Chapter 6

Lily

It’s been a month since the barbeque at the clubhouse and to say I’ve been incognito is an understatement. I still work at Dani’s and run in the other direction when I see Chase coming anywhere near me. I’m not scared of confrontation. I just don’t want to be bothered. I already allowed one man to drag me down knowingly, but this time, I won’t allow it.

I’ve only gone to Dani’s house when Jake and the kids aren’t there. I miss my interactions with Jake, but after everything that Chase said about me, I’d rather sit on the sidelines and stay out of the way.

Three weeks ago, I started getting gifts and odd little notes. The first was a purple rose sitting on the Welcome mat on my porch. No note, just the flower. Then a few days later, I got a card in the mail. It had a picture of the ocean on the front and then the inside contained a handwritten quote.

Weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing. When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it's tender and pliant. But when it's dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death's companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win. ~Stalker

I’m dying inside; therefore, I’m hard and insensitive until we meet again.

Last week, I received another lone purple rose and a locket with pictures of me taken at the bar with a red X over my face.

Today, walking out to my car to leave for Dani’s, I find another lone purple rose and I’m done. I should’ve done this last week, but I blew it off. Not today. I’m going to have a few words with Rudy, the club Prez, to see what he thinks I should do.

When I arrive at the club, the parking lot only dawns a few bikes and Dani’s SUV. I walk into the side door and allow my eyes to adjust.

When the haze is finally clear, I look around the main room and none other than Chase with Ginger straddling and grinding him on the couch along with Spook who has Becca in the same position. They really need a buzzer that goes off when someone opens the door.

Neither man acknowledges me and I’m fine with that. I’m getting pretty tired of walking into these situations and made to feel shitty because I don’t condone them.

I quickly walk to Rudy’s office and knock softly.

“Come in.” He growls.

I open the door and his expression goes from hard to soft when he realizes it’s me. Rudy is an attractive fifties-something man with rugged features and long gray hair. He’s fit, not muscular like most of the other brothers, but he hasn’t let himself go with age.

“Hey, Rudy. Can I have a moment of your time? It won’t take long.”

“Sure, Lil.” He points to the chair in front of his desk. “Have a seat.” I sit. “What’s going on?”

“Um…” I mumble softly. “I think I have a stalker and at first, I wasn’t too worried about it, but now things are getting creepy.” He remains quiet as I start pulling out two dead roses, one fresh rose, one card and a locket, setting them on his desk.

He picks the card up and reads it. He shifts the roses to the side and takes the locket in his hand. After opening and inspecting the pictures inside, he looks at me.

“How long have you been getting these?” He picks up the roses.

“I’ve got one every Monday for the past three weeks. The fresh one is from this morning.”

“And the rest of it?”

“I got the card on a Thursday the first week and then the locket was on my front porch when I came home from work last Friday night.”

“Do you have any idea who it might be from?”

I shake my head no. “I don’t try to draw attention to myself. I go to work and do my job. I don’t flaunt myself like most of the girls or at least I don’t intend to be.” I mutter pointing at the items on his desk. “What do you think I should do?”

“Let me think on it, but for the time being, I’m going to put someone on you.”

“I don’t need to be followed, Rudy. I appreciate you wanting to protect me, but I didn’t come here for that. I just want advice on what my next action should be.” I huff.

“No arguing, Lil. We need to take this seriously. I’m going to talk to the brothers, Dani and Sadie and see if they’ve seen anything strange going on at the bar or have any inkling of who it could be.”

“Okay.” I nod my head in agreement.

“Let me walk you out.” He stands from his seat and walks over to help me out of mine. We make our way out of his office and into the main room.

Surprise, Surprise! Chase and Spook are still at it except now the women are completely naked.

“Church in an hour. I want every brother that’s available here.” Rudy shouts making me jump, interrupting Chase and Spook whose eyes land on me.

“Toby!” Ruby bellows at the prospect. “Your Lil’s shadow until I tell you otherwise.” The Prospect gives him a chin lift.

