“I was drunk!” he shot back defensively.
Danny shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You really are an idiot.”
He grabbed his sister’s finger and shoved it back in her face. “You got Hello Kitty fingernails, little sister, and you’re callin’ me an idiot? Fuck off.”
Their father’s face appeared between them and—
“DINNER!”
He and Danny jumped apart.
“Daddy!” Danny yelled. “What the—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” Deuce growled. “Get your ass and your sorry-ass man’s ass down those fuckin’ stairs.”
Laughing, Ripper grabbed Danny’s hand and pulled her away from Deuce, who turned toward Cage.
“Tegen’s back here for five fuckin’ minutes and you already got her goin’? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Her?” he yelled. “I just got in and you’re givin’ a fuck about her? You didn’t even ask me how the job went! Fuck you!”
Deuce’s eyes narrowed into slits. “I need to ask you ’bout every little fuckin’ thing now? I’m guessin’ the job went just fuckin’ fine seein’ as how your stupid ass is standin’ right in front of me, not bleedin’. So I ain’t too sure what your fuckin’ problem is but since we’re sharin’ shit right now, how about I tell you what my fuckin’ problem is?”
Cage glared at him, torn between feeling like the piece of shit his father was treating him like and punching the son of a bitch in his big fat mouth.
“My problem,” he continued, “is your worthless fuckin’ ass ain’t downstairs at the motherfuckin’—”
Cage shut it out. Just shut down, shut it out, shoved his father out of his way, and headed down the stairs.
Family fucking dinners, his ass.
• • •
This was the very worst part of coming home. Deuce and Eva and their stupid family dinners and…seeing Cage.
Everything had been fine up until five minutes ago when I’d exited the upstairs bathroom and ran smack into the asshole.
It didn’t even matter that Miles City was a small town full of small-minded religious freaks who took one look, a second, a third, and a fourth at my colorfully tattooed body, numerous body piercings, my dreadlocks, and instantly decided I was a freak of nature.
And maybe I was. But that was beside the point.
Even Danny, with her perfect body, her perfect hair, her perfect face—she probably turned girls into lesbians, she was so damn perfect—I was actually getting along with for a change. True, I had to shade my eyes against her ridiculously bright blaring pink getup, but still.
And then I’d gone to pee and…Cage.
Boom.
Every single time, without fail, one look and I was a teenager again, feeling awkward and insignificant. And now I was praying to keep my sanity.
But sanity and Miles City, Montana, were not friendly neighbors. In fact, I was pretty sure they lived on opposite ends of the universe.
Bad mood, here I come.
CHAPTER SEVEN
From her seat on his sofa, curled up in one corner, her knees pulled to her chest, Ellie watched from across two rooms as Dirty popped open his microwave door and pulled out a partially blackened bag of popcorn, waving away the smoke that followed it.
If she weren’t so terrified of what the future held, she would have laughed at how ridiculous he looked. It was his third attempt at making her something to eat; his third failed attempt. The first had been microwavable macaroni and cheese, which he also burned, the second had been two slices of bread, which the toaster had burned, and now the popcorn had burned.
No bones about it, Dirty was no chef. Not that it mattered, she was too wound up and too sick to her stomach with nerves to ingest anything without it coming right back up.
Deuce had come by yesterday, taken one look at her battered face, and started cursing up a storm. Then he’d taken Dirty into the bedroom and closed the door behind them. They were in there for nearly forty-five minutes, quiet for the most part, but she managed to catch a few words here and there.
Drop off.
Deal gone bad.
We need him.
She had no idea what was going on except that something important was going to happen and Daniel Mooresville was involved, and quite frankly it made her even more afraid. Deuce might love his family and his club, but she was neither. If a man like Deuce considered her nothing more than collateral damage, then things didn’t bode well for her.
She’d been so consumed by her foreboding thoughts that she hadn’t even heard them exit the bedroom, didn’t know they were standing right in front of her until Deuce cleared his throat. Startled, she screamed, nearly fell off the couch, and embarrassingly enough when Deuce had reached for her to help her up, she’d scrambled away from him and burst into tears.
