Fury’s Promise_A Motorcycle Club Romance_The Devil’s Kin MC Read online

  He rolls aside and lies on the floor beside me, staring up at the ceiling, chest rising and falling rapidly. I do the same for a short time, but then the reality of our situation returns to me with gruff force.

  I perch myself on his chest, his come pooling around my crotch; I ignore it.

  “You promised me,” I say, trailing my finger along the line of his jaw. “Now keep your promise.”

  He closes his eyes. I get the sense that he’s thinking deeply, that he’s rewriting parts of his character. He opens them almost a minute later. “Okay,” he says, standing up.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Fury

  I wait outside the club, in the shadows, as the sun sets. I’ve waited outside places like this many times in my life—like a cheetah waiting to strike, Butcher called it once—but I never thought I’d be doing it outside my own clubhouse. I feel sick in my belly and part of me wants to go back to the apartment, but a larger part of me knows that Gloria is right. I made a promise and a man keeps his promise, especially when it concerns his own child.

  I wait for the last two brothers to leave and then go around the back, to the rear entrance where the pledges bring out the trash. I force the door open and stalk through the kitchen, into the bar, and then to Jackson’s office. I knock twice with the handle of my pistol.

  “Yeah?” he calls from inside, sounding dog-tired.

  I knock again.

  “Do you have a death wish?” he snarls. “Is that one of the pledges, too nervous to speak up? Whoever it is, you better speak up now before you make me really angry.”

  I knock a third time, knowing that it’s only a matter of time before—

  Jackson stands up from his desk and walks toward the door, his footsteps coming right at me. He opens the door and spots me. His eyes go wide for a moment as he considers what to do, and then he goes for his gun. That does it for me. If a man is gonna pull his gun on me, I’m gonna pull mine on him. That’s just the way it goes.

  I level my pistol at his head. “No,” I say, and that’s enough.

  “Are you crazy?” he asks, backing into the office with his hands raised. “I’m your president!”

  “I know that.” I sigh. “You’re gonna tell me where every hidden weapon in this room is, or we’re really gonna have problems, sir.”

  “Did that bitch put you up to this?”

  “You won’t call her a bitch again,” I say.

  He swallows, looking more nervous than I’ve ever seen him, and then quietly goes around the office, revealing his weapons. By the time he’s finished, I have an arsenal piled up near the door: knuckle-dusters and pistols and a shotgun and a rifle and a long machete-type blade. I prod him in the chest with the barrel of the gun, directing him to the chair, and then push him hard in the throat so that he falls back. I have to turn off my emotions as I do this ’cause he keeps making whimpering sounds, like I’m the meanest bastard who’s ever lived and he can’t believe what I’m doing. Like he misjudged me all those years ago.

  “So,” he says, placing his hands in his lap, “you chose her.”

  “I chose our kid—and I chose the club, sir. You’re the one who’s been working with the fuckin’ enemy.”

  “I told you that it was complicated,” he mutters.

  “Maybe it is,” I agree. “But now’s the time to uncomplicate it. I don’t wanna hear any excuses. I don’t wanna hear how you’re working on some grand plan like you’re God and we mere fuckin’ mortals can’t know the meaning of your actions. You’re gonna tell me why you’ve been workin’ with the Lady’s Death, and you’re gonna tell me soon.”

  “Jack.” He locks eyes with me. “You know I have no reason to tell you that. We both know you’re not going to hurt me.”

  “Are you so sure of that?”

  “When you were shoving me just now, leading me to my chair, did you know how gentle you were being?”

  “Maybe that’s ’cause I don’t wanna make you groggy before I have to.”

  “Maybe.” He shrugs. “Or maybe it’s because you don’t want to hurt your father.”

  “You’re not my father,” I say. But I don’t sound even a little bit sure.

  “That’s not how you used to think, lad. I remember on your eighteenth birthday when we got drunker than hell on whisky and beer and we sat just outside the clubhouse on lawn chairs and you cried, Jack, you cried as we smoked our cigars and told me that I was the only father you’d ever need. You told me that you’d be loyal to me until the end.”

  “I don’t remember saying that,” I lie.

  “Come on.” He leans forward, staring casually at my pistol like it doesn’t pose a threat. “I get it. You lost your head to some girl. She tricked you into thinking that kid was yours. I get that, I really do, but that doesn’t mean you need to betray me like this.”

  “I reckon that worked on me once,” I say. “Those fuckin’ word-traps, when I was a kid. But I know what you’re doing now. You wanna make it sound like I’m the traitor for comin’ at you like this, but we both know I’d never do a thing like this if you hadn’t forced my hand. You’re Big Loco’s bitch, sir, and I want to know why.”

  “You’ll have to torture me, then.” He smiles.

  “I don’t want to do that, it’s true.” Then I punch him across the mouth. It takes all my self-control to hit him hard, not to pull back on the punch. He falls off the chair. I pick him up, shove him back into it. He’s so light now, almost weightless. “But I will,” I go on, my voice far, far away. “So you better get talkin’, sir.”

