misunderstoodebook (12 page)

“Yo’, John Boy,” Mortician called. “Sit your motherfucking ass down. No, take
several
fucking seats.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Johnnie gritted,

Mortician leaned on the bar. “
After
you sit the fuck down, assfuck.”

Dislike slid into Logan’s features and he stiffened. “Stay in your place, boy.”

Pulsating hatred flared in Mortician’s eyes and he stayed silent a bit. Johnnie saw the man’s mind working, probably imagining a bunch of gruesome ways to end Logan’s life. After a moment, Mortician sauntered from behind the bar and Johnnie moved toward him to prevent him from reaching his grandfather.

He
owed Logan. Not Mortician. Not Christopher.

Johnnie. And if anyone would fuck up the dirty old bastard, Johnnie would.

Even if Logan referring to Mortician as a ‘boy’ had nothing to do with the differences in their ages.

“I saved your ass from this ticky ticky boom boom motherfucker, Lowman. If I was you, I’d shut the fuck up with your sheet-wearing, cross-burning shit. While John Boy take several seats, why the fuck don’t you take several fucking rows?”

Logan scowled. “You don’t belong here with us. Go back to your own kind.”

“He belongs wherever the fuck he wants to be,” Johnnie snarled, offended on Mortician’s behalf. “He’s a full patch member. My brother. And, most of all, my fucking friend.”

“This is Joe’s doing,” Logan protested. “Ruining my club with his strays.”

K-P slammed through the kitchen door, minus Dinah for a change and screeched to a halt. His one eye blinked and he knuckled it before he blinked again.

Mortician lit a cigarette. “You not seeing some type of one-eyed anomaly, Kitchen Bitch,” he grumbled. “Lowman has left Fuckville and landed right the fuck in the middle of the club.”

A wide, humorless grin split Logan’s features. “Kaleb.”

K-P swallowed, his sun worn skin going gray.

“No worries. I come in peace.”

K-P grunted. Meanwhile, Kendall’s eyes watered and her nose reddened at Logan’s words.

Johnnie realized he hadn’t addressed her bullshit reference letter and fanned it between them. “Okay. I’ll—“

The hope flickering in her eyes lit up her entire face. “I’m hired?”

“Almost. We need to do some checking first.” Ignoring the returning alarm racing across her features, Johnnie held the letter out to Stretch. “Take this and get to work.”

“Okay, John Boy.”

“Wh-what? What’s he doing?”

“Nothing that concerns you,” Johnnie said.

She chewed on her lower lip, opened her mouth to speak, and then changed her mind.

“Say it,” Johnnie prompted.

“He has my letter,” she squeaked, uncertainty flaring in her eyes. “So…”

Her voice trailed off and Johnnie forced his anger away. Turning into a raging maniac would frighten her more. He waited.

“It concerns me in that case,” she finished.

“If it’ll make you feel better, he’s not going to jerk off as he reads it,” he said dryly. “He’s going to check your credentials.”

She still looked…odd…so Johnnie refrained from telling her he’d sent Stretch to dig a little deeper into her letter of reference. They’d gotten a PI on the payroll after two of their now-dead members betrayed them. One helped Christopher’s father in his quest to harm Megs—never a good idea—and the other tried to kill Christopher—always a worse idea.

“I’m getting more food,” K-P announced. “You want some, Kendall?”

Her complexion greened and she pressed a hand against her belly, shaking her head. Her long ponytail swung with her. “I need a bathroom,” she managed and gagged, slapping a hand over her mouth. Vomit gushed from her mouth like a scene from the Exorcist minus the spinning head and demonic voice.

“I’ve had enough with bitches hurling all over the fucking place,” Mortician complained, stomping behind the bar and heading to the kitchen. He returned a minute later with a damp mop. “It’s bad enough we gonna be dealing with vomit when Meggie get back seeing as how Outlaw filled her with his kid again.”

“Shut up.” Johnnie stalked to Kendall and guided her past the pool tables to the bathroom with the sign
Chicks
hanging on it. “Do you need any help?”

“No,” she whispered, and rushed into the bathroom.

Johnnie turned away from the door, wishing he’d never gotten out of bed. Then, he would’ve had another problem in the person of Sabrina and her plunger like mouth.

“Can I help with anything?” Logan asked quietly.

“You can leave,” Mortician offered, swiping the paper towels into a big ball and sliding them under a chair so he could mop. “That would help like fuck.”