He’d immediately retreated, his hands in the air and looked to Dirty, as if seeking help from him. It wasn’t as if Dirty was going to be much help; the poor man looked as terrified as she felt.
Really, the entire scene would have been quite laughable if she hadn’t been so scared out of her mind.
Then Deuce had hesitantly suggested she come to the club until he was able to “figure out” what he was going to do about the situation. Ellie didn’t want to know what he meant by that and therefore didn’t ask, but she wasn’t exactly thrilled about staying at the club with a group of men who’d never been very good at keeping it in their pants. In fact, the very last place she wanted to be was around anyone with a penis and a blatant disregard for the law. She’d vowed never to set foot inside of the club again after she’d learned of the shooting that had happened a few years earlier. The last thing she wanted to get caught in the middle of was some cheating biker and his enraged old lady.
Her ideal would be to hightail it out of Miles City, back to her apartment in her city, and forget that this had ever happened. Only, judging by the look on Deuce’s face, it didn’t appear that would be happening anytime soon.
But she was most definitely not going to that clubhouse. She didn’t care how much security it had. So, where did that leave her?
She glanced at Dirty, who shifted from foot to foot, looking like he might bolt from the room at any second. He also refused to look at her.
He might be a filthy mess of a man, he certainly didn’t smell very good, but his apartment was clean to the point of overkill and he seemed more than happy to continue keeping his distance from her.
“I’ll just stay here,” she said to Deuce, then glanced at Dirty. “If that’s okay with you?”
Dirty’s reaction was unexpected, to say the least. His head shot up and his dark, bewildered gaze met hers.
“No!”
Her mouth fell open. He’d saved her life, brought her to his place, had called Deuce over to help with her situation, but was telling her she couldn’t stay at his place?
“Not gonna happen,” Deuce said firmly. “It’s the club or you can figure this shit out on your own.”
Ellie felt tears welling in her eyes. What had she ever done to them? It wasn’t her fault that the police chief in this awful little town had tried to rape her, something that was obviously interfering with MC business.
“Ah, shit,” Dirty said as he ran his hands through his greasy hair. “Don’t fuckin’ cry. You can stay here.”
Deuce’s head whipped in Dirty’s direction. “No,” he growled.
Dirty shook his head. “No, Prez, it’s fine. It’s…I…just…just stay with her, lemme go to the club for…uh, something.”
Deuce glared at Dirty and Ellie wondered how Dirty wasn’t withering and dying in the face of that terrifying stare, but instead was meeting Deuce glare for glare.
“I got this,” Dirty said firmly. “Just lemme go take care of some shit.”
Ellie watched, more confused than anything else as the two man stared at each other, deeply engaged in a private conversation that only the two of them were privy to. Ellie couldn
’t even comprehend how deeply connected two people had to be to reach that level of communication.
It was Deuce who looked away first and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Go,” he barked. “You got two hours, max. I gotta be home for fuckin’ dinner.”
Dirty didn’t hesitate; whatever it was that he had to do was obviously of the utmost importance to him. After he tore out the front door, Deuce stormed into the kitchen, grabbed a six-pack out of the refrigerator, took a seat on Dirty’s lone recliner, and switched the television on.
That was yesterday. Dirty had since returned, Deuce was long gone, and Dirty was…
Well, Dirty was holding up the bag of burnt popcorn, looking quite hapless.
Ellie couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing.
• • •
Dirty stared at Ellie. Why the fuck was she laughing? He glanced at the bag of popcorn in his hand. Oh. She was laughing at him. Normally if someone laughed at him, he’d pull out his piece and maybe, if he felt like it, blow their fucking skull to bits.
Surprisingly enough, he didn’t feel that way with Ellie. Even more surprisingly, he felt…for her.
