Misfit (Death Dwellers MC #6) (47 page)

“Just hang in there,” Zoann said with conviction. “If Cash and Stretch are for you, you’ll get them.”

Fee intended to hang onto those words, bide her time, and wait.

The banging on the door pulled Cash from a drunken stupor. Gazing around, he couldn’t quite recall his location, until he saw the photograph of his high school graduation. He was in Houston, at his mother’s house.

The knocking came again.

“Come in,” he slurred, closing his eyes and not bothering to lift himself from bed. He left his room once a day. For breakfast. Otherwise, his mother would have his ass for not having the manners to come down to tell her good morning.

The scent of a woman’s perfume filtered through the fumes of bourbon escaping his pores. He lifted one eye, to see a gorgeous blonde looking at him with trepidation. Abby Mason, Sloane’s sister.

Or aunt. Or some fucked up shit that Cash couldn’t remember at the moment.

“What?”

She smiled but sadness glinted in her eyes. “Definitely related to Parnell.”

“Don’t fucking remind me.
You’re
the one who has willingly tied herself to him.”

“As his mistress, Cash. He won’t marry me.”

“This is your chance to run far the fuck away from that motherfucker.”

Glancing around, she relaxed a fraction when she saw the rocking chair. By the standards in which he’d grown up, his room wasn’t big, but it wasn’t small either.

“Never would’ve thought you’d have a rocking chair in your room,” she told him, pulling it near his bed.

“Dad would let Georgie come over sometimes,” he admitted. “I’d rock her to sleep on those rare occasions.”

“Perhaps, Cassandra prevented him from sending her more often.”

“Perhaps.” Cash didn’t care to hear about Georgie’s mother either. “What are you doing here, Abby?”

“Your dad sent me.” The announcement seemed to embarrass her. “He’s out of town.”

“So?”

She crossed her long legs, tanned and shapely. She wore white shorts, flip-flops, and a cami. His father was a lucky motherfucker to have a beautiful woman at his side who’d do his bidding. Cash’s beautiful woman had left him in the fucking dust.

“Jocelyn telephoned him. She’s quite concerned about you.”

“
My
mom called Parnell McCall?” She’d just as soon cut his balls off and feed them to pigs.

“Yes.”

The room spinning, he stared at the ceiling. “Dad sent you with a message?”

“He asked me to visit you on his behalf.”

“You’ve done it. Now, leave.”

The rocking chair squeaked. A moment later, Cash’s bed dipped and he opened his eyes to find Abby sitting on the edge next to him.

“For a long time I held myself responsible for Cassandra’s death,” she admitted.

“You were responsible.” He only gave a fuck because Georgie had been devastated. “We’ve cleared that up, so go.”

Silence. Not a peep, though Cash knew she remained. He glanced in her direction and found her pale. She lifted her chin.

“I’m not here to rehash that.”

“You brought it up, princess, not me. Take your fucking blinders off. My father will never marry you. Josh despises you.”

She stood. “I get that you’re upset about your breakup,” she said tightly, “but I didn’t come here for your verbal abuse. I came as a favor to your dad because I love him.”

“He loves him, too, so good fucking luck.”

“Cash McCall,” Jocelyn said with disapproval, standing somewhere behind Abby. “Don’t you dare treat a woman with such disrespect. It isn’t her fault you’re taking a break from the people you love.”

Cash lifted his head as his mother halted next to Abby. His father liked tall women. Why Georgie was so damn short, he couldn’t begin to understand. Of course, Helen Sanderson, Georgie’s maternal grandmother, was a short, old witch, perfect size to ride her fucking broom.

“Mom, we’re over. It isn’t a break. Fee wants what I can’t give to her.”

“What does Stretch want, son?” she asked, her eyes filled with understanding.

“God, I don’t know. What does it matter? I can’t…Fuck, Mom! I’m the sonofabitch. Okay? The aimless motherfucker who amused himself with two innocent people.”

Stretch’s words still burned in his brain. He’d been so right, too.

“His mother’s a bible-thumping cunt, but she’d say I was throwing stones and living in a glass house.”

“Cash, enough with the cussing and name calling,” his mother chastised. “This isn’t you.”

“This is exactly me, Mother,” he snapped, then rested his aching head on his pillow again. “They loved me anyway. I could be me. They’ve seen the worst of me and didn’t care.” Fuck this. He didn’t need to have his heart trampled again by rehashing this. He’d just remember
them
.

He swayed to a sitting position. “I’m going out.”

“You’re in no condition to go anywhere. Least of all on your bike.”

“That isn’t
my
bike,” he gritted. “My cycle’s hundreds of miles away, right the fuck where I left it.”

