Hard Corps (Selected Sinners MC #7) (7 page)

CHAPTER TEN

Fall 2012, Wichita, Kansas, USA

I sat across the street from the coffee shop and watched as Suzanne pulled in, walked inside, and met Steve with a hug. After a few minutes of sitting and drinking coffee, they stood, hugged again, and went their separate ways.

Certainly nothing that would have alarmed me in the past, but considering the input from my brothers in the MC, I decided their meeting warranted a slightly more in-depth investigation. Still sitting in the adjacent parking lot on my motorcycle, I pulled my cell phone out and dialed Suzanne’s number. 

“Hey, Babe, where are you?” I asked.

“On my way home,” she responded.

“I just stopped at the gas station. Want to get a coffee?” I asked.

“Actually, I’m pulling into the drive now, I’d have to turn around,” she said.

That’s a lie, you’re two miles from the house.

“Alright, I’ll be there in a bit. What’s for dinner?” I asked.

“I was going to make burgers,” she said.

“Sounds good, see you in a bit,” I said.

“Okay, love you,” she said.

“Love you, too,” I said.

I hung up the phone, pushed it into my pocket, and sat on the seat of my bike staring blankly toward the western sky. As the late fall sun came to a rest along the horizon, I started my bike and took the short ride home.

They were the longest two miles of my life.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Fall 2012, Wichita, Kansas, USA

I wiped my hands on my napkin, reached for my glass of tea, and took a slow drink as I studied her. I didn’t want to believe anything had changed while I was away, and I still hoped it had not, but I was prepared to find out. I needed to have her full attention when I spoke to her, so my manner of questioning her needed to be more formal than informal.

“Suzanne, we need to talk,” I said.

“Okay,” she said as she looked up from her plate.

I pressed my elbows onto the table and rested my chin in my hands. “So, while I was gone, did you and Steve ever become more than friends?”

Her eyes shifted downward slightly. “No.”

Bad question. Lead her into it Jacob, just like an interrogation.

“Explain your most intimate encounter with Steve,” I said.

“What? Why?” she asked.

“Some of the guys I ride with said they’ve been seeing you two together a lot,” I said flatly.

“We’re friends,” she responded.

I nodded my head. “I realize that. Entertain me. Explain your most intimate encounter with him.”

“I can’t believe you’re asking me this,” she said.

“Well, I am,” I responded.

“Our most intimate encounter,” she said.

“Well, you know, we met for coffee, and we met for dinner, just to talk while you were gone. He comforted me, Alec. He’s a great friend to us both. Uhhm, I’d say,” she paused, and her eyes immediately darted to my left side and slightly upward.

“Well, we hugged on several occasions, and he kissed me several times, but not kissed me, kissed me. You know, on the cheek,” she said.

She’s lying.

“What did he typically wear?” I asked.

“Wear?” she asked.

“Yes. What did he wear? You know, typically.” I asked.

“That’s a weird question,” she said.

Her eyes shifted to my right and upward. “Normally he wore his scrubs, but sometimes he wore jeans and a tee shirt. Mostly his boots. I can’t believe you’re asking me this.”

Well, that was truthful, at least.

I didn’t know to what degree they had been intimate, or if they even had, but I did know she was lying about their intimacy. To what degree she was lying would be hard to tell. As I sat and studied the woman I absolutely adored, my blood pressure increased with each tick of the second hand on my watch.

“He ever stick his cock in your mouth?” I asked.

She glared at me and her mouth went agape. “I can’t believe you asked me that.”

“And I’m not surprised you didn’t answer,” I said as I stood.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked as she stood and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“You lied to me,” I said.

“What? Lied to you? I can’t believe…” she began.

“Suzanne, you know that I’ve been trained to interrogate people, right? You realize I can tell when you lie? When I asked what was your most intimate encounter, you made up everything you said. You lied. Now, I’ll ask you one more time, have you ever had his fucking cock in your mouth?” I asked in what she had always described as my
mean voice
.

And she began to cry.

“Please don’t do anything to him,” she said as she began to sob.

“God fucking damn. Did you fuck him?” I asked.

Her eyes fell to the floor. “Please, don’t do anything to him.”

I couldn’t believe it. I could almost dismiss it if she had fucked some random stranger one night in a hotel while I was gone. But to fuck my best friend, and while I was fighting for the same freedoms that let her be the independent woman that she was…

As my head began to spin and my mind immediately went to violence as a means of resolve, I mentally admitted I had been gone for twelve years on and off, and I fully understood the time I was away had to be extremely tough on her. I needed to be understanding of the difficulties she went through, not quick to condemn or react.

“Alright, listen. Whatever happened, happened. It’s over. Never again. We can get through this. We can,” I said, more in an effort to reassure myself than to reassure her.

I folded my arms in front of my chest and gazed down at the floor. As she continued to cry, I provided no comfort, only serious thought on the matter before us. As I shifted my eyes up toward her face, I had very little sympathy for how she felt. I was sure I felt worse, for many reasons.

“Do you love me?” I asked.

“With all my heart,” she blubbered.

“Well, that’s all we need. We’ll make this work. I’ll talk to him…”

“Don’t hurt him,” she begged.

