Rocket (Hell's Handlers MC 5)

Rocket watched his president as he continued scratching his beard.

“Much as this is gonna fuck with how you think, it’s gotta be said. You can’t protect everyone all the time. Shit happens. And yes I know that’s a cliché, but it’s also the fucking truth. And when shit goes down, how you deal with it is what matters to the people you care about. No one expects you to be psychic, Rocket. But your woman expects you to be by her side no matter how pissed or guilty you feel.

“You were selfish as fuck. Disobeyed my orders and acted against your club because of what you needed. Chloe went behind your back to save your ass. You wanna feel guilty, feel it over that. Not because you didn’t use your crystal ball to guess that Esposito was going to plant Lefty in your woman’s house.”

With that parting shot, he grabbed the bottle and limped toward the exit. “I get thirty minutes alone with Lefty. Then you’re free to join. I’ll give you the kill, and you can take your time with it, but this ends today,” he called over his shoulder without turning around.

Rocket scrubbed a hand down his face. He’d really fucked this day up no matter which angle you looked at it. He’d been so hot to make Lefty pay, he’d nearly lost the only two things that mattered in his life, his club and his woman. Actually, one of those things was still dangling in the wind. Or at least he hoped the tether hadn’t been completely severed. If the situation weren’t so screwed up, it’d be laughable. For years, Rocket functioned as an elite operative, working under staggering amounts of pressure. He’d been successful under fire, while being hunted, in the most hostile of territories, and never so much as cracked under the strain. But give him one woman with a tragic story, sexy-as-fuck body, and heart big enough to overlook his issues, and he lost his fucking mind.

“By the way,” Copper said as his palm landed on the door. “You’re taking LJ’s collection runs for the next three months. And don’t think I’ve forgotten you’re planning his patch-in party. Just got delayed…again.”

Huffing out a laugh, Rocket shook his head. There wasn’t anything he hated more than collecting debts for the club’s loan-sharking business. Copper nailed that punishment. As much as he despised the task, he’d suck it up and compete it without a word of complaint. It was the absolute least he deserved. Had he been in Copper’s position, he wouldn’t have been so lenient.

Twenty-seven minutes later, after being sent straight to voicemail, and receiving no response to four text messages, Rocket gave up on contacting Chloe for now. Once Lefty had been dealt with, he’d go seek her out, which meant getting past Izzy. Rocket had a sneaking suspicion Copper planned that as well. Izzy on a good day was a force to be reckoned with. Izzy full of pregnancy hormones was enough to make any man’s balls suck back into their body.

Small price to pay to get his woman back.

As he trekked through the woods to the underground bunker affectionately known as the box, Rocket let thoughts of Chloe fuel his hatred for Lefty. He conjured the images of her beaten, naked, and bound to the hotel bed. She didn’t deserve to be remembered that way, and it would be the last time he thought of her in such a manner. Chloe was strong as fuck and moving past what happened to her. He’d give her the respect of going forward with her. But for tonight? Tonight, he’d bathe in the memories of that night and use them to torment the man responsible for her pain.

When he reached the box, he yanked the heavy wooden door straight up, then descended. With each step, a whistled wheezing grew louder as did the sound of flesh hitting flesh and the weak grunts of a man who was so defeated he could do nothing but lie limp and accept the brutal punishment.

After a minute, Rocket’s eyes adjusted to the dim lighting in the box. A single bulb dangled from the ceiling over Lefty’s head. “Damn, Cop,” Rocket said as he whistled.

His president grunted as he wiped the sweat off his brow with his shoulder. “Mighta got a little carried away.”

It was Rocket’s turn to grunt. “That’s one way to put it.”

Lefty slumped in a chair in the center of the room. He was out cold, completely unconscious with his head lolled back and arms sagging like wet noodles at his sides. There wasn’t a single restraint holding him to the chair. He was beaten all to fuck and couldn’t escape if his life depended on it—which incidentally it did.

“Just us?” Typically, Zach was in on this kind of thing. Sometimes Screw or one of the other exec board members. Not this afternoon. Today it was just Rocket and Copper, the two whose hatred for Lefty ran deepest. Rocket for obvious reasons and Copper for all the grief this man had caused his club. Copper would move heaven and earth for his club, and the demise of Lefty symbolized the culmination of nearly a year of shit.