Page 56 of True Bastard
“What I know is that I have a roof over my head and food in my belly. What would you have me do? Complain that I’m not singing in the choir?” The bartender, a young man named Xzibit with eyes that held the same weary resignation as mine, shrugged. He’d been here long enough to know the score. “Look, I’m not saying you should love it here, Kitten. But you could try to make the best of it. It’s not like you have a choice.”
A bitter laugh escaped me. “Make the best of it? You think I have a choice? I’m not anyone’s old lady. I’m not a trophy to be paraded around. I am my own person, and I’m going to get out of here.” My words, once a defiant roar, now felt like a fragile whisper, easily swallowed by the oppressive atmosphere of the clubhouse. The ever-present, cloying scent of moral decay, once just a background annoyance, now felt like a physical manifestation of my despair. Xzibit’s gaze, pitying and resigned, confirmed what I already knew: my fight for freedom was a lonely one, a battle I was already losing.
“We all say that at first,” he said softly, his voice devoid of judgment, but heavy with the weight of his own lost battles. “But the Brotherhood... they don’t let go that easily. You’re Firestride’s old lady now, Kitten. That makes you... important.And important people don’t just walk away from here.” He gestured around the room, his hand sweeping over the leering faces, the drunken embraces, the whole sordid spectacle of their lives. “This is your new reality. Whether you like it or not.”
His words hung in the air, a death sentence disguised as an observation, and a cold, hard dread settled in my gut, a chilling premonition of the long, unbroken nights that lay ahead.
“Just mind your own business and give me another beer,” I mumbled as the heavy metal doors of the clubhouse creaked open, admitting a figure that seemed to suck all the air from the room. A burly, unkempt man with a long scraggly beard and bald head. Tattoos marred his thick hands, bulky arms and up to his neck and face. But it was the cut he wore that had me tensing up as I slowly turned my back to him and watched him in the mirror, his eyes hardening as his gaze swept the room, landing on me.
His slow, knowing wink sent a wave of revulsion through me.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I knew this motherfucker, and knowing he was here, in this clubhouse, meant I was in trouble.
“Who the fuck are you?” Morpheus’ voice boomed from across the room.
“I came to collect club property, and I ain’t leaving without it,” the fucker clearly stated, undisturbed by Morpheus’ looming presence.
“I don’t take orders from dead men, motherfucker,” Morpheus sneered, pulling his gun and pointing at the stranger, as did the rest of the club brothers.
The asshole’s gaze remained locked on mine, a silent acknowledgment that felt both like a threat and a promise. The air around him seemed to shimmer with a dangerous energy, an aura that spoke of ruthlessness that made Firestride’s brutality seem almost tame. My gut clenched, a familiar knot of dreadtightening as I realized I was caught between two forces, both equally terrifying, both promising a future I desperately wanted to avoid.
“Kitten,” Morpheus growled, his voice dangerously low. “Get the fuck over here.”
I slowly got up from the stool and walked over to Morpheus, who ushered me to stand behind him. “Now, I’m going to ask you one more motherfucking time. Who the fuck are you?” Morpheus demanded, his voice echoing through the sudden, heavy silence of the clubhouse. His eyes, usually cold and assessing, now blazed with an almost primal fury, a stark contrast to the asshole’s hostility. The brothers, sensing the shift in atmosphere, fell silent, their gazes fixed on the unfolding confrontation, a palpable tension humming through the room.
“His name is Jizz,” I whispered, standing behind Morpheus, who looked back at me in shock.
“Really?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. He gets off on his own spunk. Also, he’s as stupid as he looks.”
The fucker’s lips curved into a slow, dangerous smile, a predatory glint in his storm-colored eyes. He met Morpheus’ furious glare with an unwavering calm. “Skinner wants the cunt back. Bitch got to pay for her old man,” he finally drawled, his voice a low, resonant growl that seemed to vibrate through the very floor.
Jizz’s gaze flickered back to me, a silent, unsettling acknowledgment that sent a fresh wave of ice through my veins. I fucking knew that shit with Jessup wasn’t over by a long shot. I fucking knew Skinner would send for me. It was only a matter of time.
Morpheus threw his head back and laughed, as did the rest of the Brotherhood.
“Ain’t fuckin’ around, shit for brains. Give me the cunt. Now,” Jizz demanded.
Morpheus stopped laughing and snarled, “Get the fuck out of my club.”
“Cunt belongs to the Death Dogs. Skinner paid lots of money for her.”
Morpheus’ grip on his gun tightened, his knuckles white against the trigger. Jizz, unfazed by the sudden shift in the room’s volatile energy, offered a slow, deliberate smile. It wasn’t a smile of amusement, but of blatant stupidity if he thought he would walk out of this clubhouse alive. Even I fucking knew that wasn’t going to happen.
“Wrong, motherfucker,” Firestride’s familiar gravelly timbered voice that I was intimately familiar with growled. “The cunt belongs to me.”
Then, he put a fucking bullet in the back of Jizz’s head.
The crack of the gunshot was deafening, a violent punctuation mark that ripped through the tense silence. Jizz, the grizzled biker, crumpled to the floor, a lifeless heap of leather and tattoos, the bullet having found its mark with brutal efficiency. A collective exhale swept through the clubhouse, a release of pent-up tension that hung heavy in the air as the brothers returned to what they were doing as if nothing had happened. Morpheus, his face a mask of grim satisfaction, lowered his gun, the acrid scent of gunpowder clinging to the atmosphere.
My own heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic rhythm of terror and a dawning, terrifying understanding.
He had claimed me.
Firestride, the man who had both tormented and intrigued me, had just declared me his, not as collateral, but as something far more permanent. His eyes, usually cold and unreadable, now held a possessive glint, a predatory fire that confirmed my worstfears. He had made his move, and in doing so, had irrevocably bound me to him, to the Brotherhood.