I walk over to Toby who’s standing by the door. Toby probably isn’t a day over nineteen, buzzed black hair, tall and lanky, baby face with bright blue eyes that haven’t been tainted with life. He hasn’t filled out his biker body with muscles and tats yet. “Let’s go, bud. You can help me clean house before work.” I laugh at his expression and pat his cheek, then walk out the door to my car.

***

Chase

Well, fuck! I can’t win for losing with this woman. Every damn time I see her I’ve got a bitch attached to me. Spook actually looks embarrassed by being caught by Lily. I probably should be, but she isn’t mine and I could care less if she gets an eye full. That’s a lie. Lily’s under my skin and I’ve burned through more pussy in the last month trying to get her off my mind. Every-fucking-time I have a bitch on her knees with my cock in her mouth or on their back with legs spread, the only face I see is Lily’s.

Rudy called Church and most of the brothers were able to get here. With my balled up fist tapping on the table, impatient waiting to find out what’s going on, I look around the table and my brothers have the same confused look on their faces. We are a clean club, so we aren’t involved in anything that could cause blowback.

Rudy finally walks in. “Have a seat, fuckers.” He takes his seat and bangs the gavel on the table. We all turn our attention to him. “I know most of ya’ll are regulars at Dani’s.” Most of us nod. “Have ya seen anything strange or anyone new?”

Spook’s the first to speak. “I haven’t seen anything strange, but there was a guy in there a few weeks ago. He was out of place but that was only because he was wearing sunglasses in an already dark bar. I haven’t seen him anymore when I’ve been in there. What’s going on, Prez?”

Rudy opens up a box he brought in and starts unloading flowers, paper and a necklace. “Lily has been getting a purple rose every Monday for the past three weeks. The first week she also got this card.” He passes it around. “Then Friday night she came home from work to find this necklace on her porch.” He passes around the necklace as I’m getting the card.

“What the fuck does this card even mean?” I roar.

“Let me see it.” Marc sticks his hand out for me to pass it over. He reads it and then reads it again. “I don’t think the quote means anything, but it’s from a movie called Stalker from the seventies. Let me see the necklace.” Spook has the necklace inspecting it.

“This is some fucked up shit.” Spook says as he holds the necklace up. “These are pictures of Lily at work. Their blurry but I can tell it’s her.” He hands it over to Marc.

Marc looks it over and opens it up. “Yeah, the card isn’t shit other than a calling card basically telling her what he is, a stalker. The locket on the other hand is something to worry about. He X’d her out and from my experience in the military, when terrorist had someone in their sights and got rid of them, they would X out their faces with red. Now the purple roses, I’ve got nothing.”

Professor has his phone out and begins to quote whatever he’s found. “ Purple roses primarily stand for enchantment. The giver of the purple rose seeks to convey that he or she has fallen in love with the recipient at the very first sight. A deep magnetism and charm that makes the recipient almost irresistible is what the purple rose seeks to convey.” He turns to Marc to see what he thinks.

“Ah!” Marc exhales nosily. “So what we have is either someone who knows her or someone who doesn’t know her other than by seeing her at the bar and has become attached. I don’t know much about Lily’s past other than the shithead husband she left. I don’t think it would be him because he was more interested in fucking around on her than making her happy for almost ten years. Has there been anyone at the bar that has shown any extreme interest in her.” He glances at Rudy who’s shaking his head.

“I don’t have a clue. I’m barely in there. When I talked to Lil earlier, she told me she doesn’t try to drawl attention to herself and I believe her.” Ruby states.

“She doesn’t have to try to get attention, Prez.” Spook draws. “Lil is sexy in her own way. She doesn’t even know how attractive she is and for some men that’s a major turn on.”

The table bursts with several ‘yeah’s’ and ‘true.’ I’m starting to get even more pissed. I haven’t paid any mind to Lily before a month ago, but sure as fuck my brothers have. It makes me wonder what I’m missing that she didn’t catch my attention beforehand.

Rudy digs out his phone from his pocket, dials, puts it on speaker and places it on the table.

“Hey, Uncle Rudy. How’s it hanging today?” Gotta love Dani.

