Lucien's War (16 page)

“We
really had planned on telling you everything yesterday, but then you dropped
the baby bombshell, and we obviously didn’t think that saying we were in a …
relationship … or whatever it is we are in, was the best thing at the moment.”

She
had never been in this kind of situation with her father before, and she hated
it. Callie had the best relationship with him, had always been comfortable with
being honest with anything she had going on, but with this she hadn’t said a
thing, and because of that she had lost his trust and earned his
disappointment.

“Motherfucking
hell.”

“Kink,”
Cookie gritted out, and Callie knew that the only person that could possibly,
maybe, get through to her dad and have him seeing that this was her life and
her decision was his old lady.

He
turned from them, ran his hand through his black hair, and messed up the short
strands. The fact he was pacing told Callie that he was irritated, on edge, and
that nothing would probably get solved or worked out today. And then he stopped
and looked at her, his face a mask of indifference, and struggle.

“I
can’t talk about this right now, because I want to hate Lucien, want to go to
the club and beat his fucking ass again. He’s my club President, the man I look
at as a brother, and what he did with you,
is
doing with you…” He shook his head. “It goes against everything the club stands
for. He knows better than to be with you, Callie. You’re too young for him.” He
ground his teeth, his jaw getting hard from his rage. “He’s old enough to be
your damn father.” He looked disgusted at the thought, and she was so mad at
that comment that she knew she couldn’t stay quiet.

“Dad,
you have no room to talk. Cookie is only a few years older than me, and you’re
as old as Lucien. Did you care what anyone thought?” She didn’t wait for him to
respond. “No, because you love her, and isn’t that what matters?”

He
still didn’t respond, and when he cursed low and long, and stared between her
and Cookie, Callie knew he wasn’t going to see her side just yet.

“This
is fucked up, and I can’t be here right now. I’m not just going to let it be
okay, Callie. I can’t. I don’t know if I ever can be.” He grabbed his keys off
the counter, and walked past them.

Callie
was going to go after him, but Cookie grabbed her hand and stopped her.

“No,
honey, just let him go right now. He needs to be alone.”

Callie
knew he needed sometime to process all of this, but what she worried about was
that he wasn’t leaving to be alone, but to go finish what he had started with
Lucien at the clubhouse. And the thing was, Lucien wouldn’t fight back,
wouldn’t lay a hand on Kink, and therefore would get beyond fucked up.

****

The
whole club knew by now about him and Callie, and it had only been hours since
all the shit with Kink had gone down. Lucien slammed back another drink,
breathed out through the burn, and looked around at the members that were
winding down from their run earlier this week. The members had come back from
the club run, their attitudes positive, and the back of the van filled with
guns they had traded. But when they found out what the hell had happened, this
eerie kind of tension filled the clubhouse. They hadn’t even needed to see
Lucien’s busted lip and eye, or the bruises he was sporting to know what the
hell had gone down. The prospects had filled them in. Not like they didn’t have
a right to know, but this was an inside matter, one Lucien would have liked to
tell the guys himself. But right now he didn’t care about anything aside from
getting this matter straightened out so he could be with Callie. He loved Kink
like family, but he wasn’t going to give up on Callie either. She had changed
him for the better. He could feel it inside of him, and if that meant he was in
a bad place right now with Kink, then he’d have to work through it. They would
get through this, because they were family, bonded by a vow of brotherhood that
went far beyond anything else.

And you fucked that up.

He
slammed back another shot, feeling the alcohol burn the cut on his lip.

“Hey,
man,” Cain said and slipped into the seat beside him. Lucien lifted his shot
glass to the man in response, but didn’t look at him. He tapped the bottom of
the glass on the counter to get the attention of the prospect. Once he was
refilled, he drank that one down, too.

“You’re
the first one to come talk to me. I think the others are afraid I’ll snap.”

