Two Years Earlier
Rock and roll, smoke, and danger filled the clubhouse. Rage Motorcycle Club had a full attendance that night and things were happening. From my place on stage, I could see drugs being passed, one of the club whores giving a brother a blowjob, and my old man, Snake, tossing back shots of JD like his life depended on it.
I moved my hips to the wail of an electric guitar and closed my eyes to shut it all out. I didn’t need to see to know what I was doing. I’d done the same thing since I was sixteen. There wasn’t a song that I couldn’t dance to. I had the moves down to muscle memory at the ripe old age of twenty-one.
Rage MC was in the abandoned industrial part of Jackson, in an old metal building. Everything echoed and everything smelled. While it was only in the eighties outside, the heat built up during the day, so it was close to a hundred degrees inside. A sheer coating of sweat clung to everyone.
I gripped the pole and spun around it, giving myself a slight breeze. Even the metal pole was warm. I heard Snake screaming at someone and kept my eyes shut. The sound of flesh hitting flesh came next, and I prayed that whoever was at the end of his fist received a short punishment for whatever imagined wrong they’d done to him.
Snake was as mean as his name. He was like poisonous, pure venom, coursing through the club, hell-bent on leaving everything around him dead.
His shouts got louder and I missed a beat. All the muscle memory in the world couldn’t make up for icy fear slipping into my system.
A single spotlight shown down on me, slowly boiling me alive, but it clicked off in that moment. Snake screamed for me, demanding me at his side. I was his show poodle, and he wanted to march me around so everyone knew that he owned me.
“You see this piece of ass? She’s mine. I saw the way you were looking at her.” Snake grabbed one of the newer brothers and punched him with every word he spoke. “You. Don’t. Look. At. Her!”
I stood next to Snake and crossed my arms over my chest. I didn’t talk to him very often and I had no plans to start, so I just stood there and waited for him to dole out whatever decree he thought best.
He pulled me into his lap and ran his hands up my bare stomach until he was cupping my breasts. With a hard nip to my neck, he pushed me back off of him and stood up. “Get back on stage, Rae. I want to watch you while I show this asshole who’s boss. Don’t close your eyes this time, either. Watch me.”
I bit my tongue and went back to the stage. Arguing with him wasn’t worth it. I’d end up with a bruised face and a pissed off MC president for weeks. It was better for everyone if I just went along with what he wanted.
The spotlight came back on just as a southern rock song started playing. I kept my eyes on the wall behind Snake and moved my body. I dipped forward and tossed my head back just as the side door to the club burst open and chaos erupted.
I knew the club had been busted before, but never while I was around. I stood still as one of the brothers opened fire on the cops that ran inside the place. I heard Snake screaming at me to get down, but for a moment, I thought about what would happen if one of their stray bullets hit me. I’d finally be free of Snake.
I met his eyes from across the room and sent him the nasty smile I’d been saving up for years. Then, I closed my eyes and waited for it all to end. My heart slowed to an eerily calm beat as I tried to think of one good thing that’d happened to me in the five years since my mom had passed. I came up blank, at the same time something slammed into my body and knocked me backward on the stage.
“What the hell is wrong with you? You got a death wish, little girl?”
I looked up, into blue eyes that could’ve rivaled the brightest summer sky. The man was decked out in police gear but he didn’t look like the police officers I’d seen around town. He was beautiful. I let my head fall back onto the stage and stared up at the metal ceiling above us. So much for getting shot to escape Snake.
“You mute?”
I frowned. “If I was, that’d be a really rude thing to ask me.”
The cop actually laughed, like he was having a good time. “Keep your head down and roll toward the back of the stage.”
I shrugged, fear still not showing up as bullets flew back and forth around us. I did as he said and then found myself easily dragged off the stage and into the dressing room behind it.
He shoved me into a bathroom and told me to stay, like some dog, before he vanished again. I rested against the wall behind me and sighed. Even though I knew how things had gotten so bad, I was still surprised by it at times.
I ended up sitting in the bathroom, waiting for the shit to settle down, for nearly an hour. When someone opened the door to look around, it wasn’t the cop with the pretty eyes. It was a smaller guy with a mustache meant for porn.
“Come on out here.”
I did as he said, expecting to be handcuffed and led away with the rest of the brothers I could see being carted off. Instead, they sat me down on the stage and handed me a jacket that read DEA.
“How old are you?”
I cut my eyes back to the porn cop. “Twenty-one.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”
I bit back a smart response. “Yes.”
It looked like he wanted to ask me more questions, but the handsome cop came over and edged him out. Pretty-eyes sat down next to me and stared at me with something akin to pity in his eyes. “Snake is going to be gone for a while. Unless you really want to stick around here, no one is going to make you.”
My heartbeat increased for the first time that night. I scooted forward in my seat. “How long will he be gone?”
“I’m not sure. Long enough for you to leave if you wanted to.” He looked down at the bruises on my wrist and nodded to them. “You have somewhere to go?”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, does it? As long as it’s not here. I have to get my stuff from Snake’s room. Am I free to go?”
He nodded and watched me leave.
I rushed through packing my stuff and was back at his side in minutes. “I’m gone.”
“There’s a women’s shelter downtown. I could give you a ride when I’m done here.”
I shook my head and started toward the door. “I can make it. Thanks.”
He called for me to stop and then handed me a card. “Call me if you need anything. I have a little sister your age. I’d hate it if no one offered her help if she was in your shoes.”
I tucked the card into my bag and kept going. I didn’t plan on calling him. Every time he looked at me, his pretty eyes turned sad and I hated that.
I ran to that women’s shelter, thinking Snake was going to be locked away for long enough for me to get on my feet and figure things out for myself. I had time to get a job at a local library I’d worked at when I was younger, before Snake, and started to feel a little more at ease…before he found me. He wasn’t nearly as enamored with me after realizing I’d leave him as soon as I could.