“You’re leaving your club?”

He squinted at the question. Was he? Would not seeing Stretch help him? Would not hearing tidbits here and there about Fee aid his recovery? Or would he become worse?

“If you are, you need
your
bike. Even when you were Nomad, you had your cycle.”

At his mother’s words, he transferred his squint to her. “What do you know about that, Mom?”

She shrugged. “Only what my son told me,” she answered. “You see, I’ve seen him in his good times and at his worst times, and I’ve never stopped loving him. I’ve never given up on him. I never thought I’d live to see the day where he gave up on himself.” She nodded to Abby. “He’s so overwhelmed he hurt someone who was just trying to help
me
when his own father is as neglectful as ever.”

Abby deserved better than his assholery. Ashamed, he thrust his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry,” he told her, wishing he could call Fee and tell her the same thing. But she’d want…Why couldn’t she understand Cash’s point-of-view?

Outlaw aside, a fucking relationship—a real, true, loving
relationship
—was new to him.

“She wants kids,” he said, his thoughts whirling from one subject to the next. “I’m still in charge of the Bobs.” He belched. “If new girls come in, they have to suck my dick so I can make sure they know how to do it.”

His mother turned beet red. “Who are Bobs?”

“Club ass.”

Abby snorted, attempting to hide her laughter. If he remembered from her time at the club when Georgie had come to get Bryn, Abby was down-to-earth and fun-loving. That made his earlier behavior all the more reprehensible. But she seemed a little defeated, even before he’d turned into King Asshole. He bet his father had something to do with it.

“The choice is yours,” his mom told him. “You can have your Bobs and your cycles and whatever, but if you aren’t willing to sacrifice and compromise, you can’t have Ophelia and Stretch.”

She said Fee’s name as if they were the best of friends, when they’d never met.

“You’ve been here almost three weeks, son. Whether it’s here or in Hortensia, it’s time you pulled yourself together.”

“You’ve been telling me the same thing for days,” he reminded her.

“I have five days before leaving for France. There are hot springs there that date back to Roman times. I have to visit it, but I can’t leave you in such a state. This is a last attempt before I cancel my trip to stay and look after you.”

His mother would do it, too. As much as she enjoyed traipsing here and there. At one time, it had been for the perfect culinary experience. Then, she’d gotten on a cultural kick. Now, it was hot springs. She loved to travel. But she loved him more.

That clicked in his head. Just because he was miserable didn’t mean his mom had to be. If he insisted she go, she’d worry herself to death and not enjoy herself. She’d been the best mother he’d allowed her to be. He could pull himself together on her behalf.

“That’s not necessary, Mom. Give me today to sober up. Tomorrow, I’m making airline reservations to go back home.”

“I’m going to call and check on you every day.”

“No, Jocelyn,” Abby inserted. “You need to de-stress. I’ll keep tabs on him. If there’s a situation, I promise you’ll be the first person I call.”

Jocelyn winked at her. “After Georgie.”

“Georgie adores Cash. Sloane would have my ass if something happened and she had to wait to find out.”

“Well.” Blushing, his mom tossed her hair over her shoulders. “We don’t want Sloane unhappy.”

Fucking incredible. Even at her age, his mom had a fucking crush on Sloane fucking Mason. The motherfucker would eat this shit up.

Shaking his head, Cash decided life was far more interesting sober. If he hadn’t been drunk off his ass, he just might’ve noticed his mother’s adoration of a certain rockstar.

Bored to fuck, Christopher walked out of the empty warehouse and allowed the heavy door to close behind him. He’d had basic fucking locks until he’d met Sloane Mason. That motherfucker schooled Christopher on the art of fucking handprints, fingerprints, and codes. Their hydros were too fucking important to leave to regular fucking combination locks, as they’d had at first.

Wondering why he hadn’t thought about fucking vault-style doors and almost air-tight security shamed Christopher.  In a few weeks, the rooms would be filled with their special plants. A raid, at this point, was un-fucking-likely, with all the good-fucking-will flowing. Still, surprises popped up out of nowhere, and they needed to be fucking prepared for the next fuck-up.

Skirting the edge of the pathway that led to the houses, Christopher glanced at the back of the clubhouse, the window to his office in particular, and considered calling Megan over so he could eat her pussy. Or at least have her suck his cock. Anything. Just as long as he had her.

He got his cellphone, intending to speed dial her. Movement from the meatshack door drew his attention. They had no jobs, so the place should be locked up, nice and tight. The building was little more than a metal shed, so Christopher hadn’t yet had the locks Pentagon-ized. Really, the entire fucking building needed to be modernized. He’d have to go through his contacts and find a contractor who wouldn’t fucking open his fucking mouth when Christopher requested a state of the art autopsy table, stainless steel counters, huge wash basins, cabinets for special tools, a couple of meat hooks, a drainage system in the floor, and special chairs to hold squirming assfucks. Shit like that made motherfuckers suspicious.

