Underworld Champions (The MC Outlaw Series) (3 page)

“Cole.” My
step-father growls again, and I wonder what kind of President appoints a mouthy VP. His eyes land on me again.

“’If I’m an inconvenience, you could always just give me a loan and I’ll get out of here.
” I shrug, hating that I do need help. “Just ‘til I can get a job and pay you back.”

My
step-father narrows his eyes, thinking for a moment. I hope that he’s thinking about giving me some cash, so I can piss off and get on with my life. “You can stay here, and I’ll work out a way for you to earn your keep.” He digs in his pocket and hands me a key. “Next time though, use this.”

“You’re lucky nothin’ happened to you on the way here. It’s not safe for a girl wandering around out there on her own,” Cole rumbles from behind me.

“I’ll was fine. I know what cars sound like.”

“It’s not the cars you should be worried about. It’s the
bikers who don’t know you’re Prez’s daughter. They won’t waste any time trying to fuck that tight little arse of yours.”

“Cole,” my
step-father warns again.

I turn my head to Cole and look him dead in the eye. “
Step-daughter,” I insist. “And it wouldn’t be the first time. I’m used to men taking what they want from me.” The comment causes an expression I can’t quite read to flit across his features. “Thanks for the bed,” I say to my step-father, holding up the key as I meet his eyes. They’re filled with questions right now. It makes me wonder what type of an upbringing he and my mother think I had.

He grips at my wrist, pulling me a little closer toward him. “Don’t ever walk to the compound on your own again. Understand?”

“Whatever ‘Prez’,” I spit, openly mocking him.

He leans in, close to my ear and growls. “It’s
my
club. I don’t give a fuck who you are. I command respect. Understood?”

Looking up at him, I nod.

He releases my hand and turns toward the door. “Stay put. I’ve got shit to do. So we’ll talk later.”

“Goodbye princess,” Cole rumbles in my ear on the way past.

I stand there, watching as the both leave, my heart jumping wildly in my chest as Cole turns at the door and winks at me. It makes my nipples tighten.

Fuck that man’s delicious.
Clench, clench, clench.

“This is going to be sweet,” Liam whispers, licking the side of my face as he pins me against the wall.

My stomach sours, revolted by the man bearing down on me.

“Your daddy said you’re pure. Are you pure baby?” he whispers, inhaling. Scenting me.

“He doesn’t like it when I call him daddy. He wants to be called Toby,” I whisper as he leers.

He laughs as he pulls at my nightgown. I want to push him away, but I heard what my father said. He said he can have me. If he forgets his debts, he can have me…

His lips and tongue, press against my flesh, as he tastes me.

I wish Liam was an ugly man. I wish he had missing teeth and greasy hair that hung limply around his face. But he isn’t. He’s blond. His hair is cut close to his head, lean – wiry even – with a tear drop tattooed under his eye. But his breath is foul. There’s a sickly sweet smell flowing out of his mouth, turning my stomach.

Holding my breath, I watch him open his fly, slide his hand inside and pull out his bulbous looking cock. I’m nervous.

“You like lollipops, sunshine?”

A tear slides from my eye.

My eyes dart open, and it takes me a while
to realise where I am. In my mother’s house. Shit. Sitting up, I rub my eyes and shake away the dream – the nightmare born of a memory I’d prefer to forget. My father’s dealer used me so many times since that night, but that’s the time I dream of. That’s the time that haunts me. I don’t think it was because of Liam. I think it’s because that was the first time I felt utterly betrayed and unloved by Toby. He was my father. He was supposed to protect me. That night was when my hope started to die.

As I rise from the bed, the spring of the mattress groan, as if sighing – glad they don’t have to bear my weight anymore. I head over to the window and shift the thin, once white, chiffon curtain, now grey with age and the collection of dust, to look outside.

It’s still light out, and I’m still in some backwater town, staying with a mother who never really wanted me, just because I have nowhere else to go. Fuck. I feel like such a loser.

I
think about the meeting with Prez. There’s something about the way he reacted when I made a comment about being used by men. It’s made me wonder if he and my mum are actually delusional enough to think that Toby raised me right – that he’d actually given me a good and decent home. They’re fools to think that.

But mostly, I thin
k about Cole. That voice of his (actually, everything about him) makes my body come to life. So the moment he left, I went and located the first vacant room, and finger fucked myself into oblivion. I guess that was the best part of the day.

