Breaking the Rules (Roaming Devils MC #1) (9 page)

The full-patch members enjoyed the women walking around like servants to them. One man grabbed a female’s tits and licked her nipples without any preamble. They did whatever the hell they wanted with these women and the women let them. As she moved deeper into the room, she saw Razor in the back with a girl kneeling before him. His head was resting on the back of the couch while his arm was out beside him. He was clearly enjoying himself, Ella mused.

That was until he spotted her.

He sat up a little straighter and glanced toward the door. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to bribe you.” She lifted the bottle of fentanyl. “I want to talk to Ryker.”

He sucked in a breath, staring at the bottle. “He’s entertaining some bitches in the back. I seriously doubt he wants to talk.”

So he was sleeping with other women. The thought made her want to throw up. Part of her wondered why she even bothered. The other part of her knew that more than anything, he needed her help.

“I don’t know. I can be pretty persuasive.” She shook the bottle lightly. “Do we have a deal?”

He nodded once and she tossed the bottle to him. He waved her back and she went down the darkened hall, the music less intrusive. She knocked on the first door and found another guy fucking three women. Sweat rolled down his meaty back as a smile crossed his face, hips still pumping into one of the women. He made some comment about her joining them. She rolled her eyes and closed the door, going to the second room.

Ryker bent over the dresser, snorting a row of powder.

He was alone, and he looked a mess. His dark hair was greasy. Coke covered the dresser, the effects of feeding an addict’s habit. Her heart broke as she took in the effects of his drug abuse. He’d told her he’d been clean for a while. To see him relapse nearly ripped her apart. She stared at him a moment, debating what to do next.

“You shouldn’t be here, Ella.” Tears filled his eyes and he tried to wipe the powder from his face. “You need to stay away from me.”

“Says who? Your father?”

He swallowed. “I’m not a good person. I can’t love you like you need.” His voice broke as he spoke to her. “I tried.” He sniffled. “I did. I gave it an honest effort.” He turned away from her. “You deserve someone better than a junkie. You deserve someone that will be there to hold you and love you. To cherish you. I can’t do it. I can’t be that guy for you.”

She walked around the mess and went to him. “Look at me.”

When he did, he had pinpoint pupils. His nose was bleeding and he was a fucked up mess. “Why did you start using again?” She pushed him back to the bed and reached for a tissue from the box on the dresser. “I thought we worked out that craving.”

“They injected me as punishment for being with you.” He blew out a breath. “Ella, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you into this. I don’t think I can get you out of it unless you stay away from me. If you stay away from me, everything will be okay again. They won’t bother you if I leave you alone.”

She wiped the blood from his nose. Every word he said broke her heart. They’d forced him into a relapse. It explained the video. She tossed the tissue into the trash, noticing that he was working his way through a gram of cocaine. They were sadistic bastards. His own fucking father was as evil as they came.

“Ella, you need to leave.” He grabbed her hand but instead of pushing her away, he pulled her to him. She stumbled, falling to the bed beside him. A moment of panic rushed through her as he moved on top of her. Instead of forcing himself on her as she thought, he pressed his face against her neck and broke down, crying like a small child.

Her heart ached as she wrapped her arms around him. She found herself wanting to protect him but she didn’t know how. He was a grown man that made his own decisions. While some were against his will, he had every ability to walk away from the club if he knew how terrible they really were.

“I’m so sorry, Ella.” He whimpered as if he were in physical pain. “God, I’m so sorry.”

She stroked his back, rubbing the tension from his muscles. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

He let her comfort him for a little while longer before he pushed up and away from her. She stared at him, concerned for his well-being. He was high and didn’t know what he was saying. He had a tremendous amount of guilt, though he didn’t say what it was about specifically.

“You need to go.” He nodded a few times as if he were convincing himself to let her go. “I need you to go.”

She sat up. What could she really say to him? He was exactly how the junkies arrived at the clinic. They only fought addiction if they wanted to. He was struggling with so much more and Ella was afraid that it would push him in deeper or potentially kill him.

