Raw: The Ultimate Mc Collection (137 page)

When I walked back into the bedroom of my penthouse suite, I saw the remnants of last night’s party.  Empty bottles of beer, wine, and whiskey, and sprinkles of weed littered the tables.  The bed sheets were tangled and thrown on the carpeted floor, amongst discarded condoms and panties.  

My phone rang and it took me several moments to find it amongst all the litter.  When I finally did, I groaned when I saw it was Sam.  I hit the reject button and within thirty seconds a text showed up on my phone.  “The bus will pick you up in one hour.  Please confirm receipt.”  Poor Sam.  I knew I drove her crazy, but she was paid good money to tolerate me.

I confirmed so she wouldn’t pull all her hair out wondering if I had actually woken up this morning, and hopped in the shower.  Once I was finished and dressed, I wandered into the plush living room and sank down onto the silk white couch.  

I had a few minutes before I had to leave, and my eyes trailed around the room.  That’s when I saw the note taped to the inside of the front door.  With each step closer to the door, the knot in my stomach tightened.  I didn’t want to read it.  I knew what it was, and I wanted no part of it.  But I had to.

My dearest Jett,

You are a whore. But I can’t stop loving you. 

Someday, you’ll be with me, and you’ll be clean again.

All my love,

Jack

CHAPTER TWO

COLT

I untangled myself from the blonde whose long limbs  were wrapped around my legs.  Sarah moaned, slowly coming back to life next to me as I stood up and pulled my jeans over my hips. The sound of her whimpering when she realized I was leaving grated on my nerves.

“Gotta go.  Sorry.”

She mumbled something incoherent as I dragged my shirt over my head, and ran my fingers through my hair.  I leaned down, kissing her forehead quickly, before she could pull me back down into bed with her.  She was one of those that liked it in the morning, but I had way too much club shit to take care of today, and no time for women like Sarah during my daytime hours.

No, that was strictly a nighttime thing for me.  Something to do when the long stretch of hours between dusk and dawn became a little too much to bear.  It was a distraction, and perhaps, an addiction.  They say you trade one addiction for another, and maybe that’s what I had done.  But, since I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol or even a puff of weed in over five years, I cut myself a break on the sex.  It helped me sleep.

I threw on my cut and walked out of Sarah’s apartment, laughing to myself that any other man would have taken the time to sink into Sarah one more time before leaving, no matter how much work they had to do.  But I wasn’t just any man, and my work wasn’t just any work.

As the VP of The Loyal Bastards MC, I had people to answer to, and important, time-sensitive business to attend to.  The MC had been the most important thing in my life since I joined five years ago.  They were my family, my brothers.  A loyal group of strong, intelligent, fearless men that I could count on having my back at any time and in any situation.  The danger didn’t matter when we faced it as a club.  Together, we were stronger, smarter, invincible, and unbreakable.  

The darkness we faced on a daily basis was nothing compared to the danger I faced in the pen.  On the outside, I was a man.  Inside, I was just a number.  The fact that I possessed a soul was irrelevant.  I was just a warm body that they needed to keep docile and alive.  That’s all they cared about, if they cared about anything.  The prison system is a cruel, unforgiving, inhumane thing to endure, and once I got out, I swore I’d never go back.

It was ironic that I found sanctuary in the club, I know that. Especially considering the shit that went down all around us, but we benefited greatly from the combined experience of our varied pasts, our relationships with the local cops and even the other gangs, and somehow it worked.  We didn’t keep our noses clean, but we were skilled enough to stay out of jail.  We operated just enough under the radar that we managed to stay free.  

Today was no exception.  A deal was going down in an abandoned warehouse on the south side of town, and we had been asked to help with ensuring everything ran smoothly.  I raced home to shower and change before I went to the club.  

When I walked into my apartment, I was reminded of just how lonely and non-existent my life outside of the club was.  I devoured a bowl of cereal, showered, dressed, and I was back on my bike in half an hour.  I didn’t spend much time at home at all, not if I could help it.  Being alone made my mind wander too much, and as they say, idle hands are the devil’s workshop.

I had had enough of the devil in my life.  

Staying sober was still a struggle, even now, but I was determined not to fall back into the same destructive patterns that landed me behind bars all those years ago.  As much as I tried to think of something else, as I rode through town on my way back to the clubhouse, the past swept over me in painful, regretful waves.

I was only thirteen, but I felt decades older at the time.  I was young, stupid and reckless, but growing up with drunken, drugged up parents tended to force you to mature faster.  And I had my younger sister, Ciara, to take care of, because nobody else would.  In the end, I even failed at that.  

I thought I was doing the right thing.  My parents were miserable at feeding us, our refrigerator was barren once again, and I had had enough of listening to Ciara’s stomach growl.  I had a few of my passed-out father’s beers for ‘courage’, I told myself.  I drove our barely running Ford truck to the corner gas station.  I was feeling so confident, so sure of myself, invincible, even.  I even took the time to put the gas nozzle in the tank, and let it fill up while I went inside the store.  Once I was in, I used my outstretched finger hiding in my coat pocket to pretend I had a gun.  That was all I had to do to get the clerk to give me all the money in the till.  I’ll never forget how violently his hands were shaking as I smirked at him while he handed me fistfuls of crumbled cash.  I took the money and strolled out like I had the biggest cock on the block and all the time in the world. 

