For the first time since I got my own room in this large building, I couldn’t wait to get out of it again. So I spoke to no one, just rushed to my room on the third floor, taking the stairs two at a time. Once I reached it, I tore my suit off, ripping it even worse in the process, then tossed it into the darkest corner of the room where it will likely remain for the rest of time.
I took a shower to get the foul smell of justice off me, then changed into jeans, a t-shirt and my cut and left again with a vague idea of riding somewhere far, maybe all the way to the ocean.
Not that I have the time to actually go anywhere.
I’m to report at the foundation and start serving my sentence in about two hours.
The roaring of bikes follows me as I descend the stairs again. The hallways and stairwells are deserted now, but somehow I still hear the echoes of all the voices, all the adrenaline, all the energy of a single purpose that always hangs in the air whenever my brothers ride en masse.
Clearly they’ve all gone on a job of some kind. A big and important one, no doubt. Realizing that sours my mood even worse—how long before I’m invited on another run? How long before they trust me again?
If I wasn’t the VP's son, I’d be out on my ass over what I did, or worse. And it’d be the right thing for me.
Loyalty and brotherhood mean everything in our world and I went and gave both to someone else, to another club, no less, as it turned out, doing something that would never have been sanctioned by my brothers.
Sure, the way I saw it, I was just helping out a good friend from way back, and Jax didn’t tell me about the full scope of the job when he invited me to help him rob a convenience store and share the spoils. I was also out to get some action for myself because I see so little actual action around here. At least none of the legendary kind.
And I almost got a bunch of little girls kidnapped in the process. I haven’t been sleeping well since I found out about that part.
Despite being a notorious and lawless club, Devil’s Nightmare MC has many codes. And one of them has always been that we do not hurt women and children. And we certainly don’t traffic them in any way, shape, or form. Hell, even our club girls are all here because they want to be and at least half of them are putting themselves through school by working and living at the clubhouse, and the six strip clubs we own in the area to exchange the dirty money for the clean.
Three of those girls are at a corner table in the large bar filled with wooden tables and chairs, armchairs and sofas, jukeboxes and pool tables on the ground floor of the clubhouse. Another one is reading a paperback book behind the gleaming honey colored bar counter. No one else is here, and all the otherwise shaded windows are open, letting in brilliant sunshine and the cool spring noon air, but the room still smells of booze and cigarette smoke from last night’s party.
The girls are all wearing some variation of a tight mini skirt and top that leaves little to the imagination. And glasses as they study for their finals or whatever.
“Morning, Chance,” Melody calls out as I pass through the bar.
I wave to her and try to smile as I return her greeting. Fact is, this is the first nice thing I’ve heard all day—all week, even—but I’m in no kind of mood to be nice to anyone right now.
Melody is gorgeous enough to be a model, with gleaming brown hair flowing down her back, a perfect hourglass figure and thick, black-rimmed glasses that make her blue eyes look huge. She’s studying to be a Doctor of Emergency Medicine, of all things, and has just started her internship at the ER in town, so she’ll be around less now, if I understood her correctly the other night. I know Doc, the MC’s doctor has been eyeing her as his eventual replacement, but she says she wants to keep her fun time and work time separate.
She, along with several others around here, is the reason I’m attracted to nerdy girls first and foremost. Give me a girl with glasses and a book any time. It’s not something I’m willing to admit out loud to any of my brothers, but it’s still the truth.
Another thing that’s not how it should be in my life.
The parking lot beyond the wide open bar door is empty and the smell of petrol, rubber and road dust kicked up by the brothers riding out is still hanging low to the ground. The morning sun is blinding and makes everything look unnaturally white.
Hunter appears out of that whiteness, everything about him as perfect as ever, from the lazy waves of his brown hair, his dark blue eyes and the way he wears whatever he happens to be wearing—jeans, t-shirt and cut, in this instance. As far as I know, the guy has one single vice and he’s even handling that very well.
“Come on, they want to talk to you,” he says, his tone suggesting he’s been waiting for me out here for a while.
“Who’s they?” I ask and cut a path across the parking lot towards my bike. Hunter’s is parked right next to it.
“Cross and Tank,” he says with only a slight hint of impatience in his voice.
"And they sent you to get me?” I ask. “What’s wrong with sending a text?”
“You’ve been known to ignore those,” he says, following it up with a faint chuckle.
“Only when I’m busy. And I’m supposed to meet some Nic guy from the foundation soon,” I say sourly.
“I’m sure they won’t make you late for that,” he says, falling in step beside me.
He’s less than a year older than me, about a head taller, and we grew up as close as brothers. We’ve always been closer than I’ve been with any of the others I grew up with, and when Jax joined us, the three of us were inseparable.
We were the three fucking musketeers. But all that changed at one point and I’m not even sure when. For years now, Hunter’s just been clearing up my messes as though anyone asked him to. This latest stunt of him coming after me to stop the convenience store robbery was just one example of that in a line of many.
As a result, he even gets sent out on solo jobs these days by Cross. Me, I’m still just tagging along and messing up.