Earlier, seeing her cower in front of Deuce, seeing the mix of confusion and fear in her big blue eyes, he felt for her.
How could he tell her she couldn’t stay with him? Not when it was obvious this was the only place she felt safe. How could he take that away from her? He knew all too well what it felt like to live in fear, wishing he had just one person, just one place he’d could have gone to, and felt safe.
If he could give that to Ellie… Strangely, it almost felt like he was, in a way, giving himself a little of the same.
But none of that meant it was easy for him to be alone with her. Not after seeing her naked, touching her, knowing what she’d gone through and knowing she was afraid and, goddamn him, being both disgusted and turned on by the entire thing.
His insides were warring. What she nearly went through represented everything he was afraid of, the ghosts that would never leave him, yet the physical urge to overpower her, to take her freedom, her choice, away from her was a burning beacon deep within him, begging to be released.
He’d had no choice but to go to the club.
He had to make it go away.
He was like an addict, growing sicker and sicker, needing his next fix.
As soon as Deuce had relented he’d gone straight to the club, straight to the bar, dosed the beer of the first club whore he found—Amanda, a bitch he’d had many, many times, unbeknownst to her. Once she started slumping against the bar, he’d picked her up and carried her off to his room. Tossing her facedown on his bed, he stripped her naked and, with his eyes burning, Dirty positioned himself behind her, poised himself at her entrance and—
His gut roiled. He always felt sick; it was a feeling he’d gotten more than accustomed to over the decades, but this, this was so much worse. Ellie’s face, her body, her smile, it was all in the forefront in his brain.
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t hurt her, not her. Not Ellie. She was a good woman and he couldn’t.
He just couldn’t.
He had to fuck this bitch, he had to hurt her. He wanted—no, needed—to watch himself disappear inside of her knowing she could do nothing about it, that she was helpless, powerless, that he was in complete control, that he was going to get off at her expense.
Not Ellie.
Oh, fuck. He wanted to get off; he wanted it bad. He let the walls down, let the memories come, allowed them to take him over, spin wildly in his head. All the touching, groping, not being able to stop his erection even when he was crying, begging her to stop, and she was drunk and moaning, forcing him to touch her as she held him down and lowered herself down on his cock.
He grew harder just thinking about it, harder and sicker. What was wrong with him? He didn’t understand how something so vile, so motherfucking awful, had become something that perversely turned him on, made hurting women result in easing his sickness.
He had to come, he had to come, he had to fucking come. Worse, he had to think about his foster mother, about the sick and twisted shit she’d done to him, while he tried to come and to do it, to go through with this, he had to remind himself that the bitch passed out facedown on his bed was just that. A bitch. A useless fucking club whore who didn’t do shit with herself except pass her dirty pussy around to his brothers. All except him. But she would, she would fuck him willingly too if she knew what he actually looked like.
But he didn’t want her to want him. He didn’t want her to touch him. He just wanted to fuck, wipe out these fucking thoughts inside of him after a week-long buildup of jerking off…about things no man in their right mind would ever jerk off to.
But he wasn’t in his right mind, had never been. He’d been brutalized at such a young age he didn’t even know what it felt like not to feel fucked-up. Fucked-up was all he’d ever known.
Clenching his teeth, feeling the acidic rise of bile in the back of his throat, Dirty slid inside the whore. His first tear fell along with his first thrust, and then his second, and his third, and then he was silently yet openly crying, his tears landing on the tattooed back of the woman beneath him.
He didn’t care about her; she was just a whore and he didn’t care. Squeezing his eyes shut, he fucked her harder, envisioning his foster mother, envisioning what she had done to him and then…
Fuuuuuck. There it was, what he’d needed. The image, the memory that would send him over the edge.
Years later, after he’d finally gotten his shit somewhat together, he’d gone back to New York City and turned the tables on her.
His rich, bored, fucked-in-the head, piece-of-shit foster mother.
