Chapter 19

You look like the type of woman who has to buy her own Klondike bars.

-E-card

Sean

“The fucking dog hates me, too,” I grumbled. “I walk into my own goddamned trailer, and she growls at me.”

My dad had the fucking nerve to laugh.

“That’s sad,” he lied. “I think she’s kind of cute.”

In an ugly kind of way, I suppose you could say that.

“Did you at least get the beer?”

I glared at my father and tossed him the thirty-six pack.

He grunted as he caught it, and I tried really hard not to laugh.

“Where’s Naomi?”

“Inside talking to the ladies,” I answered.

Ghost came up behind me, and I froze at the look on his face.

“You okay?”

A few weeks ago, when he’d asked me to go with him to do something, never in a thousand years would I have thought that I’d see what I saw. I had no earthly idea that he would ask me to do what he did. To make me witness something so fucking heartbreaking that I couldn’t stop thinking about it, even now.

Right that second, seeing that look on his face, the raw, naked fear, I straightened, remembering that night like it was as clear as day.

“Ghost.”

“I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to promise me that it’ll never, ever get out. If you tell anyone, even that woman of yours, it could be the death of them.”

***

Four weeks ago

“I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to promise me that it’ll never, ever get out. If you tell, even that woman of yours, it could be the death of them.”

“Are you sure you want to go?” I asked raggedly.

Ghost stared at the crying little girl, the one with tears pouring down her cheeks as she stared at her mother like she’d just betrayed her. The one with the two French braids that started at the top of her head and fell to almost mid-back…hair the same color as the man who was standing next to me. Her eyes were the same color, too. Deep green, almost the color of an olive, with whiskey colored striations that broke that green up beautifully.

“I hate you!” the little girl screamed.

The woman, she was beautiful. She had long brown hair that fell in waves to nearly her waist, and the most soulful brown eyes that looked like they’d literally been poured from melted chocolate.

“Sweetheart,” the woman whispered. “Please.”

“It’s not okay. It’ll never be okay. He’s not my father. I’m not ever going to call him daddy. I only ever had one, and he’s gone. You don’t get to decide that for me!”

My heart shattered into a million pieces, especially when I saw the murderous rage that was filling Ghost’s frame.

“He didn’t ask you to call him daddy…”

“Let’s go.”

I followed Ghost, but not far.

He went to the house next door just a mere house length away from the two ladies that were loving a ghost, and knocked on the door.

The man who we’d seen leaving the house where the little girl and her mother lived only five minutes before opened the door and stared at Ghost. “Who’re you?”

“You’re going to move.”

The man’s eyebrows rose. He was tall, a little less than six feet, with brown hair the color of muddy water, and blue eyes that looked way too light to be real. His teeth were so fucking white and straight that it was obvious that they were fake, and to top it all off, his voice was too high. He sounded like a woman.

“Yeah?”

His smile was slick, oily. And I wanted to beat it off him, and I didn’t even know what the fuck was going on.

“Yeah,” Ghost confirmed. “I don’t care where you go, or what you do, but you’re no longer going to live here.”

“How do you know that?” the man crossed his arms over his chest.

Ghost pulled out some papers from his pocket.

“You’re being evicted.”

Ghost handed the papers to the man, and the man took them.

“You can’t kick me out. You’re not my landlord.”

Ghost’s smile was scary.

“Yes, I am,” he interjected. “And you have exactly twenty-four hours, per the contract, to move your shit and get out before I seize all assets left in the house and burn them.”

The man’s smile looked a little brittle.

“There’s a house across the street,” the man said. “I’ll just move in there.”

Ghost’s smile got even scarier.

“I own every goddamn house on this block, and trust me, you won’t be renting any of them.”

The man stiffened.

“You have no right.”

Ghost took a step forward, pressed his face forward until only inches separated him from the man, and said something so softly that I could barely hear it. “You did the wrong thing tonight. I’ll let you figure out what it was.”

Then we were leaving, walking back down the street to where we’d left the bikes.

“Ghost, what the hell is going on?”

***

Ghost looked sick.

“I need to ride somewhere and I need all of you to go with me.”

Aaron, Truth, Tommy Tom, Jessie, Fender, my father and I all stared.

“Whatever you need, man. And we’re there,” Tommy Tom was the one who spoke.

“We’ll stay back with the ladies. You go ahead and do what you need to do,” Fender pointed to Jessie.

Jessie who looked so distracted that I almost said no, that someone else needed to stay.

His eyes were all for Ellen, and I wondered if I was going to have to give them permission or something to get him to take his foot out of his ass and make a move.

The urgency in Ghost’s tone had us all moving toward the house where the ladies were gabbing, all of us peeling off toward our respective women as we explained what was going on.

“Sean,” Naomi sat forward, her hand holding a glass of wine. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s something wrong with Ghost, and I’m riding with him. I want you to stay in the clubhouse tonight with the other ladies. We’re going to be gone for at least twelve hours,” I informed her. “I’d appreciate it if you called in to work for the both of us.”

Because if we were going where I guessed we were going, then it’d be at least twelve hours. Six there, and six back. And there was no telling what we were about to walk into.

“That’s fine,” she said. “We just got the new sheets for your room.”

We did.

Naomi had stayed there only once when she declared that she wouldn’t stay there again until there were new sheets, new pillows, curtains covering the windows and toilet paper in the bathroom that didn’t look like it came from the Super Supply Store that only carried industrial strength.

“You wouldn’t know what it feels like to wipe your vagina with something so rough, but trust me. It sucks.”

Grinning at the memory, I nodded my head. “Yeah, we did.”

“I’ll be okay. I don’t plan on walking in front of the windows naked, so I’ll be fine for tonight. Is there anything you need us to do?”

I shook my head.

“No,” I amended. “Not yet, at least.”

With that I placed one single kiss on the tip of her nose—anything more would make my cock hard, and that would suck to ride with for six hours straight—with the rest of the club at my back.

“We’re ready,” Tommy Tom said. “What do you want us to do?”

That was the good thing about a club. They had your back, with no questions asked.

One of our own called, and we dropped everything to make sure he didn’t have to face shit alone.