If I Should Die: A Kimber S. Dawn MC Novel (10 page)

The entire weight of the club’s future, is literally on his shoulders—an albatross. You can almost physically see it hanging from his sagging shoulders. A burden...of what kind? Nothing but time will tell. And all this damn silence between the two main brothers—it’s fucking killing our club, man. Slowly but surely, it’s killing it.

“Most of the other Chapter members who aren’t acknowledging Chase’s new branch off of the club’ll be staying here.” My father’s tired voice is the only sound in the room. Not a chair squeaks, nor a man clears his throat. “Clutch knows who’s free to come and go. No one’s heard if my brother himself will be coming. I don’t know what the rally is even about. I was just asked if our charter would host, and said yes. Figured I’d get answers either way.” He shrugs before nodding towards Slim. “Hand me that whisky. No, I don’t need a fucking glass.” He waves the glass Slim tries to hand him away and grabs the bottle by the neck. Then he speaks to the rest of the room. “Stop acting skittish, guys. It’s all normal club biz. Same shit, different day.” After guzzling the contents of the bottle Slim just opened for him to the label, Pops sets it back on the steeple’s congregation table before standing then he continues pacing the same length of room.

“Jacques, anyone on your side talked to Ben?” he asks point blank without slowing his pacing, eyes still straight ahead of his steps.

“Other than he’d be stopping in Jersey first then he’d call the compound. See if it was clear to head this way. My question is, why didn’t Ringo pepper him with more questions? That’s what I don’t understand. I mean, I understand he paid for not asking. With a testicle. But what I
still
don’t understand is how a man is sent to get information and he only asks one damn question. What the fuck was he thinking?” I slam from my seat but make myself sit back down. Mainly to keep from looking like a pacing asshat like my pops.

“That issue’s been dealt with. Progress is moving forward. So onward we move. Dreads, how do you feel about security? Were you paying attention to Clutch when he gave you the rundown last night?” Pops growls in Dreads’ direction.

I like Dreads; he’s still new and only has a year under his belt with the club, but he’s already showing promise and that’s rare—prospects who show promise have been few and far between lately. Can’t trust hardly none of these motherfuckers as far as you can throw them. These days, anyway.

“I’ll vouch for ya, Dreads. He’s cool, Pops. From what I’ve seen, he’s cool.” I nod respectfully towards my father before cutting Dreads a look that says, ‘
Don’t fucking make me regret it.’
And he returns the nod, squeezing his eyes shut before mouthing, ‘Thanks, man.’

Truth is, he should be both thanking me and cursing me. This job’s not going to be easy. Hell, it’s not easy when there’s fifty of us. Add another two-hundred or more with the already uneasiness of the natives? These bitches are getting restless.

Jesus Christ. I just hope we live through this next fucking weekend.

***

Roxy has been blowing my shit up constantly. So when I step from the shower, with Stacy and Claire still in different phases of getting dressed, and neither are actually dressed and gone, it more than pisses me off.

I’m fucking livid when I step from the shower. But I can’t show it—yet. Especially stark naked and dripping wet, bare as the day I was born.

“While this morning was just as gratifying, ladies, as it was last night, if not more. I believe it’s time for you two to go.” After they both scoff and look up to assess if I’m joking, they start batting their eyelashes and whining. So, I wink at them with a smirk, and quickly blow Claire a kiss, and then I go dead motherfucking cold serious.

It’s like watching a double sided mirror flip. And it hasn’t been an easy skill for me to master, either. Going from the fun, charismatic Mr. Nice Guy all the other brothers want to hang out with and strive to imitate. Or the charming, sexy devil every woman sees and wants to love in hopes of turning. In reality, I’m nothing like that. I’m not the sweet boy my mother had when she was alive. I’m not the awkward gangly teenage boy I was before life got real. I’m a product of nature and ill-nurture. I’m the product of a fucking motorcycle club.

It’s not my fault I was born with my father’s blue eyes and devious smile, and my mother’s dark hair and skin. It’s not my fault God blessed me with this face.

So I spent a lot of time learning to harden it. A lot of time taking that boyish smile with those damn dimples, and turning it into something else. Something a little harder. A little more sinister.

It’s all in the jaw, and making your face appear as hard as stone. Just as my ice cold blue eyes. When I blink once, I then tip my head to the side, and I no longer see the two ladies that accompanied me to my room last night after a few too many drinks and few too many hits. I see prey. And they obviously sense it, as both women go silent and quietly look between each other then back to me. And once I’ve advanced towards them, slowly culling them from the bathroom and into my room, there’s no bullshit. In my tone there is no bullshit. There’s no boyish inflections accompanying my inviting demeanor. Even my body language is screaming at the two women to
fucking
run. All kidding is now set aside. And because I’ve mastered this
change
, this flip of the double-sided mirror so perfectly, I doubt the two women even had time to understand that the mood had gone off and changed as soon as I stepped from the shower and into my room, stark naked—dripping wet. And my goddamn flip phone is ringing for the twentieth fucking time and it’s not even noon.

“Out. Now. Both of you.” I keep my eyes on them, grabbing my phone from the top of a bureau, and I make no move to open it and answer. I just patiently wait for the women to excuse themselves. And when it stops ringing, I shrug. “It’ll go to voicemail or she’ll call back. Y’all got your shit?”

I yank some worn-out jeans off the last hanger in my closet before pulling them up my legs, and grab a v-neck t-shirt out of my top drawer when it dawns on me what the fuck today is.

“Shit!” I mutter under my breath as the girls are leaving. And Stacy hesitates at the door for a second as if to check on me, but I point my finger towards the exit. “I fucking said now! Go, Stace!” I yell at her. Just as my phone starts ringing again.