“I can still help you.” She rubbed his arm. “You relapsed and you’re still alive, so it’s not the end of the world. You can come to the clinic and we can start all over again, except this time, you’ll have someone right there with you to help you get clean.”

He stood and walked away from the bed. “Don’t you get it? I can’t fucking see you anymore. I can’t talk to you. I can’t fuck you. I can’t go to the stupid clinic to get clean. I can’t do it. You need to stay away from me, Ella. You need to go.”

Ella had never seen him so agitated. Instead of allowing it to escalate, she stood and left the room. The music was blaring as she made her way back to the main room. Razor spotted her from across the room and she narrowed her eyes at him. He was killing his son and he didn’t even care.

Ella left the party and went outside to her car. Maybe she should cut her losses and leave him alone. It killed her to even think about that since he could be alive today and dead tomorrow. The thought alone scared the shit out of her. There had to be another way. She just wished she knew what it was.

Chapter Seven

Ryker walked around in a daze for nearly a month. He focused on the club and, when it was time to get ruthless, took his anger out on those that needed a good thrashing. He’d gone from drugs to fighting almost instantaneously. Everything pissed him off.
Everyone
pissed him off. He supposed he’d finally turned into the monster his father wanted him to be.

“This guy says he can’t pay,” Vampire commented. “He also said that we can take his bitch as collateral.”

Ryker’s hands clenched in his leather gloves. He knew junkies were a pain to deal with, which was why he hated dealing at a street level, but the damn wholesalers didn’t know how to fucking get the money for the drugs before they dispersed them. The fucking morons.

“Take the chick,” Ryker commented. He stared at the man Vampire had kneeling before him. “You walk around like you’re some fucking king with a bitch on your arm when you can’t even pay your bills.”

The girl was the least of his worries. Half of the fucking losers treated them like shit anyway and being a club coke whore was a dream compared to the shit they faced on their own. He knew Razor would probably like the chick. She didn’t seem the least bothered by their little arrangement either.

“As for business, pussy only goes so far before I’m bored with it.”

He slammed his fist into the guy’s face, cracking a bone or two. Ryker crawled on top of the bony guy, pounding his face with both of his fists. It took Vampire and Superman to pull him off before he killed the dickwad.

“The next time you can’t pay, you’re going to wish you never met me.”

He went to each point of contact, collecting money and dishing out a beating when they didn’t pay. While his friends liked to use the threat of weaponry, he liked his fists. It was messier and it had more feeling behind it. Plus, he liked the sound of bones crushing when his fist made contact with a face.

“You head back to the club,” Ryker told Vampire. “I need to take care of some business and then I’ll meet up with you.”

“What business?” Vampire asked. “I thought we had everything we needed.”

“I’ve got something else I’ve got to do.” Ryker glanced past him. “Go on. It’s not that big of a deal.”

Vampire wasn’t easily fooled. “You know I’ve got your back. What are you wanting to do?”

Ryker trusted very few club members. Most held a sincere loyalty toward his father and all the bad deeds he promoted within the club. He didn’t fucking want to go around spreading his plans for those that had wronged him.

“Can I trust you?”

Vampire stared at him. “Yes.”

“Are you bullshitting with me?”

Vampire cleared his throat. “If I were, would you even be having this conversation with me? I’ve ridden by your side for years. We patched in together. I thought we were best friends.”

“We are. Doesn’t mean shit in this world, though. Can I trust you?”

Vampire stared at him for what felt like the longest few seconds of his life. “I’ve got
your
back no matter what.
You
.”

Ryker trusted him. If he trusted anyone in the club, Vampire and Superman were the top two. “Ghost has been stealing from the club. I caught him taking a kilo of cocaine for himself. I carried five. He carried five. He only delivered four.” He cleared his throat. “I wondered what the fuck he was doing with it. When I followed him, he took it to a Young Blood production house. He’s been trading coke for guns from those bastards under the table from the rest of the club. I know Razor isn’t going to do anything about it. Ghost is his little pet. So I decided to handle it myself.”

