BRANDON
Blood spurt out of my knuckles when I hit the bag, but I didn’t feel the pain. Nothing could compare to the moment I watched that pixie drive out of my life.
I didn’t stop my workout to clean up, I needed the release first. Once all the pent up energy burning me inside came out, then I’d wipe down the bag and the mats, and go for a long run. Shark stood in the corner of the weight room, watching me with a grim expression. He’d been glaring at me for most of the morning.
What did he want me to do, chase her ass down? I told her not to go. Did he want me to beg for her to stay and give me what I wanted, what I needed? Not gonna happen. I didn’t beg. Not even for pixies who wrapped themselves all around my heart and ripped out my soul. Not even then.
“Knox!” Nathan bellowed from the doorway. “Brandon!” I dropped my fists and faced him, sweat rolled down my nose, off my chin. “You’ve been pounding that thing for two days.” What I really wanted to pound was his face, but Shark wouldn’t let me near him.
“What do you want, Prez?” I grabbed a towel from the bench and wiped down my face.
“Mateo wants a sit down. Him, Martin and me.”
“What about Carter?” Shark called from the corner.
“Haven’t seen his ugly mug in a days. No one in his club has. Martin took the chair last night, club vote.” I looked over at Shark. Presidents didn’t just disappear, and a club sure as fuck didn’t vote away his chair after only two days.
“Martin just took over? Just like that?”
Nathan spit on the ground. “Not our circus. I need you both to ride with me and Mike to meet Martin.”
“Once this meeting’s over, we’re done.” Shark pointed a finger at Nathan.
“You’ll get your vote. How’s that girl of yours?” His lips twisted to the side of his face when he smiled.
“Doing just fine.” Shark had set her up in his ma’s house. The girls’ weekend ended quickly when he called her to ask her to stay with Lacy. Lacy didn’t take very kindly to having a babysitter, but in the end she stayed put. Shark knew Lacy could handle her own, and would be fine at their house, but he also knew she had an itch to go find Hannah and drag her home. He couldn’t risk having her out playing hero.
“And your short haired girl?” He waggled his eyebrows. I ignored the question and swung at the bag again, cursing at the tenderness starting to settle into my knuckles. “Ah, that good. Pussy dried up, did it?”
We heard his laugh as he walked away. Shark jumped on my back, stopping me from charging that prick down. “Knock it off. Just another day.”
“Then what?” I shook his ass off me.
“Then we go up north, start that bike shop.”
“Right, just us two.” I tore off the wrap covering my hand, blood soaked the wrap on my right hand.
“No, us four. I told you, I saw the bus she got her ticket for. Once this is done, we go get her ass.”
“She made her choice,” I said. After he dropped her at the bus station he went on and on about this bike shop he saw up near Lacy’s grandma’s place for sale. I was with him about his plan for the bike shop, that made good sense for guys like us, but then he started in on first swinging by Hannah.
Lacy had jumped all over me when I wouldn’t hear him out, telling me Hannah loved me and was just scared. When I turned my glare on her, she finally backed down, but didn’t count herself out. Shark started up where she left off until I flipped him off and went to bed.
Not that I slept. Fuck, not a blink of sleep hit me since that pixie got on that bus.
“Right.” Shark followed me out into the clubhouse. I needed a shower, and the one in my room would do just fine. “So if that’s the case, how about I send Mandy to your room. She’s been licking her lips since you walked in this morning, just waiting to get your cock in her mouth.”
I stopped short, looking over at the girl he was referring to. A new girl. Long red curly hair, and a pretty hot body. Her eyes roamed over my sweaty body and, sure enough, her tongue darted out licking her lips.
“How’s about it? She’ll be waiting for you when you get out of your shower.” Shark started to walk over to her. I knew it was bluff, knew he was testing me.
“Fuck off,” I growled, and stormed off. No longer feeling like a run, I slammed the door behind me and locked it. I didn’t need any surprise visitors creeping in while I washed my sweaty ass.