“Well,
the prospects told us everything when the guys saw the state of the meeting
room, and noticed the tire marks on the driveway. Hell, they practically beat
the information out of them,” Cain said and started laughing. He took the beer
from the prospect, took a sip from the bottle, and then set it down. “Want to
talk about it, man?”

The
feeling of his cell vibrating had Lucien grabbing it out of the front of his
cut and staring at the screen. It was a text from Callie, and it wasn’t good.

Callie:
Tried 2 talk
2 him
…yeah, no go. He took off, and was really pissed. Not
sure if he is heading there. God, I hate this, Lucien.

Lucien:
It’s
okay, baby. I’ll make sure it’s okay. I love you.

Fuck,
he wanted to be there for her, to hold her, promise her everything would be
okay, but he couldn’t make that kind of guarantee until he straightened things
out with Kink.

“
Yo
, Lucien.
You want to talk about it?”

He
finished typing out the reply text and put his cell back in his cut. He faced
Cain so the man could see his face full on, and then stared at him right in the
eyes. “Does it look like I want to talk about it?” he said without any emotion.

Cain
lifted his hands in surrender, and then the sound of tires squealing, and of a
Harley engine rumbling, had Lucien rising. All of the other members rose as
well, and then through the clubhouse window, he saw Kink getting off his bike
and all but charging toward the front of the clubhouse.

“Shit,”
Lucien said, grabbed his shot glass, and drank down the liquor. He’d need it
for what was about to happen.

Kink
slammed open the front doors, searched around the room until he stopped his
gaze right on Lucien, and then growled out like he was some kind of animal.
Kink charged toward him, and when Lucien saw some of the members come forward,
he held his hand out. “No, let him come.”

Kink
charged forward, slammed into Lucien, and the two of them fell to the ground.
Lucien wasn’t going to fight Kink on this, because the other man had a right to
vengeance, especially since he had been wronged. What he had with Callie, what
Lucien
felt
for Callie, wasn’t wrong.
It was the rightest fucking thing on this goddamned planet, but if it were the
other way around Lucien would want to beat someone’s ass, too.

Kink
hit Lucien in the jaw, and the flavor of blood spilled across his tongue.
“You motherfucker.
You lied to me for three months.” Kink
hit him again and again, and all Lucien did was lie there and take it.

“Shit,
this is screwed up,” one of the members said, but Lucien couldn’t tell who it
was.

“Hit
me back. Fight me, Lucien.” Kink spat out, and hit him in the gut. He got off
Lucien, hauled him up by the shirt, and pushed him up against the bar. “You
have been seeing her for
two
fucking
weeks, took her home months ago without calling and telling me.” Kink cracked
his knuckles, wiped the spit from his mouth, and stared at Lucien with hatred.
“I trusted you, and you went after my baby girl, preyed on her like some kind
of fucking animal because you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants.”

Lucien
growled out, hating the fact Kink was spitting out these foul words, and
although he told himself to shut his mouth and not go after Kink, he could only
promise the latter. “Watch your damn mouth, Kink. She isn’t just a piece of ass
to me. I want her as my old lady.”

There
was chorus of hushed murmurs from the men standing by, but Lucien kept his
focus on his VP.

Kink
moved forward again, and they crashed against the bar as one entity. Glasses
shattered to the ground, spilled beer littered the floor and counter, and Kink
hit him right in the damn eye.

“Out
of all the fucking women in the world you went after one of my own.”

Lucien
went to roll out from under Kink, but the other man hit him in the right
kidney, and then moved to the left kidney. Kink grabbed him by the collar,
turned him around, and tossed him against the table. The wood fell to the
ground, and so did Lucien.

“We
need to stop this,” Tuck said.

“No,
don’t
fucking interfere,” Cain said before Lucien
could get the words out. “The
prez
said back off, and
that is what we do.”

“How
could you, Lucien?” Kink said, and although his punches were pretty fucking
powerful, his energy was waning.