When my mother and Prez walks in, I’m sitting in the lounge room on the couch, still trying to comb through my tangled mess of hair. My clothes are hanging about the house to dry, and I’m still wearing my mother’s things.

Dropping their
helmets on the opposite couch, I see both of their eyes move as they look about the room at all the clothes drying over the doors.

“I see you’re making yourself at home,” my mother comments, her eyes landing on me in her clothing.

My own eyes rake over her. She looks good for her age, she’d have to be around forty by now and is currently dressed in a very similar way to me – jeans and a t-shirt. Although, where hers is all quite fitted, mine is all rather loose. Seems as though I’m not quite as nourished as my mother is.

“I don’t have any other clean clothes,” I reply, watching as Prez clears his throat then shrugs his broad shoulders out of his jacket. He’s older than my mother, probably in his late fifties, I’d guess. But he doesn’t have the paunch around his middle like so many men his age get. He’s still strong, tall, and well built. The only evidence to his age are the wrinkles around his dark brown eyes, and the grey that streaks through his beard and winds through his plaited hair. It’s almost as long as mine.

Without speaking,
he stalks over to the fridge and opens it, taking out three beers and twisting off the tops. I hear the ping of the metal as he drops the caps into the sink and moves back to sit in front of me. My mother sits down next to him. “We’ve ordered pizza,” he informs me, as he passes both me, and my mother, a bottle each.

“I noticed that’s the staple.” I sip from the beer, already a little affected by the first one. I haven’t eaten all day, and the alcohol is going straight to my head.

He shrugs, settling himself on the opposite couch before grabbing the remote, and flicking through the channels on the large flat screen TV on the wall.

We
all sit quietly for a while, him staring at the TV, refusing to pick a channel, my mother, fiddling with the chunky silver bracelet around her wrist, and me, curled up opposite them, still attacking my hair with a plastic comb.

“
How do we even start this?” he says eventually, powering off the television and dropping the remote on the table with a bang. It causes my mother to jump, and when she looks up and meets my eyes, I see that hers are all glassy – like she’s trying not to cry.

I pause what I’m doing and look at both of them, waiting for what comes next.

“That man, who died…” he starts before pausing again to take a sip of his beer.

“My father
- Toby?” I add.

My mother sits forward, her hands clasped together in front of her.
“No. That’s the whole point. He wasn’t your fuckin’ father. He was your uncle. He took you from us when you were only three,” she says.

My eyes just about bug out of my head. “He took me? As in ‘kidnapped’ took me?”

“Yes. Prez here, is your father. Not Toby.”

I hold my hands up, the
craziness of this conversation making my head spin. I just need everyone to stop for a moment so I can think. “Just… just stop talking,” I say, as my breathing increases and my mind reels.

After a few deep breaths, I lower my hands. “Ok. Explain to me what happened,” I say.

My mother is the one to speak first. “Toby is…was, my brother. He and I got caught up with a drug dealer named Liam. I’m sure you probably know him?” I nod, unable to speak as I listen to her story. “Well, I owed him a shit load of money before I ran away and hooked up with Prez. Prez and the Outlaw Riders took me in, and protected me when Liam came looking for me to recover his debt.

“For a few years, we thought he’d gone away. We even thought that Toby had finally gotten out too. He came to live with us, telling us that he needed a safe haven to clean up his act and get away from Liam.” It’s at this point my mother’s voice cracks. Her hand flies up to her mouth and she shakes her head
as tears start to form in her eyes.

I just look on, numb, not quite believing my ears.

Prez takes over. “Liam stayed with us for about a month. We helped him get clean. We treated him like one of us. Then one day, he just up and vanished, and he took you with him.”

My eyes start to burn with tears I’d rather not shed
, and I keep them cast downward, looking at the palms of my hands instead of at my parents. “So, if your brother took me, why didn’t you come and take me back?”

“We didn’t know where you were,” Prez says. “Carla, I mean, your mother and me – we searched high and low. We couldn’t find you.”

I stand up, my body visibly shaken from both rage and shock. “I was two hours away!” I scream. “This whole time! How could you not find me? Do you understand what my life has been like? What I went through? Look at me!” I shriek, lifting the shirt I’m wearing to reveal all the tiny circular scars all over my stomach. “YOU DIDN’T LOOK HARD ENOUGH!”

With that, I turn and run
, heading to the room I slept in earlier, keeping my breathing even the entire way. The moment I close the door, I start to cry. I’m fucking shaken by what just happened. I can’t believe that all this time, that bastard wasn’t my real father, and I can’t believe that they couldn’t have hunted Liam down. I just don’t think they tried hard enough.