***
Riding into Soldiers’ territory made me uneasy. Having Nathan being the one leading us only made it worse. I reminded myself this was the last thing I had to do, then I’d be free. Whatever that meant now. Before, it meant free to make a life with Hannah. Now, I just wanted to crawl into a cave and forget the world outside even existed.
Fuck. Pretty soon I’ll be eating ice cream out of the carton and crying to Hallmark commercials.
We were brought to the back room. Passing the bar where I first saw Hannah soured my mood even further. Everywhere I looked in that clubhouse I saw her, felt her presence. I should have gotten her out of there faster.
Martin sat in Carter’s chair at the helm of their table. Mateo stood sipping a drink in his tailor made suit. “Brandon, Shark. Hello, my friends.” He tipped his glass to us. “I hope you aren’t angry about what happened. Valentina wouldn’t stop jabbering on and on about getting rid of Eduardo. So, I killed two birds with one stone. I’m sorry I didn’t give you all of the information, but I thought having you in the dark would be best. So as not to tip off Valentina. You understand.” He frowned.
“Sure.” I nodded, but I didn’t understand anything. I didn’t give a shit who killed how and why, I just wanted to be done with the mess. “I get it. No problem.”
“Good. Then let’s get started. We are all here, yes?” he asked Martin.
“Everyone who matters.” Martin nodded.
“Where’s your VP?” Nathan asked.
“Don’t have one yet. Still working out everyone’s loyalties.” Martin leaned back in his chair. “Some of the guys didn’t take nicely to my opening up the gates to the whorehouse and letting out the women. A handful of the girls stayed, on their own accord. Been promised good wages and a decent living. But the cost of it comes out of the clubs cut of the profit, so some of the guys are a bit pissed. Had to clean house a little.”
“These women were severely abused under Carter’s ruling.” Mateo waved his glass in the air, nearly spilling some of his drink. “Martin made them good offers. The ones who left have been given enough money to make their way home. Or wherever they want to go.”
“You funded this?” I couldn’t help but ask. Why would Mateo give a shit about some whores in the back of a MC clubhouse?
“Ah, no.” He laughed. “I’m not that generous, much to my mama’s dismay. No, it was taken from your cut of the last run.”
Nathan stiffened, but didn’t outright react. “Our cut? Why?”
“I don’t like you.” Mateo shrugged.
Nathan’s fists closed, but still he remained quiet.
“We only had you here as a courtesy.” Martin leaned forward, his fingers steeped. “This is my club now. I don’t want the Riders. Separate clubs. We stay out of your way and you stay out of ours.”
“What about the deal we made with Eduardo?” Nathan slapped his hand on the table.
“Died with Eduardo.” Martin smiled. “You get to keep your club, your territory, but the cartel deal, that stays here. Now, if you’d rather go to war, blow up each other’s houses, tear apart our clubs, that’s fine, but the cartel deal stays here.”
Nathan looked back at me, like I should do something. What did he want me to do? I didn’t give a shit what happened now. The club going back to how it was in the beginning? Shit, sounded just fine to me. If he wanted guts and glory, he picked the wrong guy to bring to the meeting. Once look over at Shark and I knew he had the same mindset as me.
“This is bullshit. You overthrow your president and go back on deals made?”
“I didn’t overthrow anything. Carter walked out on this club. That asshole is crazed, mumbling to himself over the past few days. He’s obsessed with finding Hannah, can’t see straight or think straight. When he walked out of here two days ago, everyone in the bar heard him say he didn’t give a shit about the club, he just needed get his hands around that girl’s neck.”
“He was probably drunk.” Nathan snorted.
My hands gripped my knees hard. If he was missing, he could have trailed Hannah.
“Probably. Doesn’t change what he said, or that he went off the grid the next day. Won’t answer his cell. Abandoned his chair.” Martin grinned. The man may have had a soft spot for Hannah, helping her the way he did, but he was all MC in that room. He was a lifer, not like me. I lost the hunger, probably long before Hannah walked into my life. But it took meeting her to see there was a life worth having outside the club.