Clockwork. Fucking clockwork, I tell you.

I flip my phone open without even attempting to pretend I’m in a good mood. I growl when I answer. “Roxy Bell, what in the FUCK are you blowing my phone up for? We’re done. DONE. And this shit’s getting old, you’ve got to know that.” I sigh. I like Rox, I do. She’s a great fucking girl, but the older she gets, the crazier she gets. I fucking swear, man, I can’t take it.

“Jacques, I’m—” I hear the phone shuffle on the other end and roll my eyes.
Fuck, it sounds like she’s settling in. This could take a minute.

I shove my feet in my Doc Martins and lace them up halfway, then throw my cut on and grab my keys/wallet and head out the door, phone still to my ear, making my way through the living quarters of the compound, listening, or more correctly, patiently waiting for Rox to get to her fucking point.

And I’m midway through waving at some of the guys who just got in last night from Cleveland when she drops her bomb. Which I just so happen to recognize as a dud. “Jacques, I’m pregnant,” she barely whispers.

“No you’re fucking not!” I laugh, unable to contain my amusement at just how far she’ll go. “Do you think I can’t feel that fucking thing rubbing my dick every time I’m shoved up in it? And I glove up! Every time, bitch. No, you’re not. You’re not fucking pregnant. Now get off my phone.” Click. I flip my phone closed before slipping it in my back pocket and chuckling.

When Clutch comes up, he slides me a beer across the bar as his eyebrow raises. “That mine?” He nods to where I just tucked my phone away.

“Yeah, look, man. I’m sorry. I came to you. I’ve tried to talk to her.” I shrug and look the man square in his eyes. “I don’t know. And now I’m just pissed. It was cute at first. Sweet almost. But now it’s just getting tiring. Plus with all this shit?” I motion at the club around us before taking a swig of the cold beer and I damn near moan when the icy liquid slides down my throat.

“She’s nervous, Jackie boy. That’s all. Can’t fault my little girl for trying to love a man. What’d she say? I almost hate to ask. She’s been acting funny lately. Funny like her momma, and you know how crazy that bitch was just before she took off.” He shakes his head after seeming lost in his thoughts for a second then lights the cigarette that’s been hanging from his mouth since he approached me and we started talking.

“I dunno. Some shit about being pregnant.” And even though I know she’s not because I fucking cap the Captain Cock every time—bitch, every time—I give her father the respect he deserves by giving her the benefit of the doubt. “She’s not though, right? I’m pretty sure she said something earlier on about it not being—”

The man forty years my senior shakes his head before telling me exactly what I already knew. “No. Butcher took care of that. Whenever she was old enough—or whatever. My bitch-ass ex-wife at least helped with that before high tailing it out of here before Rox turned twenty. So no. She won’t be making me a grandpa prematurely.”

I guzzle the remaining beer in my bottle before standing to my full height and slapping the man on the shoulder. “That’s some good news for today, brother. Now, let’s go see what we
can
fuck up, shall we?”

I turn to the other brothers meandering around the compound; some of the prospects have already showed up and started deep cleaning for the upcoming get together. When I see Dreads delegating the unpacking of grocery bags and other shit from the trucks backed up to the three open garage doors that open from the main sitting area to the boneyard, I feel pride, but just a little bit. “It’s Saturday, brothers!” I chant. “Ready for some liquor?

“Hell yeah!” they all yell in unison. And I’m not sure if it’s because this Saturday is different and every brother standing among me knows it, or hell, maybe it’s because the mood has gone off and changed—but when they fucking shouted it, there was a shift in the air.

And I hate to say it, but it feels like something’s coming. To the point that I’ve got chills.

***

The feeling you get when you’re riding a bike is, quite bluntly, un-fucking-describable. The vibrating, the thunder as it continuously thrums through you, and the harder you push, the stronger the throttle. Meanwhile, the black asphalt is fucking flying past you, beneath your feet. It’s a goddamn beautiful thing.

But when you get ten or twenty of us motherfuckers roaring together? Brother, what? Are you fucking with me on this? Are we even on the same damn page yet? Nope. Not even close.

Motherfucker, there were upwards of one-hundred and seventy-five of us on grounds,
and that was last headcount,
when Ben’s number lit up my flip phone.

“Let the party begin.” I sigh then answer, speaking to someone I haven’t spoken to in the longest two years of my life, hoping like hell that I won’t let my pops down tonight. Because the club, my family, can’t fucking afford it.

“This’s Jacques, brother. How goes it?”

Earlier:

My father called me up to his office in the loft overlooking the steeple about an hour before most of the brothers started showing up at the club earlier that night. I knew it was important. I also knew he must’ve wanted to keep it low key if he went through the lengths of texting me to meet him here.

Texting works nicely for us younger generation, but the older ones don’t see the advantages to it just yet.

I didn’t even have to knock or speak to announce myself—Pops has always had an odd sixth sense. He’s claimed it, and I’ve witnessed it time and time again throughout my life. Now, you don’t question it.

“Come on in, Jacques.”

I coughed to announce myself anyway, before coming fully around the corner and seeing my father pretty decked out for the first time in a while.

“Pops, ya look sharp. That a new t-shirt?” I wasn’t laughing either; it was a serious question. Me and my pops don’t really joke around like we did when I was a kid. That whole older brother to kid brother thing we had going on died when he and Chase had their last falling out and Chase took off.

Then it died and wilted to shit the day I had to step up to the plate and become a VP patch holder. He never made any qualms about it either. It was just the way it was.