“I’m not answering to you,” Logan sneered.

“You best answer to him,” Johnnie advised. “He’s club enforcer. He might get tired of your bullshit.”

Logan’s hatred slid into the air around them, but he’d given up his privileges and allowed everyone to believe he was dead. Any one of them could throw them out and face no repercussions. But Johnnie knew the others were stepping back so Johnnie could handle Logan.

“Where are you staying?”

“At a friend’s,” he answered, old and worn, his skin weather beaten, and a slight bend in his shoulders.

“Give me the address and I’ll visit later. Don’t come back to this fucking club.”

His shoulders slumped. “I’m an old man. I’m not here to cause trouble. I’m here to see the next generation in my family. My great-grandson.” He pursed his mouth, his eyes gleaming. “Christopher’s son.”

“Avery, Nia, Bev, and Zoann have kids, too,” Johnnie said. “What about them?”

A smile coasted across Logan’s lips. “Zoann had a baby?”

Val walked into Logan’s line of vision, no mercy in his face. “My son,” he growled. “Not that she give a fuck Ryan’s mine. Bitch don’t let me fucking see him.”

“I guess she wouldn’t.” Logan rubbed his brow and squeezed his eyes shut. Fatigue laced his words. “You’re a biker and she knows I…She thought I disliked bikers.”

“Fuck you, old man,” Johnnie snarled. “We all thought you disliked bikers when, in reality, you were a founding member of this club.”

“Yeah, Lowman. That’s some hypocritical bullshit.”

Instead of answering Mortician, Logan shrugged and snatched a napkin from the bar. He pulled a pen out of his jacket and scribbled on it, then handed it to Johnnie. “The address where I’m staying. Bring Bitsy with you when you visit. I need to talk to her.”

“Don’t call her that.”

He hung his head, bleakness haunting his face. If Logan had wreaked the havoc in Zoann’s life that he’d caused in Johnnie’s and Christopher’s, then Johnnie understood her bitterness. The girl Johnnie remembered and the woman she’d become were worlds apart. “Only Christopher called her Bitsy.”

“I’m her…” He drew in another breath. “I want to see her.”

Kendall’s purse lay forgotten on the counter, forgotten. Not hesitating, Johnnie opened it and found her wallet containing her ID, her car keys and her cell phone. Removing her driver’s license, he handed it to Digger. “Bring this to Stretch, then find Dinah. Little Man doesn’t need to sleep on your shoulder all damn day.”

“Fuck, this shit too interesting. I could hold him for two fucking days to have center stage at this fucking drama.”

“Digger, get the fuck out,” Mortician ordered, not even looking in his brother’s direction.

Adjusting Little Man and snatching the ID, Digger loped toward the hallway without another word.

Johnnie glanced toward the bathroom door, wondering what was keeping Kendall and irritated everything kept popping up to prevent him from holding a decent conversation with her.

“Give me Zoann’s number,”

“Zoann doesn’t know you’re alive,” Val bit out.

“And we’re not going to let her know anything different,” Johnnie added.

Logan looked ready to argue but then he nodded. “She’s okay? She’s gotten over everything well enough?”

Johnnie and Val exchanged glances, unease rising between them. “What the fuck are you talking about?” Johnnie snapped.

Tension tightened Val’s face. As angry as the man was with his cousin, he loved her.

Fingers folded together, Logan regarded them with speculation, his eyes flickering between Johnnie and Val. “Big Joe never told you what the argument was about?”

In ten years, none of them had ever known the exact reason his grandfather had been exiled. “We always assumed it was about Christopher.”

“Christopher?” Logan echoed, the flames of insanity lighting his eyes, and consuming the brief surprise. As a child, Johnnie had mistaken it for love. It was anything but. “It was over a bet,” he confessed. “If I won, the fellow would’ve killed him for me.”

“Him who?” Johnnie asked slowly, although he already knew. He just couldn’t believe…even knowing how much his grandfather disliked Christopher. Jesus, the man had put a hit out on Christopher?

“Christopher, of course.”

Oh, yes. Of course. He said it as if
who
shouldn’t have been in question.

Logan rubbed the back of his neck. “Couldn’t fucking dirty my hands.”

He never had and never would.

“And if you lost?” Val spoke into the heavy silence. “What did you have to pay?”