The first shot ricocheted off the door frame, the loud ping echoing in my head.  When I realized the clerk was shooting at me, I ran to the truck, jumped in, threw it into gear and peeled out of there in a whirlwind of burning rubber and loose cash flying out of my window.  I was trying to catch it all.  I was laughing.  I was thinking about how awesome it was that I got away with it.  I was imagining the look on Ciara’s face when I came home with some thick, juicy steaks.

And then, everything exploded behind me, and my life exploded right along with the gas station.   When I drove away, I had forgotten that the gas nozzle was still in my tank.  The cops figured the sparks from the gunshots ignited the spilled gas and everything went up in a huge ball of flames.  

Miraculously, nobody died.  But a bunch of people were burned and hit by flying debris.  There were several witnesses and although I made it home, the cops were on my doorstep in hours.  

I spent five years in Juvie, and when I turned eighteen, the prosecuting attorney decided he still had a hard-on for the poor boy from the wrong side of the tracks, and coupled with the fact that my nose was far from clean while I was locked up, I ended up continuing my sentence with the big boys. 

Prison is a whole lot different than Juvie, and after a few years there, I realized it was time to stop fucking up.  If I had been the model prisoner from the beginning, I would have been out after those first five years.  But instead, because I was stubborn and stupid, it took me another five before I tasted freedom.

And, damn, did it taste good.  My life was good now.  I joined the club right away, after meeting Rusty in a run-down bar, ascended the ranks with heart and loyalty, and now I was the second in charge.  Being the VP had its perks, but it was an intense job.  The brotherhood made up for it all. 

When I arrived at the Bastard’s clubhouse, I took a slow, grateful look around at my second home.  Hell, it was really my first home.  The apartment was just a place to sleep.  

Low-slung, shiny black Harley’s were parked haphazardly around the lot, and several brothers were gathered around one in the back trying to figure out what was wrong with it.  They waved and hollered in greeting and I shouted over to them.

“Hey buddies!  Meeting in twenty minutes, okay?”

“You got it, Colt!”

I turned to walk into the clubhouse and my cell phone buzzed in my pocket.  I didn’t recognize the number, but I answered anyway.

“Yeah?”

“Hey stranger,” a low, breathy voice rasped.  “It’s Jett.”

“Jett!”  I exclaimed, reeling with the memories that flooded my mind.  Jett, Ciara’s best friend.  Jett, my first crush. I hadn’t heard her voice since I went away fifteen years ago, and I never expected to hear it again, no matter how much I hoped our paths would cross again someday.  I had thought about her every fucking day, and here she was.

“How the fuck are you, girl?  Last I heard, you’d run off and become some crazy rockstar!”

“I’m bad, Colt.  I’m real bad.  I need your help.”

CHAPTER THREE

CRAZY JACK

She would be out soon.  I would watch from my car, make sure she got on the bus okay, and then I would go home for a little while.  

It was my job to make sure she was safe.  It was my job to make sure she was clean.

She wasn’t clean.

Especially not after last night.  She was just lost.  I could save her, if only she would let me, if only I could get a little closer to her.  If only she wasn’t afraid of me.

She had done so much for me, and she didn’t even know it.  All those years they made me kill people in the Army, she was there with me, whispering in my ear, telling me she loved me, soothing me with her songs while I laid in my bunk and cried myself to sleep every night.

She was the only person I could talk to.  The only one that listened.  

Now that I didn’t have to kill people anymore, now that they finally sent me home, she was the only thing I wanted.

I would do anything to get close to her.  I just needed to be patient, and eventually, she would be all mine.

The doorman opened the front door of the Four Seasons, and my heart began racing when I saw her emerge.  I grabbed my binoculars, peering through them until I had her in my sight.  I knew she had to have seen my note, but with the huge sunglasses she was wearing, I couldn’t see the look in her eyes like I had hoped.  Her eyes were my favorite part of her body, and she constantly insisted upon covering them up, depriving me of my most treasured pleasure.

Quickly, she disappeared into her shiny red tour bus, and I sighed with deep disappointment as I placed the binoculars on top of the black leather jacket on the seat beside me.

CHAPTER FOUR

JETT

The bus was my only real home.  

I spent so much time on the road, I didn’t bother to keep some big house in Los Angeles, or an apartment in New York.  It always seemed wasteful to me.  Why buy a huge home that was just going to sit there empty?  Why pay gardeners and housekeepers and pool boys to take care of a place that I never had an opportunity to spend time at?  It’s not like I had a family to provide a roof for.  I was alone.  Just like I always had been.

Alone, in a sea of people orbiting my every move.  

Once, a few years ago, I had bought a secluded little cabin in the woods outside of Portland, in a tiny town called Rhododendron.  By some miracle, I had found myself with a few days off, and decided I wanted to going skiing.  I had never been, and I rented a cabin smack dab in the middle of the forest in the foothills of Mt. Hood.  I spent one blissful weekend there, and after learning the riverfront cabin was for sale, I bought it on a whim.  

My big plan was to come back several times a year, get away from everyone, get away from my life, sit by the river and just unwind, spend some time in nature.

I hadn’t been back once.  

It was pathetic. I was pathetic.

You’d think by now, I would have found a way to put my foot down, to tell my manager and the record label that I needed time off, but every time I complained about it, they just pressed harder.  My protests were met with guilt trips about all the people we employed when we were on tour, the families that depended on us, and all the promotion that we were contracted to do for the new album.  And the album after that.  Which meant we would have to tour again to promote that one.  And on and on.

It was an endless cycle, an endless circus, and I was the main attraction.  And what did I attract?  Greedy industry freaks.  Crazies.  Stalkers.  Fanatics.