Page 1 of Filthy Hot

CHAPTER

ONE

GNAW

I climbon my bike and rev the engine as I head toward the compound's exit. The dirt road beneath me leads straight to the highway.

I need to get away.

I don’t know why, but I feel it in my bones. I need to ride. There is a shift coming. I can feel it. I’ve always had a sense when shit is shifting, at least as an adult. Maybe not so much as a kid. But I can tell that something is about to happen.

Nobody will question me leaving the compound in the middle of the day. They never do. Mainly because they are all the same way—restless souls on the fringe of society. Needing a taste of freedom when the mood strikes.

Once I’m on the road and surrounded by piney woods, I can finally breathe. I don’t know why, but sometimes, I just need to be free. I’ve always been this way, even as a teenager. I’d get in trouble for ditching class, but it wasn’t because I was necessarily drinking or smoking—although I did that, too—it was usually because I just needed to breathe.

The wind washes over my face, and if I weren’t the one riding this bike, I’d close my eyes as it does. The freedom, the wind, the scent of the pines, it’s exhilarating.

Taking a route that I know is the road less traveled, I make my way toward my spot at the lake. It’s a long ride, but it’s exactly what I need. It’s calming, and it’s the only place where I can truly think.

Once I’m in front of the water, I park my bike and throw my leg over to disengage. There’s no cell service out here, which is probably the main reason for me coming out this far regularly.

It’s not that I have a specifically highly intense, demanding position when it comes to the Dark Horse MC, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel the stress and pressure on a regular basis.

Being the secretary of the club is not without its drama. I do the scheduling and give it to Atomic, our president, to confirm or send it back with changes. Sometimes coordinating a whole fucking group of men can be… tiring.

Standing in front of the water, I watch as it moves slightly, the wind causing ripples along the top. If I were a poetic kind of man, I would probably find this serene moment something, but I’m not that.

I just want to breathe the fresh air and reset.

So, I do that.

Something is in the air, swirling around me, even out there. Maybe it’s just the fact that King just had a baby and Atomic is getting ready to have one. Those could be the changes, but something feels bigger.

There are no distractions, no phone, no women, no brothers out here. Just me and the quiet space around me. I’m not sure how long I stand at the water’s edge, but as my thoughts shift and move around, they take a dark turn.

Usually, I wouldn’t let myself go to this place, but considering the date, I don’t have control over myself. Maybe this is whatI’m feeling. This could be what’s bothering me. This is the day, twenty years ago, when my mother took her own life.

And it was all my fault.

My father was a founding member of the Dark Horse MC. He’s still alive and lives in Corpus Christi with some of the other OG members. They have a branch of their own Dark Horse MC down there.

They’re doing well, as far as I know, starting a strip club and keeping busy. Although it seems like their president, Nash, is always here for one reason or another. My father doesn’t join him. Mainly because he hates me.

He’s hated me since I was a kid. Since I was the reason my mother killed herself. It’s my fault that my mother committed suicide. Or at least to him, it’s my fault, and he’s never let me forget it.

I’m the one who told her that I saw him with a clubwhore. Fucking her. I wanted to go to a party at the clubhouse, and he wouldn’t let me. So, I snuck in anyway and watched him fuck someone who wasn’t my mother.

The sight of my father with another woman wasn’t what I was angry about. I was a pissed-off kid who didn’t get what he wanted. So, what does a pissed-off kid do first thing? I wanted to hurt my father for pissing me off.

I ran to my mother.

I told her what I saw… in detail. I wanted to get back at my dad, and that was the best way I knew how. At the time, I didn’t know that my mother’s mental health was struggling. I didn’t know that she’d caught him cheating on her countless times, that he’d promised it would never happen again, yet it did over and over again.

But what I really didn’t know was that she’d had a miscarriage a few months earlier. I hadn’t known that he’d beenwith a clubwhore when she went through that. That he’d ignored her calls for help.

He’d ignored her calls, not responded to them, and not shown up at home for two days. He’d been on a bender, and she’d already been released from the hospital by the time he bothered to make an appearance.

That was all hidden from me. She sent me to spend a few nights at a friend’s house. I hadn’t known that I was sent there because my mother was in the hospital. She never told me. Nobody ever told me shit back then.

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