Fuck.
“Not what.” Zoann’s lovely face flashed in Johnnie’s head and realization dawned on him. She would’ve been about seventeen then. A virgin because everyone had been terrified that Christopher would get to them if they touched her. “It wasn’t a what you’d have to pay. It was a who. Wasn’t it? It was Zoann.”

Logan folded his arms and moved his head in a hesitant nod. “If he won, he wanted Zoann’s virginity. I lost, so I invited Bitsy over. Told her I needed her to cook dinner for me, but I left before she arrived. The guy did what he had to do with her. When she left, she went looking for Christopher and found Big Joe instead. Guess the man fucked her harder than he should have. She was all bruised up and bloody. Big Joe loved Christopher like he was his own and he knew the little shit would’ve psychoed out on us if he’d found out what happened to his sister. “I told Joe to put a hit out on Christopher while he was on the run to Canada. Didn’t need Christopher interfering and killing my friend because he’d gotten beside himself with my gorgeous granddaughter. I had to explain the bet to Joe. The fight you boys walked in on was the result of that conversation.”

“So you bet Zoann’s rape or Christopher’s death?”

“Wouldn’t have put it like that, but, yes.”

Val choked.

“That’s some cold-blooded, fucked-up shit, Lowman.”

Johnnie’s stomach turned and he thought about his father, dead at his grandfather’s hands. His grandmother had grieved to death. He thought about Christopher’s sisters’ father. Dead because of Logan. The first time Johnnie recognized his father incapability of real love was when Johnnie had gotten into a fight—and lost. He’d been locked in a dark closet for two days and when he’d come out, he was like a rabid dog, angry and scared at once. Logan had laughed.

The old, frail-looking man standing there wanted understanding, but he spoke without compassion. His soul existed within his circle of hell.

“I don’t know what fucking game you’re playing, old man,” he snarled, “but if you value living out the rest of your miserable life, get the fuck back where you belong and stay the fuck there.” He flexed his fingers, thinking of his gun. If he’d been strapped, he would’ve pulled it and blown his grandfather the fuck away. Like Mortician wanted to and like Val was struggling not to do.

“I’m sorry.” Tears slipped down Logan’s cheeks and he drew in a breath. “I’m here to make right. I thought the letter was the olive branch. I’m seventy-five. An old man. I want forgiveness.”

Johnnie glared at his grandfather, thinking of Kendall. Why the fuck would her face intrude now? But it did and he couldn’t leave her. “Val, escort Logan wherever he needs to go. Get that fucking letter. If he doesn’t have one, bring him back to me.”

“I’m sorry, Johnnie,” Logan croaked. “So sorry for everything.”

“Keep it together, Val,” Johnnie ordered.

“Fuck, John Boy. Zoann always said she couldn’t be with me if I stayed in the club. Didn’t know why she was such a mean cunt. She never told me anything about this.”

She’d never told Johnnie, either. Even if Christopher had been gone, he’d been there and he would’ve avenged her. With a frustrated growl, Johnnie scraped his fingers through his scalp. Would he have done anything? He could count on one fucking hand the times he’d stood up to Logan before that last, miserable day. The one that had changed his entire life and the only time, besides today, he could’ve killed Logan without compunction.

Zoann wouldn’t have trusted Johnnie to go after one of Logan’s friends. Or, if she’d known of their grandfather’s involvement, Logan.

Especially Logan.

Because Johnnie had never trusted himself when it came to Logan.

Chapter 7

Kendall.

Kendall.

KENDALL
.

Clutching the side of her head. Kendall leaned against the counter in the bathroom. She repeated her name over and over in a silent incantation to conjure up her old self.

That Kendall was gone, though. She might’ve been able to recover her from the floor of her office after Spoon had walked away, leaving her a crumpled heap.

But, later that evening, when Marie had pulled the trigger, Kendall had lost the old her completely. She’d been blown away in the gore of her mother’s brain.

She’d called ‘911’ and Brooks. The men Spoon had posted outside had come rushing in. He’d already been on the way because they’d already called him. Brooks had never arrived, but Spoon had and he’d taken over. Removed her from the horror she hadn’t been able to process. He’d been furious. Marie’s death would bring Caroline’s absence to attention. Instead of allowing Kendall any leeway to run or to grieve or to go to the police, he’d taken her, plunging her into a deeper nightmare, the overload of horrors sinking her to the depths.

Just like that, he demanded sanity from her. Coherence. Lucidity. None of which she’d wanted anymore until she’d seen Caroline and until Johnnie had said she was safe.