But when she tipped her head back, she said, “God took my boy. Then He gave me you.”
That was when his insides started bleeding.
He stared down at her wrinkled face. A face he remembered from since he could remember. Her hazel eyes bright with wet.
He had no clue.
Fuck.
No clue.
But he should have had one. She’d given him a million of them.
His voice was gruff when he began, “Mrs. Heely—”
She shook her head. “We won’t go on about that. You’re here. You’re healthy. You’re strong. You’ve found where you fit. I’m happy. If you needed to leave to find that, then it’s good. But this time, for this old woman, would you stay around awhile?”
Joker gave her a squeeze and it again came out gruff when he said, “Not goin’ anywhere.”
She pulled her arms from around him to rest her hands on his chest.
For his part, Joker did not let go.
“Good,” she whispered before she slapped him twice on the chest with both hands and pulled out of his hold. “Now, eat your cookies and tell me everything. And don’t leave anything out, even if it’s juicy. I’ve been telling the folk around here about you for a year. We all need to get caught up, and we’re sick and tired of PG.”
“You do know I’m not tellin’ you shit that’s juicy,” Joker replied.
She tossed him a look. “I’m older than you, you’ll hardly shock me.”
“Wanna bet?” he asked.
“Try me,” she shot back.
And that was when it happened.
Joker’s lips twitched.
It wasn’t big on the outside.
But it still was huge.
* * *
Joker pulled into the parking lot and saw immediately that Carissa’s Tercel was one of the best cars there.
He stopped, idled and looked around.
Four stories. L-shaped. All brick. All flat. Outside walkways made of cement. Ugly iron banisters. Same for the stairs, a set at the front, a set in the bend of the L. Not one thing there to make it look anything other than what it was. Cheap apartments for those unlucky enough to have to live there.
And he saw a few of those unlucky enough to have to live there.
A man and a woman hanging out on the walkway by the railing, second floor up. The man was smoking, the woman looking like she was giving him shit, the man looking like he was about two seconds away from doing whatever he felt he had to do to make her stop.
An old lady on the bottom floor, head tipped back, housecoat on, feet in slippers, watching them, probably so she could share what she saw wide. But she was doing it in a way that Joker knew she’d seen it before. From the couple. From others. And she’d seen a fuckuva lot more.
A couple of kids hanging around the cars, looking like they were up to nothing, but whatever that nothing was, was no good.
Joker looked to the third floor, scanned, and saw the numbers he was searching for, the middle one hanging upside down.
Apartment 323.
Carissa’s place.
He felt his mouth get tight as he pulled his phone out of his pocket.
His thumb moved over the display and he put it to his ear.
“Brother,” Tack answered.
“Where are you?”
“It’s Sunday. Where would I be?”
At home, with his woman and boys.
“Need a word,” Joker told him.
“How quiet does this word have to be?” Tack asked.
“I could come to you. You share what I have to say with Cherry, your call. But outside that, quiet.”
“Where are you?”
“Nowhere good.”
“Don’t wanna make you haul your ass up here, don’t wanna haul my ass to the city. So, help me out, Joke. Where’s halfway?”
“Morrison Inn,” Joker told him.
“Thirty,” Tack replied and disconnected.
Joker shoved his phone in his pocket, glanced at Carissa’s apartment, knowing she was there because her car was and figuring she was up there alone, killing time until her boy was back.
He wasn’t about to take the steps he knew she had to take, lugging up her kid, lugging groceries, to knock on her door to make her less alone.
He just had to settle in the knowledge that sometime tomorrow she’d have her boy back.
So she’d be okay.
Or as okay as she could be.
He rounded the lot and drove out of Denver and into the foothills to hit Morrison Inn.
He had a beer in front of him on the bar when Tack walked in.
He waited until Tack had his own beer before he started.
“Heard word the renters at Tyra’s old pad gave notice.”
Tack had the beer to his lips, his eyes to the bar, when he replied, “Heard true.”
“Want you to offer it to Carissa.”
Tack’s eyes came to him.
“Give her some bullshit about how Tyra bought it years ago, mortgage low or paid off or whatever. I don’t give a fuck,” Joker told him. “I’ll find out what she’s payin’ now. You throw a couple hundred on that so she can’t read the bullshit. Whatever’s the difference, I’ll pay the rest.”
Tack took a pull and put the beer down but Joker wasn’t finished.
“Also need a lock on some info.”
“That would be?”
“A man named Robinson. Wanna know where he is. Wanna know how he is.”
“Wanna tell me who he is?” Tack asked.
“Knew him once. Good man. Last I knew, he’d taken a hit. Lost a baby. Wanna make sure life for him has turned around.”
Tack studied him a beat, he did this with some intensity, Joker withstood it, then Tack said, “Need more than Robinson.”
“I’ll get you what you need.”
Tack nodded, looked away, nabbed his beer and took another sip.
He kept his gaze to the back of the bar when he said, “Not my usual thing, tellin’ a man where to put his dick, but word is, I’m not the only brother who’s payin’ attention and there’s a sweet piece available. A piece only open to you and you’re not taking.”
Fuck, not this.