Vampire propped his hands on his hips. “That would explain why some of Young Blood’s coke whores are selling higher quality shit. It’s cutting out our profits and sending our customers to Young Blood.”

“Yeah. I know. They get them hooked on the good shit that we sell and then trade it out when they’re addicted for the shit they sell. Ghost is orchestrating this and it needs to be handled.”

“You don’t think Razor would do anything?”

It wasn’t that he thought his father wouldn’t do anything. He was fairly certain that he would. The problem was that Ryker wanted to be the one to fix the problem. He wanted to see the bastard take his last breath. It was the least the fucker deserved and he wanted it to be him that dished out the consequences.

“I don’t know. Do you?”

Vampire pursed his lips. “Your father isn’t a bad leader. I know you two butt heads like two bucks fighting for a doe, but he is the president. The rules of the club should be followed no matter what. It prevents mayhem from ensuing.”

Vampire was right. Dammit. Ryker pulled off a glove and rubbed his forehead. He didn’t have any proof of Ghost other than a few pictures he’d snapped with his phone. There was no way that his father would have approved of it, and he knew the fucking club didn’t. The stupid bastard would probably talk his way out of it, though. He always fucking did.

“Take it to the club,” Vampire commented. “Let the process handle it the way it should.”

Ryker nodded. He could play by the rules, but when dealing with rogues, the rules went out the window. He got on his bike and led the way back to the club. He avoided Hartford Street to the best of his ability. He didn’t need to go by the free clinic just to dredge up the past. He might be tempted to pull his fucking bike in and stop by just to say hi.

He didn’t need that.

His anger pushed him harder. He became more and more aggressive without Ella in his life. She made him think that there was something better out there for him. That he could actually be something different than what his grandfather and father had drilled into his head from an early age. The reality was that he needed to man up and face the inevitable. He was meant for this life and he had to do it right. He’d stopped using drugs, again, choosing instead to handle the beat downs. Razor didn’t seem to mind it too much since most of the men he fought against in the club had lost at least once to him in the boxing ring. He became especially mean when he was on coke, but he hoped that was behind him. His head was more focused, his life more calm.

When they got to the club, Ryker called a meeting with the ranking members of the club. Ghost had yet to arrive back and Ryker couldn’t help but wonder if he was out doing his trade-off with Young Blood. He entered their meeting room, taking his spot to the right of his father. He laid his phone on the table before them.

“Ghost has been making deals with Young Blood behind our backs,” Ryker announced. “He’s been trading a kilo of our coke for guns from Young Blood and they’ve been flipping the coke to steal our business. They get their new customers hooked on the good shit we sell and then trade off for the dirty shit they sell.”

Razor narrowed his eyes. “Those are some pretty big claims. Where’s your evidence.”

Ryker clicked a few buttons on his phone and pulled up the pictures he’d taken. After Razor looked at them, he passed the phone around the table. It was one thing to go against his father like he’d done in the past. It was something completely different to go against the club and take money out of the club members’ pockets.

“Well, what are we going to do?” Sonny, the club’s long-standing treasurer, asked. “That little dip in income is costing us a large decrease.”

Razor glanced over at Ryker. “How did you find out about this?”

“I went on a run with him. We carried five kilos each to Torch and he only dropped four. Torch confirmed it when I asked him. Said he’d only brought four in for the past three runs. So I followed him. I wanted to know what the fuck he was doing with the missing kilo.”

He nodded. “I’ll handle it. Is there any other business to discuss?”

Ryker stared at his father. “You’ll handle it?”

Razor arched an eyebrow at him. Questioning him in front of everyone was a bad idea. He knew that in the back of his mind, but the words slipped out of his mouth before he could stop them. He knew his father wasn’t going to do anything. There wasn’t another member in the club that was quite the lap dog for him like Ghost.