“Hey, Angel. It’s hanging a little to the left today, maybe tomorrow it’ll be high and to the right.” There are several chuckles around the table.

“Hmmm, you might want to get that checked out. Ryker’s…”

“Baby girl, now’s not the time to make my Prez jealous of my dick.” Ryker cuts her off before she can speak. He’s sitting across the table from me shaking his head.

“Fine.” She huffs. “Whatcha need?”

“Has anyone shown a particular interest in Lily since she started working at the bar?” Rudy questions.

“Not that I can think of. Although, there was that one guy who came in and sat in the corner. He was strange. He wore sunglasses.”

“Yep, that’s the guy I was talking about.” Spook states.

“I haven’t seen him since. I’ll ask around. Should I be worried?” Dani whispers.

“Not yet. We’ll up security and club presence at the bar until we can figure it out. Just give the girls a heads up to be alert. Lily will have a shadow until we can figure out who this dumbass is.” Rudy affirms.

“Okay, well keep me posted and I’ll do my part at the bar.” With that, Dani hangs up.

The table is quiet as everyone takes in the situation.

Finally, the silence is broken by Trigger. “I’ll get a schedule of who’s available to shadow Lily. Anybody have any issues with that.” My brothers shake their heads or grunt. “Chase, you should probably be at the bottom of the list or not on it at all.”

“Why’s that? Shouldn’t all of us be helping out?” I ask confused.

“We have plenty to cover Lily when she isn’t at the bar. Your relationship with her is shaky. You don’t care too much to be around her and the feeling’s mutual on her side. It’d be best if you just sit this out.”

“What-the-fuck-ever!” I bellow. “What’s so special about her that everyone’s on her side and no one is backing me?” I glance around the table.

“It isn’t about being special. She’s been family to a lot of us since she was a little girl.” Buzzard, one of the original members who barely interferes, growls. “Her momma might have moved her to Florida after Wiz’s death, but we still kept in contact with her. Dallas made sure we knew everything that was going on with Lil. I know you’ve seen the pictures of Lil on the wall in the main room. We even have her fucking wedding picture out there. This has nothing to do with picking sides. This has everything to do with taking care of our family. I suggest you get with the fucking program. All of us stepped up for your ass and all of us are going to step up for her. She needs us at her back and from what I’ve seen and heard about the way you two are around each other, I believe Trigger’s right on you sitting this one out until you two can come to some sort of common ground. I’ve seen Lily with your boy and for the past month, they’ve both been moping around. Lily stopped going around Dani’s house or the club when she knew either you or Jake would be there out of respect for you. Have you given her the same respect and stayed out of the bar?” I stare at him and shake my head no. “I didn’t think so. You’ve got no clue what a good woman she is because instead of getting to know her, you’re too worried about when you’re gonna get your next pussy fix. I understand she may not be your cup of sexy and that goes for many of your brothers, but you don’t see them giving her shit or making her feel uncomfortable at the clubhouse when this was her family way before it was ever yours.” He gets up from his chair, face beet red and looks to Rudy. “Put me on the list. Are we done here? I need to get the fuck out of this room before I put my hands on a brother out of anger.”

“Yeah, Buzzard.” Rudy nods his head. “If anything changes one of us will let ya know.” Buzzard gives him a chin lift and stomps out the door. “Chase, there are some times you need to learn when to keep your mouth shut. A lot of the ol’ timers aren’t gonna let your mouth slip when it comes to Lil. You got me?”

I nod. “I’ll sit this one out and I’ll stay away from Lily.”

“Alright then.” Rudy knocks the gavel to the table. “Church is done unless anyone else has something to add. Toby’s with Lily now until she goes to work and hopefully by then Trigger’ll have a schedule for the rest of ya.”

We all get up and leave the table. I go straight to the bar and grab a beer. I need to get my head on right. I’ve got a feeling Lily and I are far from finished battling it out and Buzzard was right, I need to stay the fuck away from her as much as possible or I might lose my brothers over a bitch. Or I need to keep my dick in my pants and try to get to know her the way my brothers do.