Beautiful Outlaw (26 page)

He nods in agreement.  “I know he isn’t.  Just still can’t wrap my head around putting a bullet in the head of my friend’s only child.”

I lean forward, placing my hands flat against the top of the table.  “Well, you better get used to the idea, because I’m gonna be the one putting it there.”

Lock-Down

Shay

I’m looking out the window, when Bowie walks into the room.  Tin-Man steps in behind him and motions for Nina and Rachel to follow.  “Come on,
Mamá
.  You and Priss can sleep in my room.”

Before leaving, Nina comes over and gives me a hug.  “Everything will be all right.  My boys will make sure of it.”

I merely nod then watch her and Priss follow Tin-Man from the room.  As soon as they’re gone, Bowie looks to Tag who’s stretched out on the bed. “Go on out and grab something to eat; the Old Ladies laid out a spread on the bar.  When you’re done, find yourself a spot to sleep.  Don’t go too far, though.  I might need you later on.”

Tag gets up from the bed, cutting his eyes to me.  “If you need anything, just let me know.” With a quick tilt of his chin to Bowie, he exits the room. 

I stay quiet until the door shuts then asks, “What’s going on?  I know Marcus is here or on his way here, but what does that have to do with your dad?”

“That’s club business, not yours.”

I tried to talk to him before we left the house, but he wasn’t in the mood to discuss anything.  Now, I think I’ve waited long enough.  I’m gonna keep on until he gives me the answers I need.  “I understand that you can’t tell me some things, but you have to tell me something. Anything.  I can’t be kept in the dark.  The not knowing is killing me, Bowie.”

“I took the gavel from Cash; he’s looking for a little revenge,” He says as he walks to me and pulls me into his body. 

Sometimes I feel as if he talks in code.  “I don’t even understand what that means.  What gavel?”

He lifts a hand to tap the patch on his cut.  For the first time, I notice the word vice is missing. “I took his patch.”

“You’re President of the club now?”

He doesn’t answer, just simply nods. Bowie doesn’t talk a lot about the club, but he says enough that I know his dad has been president of the Savage Outlaws since his grandpa died.   “What does that mean for your dad?” 

“It means he’s shit out of luck.  He could’ve kept his cutt, been part of the club, but he blew that shit.  Now, he’s a dead man.”

His words are so cold that they send a shiver down my spine.  “You can’t kill your own father, Bowie.”

His arms tighten around me, so tight they steal my breath away.  “He knew that one of us was gonna die as soon as he started this shit.  It’s either me or him, and I don’t plan on dying any time soon.” 

Guilt fills my body as I close my eyes and lean my head against his chest.  I can feel the tears building in my eyes when I say, “I’m so sorry I came here.  I should’ve just stayed with Marcus, then none of this would be happening.”

“Stop that shit,” Bowie says raising a hand to my face.  He waits for my eyes to open then uses his thumb to brush a stray tear away.  “This was gonna happen one way or the other.  It’s not your fault. This would’ve happened with or without your ex showing up.”

“I don’t even understand how Cash knew about Marcus.” I’m sure Bowie wouldn’t have told him, and no one else really knows my whole story.  I may have told Nina a lot, but I never even told her where I was from.

“Me neither.” He replies then asks a question.  “Have you told anyone but Nina?”

I shake my head.  “No, I didn’t even tell Rachel.  I think she knows that I’ve been hiding from something, but she doesn’t know what.”

“Tin knows it all.  Rollo knows you’re running from something but not what.” He hesitates for a second before going on.  “I had Red watching over you when I was in Alabama.  I told him a little, but I never went into detail, just enough to know he needed to keep his eyes out for any trouble. None of them would have said a word.”

When he says Red’s name, I remember my conversations with Lila. I’m about to tell him about talking to her when he cuts me off.  “Doesn’t matter.  This shit was gonna happen sooner or later.  At least this way, I get you out of the deal. Having you in my bed every night makes everything worth it.”

“That doesn’t sound like a fair trade to me.” To have me he has to kill his father, there’s nothing fair about that. 

“Believe me, it is,” His words are so sincere, they wash away all the cold in my veins and replace it with a delicious warmth. 