“I’ll handle it.” He glanced around the table. “Sonny, pay everyone and let’s get the fuck out of here. I need to ride.”

They divvied up their money for the week and dispersed. Ryker pocketed his phone and glanced over at Vampire, who simply stared back at him. It had gone just about how he’d expected it to. The club was starting to grow concerned about the leadership. If his father kept doing shady stuff, he’d get kicked off his throne.

Ghost entered the club with a fucking smile on his face. “What’s up, fuckers?”

He slapped Superman on the back and Ryker nearly laughed when his friend reared back to slug the idiot. Ghost backed off and walked around him, heading straight to the bar for a drink.

“Where are the bitches tonight? I need to get laid.” He poured himself a scotch and turned toward the rest of the club.

Razor pulled out his gun and cocked it. “Have you been trading one brick of coke for guns behind the club’s back?”

Ghost stopped drinking and set his glass aside. “Where did you hear that from?”

“Answer the question.” Razor put the gun in the small of his back and pulled his knife next.

Ryker stared at his old man, knowing exactly what that move meant. Razor always carried a gun, but when he meant business, he used a knife and it was gory. The club members hung back and watched, fascinated that his father was actually going to do something for once.

“I didn’t do anything.” Ghost slipped from the stool and grabbed the gun at his back to point at Razor. “Back off, man.”

Razor kept moving forward. “Or what? You shoot me, any one of my brothers behind me will kill you next.”

Ghost’s hand shook. “Not all of them. Some are more loyal to me than you.”

Razor gave him a deadly smile. “Yeah? Which ones?”

He glanced around the room, desperately looking for someone to stand up for him. When nobody did, Razor taunted him. “What? No one stepping up for you, Ghost? Maybe they don’t like you screwing them over. Or maybe they just got tired of hearing your fucking mouth.”

“I didn’t do nothing.” Ghost pointed the gun at Razor. “And if you come near me with that thing, I’ll blow your fucking brains out.”

Razor ran his finger along the blade, caressing it like he would a lover. “I trusted you, Ghost. I trusted you to have the club’s best interest at all times. But you betrayed me. You betrayed the club. You stole from us for your own fucking gain and there is a price to pay for it.”

Watching, Ryker thought about what his father said. A price to pay for leaving the club. It was rare that a member left the Roaming Devils. Once they let someone in, they were a lifer. You lived, breathed, and died a club member. If someone wronged the club, death came a little sooner for them.

Ryker watched as his father pounced, grabbing Ghost by the neck before he could shoot off any rounds. The struggle forced him to drop the gun and Razor took the leverage to slide the blade along Ghost’s carotid artery. Blood spilled out of the man’s neck and down his father’s arm, pooling at their feet as his body went limp. He always had to be fucking gory and now was no different. He dropped Ghost’s body, watching with coldness as he bled out on the floor. He kicked the bastard for good measure and glanced down at himself.

“Somebody clean this up.” He looked up and met Ryker’s eyes. “Looks like we need to vote a new VP in.”

Ryker knew what he was thinking and it was one hell of a way to move up in rank. His father wanted him at his side, ruling the table with him. He’d done it with his grandfather and it only seemed natural that Ryker would do it beside his father. Shit, he didn’t know what to think about it. The idea hadn’t even crossed his mind when he’d discovered Ghost’s secret. He just wanted the dickhead gone.

“We’ll vote tonight,” Razor said, walking toward the back. “I need to get cleaned up and I’m taking a ride. Everyone needs to meet around ten. We’ll have the vote then.”

With that, the crowd dispersed and the prospects got the job of cleaning up the mess. Vampire walked over to him. “I guess that went a little different than you’d thought.”

Ryker blew out a breath. “Mayhem at its finest.”

He didn’t know where he stood on everyone’s list for VP but he sure as hell knew that when somebody new took over a rank, it took a while for the members to get used to the authority. Who the hell was he going to have to kiss ass with now?