chapter Thirty
The sun was just beginning to break the horizon as Liam walked out of the warehouse that Denise had been held in. In his nostrils, he could still smell the burning flesh that had been Richard Joyce. When a member decided not to get rid of his ink after leaving the club, the club did it for him. This particular time, Liam had taken great pleasure in cutting the ink up into sections and then burning it off. He would be lying if he didn’t admit that it had felt good and that’s what worried him.
For the first time in his life, Liam felt bad about what he had done in the name of his club. He felt as if he wasn’t worthy enough to go home and sleep with the woman who warmed up the other side of his bed. He worried that she would look at him differently. Hell, he knew after this he would look at himself different. Never before had he felt such euphoria as he had done something so heinous. It scared him in a way – he didn’t want to be that man.
“You okay?” Tyler asked as he tipped a bottle of water over their hands, trying to clean as much blood off them as they could before the ride back to the clubhouse.
“Yeah, but I’m feeling some remorse – not for killing him – but how is Denise going to look at me now? And I felt good doing that. What does that say about me?” Liam ran his hands down his jeans, rubbing some of the water off.
Tyler, intelligent as always, leveled him with a stare. “She knew who you were when she got into this relationship with you.”
Liam knew that Tyler spoke the truth, but he also knew that it was easy to overlook truths as long as they weren’t staring you in the face. She had been witness to this first hand tonight.
“I know, but I hated doing that in front of her. I feel like she knows me as one way when I’m with her, but when I’m with you guys I turn into a different person. Things that shouldn’t feel right do, and that’s scary for someone who trusts me with her children. I can’t even say I’m comfortable with the animal that came out of me tonight,” Liam admitted. With Tyler he knew that he could be completely honest without repercussion.
“None of us felt good about it. At one time he was a friend, a brother, but we have to do what we have to do sometimes. In those hours that we did that, had he admitted to being behind Meredith’s rape, I would have snapped and broken his neck. Without thought. Without a doubt. Without remorse. We are who we are brother, there’s a little bit of warrior in all of us. That makes us who we are.” Tyler always knew what to say, almost like he knew what Liam was going to say before he said it.
“This is the first time I’ve ever had to worry about what a woman would say. It’s really the first time I’ve worried what anyone would say. I’m trying to keep a part of myself while I try to be what this club needs, but I worry that I’m in a losing battle. I don’t want her to look at me with fear in her eyes. That’s the last thing I want.”
Tyler put his hand on his friend’s back. “Something tells me that Denise understood this. She saw what Meredith looked like. I think she’s okay with it, and if she’s not then the two of you work on it. A relationship is about checks and balances. It’s about coming to terms with what makes it work for both parties, not just one. I think she’ll surprise you.”
“Guess we’ll find out won’t we?”
Denise lay in Liam’s dorm room, waiting for him to come back. She wondered what they would say to each other, if things would be different. The brutality he had used to attack Richard’s body hadn’t surprised her, but it had made her think of him as a different kind of man. Now she thought of him the way she did Tyler. It wasn’t bad – just different.
The door opened quietly, and she knew by the footfalls that it was Liam. Quickly, she threw her legs over the side of the bed and raced to him. He caught her in his arms and held her tightly to his body, inhaling deeply and moving his hands to her hair, caressing her head and neck softly. The softness of the hands holding her reminded her just how different he was when they were alone and when it was about them.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she whispered, holding him tightly against her, snaking her arms around his neck.
“I’m okay? Hell, you took fifteen years off my life when I came back and realized you weren’t here,” his voice hoarse with emotion. That was how she knew he was the man she thought he was. Someone callous couldn’t care about her so much it made his voice crack. That wasn’t faked emotion. That was as real as it got.
With strong hands he picked her up, carrying her over to the bed and sitting her down. Kneeling in front of her, he ran his hands along her body, checking to make sure everything was there and accounted for. Tenderly, he ran the back of his hand along the bruise that had already formed on her cheek. Then he carefully touched the spot where her lip had split from the impact with the gun.
“I’m good as long as you’re good,” she whispered to him.
“I’m so far from good right now, but it’s because of what was done to you. This could have ended up so much differently. You could be where Meredith is right now.” His eyes were red with emotion, and he tried valiantly not to let that emotion spill over.
“I’m not, thanks to you. You got to me in time. I knew you would. I never doubted that. I had complete faith in you and your ability to not let me end up like Meredith.”
“Thank God for that,” he breathed, bringing his hand up to the back of her head and holding her tightly against him.
