Hawke (2 page)

He started the Harley and looped it around the car. I couldn’t see Helinsky anymore. All the guys had crowded around him, fixedly watching whoever was grunting and pummelling him.

It didn’t take me long to realize he would be dead.

Hawke had a police officer murdered in broad daylight.

Tyler

The problem with Hawke was you never knew what was going on inside his head. He could be smiling at you, laughing and enjoying a meal, never making you realize that he was also absorbed in his own head and plotting.

I’d catch it sometimes, that robotic smile and the faraway look in his eye.

He was currently giving me that look as we ate with my new ham sandwich at the biker owned deli. I didn’t mind it, though, because I was barely eating and locked inside my head too. He had also made the kitchen wrap ice in a cloth, and I was currently pressing it against my eye.

“You okay?” he asked me sometime later, catching on that I hadn’t eaten.

I turned my focus to him as he leaned back in his chair, his gaze soft as he studied me with a comforting smile. He’d gotten so tanned during the summer, and it complimented his short dark hair and made his cheekbones all the more pronounced. I liked to compare Hawke to a dark prince in a fairy tale; the bad seed luring you in with his devilishly sexy smile and deep voice. He had a way of making you feel normal in the chaos, like this reality wasn’t archaic and filthy in nature, though deep inside you knew it was.

Usually I fell into that look on his face, but right now…I was petrified of something.

“Tyler,” he pressed, his voice firmer.

“I peeked,” I whispered to him.

His smile faded. “I told you to shut your eyes.”

“Yeah, well, I peeked.”

“And?”

“And you struck him with your helmet.”

“And then?”

“Then I shut my eyes.”

He nodded slowly. “I shouldn’t have done that with you around. I could have let the boys take care of him but…”

“But what?”

He looked at me with a furrowed brow. “Your dad told me to look after you.”

He stopped there, using a sentence under ten words to describe why he did what he did. I could tell he was done talking about it.

“He was a police officer,” I said. “You have a rule in the club, and that’s never to kill a police officer. That’s a shit storm –”

“I know about my rules, Tyler. Don’t reiterate them to me.”

I dug my fingers into my sandwich, feeling all kinds of confused. It didn’t make sense for him to do something so impulsive and stupid. This was a plotting man, and he’d effortlessly manoeuvred through worse situations than that.

A pretty blonde waitress stopped by, gathering our empty glasses and smiling at Hawke.

“You need anything, Hawke?” she asked him sweetly, and I knew by the tone in her voice it wasn’t about the food.

He looked at her for longer than a pause. “Like what?” he responded harshly. “You tryin’ to offer me your cunt while I’m sittin’ here with a bruised up girl?”

Her smile faded. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t tell her it was okay like he usually would. Hawke was sweet to women, but this time…he was furious. He stared at her hard and waited for her to leave. When she got the message, she hurried off, looking mortified.

My brows came together. Something was very wrong.

And then it occurred to me…

“Cockroach said you’re going to prison,” I blurted out, blinking back the emotion behind my eyes.

Hawke didn’t reply.

“Are you going to prison, Hawke? Is that why you stopped caring?”

He rubbed at the scruff on his face and sighed. “Honestly, Tyler, prison is made for people like me.”

“People like what?”

“You know what kind of person I am.”

“You’re a good person.”

His eyes twinkled with amusement. “Good?”

“You helped me when Dad died.”

“He died exactly a year ago today.”

I swallowed thickly and nodded.

“And that’s why you were alone today.”

“Yeah,” I barely pushed out.

He nodded once, and his face went flat. “I’m sorry you went through that, Tyler.”

“It’s not your fault. Cowards did him in when he was alone, and now I’m scared something bad will happen to you.”

“It’s not for you to worry about me going to prison. You need to worry about yourself, darlin’.”

“But is it true?”

He paused, as if debating whether to tell me or not. Then he said quietly, “There’s a warrant for my arrest. They’re on to me about somethin’.”

“Is it bad?”

“It’s not somethin’ I can get out of.”

I wiped away the tears falling from my eyes. “You’re going to go away, aren’t you? That’s why you did what you did to Cockroach, because you don’t care anymore.”

He frowned, turning his head to the entrance window, looking out in thought. “That bastard was hurting the girls, and he was lookin’ for one driving up and down that road. I would have handled him either way. But…yeah, I’m goin’ away.”

“So leave. Find a place to escape to. Run away.”

“No point runnin’. I’m tired, Tyler. I got the grim reaper looking over me, waiting. I got blood on my hands everywhere I go. Maybe…maybe this is what I need, what I
deserve
for all the things I’ve done.”

No. No. No.

I felt raw and panicked all of a sudden. This wasn’t happening. My life couldn’t endure another loss. No, my wounds were too fresh.

I sucked in a breath. “When will you be back?”

He glanced at me, a sad smile forming. “Darlin’, you’ll have grandbabies by the time I ever see daylight. Best thing you can do is forget me.”

Tyler

That night was uneventful. Hawke didn’t spend it with girls, or with his brother, or with any of the guys. It was like they had no clue about the warrant, and later I’d find out they didn’t.

He spent it alone outside the clubhouse, drinking a beer in a patio chair and staring up at the night sky. I couldn’t stay back and let him have his peace. I went to him and joined him in the empty seat beside him. He didn’t seem bothered by my presence.

“Can I have a sip?” I asked him.

He looked at me for a long moment, considering my question, and then he passed the bottle to me. I took a big swig, bigger than I should have, and it ended up going down the wrong hole. I coughed and sputtered, some of it dribbling out of my mouth.

He chuckled. “Fuckin’ hell, Tyler. Too young for this shit.”

I handed him back the beer. “Yeah, I’ll give it a go in a couple more years.”