  He touches his mouth, smears blood onto his hand and then stares at his bloody fingertips. “You hit me,” he says in disbelief. “You hit me!”

  “Are you gonna talk or not?”

  He looks me dead in the eyes. “I’ll never talk, you little shit!” he snarls. “After everything I’ve done for you! After the way I put myself out there for you! I killed your parents for you, you ungrateful little—”

  I thought the second punch’d be easier but it isn’t. It takes just as much self-control to hit him true and hard, hard enough so that he knows I’m not playing around. He collapses again. I pick him up again. “I reckon you can take a dozen more, sir, but I don’t see why it has to come to that. Just tell me why you betrayed the club and where Big Loco is and I’ll be on my way.”

  “I don’t know where he is,” he wheezes. “You can hit me all you like and that’ll—” He breaks off. “But I can tell you where he might be when this meeting is over. A warehouse, outskirts of town, the same one we use as storage sometimes for our weapons. He might be there when you’re done knocking me around.”

  “Why’s that?” I ask.

  “Because we’ve been meeting there,” Jackson says quietly.

  “Having secret talks about club business.”

  He nods. “That’s right.”

  “So you can’t tell me where he is, not for sure, but I reckon you can tell me why the fuck you’re working for him and not for your own club.”

  He looks at me, straight at me. And now it’s like I’m the adult and he’s the troubled teenager. “Fine,” he whispers. “I’ll tell you. Just don’t hit me again.”

  ***

  Jackson Caw lived in southern California with his adopted parents and his adopted brother, a kid a few years older than him called Santiago Caw, a Mexican boy who was surly and sullen and didn’t like the fact that his parents never had much money. But even though Santiago was distant, Jackson loved him, loved him more than he even loved his parents. Because Santiago was cool and knew how to handle himself. They weren’t close but Santiago never let Jackson get beat up at school. One time, Jackson came home with a cut down his face and blood all over his hands from where some of the older kids had pushed him down onto the stones. Santiago didn’t say anything, only asked where the kids hung out, and then he left.

  Jackson sat on their doorstep for an hour, waiting for his big brother to return. When he did, he had that dark look on
his face: the look that said not to ask questions, that it was all taken care of.

  He only found out that Santiago had a softer side when he was a teenager and Santiago was almost a man. They’d lie in a field in between a factory and a railroad and watch the stars at nighttime, sometime smoking cigarettes and sometimes smoking something else.

  “I’d like to get a lady,” Santiago would say. “A real lady, not like these girls who hang around me, you know the ones, the ones who are always cloying and clawing.”

  “What’s cloying, Santiago?”

  “You ought to read more,” Santiago said. “You don’t want to grow up like every other waster around here.”

  “I’ll read more,” Jackson promised. “What else do you want when you get older?”

  “I want to be respected,” Santiago said.

  “But you are respected.” Santiago was a giant at seventeen, far taller than most men, far more feared than most men.

  “Yeah, but I’m respected the same way a dangerous dog is respected. I want respect that people can’t question. The sort of respect a man gets when he’s proved himself. That’s what I’m going to have. What about you, little brother?” He turned to him, face shrouded in smoke. “What do you want?”

  “I think I want the same,” Jackson said. “That sounds good to me. Respect. The sort people can’t question. Yeah, Santiago, that sounds real good. But how’d you go about getting that?”

  “I’ve got some ideas.” His voice got lower, more secretive. “I’ve been talking with my cousins back in Mexico. They’re starting this gang, this biker gang.”

  “Is that why you’ve been stealing motorcycles?” Jackson asked.

  “Yeah, that’s right. I’m going to head down there when I turn eighteen and join up, and I’m going to kill anyone I have to until I’m the leader of that gang, and then, when I walk into a clothes store, the lady in there will ask me if she can help, and smile at me. She won’t treat me like dirt.”

  “Yeah.” Jackson smiled. “Maybe I’ll do the same up here.”

  “Start a gang?” Santiago laughed. “You?”

  “Well, why not?”

  Santiago patted him on the arm. “You can start a gang if you want, kid. Why don’t we say this? We’ll both have our gangs but we’ll always be brothers. So we’ll always help each other out, all right?”

  Jackson grinned up at the stars. “All right.”

  ***

  “Big Loco is your fuckin’ brother.” I take a stunned step back, staring at this man, this father figure, and realizing that I don’t know him one bit. “Big Loco is your … but why let him treat you like this, then? Why let him walk all over you?”

  Jackson rubs his jaw and sighs. “Because once the Lady’s Death have taken over New Oak, I’m going to disband the Devil’s Kin and join up and lead the Lady’s Death with him. It’s been the plan all this time, Jack. It was, until he found that damned kid, and now he’s got his mind set on having him. But I reckon I can talk him out of that. Just keep that warehouse in mind, Jack, and maybe this can end without bloodshed.”

  “I ought to end this with blood right now.” I press my gun against his forehead, hands shaking, teeth gritted. All these years, all these goddamn years—a lie.