Quietly, she asked the question he had been dreading. “Did you kill him?”
“I had to. He disrespected you, and he disrespected the club. There’s certain protocol that has to be followed. He’s lucky I didn’t castrate him before all was said and done. I’ve never felt that kind of anger or rage before,” he told her, moving back so that she could see his eyes. “I’ve always been able to stop myself before I got too far, but seeing him there with you, the blood on your face and knowing that he had done that to you. I couldn’t stop myself.”
She put her hands up. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I wanted to kill him with my bare hands too. I don’t think he’s the one that raped Meredith, but I still think he had something to do with it. I really wanted to at least get that out of him, but he wouldn’t answer me when I asked more questions. I’ll always regret that.”
“Jesus Christ. You asked him about it? Were you trying to get yourself killed?” His heart beat rapidly as he realized for a second time just how close he had been to losing her. Richard wasn’t a patient man, and he had obviously showed great restraint when it came to her questions.
She tilted her chin up in defiance. “I was just trying to help a friend. I know she would have done the same for me. We need to know who did this. She shouldn’t have to live in fear. If I can do anything for her, I will. Don’t take away the backbone I seem to have found.”
“I won’t,” he bit his lip, bringing his hands up to her face. “I love it about you.”
Her heart stopped and she grinned. “I love you too, Liam.”
“This may not ever be conventional,” he warned. In fact he never expected it to be, but he still had to warn her.
“I know, and I’m not expecting it to be. I’ve known that since the beginning.”
He framed her face with his large hands, bringing their lips together in a kiss meant to ignite every part of her body. He bent to pick her up off the bed, and she wrapped her legs around his body, allowing his hands to support her weight. She brought her hands to his cut and began to remove it when a knock sounded.
“F*ck,” he swore. “What?”
Tyler’s deep voice came through the door. “We need our VP to go over the information we just found out about Richard.”
“Really?” he mumbled. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
She giggled as he buried his face in her neck and sighed, using his tongue to lick a path around to her lips. The hot breath tickled where her hair moved.
“You go do what you gotta do. I’ll still be here,” she promised.
“Hopefully this won’t take very long. Besides, before we even get to taking our clothes off we need showers. I’ve got blood all over me and so do you.”
She looked down, realizing he was speaking the truth. For the first time she felt like his equal, not someone that he had to take care of. She had done a damn good job of taking care of herself until he could come rescue her. The knowledge that she could stand on her own two feet and be strong after everything that had happened to her was the best gift anyone would have given her, and she had Liam to thank for that.
“Show me what ya got,” William commanded Steele and Jagger Stone as they sat around their large table.
Steele pulled out a binder full of paper and spread the sheets out in front of him. “It looks like the business that Richard wanted to discuss with us was running guns. He apparently has a contact from Louisville, and they’re running guns down south to the Mexican Cartel.”
Liam whistled between his teeth. “That’s some big time shit. Is that really something we wanna get involved in? We get caught and that’s Federal time. I’m all for protection runs, but I don’t want our fingerprints on this.”
“Maybe it’s time to diversify,” Tyler shrugged from where he sat next to Liam.
“Drugs aren’t what they used to be,” William put his thoughts out there. “Any redneck with an empty double-wide and a package of cold medicine can make meth. We don’t have the monopoly on drugs the way we used to anyway. Hard times are coming, and we need to make sure we can stay solvent.”
“So what do we do?” Liam asked. “Just tell these people that we killed Richard, and now we want in on it?”
“Why not?” Jagger asked. He was young and reminded Liam of Meredith because when he wanted something, he went after it without thinking of consequences.
“He’s got a point,” Steele shrugged. “I mean obviously they need to move this product. There could be some big money in it. Big enough that we could completely move out of drugs.”
“So we can really become one percenter’s then?”
“Times are what they are,” William argued. “Let’s put it up for a vote. All in favor of seeing what we can do with these guns?”
Everyone raised their hands quickly except for Liam. After glancing around at the table, he knew he had to back his brothers on this. Regardless of what he thought, they still had to earn, and they had to do that any way that they could.
William banged his gavel. “That passed, so we’ll look into it and let you know what’s going on. Steele and Jagger, you two get this off the ground. If you need help, let me or Liam know.”
This was a bad idea. Liam knew it, but there was nothing he could do about it. It would have to play out however it would play out. The club was changing, and he guessed he would just have to change with it. The mark of a good leader was rolling with punches, and he was beginning to learn to do just that.