Page 1 of Devil's Due

Chapter One

“Fuck! Break it up. Get them a-fuckin’-part.”

Four arms come around me, two bodies pulling me back. I continue to swing blindly for a moment, hearing swearing and an oomph before I’m better restrained.

“For fuck’s sake, Beef. What’s got into you?” Lady, far stronger than he looks, snarls into my ear.

“You want to take me next?” Peg, the sergeant-at-arms of the Satan’s Devils Tucson chapter, growls. “’Cos I’ll fuckin’ break you in two.”

The voices at last seep through the red fog in my mind. As the mist clears, Rock comes into view, standing in front of me, ruefully rubbing his jaw while moving it side to side as if to test it. One of his eyes is already swelling and is surely going to be black tomorrow.What the fuck have I done?

“Becca’s going to be fuckin’ furious with you, Beef,” Rock warns, as he shrugs off Drummer’s assistance and question as to whether he should call Doc. “What the fuck just happened?”

I don’t know.That’s the plain truth of it. Rock’s my best friend. Has been since we prospected together. Tonight, at our monthly sparring match, I just lost my fucking mind and took out all my frustration on him. My eyes catch his, wincing at his left eye that’s closing more by the second.

“Brother, I…” I stop. How can I apologise when I don’t know what the fuck happened?

“Suggest you go cool off,” barks our president, Drummer. “Whatever’s between you two, sort it the fuck out, and not with your fists, Beef.”

Rock’s looking at me, more curious than pissed off. He knows better than anyone, losing control is so unlike me. Shit, Becca. That little girl doesn’t deserve me sending her man back to her in pieces. Tomorrow she’ll no doubt give me a piece of her mind, and I won’t stop her. I love that girl like a sister.Or more than that,I admit to myself.Maybe that’s part of the problem.

It hits me then, why my anger came out and why the target was Rock, the man who’s now confidently turning his back on me, his action showing he knows whatever drove me to act out of character has left me. Peg and Lady feel my body relaxing and release me at the same time. I follow Rock down from the ring, squeezing my large body through the ropes and dropping down to the floor.

Instead of going off to examine his injuries, he’s waiting for me. “Want to talk about it?”

My shoulders rise and fall. “Probably need to, Rock. But not now, okay?”

“You gonna sort,” the prez’s hand waves between Rock and me, “whatever this is, out?”

“Sure, Drummer. Look, I’m sorry, okay?” It’s not okay. But the lame apology is all I can offer. Hitting out at Rock, taking out my frustration on him as I can’t hit or shout at the person to whom my anger is really directed. Or, more realistically, at myself, and the situation I’ve found myself in.

“Go home, Beef,” Rock tells me, his eye now completely shut. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

But I don’t want to talk, tomorrow, the next day, or the one after. The mess I’m in is completely of my own making.

“My office, ten o’clock. You hear me, Beef?”

I hear Drummer loud and clear. Seems my president has had enough of my recent behaviour, my sour moods, my sulks, which culminated tonight in turning what should have been a friendly bout into something that could have become a murder scene had I not been pulled off by my brothers.

A chin raise to him, then I purse my lips as I view Rock again, his hand stroking his jaw as he tries to ease the ache there. I got off uninjured as he, at least, was pulling his punches. If he hadn’t, one of us may well have ended up dead.

Prez has a right to be concerned.

Eyes follow me as I leave. Wraith, the VP, shaking his head. Blade looking confused. Joker looking from me to his partner Lady, even Heart’s face is set and angry. All I can do is raise my hands in general apology and stride out through the clubroom into the fresh night air.

Home.That was where Rock suggested I go. Home.But where the fuck is that now?The home I want to go to is my suite adjacent to Rock’s that I had occupied since the Satan’s Devils had moved to this compound. I’ve given that up though, allowing him and Becca to have more space. They needed it, having added baby Rose to their family.

Around me, my brothers have fallen like flies, all capturing theirone. Their old lady, the love of their lives. While I would never have made a move on Becca—she was Rock’s from the start even though he’d had his head up his ass for a while—she’s the image of the woman I want.

Rock had taken time making up his mind, allowing me to become close to his woman. No one knows it was only my loyalty to him that had stopped me from stepping up and claiming her. She’d got under my skin. Those long hours when she’d stayed with me in my hospital room while I lay close to death. She’d been there, when I came back to life, but she was never for me, only for Rock. I knew it and hadn’t interfered. The perfect woman for Rock had entered his life when he least likely expected it.

Just like it had happened with the others. Wraith’s girl, Sophie, turned up out of the blue when she needed somewhere to hide and be safe. Drummer found Sam when she came searching for her father. Peg found his by the side of the road. One by one, Slick, Mouse, Blade and even Dart, who subsequently transferred to San Diego, stumbled across their old lady. Even young Pal eventually got the girl he’d been waiting for. It seemed so easy. No one can doubt my brothers have all found the woman they know they can be faithful to for the rest of their lives.

That’s what I had in mind, what I wanted for myself. A wife and a family. It wouldn’t have mattered if those kids had come readymade, if she’d been the right woman for me. I thought I’d found her, but, as it turned out, I’d been too hasty. Thought because she’d fallen into my path, that I should make her my old lady.

Starting my engine, I head out through the gates the prospect slides open for me, pointing my bike as Rock had instructed, toward what everyone else calls my home.

As I ride, I think how I couldn’t describe it as that. It’s a house the club owns, the property where Heart had lived with his first wife. The single storey building which now houses the woman I claimed, and her two children.

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