“I’ll talk to him, that’s all. But you are
done
seeing him, meeting with him, everything,” I said sternly.

“Do you understand me?” I asked.

She nodded her head.

I inhaled a deep breath and cocked one eyebrow.

She continued to sob. “Yes…Yes, I…I understand.”

“No dinner, no coffee, no secret meetings, no
nothing
,” I said.

“Okay,” she murmured.

That night, as I stared up at the ceiling of our bedroom, I wondered just how separated from me she had become in the twelve years I was at war. Regardless, I convinced myself we could get through it. Because in the end, I still loved her.

And love was the most powerful thing in my arsenal.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Fall 2012, Wichita, Kansas, USA

Two weeks after my discussion with Suzanne, she called me stating she was going to be late from work, and explained that she was on her way to get something to eat. As we spoke on the phone, I recognized the music in the background as being Steve’s favorite indie rock artist,
The Weeks
. Knowing Suzanne’s car didn’t have satellite radio, and that local stations didn’t play that particular artist, I questioned her as to whether or not she was with Steve at the time.

An
oh my God, he knows we’re together
whisper followed, and that was all it took.

I regretted being as considerate as I had been regarding her relationship with Steve. I felt used, cheated, betrayed, and alone. After completely losing my composure in the telephone conversation, I warned her to never come back to the house we had lived in.

After gathering my weapon, sat loading the magazines with bullets. With each round of ammunition, my mind went to thoughts of each of them, and what I felt they had taken from me.

I pressed another round into the half-filled magazine.

This one is for the day I carried you from the treehouse with the broken arm.

With my jaw clenched and my mind wandering to thoughts of what I perceived to be justice, I pressed another round into the magazine.

This one is for believing you were the woman I could spend the rest of my life with.

I grabbed another bullet from the box.

For allowing you to call me a true brother. You’re no brother of mine.

And another.

Teaching you something I truly loved, how to ride a motorcycle. I’ll make sure you’ll never ride another.

And another.

For sharing something as sacred to me as sex with you.

I grabbed another round and pressed against the bullet in the top of the magazine. Incapable of pressing the bullet into the device, I stared down at the rifle magazine. It was clearly completely full.

But I had many more reasons for detesting each of them for deceiving me.

Armed with my rifle, ammunition, knife, and a carton of cigarettes, I drove to his home and parked in the street across from his residence. I sat and blankly stared at her car as my level of anger slowly rose to a point of being unhealthy.

No one is worth your sanity, Jacob. Just walk away.

I had sent a text message to her and to him, and left them both voicemail messages. In the texts messages and in the voicemail, I explained that if I saw either of them through an open window, I would kill them. I further warned if any police arrived, I would kill them, and that the blood of the officers would be on Steve’s hands, as calling the police would be his choice.

Now in the middle of a waiting game, I recalled a lifetime of friendship Steve and I shared, and not only how we used to do everything together, but how he considered joining the Marine Corps with me.

I tossed my cigarette butt out the window and onto the pavement, alongside the other two dozen just like it. I checked the rearview mirror as a car drove past, and blew the smoke out the window and into the night air.

Our friendship, even as children, seemed to be a lie. Everything we had learned, experienced, and shared led to the event that had me sitting at his home with a rifle, ready to kill him at first sight.

I lit another cigarette and studied the home. All of the windows in the front of the house were in my view, and were dark. The interior lights were now off, and had been for some time, but I had my doubts the two occupants were sleeping. After having sat and quietly waited for either of them to show their faces in a window for over eight hours, I was tired of the aggravation that was building inside of me.

I chuckled to myself, knowing I had not only the knowledge – but the ability – to enter the home, kill them both, and leave without so much as a trace. I took a long drag from my cigarette and considered why I had chosen not to.

I exhaled the smoke, tossed the butt out the window, and stared down at the pile of cigarette butts. It was apparent I had no intention of killing them. I had a habit, not unlike many combat Marines, of policing my cigarette butts, leaving no trace of my existence and no DNA.

The littered street was proof that subconsciously I had not only let go of Suzanne, but that I had not intended to harm them, only to express my inner anger and disappointment in what I felt they had done to me.

Controlling a person’s love, I decided, was impossible. If a woman could fall in love with me, who was to say she couldn’t fall in love with someone else? It was quite possible she had actually fallen in love with Steve, and if that was the case, for me to stand between them would be selfish, shallow, and no better of an act than what they had done to me and my marriage.

I reached over, picked up my phone, and sent a text message to them both.

I’m filing for divorce in the morning. Enjoy your lives together. I will not harm you as long as you never intentionally cross my path.

I pressed send, lit another cigarette, and gazed down at the proof of my existence. As I laughed to myself as to what they must have been feeling, I pulled away, knowing my future life would be an interesting one. At least, I decided, I would have the ability to move about the earth freely.

I realized I would always have to return to Wichita to see my father, but I had serious doubts I would be able to stay, considering all things. As large as the city was in population, it was still reminiscent of a small town, and I knew myself all too well.

Killing my former best friend and ex-wife wasn’t something I really wanted to do.

At least not unless I had to.