When him and Mort made improvements on the old meatshack, Big Joe had been there to make sure they stayed out of trouble. Or, if they fucking got into trouble, he’d been there to dig them out of it. At that time, Christopher found that shit a lot of fun.

Fuck, just thinking of it reminded him how fucking entertaining it had been. Now, though, it was his responsibility to take care of his brothers, so he had to stay the fuck out of prison to do that. That meant, he couldn’t get his fucking hands as dirty as he once had.

At the edge of the pathway to the meatshack, the strong scent of bleach began burning his fucking nostrils.

Fucking pussy.

Fuck, before long the smell of chlorine would nauseate him, sealing his complete and total pussification, and not the good pussifiedom like with Megan.

A cabinet slammed, and Christopher drew his nine, kicking the door open and aiming.

Mort spun around, his hands shooting up into the air and his eyes widening.

“Fuck, Mort!” Christopher growled, shoving his piece away and lighting a smoke. “I almost shot your motherfuckin’ ass off. What the fuck you doin’ in here?”

Mort scowled. “Fuck, Prez, give me a fucking chance to grab my balls out of my ass. You scared them into fucking shrinkage.”

“Fuckin’ dumb ass,” Christopher said around chuckles. “What the fuck you doin’ in here? You preppin’?”

“I’m not that lucky.” Mort sat on the stool near the shiny table, worn with scratches, knicks, and cuts. A frown creasing his face, he lit his own cigarette. “Just came in to think about the good old times.”

Hearing a fucked-up note in Mort’s voice, Christopher pulled up a second stool and nodded. “We gotta ex-fuckin-plore our contacts. See any fuckin’ outfits who fucked with us in the past that we let off the fuckin’ hook. Maybe, we can scoop one or two of them up and bring them in.”

“Yeah, Prez, I guess.”

If his suggestion didn’t cheer Mort up, then Christopher suspected something bad had happened. “What up, Mort?”

Mort thrust his fingers through his hair, the absence of his skull ring still obvious even after so many fucking months. Before Mort buried the ring with his son, he’d worn it for years. If Christopher saw how fucking bare his finger looked, he couldn’t fucking imagine how Mort felt.

“I have to talk to Bailey.” Shifting his weight and dragging on his cigarette, Mort clenched his jaw. “Or fucking not. I don’t know what the fuck to do with the information I got.”

“That why you fuckin’ came here today?” Christopher had gone to the warehouse for lack of anything to do. Sometimes, motherfuckers got what the fuck they wanted. In his case, shit working so smoothly, all he had to do was either have fucking fun or be with his family. But, fuck. He’d always
worked
. When Big Joe was alive, he’d served every role, from treasurer, to sergeant-at-arms, to enforcer, to vice president. He’d come up with ways to expand their operations by going on runs and making contacts everywhere. After the man’s death, he’d had to weed out his enemies, work out his leadership abilities, become the be-all-end-all motherfucker, and then exterminate all the club foes. “Maybe, we take a run north. I’ll talk to John Boy, Val, Digger, Cash, and Stretch, after telling Megan. Leavin’ might let you figure shit out.”

“Yeah, maybe, Prez.”

Christopher stretched out his legs and folded his arms, seeing the bleakness on Mort’s face. Whatever he had to tell his girl must’ve been pretty fucking fucked up. “Why you look so fuckin’ lost?”

“Roxy told me some shit and asked me to keep it the fuck away from Bailey.  I don’t know what the fuck to do, Prez.”

Fuck, Christopher was right with Mort. He withheld several secrets from Megan, two of which were life altering. One secret would change her entire outlook about herself. The other would devastate her. Some shit was just better left kept in the fucking dark. “Roxy gotta have a reason for askin’ you to keep fuckin’ quiet.”

Mort closed his eyes. “Roxy sick.”

Dropping his arms, Christopher tensed at Mort’s words. “What the fuck wrong with her?

“I don’t know what the fuck it is, Prez. I just know the shit bad.”

Christopher thrust his hands through his hair. In her own way, she’d become a mother figure to him, too. “Why the fuck she left? She need to be the fuck around us. She need our fuckin’ help.”

“Prez, I tried talking to her, but she got a head like a fucking brick. Stubborn as a motherfucker.”

Christopher got his cell phone from his cut, prepared to call Roxy himself. Fuck, he’d even ride to New Orleans and pick her ass up.