“Bowie, I don’t want to be the reason that you and your father…” I’m not sure how to finish my sentence.  How do you tell someone that you don’t want to be the reason he has to kill his father?  Worse yet, be the reason his father kills him. 

He leans his head down to run his lips over mine.  “This shit with Cash has been coming for years.  It has nothing to do with you.  I promise.”

“But...”

“No buts, Shay.  None of this is your fault.  Not one damn thing.  Even if it was, it wouldn’t change a damn thing.  You’d still be my woman at the end of the day.”

“I love you,” I say, hoping to hear the words back.  Instead, a knock interrupts us. 

Bowie looks towards the door and shouts, “What?”

A voice I recognize as Rollo’s shouts back.  “I got some news you’re gonna want to hear.”

Bowie doesn’t respond to him, just leans down and places a soft kiss on my lips.  “Be back as soon as I can.  Make sure you stay in this room,” With that, he pulls away.  A second later, he walks out of the room without ever saying the words I want to hear. 

Friends and Enemies

Bowie

I meet Rollo in the hall and let out a frustrated breath. “What is it now?”

“It’s in the office.  You gotta see this shit to believe it,” He says with a shake of his head, before turning to walk down the hall. 

Well fuck!  I have enough to deal with; I don’t need any more shit. Turning to follow him, I see Tag leaning against the wall at the end of the hall.  “I thought I told you to get something to eat.”

He lifts his hand, showing me a half-eaten sandwich.  “I did.”

“Then why in the hell are you standing here, go sit down and eat.”

“I want to stay close to the girls,” He explains, looking between the door that Shay is safely behind and the room where Nina and Priss are staying.

I look at the kid and realize he’s gonna make a hell of an Outlaw one day.  “Grab Shay something to eat and sit with her till I get back.”

He lifts his chin and walks towards the kitchen.  Turing away from him, I follow Rollo to the office. He goes straight to the desk and sits down in front of the computer.  He wiggles the mouse and points towards the screen.  “Look at this shit.”

I walk to the desk and look at row after row of numbers filling the computer screen.  “What the fuck is that?”

Using the mouse to move the page, he scrolls down showing me more.  “It’s account numbers.”

“How do you know that?” To me, they look like nothing more than random numbers.

He shrugs.  “Pop was the club accountant, until the day he died.  I spent half my life watching him deal with this shit.”

That’s true, never knew why Rollo didn’t take up his position. “Why’s this so important?”

He scrolls back to the top of the page and points to the first number.  “This here is the club’s main account.  It’s been the same since I was a kid.  Pop always kept two shadow accounts to help clean the money, but no fucking way would the club have this many.”

I look at the computer and start counting.  I stop when I reach sixty-two; I hadn’t even counted half of them.  “Then what are the rest of them?”

“I’m not sure what in the hell they are, but I’m thinking we better find out where the hell the club’s money is. With this many accounts, he’s either spreading the money far and wide or he’s laundering money for someone outside of the club.”

Fuck!  This is the last thing I need.  The Italians have come to our club more than once, asking us to clean their money for them.  Each time, the club voted it down.  If Cash went ahead with the deal, the club is involved in some deep shit.   “Where’s Red?  He’s the club accountant.  He should be able to tell us what this shit is.”

He shrugs again.  Then answers in a voice that filled with anger. “He hasn’t got back from picking up Lila.  I tried to call him before I went to find you.  He’s not answering his phone”

The fact that Red hasn’t checked in bothers me and by the sound of Rollo’s voice, it’s bothering him too.  I decide to deal with that later; I got enough problems to handle right now.  “How did you even find this shit?”

“You told me to see if I could figure out how in the hell Cash found out about Shay’s husband.”

“That bastard is not her husband,” I growl out. 

“What the fuck ever,” He mumbles before going on.  “I came in here to see if I could find anything.  I was looking through the papers and hit the mouse.  The computer just came on and this shit popped up.”

I study the computer a moment more before deciding this is something else that I’ll have to deal with later.  “Did you find anything else?”

“Not yet, but I’m still looking.”

“Leave that shit for Red.  He can handle it when he gets back.” I take a step back preparing to go back to Shay.  “Let me know if you find anything.”