“He didn’t abandon nothing,” Nathan yelled. “If he walks back in here, he’s got the chair.”
“He’s not going to be doing that.” Martin narrowed his eyes. “Unless you know something we don’t.”
“He aint dead. He’s over in Springgrove holed up with that Hannah bitch.” My full attention snapped to Nathan. “He grabbed hold of her two days ago.”
“How the fuck do you know that?” I pounced on him, grabbing his kutte and pulling backward. His chair flew out from under him, his back bounced off the floor.
“Fuck.” He coughed.
“How do you know where he is, where she is?” I pulled my pistol from my back pocket, cocked it, and aimed it between his eyes.
“You were going to leave the club!” He put his hands in front of his face, like that would stop my bullet from blowing out his brains. “He knew Martin was up to something. When Eduardo was killed he reached out. I didn’t know their plans. Fuck.” He winced as my knee pressed into his stomach. “He took her; she’s just bait, Brandon.”
“You thought keeping her hostage would keep me in your fucking club?” Spit flew from my mouth, landed on his face. “If one fucking hair is hurt on her, one hair, I’m coming back here to jam this up your ass before I pull the fucking trigger. Where are they?”
“No, you can’t go yet. First you have to help me with them.” The prick had the balls to point over my shoulder at Martin and Mateo. “Help me get this deal back on our table—”
“Why is this deal so fucking important?” Shark asked casually from his chair. He hadn’t gotten up or moved a fucking muscle since I jumped.
“Tell them,” VP said. I looked up at him, wary and fed up as he nudged Nathan with his foot. “Fucking tell them.”
“The books are empty,” he sputtered. “The club’s broke. The bank wants the clubhouse, the garage, everything. If we don’t keep this deal, we’ll lose everything.”
“How’d that happen?” I turned my gaze on VP, asshole never said anything. In all the meetings, the nights siting around drinking ourselves stupid, he never let on Nathan was running the club into the ground.
“Fuck face there has a little gambling problem. I’ve been covering his ass for months, but it’s too far gone.”
“And you let it happen? You didn’t come to the members with this shit?” Shark leaned forward in his chair. “What about our paydays? We haven’t missed one.”
“No, because I’ve been out hawking shit left and right. Old bikes, old parts. When we took this deal with the cartel it saved use for the past few months. But without it, there’s nothing. Fuck head is five months late on the mortgages. Banker’s knocking down the doors.”
I took a ragged breath. “You stole from the club? You gambled away everything?” I pressed the gun to his forehead. Tears slipped out of his eyes. “You know what? Never mind, what’d you say earlier…right…not my circus. Where the fuck are Carter and Hannah?”
“Old warehouse off 25. Apartment over the loading docks,” he mumbled. “Brandon, please. I need this club.”
“You don’t deserve it. Neither of you do.” I looked at Mike, and uncocked my gun.
“Well, now that the entertainment portion of the evening is over—”
“You fuckers wait.” Shark stood up with fists at his sides. “This asshole is gonna be dealt with by the club; with Brandon and me heading out, there’s no one really to take over. Most of the older members are setting up to retire soon, and the others, fuck, most of them only stick around for the pussy and money. Once the money dries up, the pussy will go next, and they’ll follow that out of town.”
“Shark, watch it,” I warned.
“Take him back to the club, he’ll fucking confess and lay it out for them. They join you, or they go nomad. But there’s no Riders anymore. If the bank’s coming to take everything anyway, better to jump ship.”
Martin gave a curt nod. “We’ll consider it. When you find Carter—”
“He’s dead. No way around that,” I cut him off. There would be no deal making, no saving his sorry ass.
“That’s what I wanted to hear.”
“Safe travels.” Mateo raised his glass to us again.
I shoved off Nathan, ignoring his grunt of pain. “Yeah. You, too.” I slid my pistol back where it belonged, tucked close to me, and walked out of the room. Shark made sure to step on Nathan’s fat belly as he made his way out behind me.
“Thought you didn’t care about Hannah,” he commented as we reached our bikes.
“Don’t make me hurt you, too.”