“You’re too sweet for this poison.” He finished the bottle and threw it on the ground and suddenly laughed deep in his chest. “I’m twenty-four, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life behind bars. It’s justice in a way, isn’t it? I’m the bad guy in all of this. They’re going to paint me as the devil, and I’m gonna go to prison filled with my enemies.”

“You won’t be safe?”

“I’m a capable guy.”

My heart hurt. “Hawke –”

“This club is a ticking time bomb,” he interrupted. “It’s going to collapse one of these days, like all the others before us. I don’t know how they’re going to carry on without me looking after things, and I can’t trust they’ll keep you away from the dirty side of things. I wish you’d leave. Go to your mom or something.”

“She’ll just ignore me and I’ll spend my days alone.”

“This is fucked up, though, Tyler. Doesn’t she care you’re here and not with her?”

“No, she cares about her second daughter Tequila. Says it keeps her stomach warm.”

“That shit will kill her.”

“She’s more dead to me than Dad is.”

“Maybe she’ll change.” He couldn’t even hide his scepticism.

I looked blankly ahead. “Mr Cosway in English says we try and adapt to our surroundings and we change along with it. It’s a survival mechanism. Most change doesn’t come deliberately, but by force. Mom’s surroundings will never change. She’ll stay sitting in her fancy house Dad bought her and drink until her kidneys stop working.”

He let out another laugh, but it was dry as a bone. “When did you get so wise? You were always so carefree. Last year fucked you up, didn’t it? His death stole your innocence.”

“The cowards stole my father.” I looked down at my hands, feeling emptier than ever. “And now the law’s going to steal you.”

His lips flattened. “I would have liked to have seen you grow, Tyler. Something tells me it would have been worth watching.”

I would have liked it too. Hawke had been the spark during a really dark time in my life. I wasn’t sure I’d have functioned at all without him there to guide me. And I cared deeply for him.

“You’ve been my good little sidekick, haven’t you? Learned all there is to know about cars too, huh?”

“And how to shoot a gun,” I replied, my chest warming at the memories.

“Your father would be proud how far you’ve come in just a year,” Hawke said. “He loved you, you know that? He never said it but he did.”

“Yeah.”

He turned to the cooler beside his chair and pulled out another bottle. He was going to get roaring drunk, which was a very rare sight when it came to him. Being president, he was always in control.

It would be the first and last time I’d ever see him drink so hard.

“What do you want to do?” I asked him, trying to bring light to the conversation.

“Honestly?” he replied, craning his head up to the night sky. “I just wanna look at the stars one last time.”

Dazedly, I watched him neck bottle after bottle, until his face couldn’t hide the tension buried inside him. His chest moved slower and he curled his hands into fists, but he never reacted to whatever anger he felt just then.

Hawke was so good at bottling it in.

My heart stirred something awful. Devastation had rocked our club one year ago when my father was killed, and now it would never be the same without Hawke. I waited until he was so drunk he could barely move. Then I stood up and crawled into his lap, catching him by surprise.

“Distance, Ty,” he slurred.

“Shut up,” I retorted, resting my head against his chest, breathing him in. “Let me enjoy this, Hawke.”

He exhaled and wrapped an arm around me, and I sighed in content, shutting my eyes as he gently ran his fingers through my hair. His woodsy scent wafted into my nose, giving me comfort. It was a scent I would always associate with safety.

“You take care of yourself,” he whispered. “Ignore the club when they’re throwing parties. Don’t join in on the drugs, and don’t let any pencil dick pressure you to get into your pants, alright? I’ll order a hit on him from prison, I swear it. You save yourself until you’re ready.”

I smiled. “Don’t worry.”

Even drunk, he managed to carry me inside hours later. I remember being put down on a bed – his bed – before he meandered back out. I remember opening my eyes and watching him leave, his face grave, his body slow and tight.

I didn’t know it then, but this was the last time I would see Hawke in person for two years.

*

He got arrested the next morning by the feds and was charged with first degree murder of some gangbanger that’d caused the club grief. The evidence was circumstantial, until the murder of Helinsky suddenly surfaced, and Hawke was charged with another murder. The sad part was he might have gotten away with the first, but the evidence for Helinsky was piled so high you couldn’t look anywhere without hitting it – the one crucial bit being a video of Hawke riding away from the site Helinsky’s body was dumped in.

The process was long and gruelling, but it was shorter than most cases with prosecutors aiming for a speedy trial. It took a year and a half for it all to be over, and then he was sentenced to prison for life, no parole.

The newspapers called Hawke a murderous outlaw who lacked compassion. To the world he was a monster; a sick, vile being, and the streets were safer without him. The Warlords rose to notoriety over the case, and business had to be done quietly.

It was a rough time for me. Hector had me staying at my mother’s for most of the year just so the drug enforcement cockroaches that sat along the street out front of the clubhouse wouldn’t have surveillance of an underage girl living with a group of bikers. Hector had to keep things running clean. Deals were far and few, and the clubhouse was spotless.

Mostly, he was trying to navigate the world being president, and it didn’t come natural to him. He spent most of his time trying to figure out why Hawke had gone to prison in the first place when so many people had been on the payroll. He would soon discover someone had sold his brother out, but he never found out who.

Worse yet, Hawke wasn’t safe in prison. He was surrounded by his enemies, and Hector was stressing. He’d bought a few guards off, and they’d created reasons to put Hawke in solitary to keep him out of reach of those with murderous intent, but it was always a temporary fix. Plus, it was maddening for Hawke. Solitary confinement was a prison within a prison and it tested someone’s sanity, no matter how strong you were.

I didn’t know that the entire time Hawke was in prison, Hector was conspiring to bust him out.

Until one morning he came bursting through the door and said, “Tyler, get the fuck up. We’re going for a drive.”