  But I can’t do it. I can’t pull the damned trigger. He just keeps staring at me with those eyes, those eyes that used to mean trust and safety.

  “Get the fuck outta here,” I growl. “This is my club now.”

  He scurries away quickly enough. I wait until I’m sure he’s gone and then pull out my phone, pause the recording, and play it back.

  “Yeah?” he calls, sounding dog-tired.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Fury

  “I’m sorry, Fury. I don’t know what the fuck the boss was thinkin’. Sent me north all damn day on some fool’s errand. Said he needed a shipment picked up and when I get there, there ain’t a shipment. And then I see that my phone’s been stolen. So I don’t know what the fuck—”

  I’m with the Kid and Butcher at the tracks. I’ve already said sorry to the Kid, since I went in hard on him for no damn reason, and now he looks a little less shifty around me. I wonder how much of his shiftiness was me just reading into shit that wasn’t actually there, and how much of it was actually him being shifty.

  “I’ve got the answer, Butch.” I take out my phone and play the recording.

  Butcher’s face goes white and then red and then white again as he listens. His hand goes to his gun holster instinctively. “That motherfucker!” he snarls, kicking the dirt. “That fuckin’ piece of shit traitor fuck!”

  “So he was the one,” the Kid whispers. “He was the …” He lowers his gaze. “The boss.”

  “He’s done,” I say. It pains me to say it even though it shouldn’t. “Jackson’s not a Devil’s Kin anymore.”

  “Damn right he’s not,” Butcher mutters darkly. “Send me that recording, Fury. I’m gathering the troops and we’re following you now. I don’t give a damn about Jackson. I don’t give a damn about that Big Loco fuck. We’re finding your kid. All of us: the whole damn club. Fuck these excuses.”

  “Fuck these excuses,” I agree, sending him the recording. “Don’t take long, Butch. We need to ride out.”

  “Give me forty-five minutes.” He’s already on his phone, dialing frantically. He’s such an old man that he memorizes all his phone numbers.

  I turn to the Kid. “Sorry again, all right?”

  “I get it, Fury,” he replies. “Just remember that I’m on your side. Please.”

  I clap him on the arm. “All right, Kid.”

  We hang around for a little while. I get more impatient with each passing minute, especially since I can’t get that asshole Jackson out of my head. I keep seeing the way he fell when I hit him. It was like something out of a nightmare: or what would have been a nightmare before all this shit started. Now, I remind myself, it had to be done. I couldn’t let this shit slide.

  “You got an old man, Kid?” I ask after around half an hour of idle pacing.

  “Yeah, Fury,” he says. “But he isn’t so good, you know. He lives in Texas and I ain’t seen him since last Christmas. He came up here asking for money. Said he had this amazing business deal and I’d be crazy not to get in on it. I almost did it, too, but then Butcher looked into it and it turned out that the business deal was just him wanting to go down to Vegas and blow my cash.”

  “Ah.” I laugh grimly. “That’s dads for you, all right.”

  Finally, Butcher rides back to the tracks. He comes through the gates first, but then more men ride in behind him, Devil’s Kin after Devil’s Kin. I fold my arms, watching as around thirty Devil’s Kin fill the small area. The rumble of the engines is so loud it shifts the dirt and the dust, and then they kill the bikes and everything goes silent. Butcher walks over to me, nods, and then turns to the group.

  “They heard the recording?” I ask him quietly.

  “Look at them,” Butcher says. “What do you think?”

  I look at them now. He’s right. Each of them looks furious. Each of them looks like they just saw a loved one attacked, which is pretty much what happened. They learned that their boss, their lord and fuckin’ savior, was working against them; that’d hurt any man.

  “I ain’t gonna say you fellas’ve got to follow me!” I call over the group. “I ain’t gonna say I’m better than you, or even better than Jackson. What I am gonna say is that I’m loyal to this club and I’ve never not been loyal. And I’ll never betray you like Jackson did! This club was heading for the goddamn depths of hell. Jackson wanted to let our fuckin’ enemy have my kid. Well, I’m asking you fellas to come with me and help get him back. Can you do that for me?”

  “We’re with you, Fury,” an old fella says, a man by the name of Jeffries. He’s been with the club almost as long as there’s been a club. “What Jackson did, there’s no forgiveness for that. No damn way. We’re with you until the end!”

  “That’s
right!” another man snarls. He spits on the dirt. “We’re done with that Jackson fuck!”

  I see respect in their eyes, but also the look of men who want to prove themselves.

  “They feel like they owe you,” Butcher says as we climb onto our bikes. “They followed a traitor. Now they need to prove themselves to the man who showed the traitor for what he is.”

  “As long as they ride hard and shoot fast,” I say, “they can feel any damn way they want.”

  We ride out toward the warehouse, all nearly-forty of us, and I feel as good as a man can when he knows he might be riding to nothing or everything. We all stop just outside the warehouse, gathering in a circle with four men standing around the huddle, looking outwards for protection.