“I
love you like my family, Kink, but I am in love with Callie, and I won’t let
her go,” Lucien said, blood spilling into his eyes from the cut on his forehead
and blurring his vision. “I’d kill for her, fucking
die
for her, Kink. I was in the wrong, so much in the wrong for
keeping this from you, but I can’t stay away from her. I
won’t
stay away. If you beating the shit out of me gets us back
where we were, then do it, brother, because I won’t fight you on this.”

Chapter Thirteen

Kink
stopped throwing punches at the sound of Lucien’s words. Blood was everywhere,
mainly from the President, but Kink’s knuckles were raw and spilt open, and
bleeding like a bastard. He stared at Lucien, at the man he had known for
years, would lay down his life for, and would kill for. This man had been with
him during thick or thin, and when he had needed someone to talk to, or someone
to handle business in any capacity, Lucien had been there. Kink looked around
the room, at the men that stood in a circle staring at the violence that had
erupted within their brotherhood walls. Their cuts showed their loyalty, spoke
of their determination to have a tightly knit family of men who handled
anything and everything that came their way. There were these horrified,
shocked, and confused expressions on their faces. They had seen their VP and
President going at it like enemies.

He
looked down at Lucien again, the man he had considered a brother even though
the same blood didn’t run through their veins. His blood was everywhere, and
his face beaten to shit, but he watched Kink with a hard, unbreakable
expression. Kink got off Lucien, looked down at his hands, and saw the broken,
bloody skin from punching his President.

God,
he had snapped, just let loose because he hadn’t been able to control himself.
And here was Lucien, able to handle his own against anyone and anything that
was a threat, but instead of fighting back he had taken it all. And for what,
to prove that he knew he was in the wrong and that he deserved it all? Well he
had, he had deserved all of that and more, but he had admitted to it all, taken
it like a man, and how in the hell was Kink supposed to continue beating his
ass when he just lay there surrendering?

He
held his hand out to Lucien, and after a second he grabbed it. Kink helped him
off the ground, but he didn’t want to talk about shit right now, didn’t want to
do this either. He stared at Lucien, and then turned and headed out the front
door. Once outside he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. There was the faint
smell of exhaust in the air from a car that had just driven by, the sound of
music in the distance from the prospects that had been helping repair a bike in
the garage, and the silence yet strength that was ever-present from the
clubhouse.

Reaching
inside of his cut, he cursed when he came up empty handed for some smokes.
Yeah, he had quit, which was a good thing, but right now he needed some
nicotine or even booze, or hell, a joint to help him calm the fuck down.

“Need
one of these?”

Kink
closed his eyes for a second when he heard Lucien’s voice behind him. He looked
over his shoulder, saw the other man standing by the front doors lighting a
cigarette of his own, and then he gave one short nod to the Brothers’
President. Lucien stepped closer, handed the pack to Kink, and the two of them
stood side-by-side for several seconds, neither speaking. Lucien was still
bloody, but it looked like he had taken a rag to his face and cleaned off a lot
of the blood. His lip was fucked up and split, his eye nearly swollen shut, and
the bruises were pretty fucking horrendous. Despite all of this, and the reason
Kink had come here and laid his hands on Lucien, he felt bad for making the
other man look like he had been run over by a Mack truck.

For
a few moments the only sound between them was of inhaling and exhaling. And
then Lucien took one last hit, snubbed the cigarette out on the ground, and
crossed his arms over his chest. Lucien was a big man, tall and muscular, and
matching Kink in height and weight, but there had always been this strength
that came from the leader of their club, this silence that spoke of his power.
He led their club with an iron fist, knew when to stop, and when to move
forward, and Kink had always been proud to call him a friend, a brother, and a
leader. But then all of this shit had gone down, and Kink was lost in this
limbo, not knowing how to proceed. A part of him wanted Callie to be happy, no
matter
who
she chose to be with in life. But then
another part of him said that this wasn’t okay, and how could he ever go along
with it?