Sliding down the door, I sit on the floor, sobbing as I lean on my knees and just allow myself some time to feel sorry for myself. I hated my life before, and ever since I stepped
foot into this stupid town, I hate it even more.

I wipe at
my tears. God, I don’t want to be crying. I haven’t cried in years.

***

I can hear the television on and smell the meat and cheese on the pizza. I’m too hungry to hide out. Wiping at my eyes and my cheeks, I take a few deep breaths and head back out to where Prez is quietly eating, although my mother, Carla, is nowhere to be seen.

“She’s laying down. She’s a bit shaken by all this,” he explains.

“Aren’t we all?” I say, as I move toward him. “Do you mind?” I point at the pizza laying in the box. I swallow. The smell is causing me to drool like some fucking Saint Bernard dog.

“Go for it.” He keeps his eyes on the TV screen. He’s watching some Turtle Man show or something. It's about this guy who catches dangerous animals from near people’s homes and returns to the wild where they belong. He’s got, like, no teeth. He’s gross.

For a while, I just sit there, pushing pizza down my throat to fill that ache I’ve had in my belly all day.

“Shit girl. Slow down. You’ll fuckin' choke if you eat that fast.”

“What? I’m hungry.” I have no idea if he understood me, because I spoke around my mouthful of food, and it would have come out all muffled.

Swallowing, I chug down the last of the beer I had earlier. It’s a little warm now, but it does the job.

“You got any smokes?” I ask, when I’m done. “I’m out.”

Without speaking, he flicks me a packet and a lighter, which I take without a thank you, and stand up to walk outside.

My parent’s house is as old looking as they come, the outside paint is all faded from the weather and the balcony that surrounds it, has a rusted old railing (complete with white flaking paint) that creaks when I lean against it.

The sun has almost set, and I can hear the crickets singing their evening tune as I cup my hand around the end of my cigarette and spark the lighter. Balancing the packet and the lighter on the railing, I look out at my darkening surrounds, the eucalypts are just dark looming shadows across the violet sky.

Blowing out the smoke, I watch it float up and notice that the first star has started shining in the sky. Immediately, that rhyme about making a wish, plays through my mind, and I actually contemplate making one. But I don’t. Wishes are for people who have the hope of a future. Not for damaged people like me, who don’t know how much longer they’ll survive in this shit life.

“Filthy habit this,” Prez
says, as he reaches out for the pack of smokes. For such a large man, he’s very quiet. I didn’t even hear him coming.

“Yeah well, there are worse things I guess,” I reply, watching as some fruit bats take off for the night in search of food.

He sparks up his ciggie and takes a drag. “Carla’s been heartbroken without you,” he comments, smoke wafting out of his mouth as he speaks.

“What about you
?”

“
Oh yeah. Ripped my heart in two the day you were taken. We both died a little that day.” He blows smoke out of his nose as he looks off into the distance. “You’ve gotta know that we searched high and low for you. Shook down every fuckin’ druggie and dealer we could. But none of them fuckin’ knew a thing.

“We outlawed drugs, gettin’ in the way of deals as much as we could, tryin’ to flush that prick Liam out
. But he just kept on hidin’ just like the scum he is. And Toby, well, he vanished too. I’ve got no idea how they did it, because we fuckin’ searched for years – but we just couldn’t find you. We thought you were dead.”

“I don’t really know what to say right now. I mean, you’ve just told me that my whole life was a lie. That the man I thought was my father is actually my uncle, and that I was kidnapped and presumed dead. Is my name really Madeline?”

“Yeah
, Maddie for short.”

Feeling completely blindsided by all this information, I wipe my hand over my face as I turn and lean against the railing so I’m facing him. The jeans drop off my hips a little, so I reach down quickly to grab the waist and hitch them up.

“There’s um, a bunch of your mum’s old stuff in the third room. The one down the end of the hall. It used to be yours, so we don’t go in there much, so it’s probably full of fuckin' spiders. But if you want to go through it, you can have the clothes. You can have whatever you want.”

I don’t really respond. I just take out another cigarette and light up, standing quietly with my father - the man who, up until recently, was a complete stranger to me. All I’m really doing is thinking over what he’s told me.

I feel robbed. Everything my Toby ever told me is a lie. My mother did want me – both my parents wanted me. I think he chose to ruin my life all by himself.