail hard so that he can eventually take this shit over for good for himself. He wants this club to be his permanent bitch with Riggs as just the super head, not the actual Prez of it. He wants us doing all his dirty work, taking people out left and right and whatnot just like I said the minute we learned about him agreeing to this shit, while he parties and cokes it up in Miami with random pussy and hire's another kid even dumber than his brother" -- he stopped to point at me -- "to take over more books for him. And then when that asshole fucks up or steals from him, he'll find a way to blame us for that too. And the shit cycle will start all over again. He wants us to be in this 'til we've got both feet in the ground, just like Chute said." He leaned aside and rested his elbow on the arm of his chair. He grunted. "You know if I didn't love this club so much, I'd take a stick of dynamite and just blow it the fuck up -- blow it to fuckin' smithereens and walk away from it all just like that."

"Brother, are you high?" asked Atom. "'Cause the other stuff, I understood but what you just said right now makes you sound higher than a goddamn kite."

"I'm as sober as a skunk."

Poker soured like a curdled bottle of milk and shook his head at him. "What the hell does that shit even mean?"

Tracker rolled his eyes and said, "Nothin'."

"Alright look, all of this stupid, extra shit is just giving me nothing but a goddamn headache and a giant set of blue balls," said Riggs. He looked over at me and nodded. "You still haven't heard shit from Jeremiah?"

"Nope. I keep getting those random phone calls that I still think might be him, but since none of them can be traced, all I've got is my gut. Son of a bitch must be going through about ten to fifteen burners a day or something."

"With the kinda money he stole, he's probably throwing phones and pussy out left and right every hour," muttered Limb.

"Well according to Lorenzo, he thinks he might be headed someplace upstate now."

"Upstate where?" asked Poker. "Like New York or some shit?"

"It's possible. Or maybe Jersey."

"Who the hell would he know up there outside of the East Coast Reapers?" asked Smack. "And there's no way that crew would take him in after knowing the shit he pulled on us out here. Everybody's on high-alert."

"That's true, but there's always a chance he's made side deals or friends that we don't know about." Riggs shrugged. "Maybe even some family?" He turned back to me, looking for more answers.

"We've got nobody up there on our own," I told him. "Not even extended family, no friends from when we were kids, nothing."

"Why the fuck would Lorenzo think that he's headed out to NY?" asked Tracker. "That shit sounds sketchy as fuck."

"He's still got his own guy working on it just like we've got our own people and that’s the info. he's been given."

"That alone should tell you something is up."

"Something is up and it's my blood pressure instead of my cock like I was hoping for it to be by now with a chick in the back." Riggs grabbed his head and groaned. "Look, I'm gonna take what Patch said into consideration, even though it might not get us anywhere--"

"I can tell you right now that it won't," Tracker interjected.

"And I can tell you right now that if you do not shut your ass up already, I will put you through the head of this table crown first. You'll finally have your chance at it." Riggs turned back to the rest of us, annoyed. "Now, like I was saying before, I'll take what Patch said into consideration; call up Lorenzo back in Vegas and see if he'll be willing to work out another deal."

Tracker sat up straight. "And I'm telling you that he won't. But either way, I'm gonna be sitting in with you on this shit this time. And I want the club attorney present too in case he tries pulling more shit."

Riggs ignored him and wrapped his hand around the gavel. "Is there anything else before we get the hell out of here?" We all shook our heads. "Alright." He slammed the gavel on the table, then quickly got up from his chair and left the room; Tracker sprinted after him.

When they headed toward the back to his office, Limb, Chute and the rest remained in their chairs, trying to figure out what the hell would become of the club if or when we would be forced into becoming Lorenzo's main bitch for good after all this. I remained quiet, as did Atom until my phone rang.

All eyes turned to me when I yanked it from my pocket and stared down at the number. "It's Colette," I said, hopping up from the chair and heading back through the club. I moved outside so that I could talk with her in private. I needed to hear her voice right now and to say some things to her that I didn't want the rest of these assholes listening in on. "Babe," I answered, groaning as I thought about our time together last night, when I had her pinned against the wall next to the bed, my cock deep inside her as her nails dragged along my back and pressed so deep into me that they cut right through my skin.

Some memorable shit. So much that I was still carrying the scars from it.

Ever since I had told her the truth about both Vegas and Lorenzo, she was willing and damn eager to give it up to me eight nights straight without a break in between. The shit wore me out, nearly making me late for work every morning after, but she wasn't doing much better, especially since she can never seem to get enough.

In fact, I've had to carry her out of bed just to get her in the shower more than once. In no way do I mind it when I'm able to have her tits in my mouth or she's on her knees down in front of me, ready for another taste of my cock on her tongue while her hand tugs my balls just before I come. But I'd be lying if I said that in doing so, it didn't help in speeding up the process.

"Hey." I heard a smile in her voice and could tell she had bitten down on her lip. "I was just calling to see how your day was going so far."

"It's alright. We just got outta church and I'm about to work on a few cars out here in the garage. What's going on with you at the school today?"

"Same old, same old, you know...."

I grew concerned when she trailed off and straightened my back. "What's going on out there, Colette?"

"Nothing," she said. "I just... wanted to know if you would be too pissed about me going out with Perla and the girls tonight. It's Vetta's birthday and they want to celebrate at some new bar that's opened up downtown."