“I’m not havin’ this conversation again.”
Tack looked to him. “You can break the cycle.”
Joker felt his brows snap together. “Say again?”
“Seen you fight. Worked out next to you. You don’t smoke. Never asked. Now I’m askin’. How’d you get those cigarette burns on the insides of your arms?”
Joker leaned away.
Tack put his forearms to the bar but did it sliding them an inch toward Joker, his eyes never leaving his brother’s. “Joke, your story to tell when you wanna tell it. Your story to keep if you don’t ever wanna tell. Thought you had secrets. Way you’re holdin’ back with this girl, think I’m wrong. You don’t have secrets. You got demons.”
“I had a shit dad,” Joker bit out, surprised it came out, but not uneasy about it.
With what he’d done that day, the time had come.
Something lethal slid through Tack’s features. “He burn you?”
“And other shit, yeah.”
“Jesus Christ,” Tack hissed, looking back to his beer.
“Long time ago,” Joker told him.
“Boy at the fence.”
“Hunh?”
Tack looked to him. “Know you, brother. Known you more than a year. You’re the kid at the fence.”
Joker said nothing but he felt that deep in his gut.
“He burned you,” Tack’s voice was tight. “And I let you stand at that fuckin’ fence.”
The last person’s fault that shit was was Tack’s.
Joker started to tell him that. “Tack—”
Tack cut him off, “Your scars, your call, but we know him. We know where he lives. And we know how to put the hurt on him. You say it, your brothers roll out.”
Joker shook his head. “He is
n’t worth your time.”
“You fuck around with this girl, let her slip through your fingers, you’re wrong. ’Cause that’s not on you. That’s on him.”
“I’m doin’ right by her.”
“That’s where you’d be wrong.”
Joker closed his mouth.
Tack took another pull on his beer and looked to the back of the bar. “You’re not alone. We all got it in us. That seed we don’t wanna grow. The one we gotta stop ’cause if we don’t stop it, it’ll turn us into our old man.” He looked back to Joker. “Every brother you got that feared that seed killed it, Joke. They found Chaos, they broke the cycle.”
“Rush didn’t,” Joker pointed out. “Brother doesn’t have to.”
“Yes he does,” Tack stated firmly, a statement, in a way, that Joker got. Rush and his dad didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, mostly in regards to the direction of the Club. They also didn’t keep that a secret.
Tack kept going.
“You’re the next generation, Joker. Right now, the most important brothers in our Club are the ones who are layin’ down the path of where we’ll take the generation you recruit. A path, by that time, if you stay on the right one, will build a foundation that I hope like fuck nothin’ ever shakes. The ones who been around, we picked careful. Now you gotta pick careful. Shy’ll lead that, and Rush has his ideas. But we’ll see what Rush brings to the table. Shy harnessed wind. If you harness butterflies, I’ll be a lot less uneasy.”
Joker didn’t get it. “Shy harnessed wind?”
Tack jerked up his chin. “My girl looked outside the family, coulda been gone on the wind. There’s the life she was headin’ for and then there’s the life we lead. The life we lead is important to me, and I didn’t like losin’ her from it. Shy brought her back.”
It was then, Joker got it. Tabby had been engaged to a physical therapist who did not come close to living the life. The man died in a car accident.
Then came Shy.
Tack didn’t wait for him to confirm, he kept talking.
“Figure your father didn’t give you this so I will. A man is defined many ways. One of those is the woman he picks to be at his side.”
“Says a lot,” Joker muttered, turning to his own beer, and before taking a sip, finishing, “Seein’ as my ma left my dad before I was old enough to focus.”
“More important than that is the woman who chooses to take a man’s side,” Tack stated on the heels of Joker’s words, and Joker looked back to him. “You wouldn’t have your cut if any one of your brothers thought you weren’t defined as Chaos. But your old man chose the kind of woman who would clear out on her kid, that defines him. Your ma cleared out on her kid, that defines her. You get your shit together and explore what’s on offer right now to you, you’ve already beat that ’cause you know what’s on offer does not have that shit in her.”
It was time to share.
So he did.
“It’s me protecting her, Tack.”
“Against what?”
He leaned toward his brother and hissed, “Demons.”
Tack held his gaze and whispered, “He beat you bad.”
“Wasn’t worth shit.”
“Him?”
“Me.”
“Brother,” Tack slid further his way. “He planted that seed.”
“I know. Doesn’t mean it didn’t take root.”
“You fear the dark.” It was a statement.
A correct one.
“She doesn’t need dark,” Joker told Tack something anyone knew just taking one look at Carissa. “She never shoulda had it and she’s had a lifetime of it. What I got in me gets loose, it’ll engulf her.”
“You gotta find a way to set it free.”
“How?”
“God’s honest truth?” Tack asked.
“Absolutely,” Joker answered.
“If your brothers haven’t brought you to that revelation, then you gotta sink your cock in cute, sweet, wet, butterfly pussy.”
Joker leaned back.
“I’m not shittin’ you, man,” Tack told him.
Joker again said nothing.
Tack studied him before he remarked, “You think I’m whipped.”