Rollo’s voice stops me from leaving. “I thought of something that you might want to know about.”

I wait for him to go on, but he doesn’t.  I swear talking to him is like pulling fucking teeth.  “What the fuck man?  Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I saw Red with Domino a few days before we left for Alabama,” He says with a shake of his head.  “She was sucking him off in the storeroom.”

“Who the hell cares?  She gives head like a pro; you and I both know that.” Yeah, Red is married but he doesn’t consider club pussy cheating. Doubt that Lila would feel the same, but that’s none of my fucking business.

“Domino has put a lock on that shit. Since she started calling herself Cash’s Old Lady, she’s not giving anyone any of her pussy.” He leans back in his chair and meets my eyes.  “Something just wasn’t right about it.  When I walked in, he jumped away from her like she was on fire.  I swear he had his dick in his pants, before I even got the door all the way open.”

“Still not following you, brother,” I say with a shrug. “I really don’t give a shit about who sucks Red’s dick.”

“I’m telling you, man, there was something off about that scene.  You know the man, he doesn’t give a shit about who sees him getting his rocks off.”

I shake my head, still not caring about this shit. “Not seeing the problem.”

“Red ain’t been acting right since we got back from our first run to Alabama.” He seems hesitant when he says, “Saw him having a few heart to hearts with Cash too.  Each time, he would come to me and bitch about the old bastard.  Looking back, I think he may have been covering his tracks.”

I shake my head, not wanting to agree with him, but I’ve been feeling the same thing too. The fact that he didn’t know Cash was back in town bothered the shit out of me.  Granted, he couldn’t track Cash’s every move, but I can guarantee that everyone knew the Savage Outlaws president was back the second he drove over the city limits.

“Anything else?” I ask, even though I know there is more or Rollo would have never brought it to my attention. A blow job from a club whore and a chat with the Pres isn’t enough to make him question our friend’s loyalty.

“I heard him telling Lila that he wanted her try to make friends with Shay.  At the time, I didn’t think much of it.  Looking back, it just doesn’t seem right,” He crosses his arms over his chest.  “I like Shay; she’s a good woman.  Still, it ain’t my fucking job to make sure she has friends.”

“He asked me all kinds of questions about Shay,” I say reluctantly, not wanting to even consider that my brother has anything to do with this shit. 

Red questioning me about her pissed me off.  In all the years that I’ve known him, he’s never questioned me about shit.   At the time, he said he was just busting my chops because I had never had a woman on the back of my bike before.  I didn’t like that shit at all, but it never even crossed my mind that he was pumping me for information.

“He asked me about her too,” He says, blowing out a frustrated breath.

“What did he want to know?”

“I don’t know how to explain it.” Rollo replies.

Bringing my fist down hard on the desk, I growl out.  “Try.”

“He would just say shit all the time.  Little stuff, at first I didn’t even realize he was doing it.  Like, he said something about her looking like her brother.  I said I didn’t know if she did or not.  As far as I can remember she’s never mentioned anything about her family, so I didn’t even know she had a brother.”

“She does, but Red’s never laid eyes on him.  Even if he had, he shouldn’t have been able to tie the two of them together,” I say as bile rises up in my throat. 

Even though Red has never met Lock, he’s heard about him.  He knows Lock’s from North Carolina, knows we served together and that he got a badge after getting out of the Army.  It wouldn’t take much to track him through that information alone.  Once he found Lock, he wouldn’t have any trouble figuring out his sister wasn’t dead.  Instead, she was resting comfortably in my bed. The question is how Red figured out that Shay and Lock are related.

“If that mother-fucker has something to do with this shit, he’s a dead man.”

Mistakes and Pain

Shay

I stare out the window as the kitten does her best to climb my jean covered legs.  Guilt slams into me as I think of the danger I’ve put everyone in.  I wonder if Marcus will really hurt them, but the answer is that he already has. He hurt my family by keeping me away from them; he hurt me by forcing me to be someone else.  He has never physically hurt someone, but he would’ve let my mother die; death means nothing to him.  A tear trickles down my cheek as I reach down to pick Butters up.  Holding her close to me, I walk to the bed.  After crawling onto it, I let the kitten go.  I watch as she curls into a ball at my feet.