Mort’s voice stopped his dialing. “No, Prez. Don’t. Please. She don’t want nobody to know.”

“Fuck.” Christopher hesitated but finally returned his phone to his pocket.

“She keep calling me and crying,” Mort continued, “begging me not to tell Bailey and to take care of her if shit don’t turn out right. If Roxanne die and Bailey didn’t spend this time with her and she find out I knew her momma was sick, she’d fucking hate me.”

“Mort, this different from the shit I’m keepin’ from Megan. If Dinah was ever sick this way, I woulda told Megan.”

“She don’t want Bailey worrying.” Mort dropped his head. “I don’t either. Bailey adore Roxy.”

Christopher didn’t want to think about Roxy being dead. Life was filled with hard shit, though. “That’s your fuckin’ answer. She adore her ma. She wanna be with her if this her last days.”

“She with her other kids and her momma. She keep telling Bailey she coming back, then always reschedule for some bullshit fucking reason. Now, she supposedly coming back at the end of the summer.”

“Accordin’ to what Roxy tellin’ Bailey?”

“Yeah, but not what the fuck she telling me. She could be dead and buried by then.”

While Christopher understood Roxy’s need to protect Bailey, he didn’t believe she was going about it the right way. Where Megan was concerned, both Traveler and her fucking ma was
already
fucked up and buried. Her knowing the truth surrounding their deaths wouldn’t change a fucking thing. “I’ma have Riley see what the fuck he can find out before you talk to Bailey, brother.”

“Me and Roxy didn’t start off on the best of terms, but I really care about her. She one tough bitch and to hear her cry like she been doing. Prez, that’s just tearing me the fuck up.”

“I know. Fuck, watchin’ the way Fee had been mopin’ and cryin’ for fuckin’ days tore me and Zoann up.”

A guilty look crossed Mort’s features. It had been almost a month since Megan brought Fee home with Mort at their side. As usual, Mort knew what the fuck was going on, but the motherfucker protected Megan as much as he protected Kendall. Unless threatened with death, he’d keep their secrets. Christopher respected him for that. If he were ever killed, Megan would be safe.

Who the fuck was he kidding? Johnnie wouldn’t let another motherfucker near Megan, if something happened to Christopher. He’d want to do it all. He might even destroy his marriage in his quest to care for Megan. That was kind of fucked up, but to Christopher, his brother was still…
lost
. Until Kendall found her happiness, Johnnie would search for his.

Another reason for Christopher to fucking hate that bitch, when he had more than e-fuckin-nuff already. He didn’t know how fucking much was need on both their parts, and how fucking much was really love. Sometimes, he felt if Kendall really fucking loved Johnnie she’d sit the fuck down and fucking
listen
. Other times, he felt she had some type of fucked up glitch that kept her unhappy, unless she was fucking
unhappy
. What the fuck ever it was,
she
was the reason for Johnnie’s demeanor. He seemed so alone, more so than he’d been before he’d met Kendall and had only mourned the loss of Megan, not been so fucking stupidly bitter over it.
That
hostility led Johnnie to hand his fucking nuts over to Kendall, in the misguided belief that giving Kendall
her
way would aid
his
happiness.

He flicked his cigarette on the concrete and crushed it beneath his boot, then rubbed his eyes. “Think I should fuck-up Kendall?”

“John Boy love Red, Prez. I know she hard to handle, especially now being pregnant again.”

Fuck, he’d forgotten about that. “I ain’t meanin’ now. I mean once she get his kid outta her. Johnnie so fuckin’ unhappy.”

“Killing Red the way to make him happy? C’mon, brother, you know that would never happen. He’d grieve to death.”

“He love her that much? He just seem so fucking…”

“Red difficult,” Mort admitted. “We all know this, but trust me when I say she who Johnnie want. You think he’d keep making babies in her if he didn’t? Johnnie would be fucking everything under the sun. She
left
and broke his fucking heart, and he still took her back. I know what you saying. I see how fucking alone he look sometimes, but he love her and she love him. You take her out, and you’ll ruin him, Prez.”

“Fuck you, motherfucker,” Christopher sniggered. “Ruinin’ my fuckin’ parade.”

Mort gave a half-fucking-hearted smile. “Quoting Roxanne, huh, brother?”

“Yeah, Mort.”

“Suppose she die? I swear, I’ll be so fucking mad with her. Coming over here, making us motherfuckers care about her.”

“We don’t even know what the fuck wrong with her.” Christopher refused to contemplate a dead Roxanne or how that would affect Bailey. “Let me find out what’s goin’ on.”

Mort fell silent, then sighed again. “You sure Meggie girl not the reason you want to take Red out?”