She hadn’t even recognized him. He’d been twenty-three years old, standing on her doorstep, and she’d looked down on him like he wasn’t of importance, like he was garbage. No, like he was worse than garbage, like he was nothing.
“What do you want?” she’d asked, frowning as she looked him up and down.
He hadn’t answered, he couldn’t. His head was spinning, his thoughts were clouding up, and his eyes began to water. Directly behind her, the wallpaper, the carpeting, the smell wafting into his nostrils, bourbon and Lysol, everything was exactly the same. Even her. She was still beautiful, still so regal, so put together.
And as she went to close the door in his face, his leg had shot out, his boot had slammed into the door, effectively throwing it wide open and catching the bitch off balance, sending her stumbling backward and sprawling on her backside. He’d stormed inside that house of horrors and the pain those four walls still held within them radiated out and triggered something he hadn’t felt in a very long time, something from deep down, from his childhood. Helplessness. Confusion. Fright. Anger.
All of those emotions, they had pulsed, roared, screamed, and shouted; pushing, punching, clawing, and digging their way out.
Before she could get to her feet, he was on her, and she screamed as he straddled her, forced her legs apart, and then pulled his piece and held his gun to her head.
“Shut up!” he roared and her mouth snapped closed as she trembled beneath him.
“Please,” she begged, her voice wavering. “Please, I have money.”
He stroked her cheek with the cool metal as he fumbled with the hem of her silky dress. “It’s okay,” he whispered, unzipping himself. “You’re going to like it, I promise you, I’m going to make you feel good.”
Her pretty hazel eyes went wide and her glossy lips parted. “Michael,” she breathed.
“Not anymore,” he hissed. “You made sure of that.”
Feeling dizzy with adrenaline, drunk on power, combined with the overwhelming need to make her hurt, he shoved the barrel of his gun in her mouth and a mere heartbeat later, his cock inside her.
And when he was done, he blew her fucking brains out.
Now he was attempting to feed Ellie and failing, when he heard her laughing. He stare
d at her, watched her pretty face alight with humor, and something shifted inside of him. It was such a pleasant sound, so light, so feminine, something he’d heard before but never directed toward him, never because of him. And…he liked it. It turned him on.
Being attracted to women for something other than physical traits was something completely foreign to him. He grew flustered and uncomfortable, his heart started pounding, and he broke out into a cold sweat.
The bag of popcorn fell from his hand and then he quickly crossed the living room, his jaw locked, his fists clenched, refusing to look at Ellie, refusing to breathe until he’d slammed the bathroom door behind him, locked it, and sank down to the floor, his hands already fumbling with his jeans, releasing himself.
With one arm slung across the closed toilet lid, he bent his head down, resting it on his forearm as he began to stroke himself. He focused on Ellie’s torn, bloodstained clothing lying in a small pile in the corner of the bathroom, and his cock surged forward.
Ellie’s sweet laughter echoed in his head, even as he pictured her half-naked, bleeding in the alleyway, and later, bruised and battered, standing naked before him, vulnerable, helpless, looking to him for things he could never offer her. Then he pictured her fully clothed, giggling over burnt popcorn.
And then pictured himself knocking her out, taking away her control, hurting her, listening to her scream, making her cry, fucking her.
His hand squeezed around his cock as he increased the speed of his strokes.
The dual images, the sounds of screams and laughter, continued to assault him. He tried to focus on just one thing, the pain or the…
He didn’t know…
In the end it was the sound of her screaming, crying, the look of fear on her beautiful face that finished him off.
Breathing hard, shaking, Dirty lifted his head and looked down at his lap. And promptly threw up.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Seated at the far end of the dining room table, I watched Cage stomp into the kitchen, past the island that separated the cooking area from the dining area, and grab the closest chair, next to Cox. Fuming, he sat down hard and slumped backward, his thick arms folded across his chest. I knew that look, had seen it a million times on his face growing up alongside him. And if I hadn’t already heard Deuce laying into him, as if everybody in the house hadn’t, I would have already known that was exactly what had happened.