Joker made no reply. He wouldn’t disrespect a brother like that, especially not Tack.
But he did think that.
Absolutely.
Tack grinned and took a pull from his beer.
After he dropped it, he said reflectively, still grinning, “Maybe I am. Though, the way I am and the woman holds that whip, it’s a good thing to be.”
“Right,” Joker started and got his brother’s gaze back. “I go there, she’s got a kid. Her ex fucks with her, and he’ll fuck with her, man, and I lose it, then where will she be?”
Tack’s face drained of amusement. “That right there is what you need to get.”
“What?”
“She is what I think she is, all you’ll need to do is take one look at her, and it’ll check.”
“It’ll check?”
“Do you think I’d do fuckin’ anything to harm my woman?”
Joker felt heat hit his throat.
“My kids?” Tack pushed.
“No,” Joker forced out.
“She is what I think she is, it’ll check.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“Then she isn’t what I think she is.”
“She is,” Joker stated inflexibly and Tack stared at him a beat before he burst out laughing.
Joker did not laugh.
Then again, he never did.
But at that moment, he didn’t think fuck-all was funny.
Still chuckling, Tack said, “Jesus, Joke, you already know your path.”
“I also know hers, and it isn’t the road to bein’ a biker’s old lady. Fuck, Tack, she was a cheerleader.”
Tack again lost his hilarity and speared Joker with his eyes.
“Now, brother, if you don’t think you’re good enough, the life you lead is good enough, the family you can give her is good enough, then we got a much bigger problem.”
“Don’t read that shit into it, because you know it isn’t there. You also get me. There are women built for the life. There are women who take it on. But she deserves a white picket fence, Tack.”
“Then give her one. No law says a biker can’t live behind a white picket fence.”
Jesus.
Shit.
Shit.
He felt that burn in his throat too. So bad he had to suck back a long pull to douse the flame.
Tack lifted up from the bar and turned fully to Joker.
Then he laid it out.
“That motherfucker, he taught you to think you were garbage. You took that on. You were a kid. You had no fuckin’ choice. But he was wrong, Joke. And the only person who doesn’t get that shit is you. Get it. Get over it. Get your head outta your ass. And find what you deserve. Find some fuckin’ happy. If it isn’t this girl, it isn’t. But whatever it is, I want it for you. Your brothers want it for you. Their old ladies want it for you. The only one who isn’t lookin’ for that for you is you.”
Joker turned away, lifted his beer, and took another tug.
“Your call not to let that sink in,” Tack said, and Joker felt him move to drain his beer and slide off his stool.
But he wasn’t done, and he left his kill shot for last.
“Now, not many people on this earth I would rather sit and have a beer with. But, see, my woman is up the mountain with my sons. And you got my love, Joke, I got all the time in the world for you. But straight up, I’d rather be up the mountain watchin’ my kids tear my house apart and my woman struttin’ around thinkin’ that shit’s cute when it’s not than down here with you, watchin’ you wallow in shit that’s history. You know how I feel about my Club. Think about that.”
Kane Allen was a wise man and a strong one, so Joker thought about it.
And Joker thought about Rider and Cutter and the fact
that Tack was not lying. Those boys were hoodlums and neither of them had reached double digits yet.
He then thought about Tyra, her tight skirts, her ass in those tight skirts, the class act she was from top to toe, and the fact that the only man on earth she’d let tap her ass was sitting next to him.
And then he thought that he did not want to be the kind of man who wallowed in history. But he was thinking he was.
And last, Joker thought all of that was something to think about.
“Go,” he muttered, throwing back another swallow and not looking at his brother.
“Tyra will reach out. We’ll get Carissa in that house.”
Joker gave him his eyes.
Tack kept going.
“I see I didn’t sort your shit, and that troubles me, but they’re your terms to come to, you choose how you do it. Now you need time. But you need this again, Joke, I’m at the stool next to you. I’ll repeat it until I can’t talk anymore. I’ll do it as many times as I have to until you get it. That’s what you mean to me. So now, I’m goin’. But you need me back,” he tipped his head to the bar, “that’s where I’ll be.”
Then, after taking out his wallet, throwing some bills on the bar, and clapping Joker on the shoulder, Tack strode out.
Joker watched him go.
Then he finished his beer.
He ordered another one.
Well, kiss my ass, dickhead. Over a year and this is the first time you come to see me?
God took my boy. Then He gave me you.
You need me back, that’s where I’ll be.
These thoughts in his head, Joker took his time over his second beer.
When he was done, he put the empty bottle on the bar, went out to his bike, home to the Compound, and right into a clean room.
With mostly clean sheets.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Feeling Lucky
Carissa
“I THINK HE likes you,” I said to Big Petey through a smile.
Though, with the way Travis, who Big Petey was holding, was trying to gobble up Pete’s nose, I would say it was more like love at first sight.
It was Tuesday, late morning, and I was standing at the bar in the Chaos Compound next to Big Petey, who was on a stool and had just taken hold of my son.
“Ooo, he’s so cute. I remember the days when they were all warm, squiggly, bundles of goodness,” Tyra, standing behind the bar, cooed.