Brothers in Arms (The Kings of Mayhem MC Book 2) Read online

  I stirred my coffee. “My cousin was murdered.”

  Both girls stopped cold.

  “Murdered?” Rosie spoke very slowly.

  “By who?” Nancy asked, her mouth full of pie.

  “I don’t know. But I plan to find out.”

  “And how do we fit into it?” Nancy asked suspiciously.

  The idea came to me when I was driving. The street. It was a giant network of comings and goings. People talked. People knew things. It was a source of information I hadn’t tapped into yet, but I was going to start with these two.

  “You both look like you’re smart ladies. You know what’s going on in every shadow of this town.”

  “Doesn’t mean we know who killed your cousin,” Nancy said.

  “No. But people talk. And you ladies are in the . . . people business.”

  “What was your cousin’s name, honey?” Rosie asked.

  I had a feeling Nancy was naturally guarded and defensive, but Rosie could sniff out authenticity when it was sitting opposite her.

  “Isaac,” I said. It hurt saying his name. “Isaac Calley.”

  “The biker? He was a Kings of Mayhem, wasn’t he?” Rosie asked.

  I nodded.

  “Does that mean you’re a King?” Nancy asked, her eyes lighting up.

  Again, I nodded.

  Nancy sat back and toyed with her pie. “I don’t know, man, I mean, I don’t want to get involved in some biker showdown.”

  “You say that like you know another club was involved,” I said.

  She dropped her spoon on the table. “I don’t know nothin’ and I will deny anything—”

  “Oh, shut up, Nancy,” Rosie said. “Stop being so dramatic. He’s only asking us if we’ve heard anything.” Rosie leaned closer as if she was going to tell me a secret. “She’s young and a bit of a drama queen sometimes.”

  “You know that I’m sitting right here, right?” Nancy said, picking up her spoon and poking at her pie again. “And that I can hear you.”

  Rosie didn’t miss a beat. “See?”

  I couldn’t help but smile. Rosie was good-natured. Somewhere in her late thirties, her heavy make-up made her look a decade older. While Nancy, who couldn’t be more than twenty-one, had an air of distrust around her.

  “Does that mean you’ll help me out?” I asked.

  “Sure, honey,” Rosie replied. “Whatever you need.”

  I looked at Nancy who thought for a moment and then rolled her eyes. “Fine. What do you need us to do?”

  “Just keep your eyes and ears to the ground. If you hear anything about Isaac’s murder you call me.” I wrote my cell number on two paper napkins. “Anything at all. I don’t care how meaningless it seems to you, if it’s about Isaac’s death, then you call me, okay?”

  They both nodded. Rosie tucked the napkin between two massive breasts.

  I stood up and put the three-hundred dollars, plus enough for coffee, pie, and a tip on the table. “Thanks. I know this wasn’t what you were expecting. I appreciate it.”

  Rosie scooped up the money and started dividing it.

  “Oh, honey, it’s not the weirdest thing I’ve been asked to do tonight.” She winked at me. “But it’s certainly been the most delicious.”

  INDY

  Almost two weeks to the day of Isaac’s funeral, another dark cloud descended upon the Kings of Mayhem MC.

  I was in the ER when the call came through. A forty-five-year-old male. Head trauma and carbon monoxide poisoning. Found unresponsive. Resuscitated. Weak pulse.

  When they rolled him in on the gurney I caught a glimpse of the Kings of Mayhem cut and my heart went into my throat. Dr. Burdett, our chief of trauma, took the case, but I followed them into Trauma Bay Two, a terrible foreboding creeping up my spine. Cautiously, I moved closer to them, not sure who was on the gurney—not sure how life was about to change.

  Alarms beeped and the trauma bay came alive with an organized urgency as Dr. Burdett and his emergency team worked to keep the patient alive. When he flatlined, I heard the whirl of the defibrillator as it charged, followed by the three beeps to signal it was ready.

  Dr. Burdett held up the paddles. “Clear?”

  He placed the paddles on the chest of the patient and gave them juice. When the body on the table spasmed, that was when I saw him. Tex. His eyes were closed. His mouth slack. His face red. Another current of electricity ripped through his body, and he jolted, his body arching upwards and clenching, before collapsing motionless onto the gurney again.

  Nothing. The heart monitor continued to show a flatline.

  “Let’s go again. Charge to two hundred,” Dr. Burdett commanded.

  Again, he applied the paddles to Tex’s chest and sent another charge of electricity through to his heart.

  Again, Tex jolted and then stilled.

  Still nothing.

  “Okay, let’s call this one,” Burdett said.

  “No!” I said, stepping forward.

  Burdett and his team looked over at me.

  “I know him,” I said.

  One of the nurses spoke. “He was found unresponsive. He’s been crashing the whole way here, Dr. Parrish. The chance of him having any brain activity left is minimal, at best.”

  Burdett looked at me for a moment longer, then turned back to his team.

  “Charge it. Let’s try again.”

  Again, the defibrillator charged and beeped. Again, Burdett sent another electrical current through Tex and into his heart. Again, I watched him jolt, flex, and then fall motionless to the gurney.

  I closed my eyes. The nurse was right. The chances of Tex having any brain activity was unlikely.

  “I’m calling it,” Burdett said, snapping off his gloves. “Time of death 2:37 pm.”

  I felt rooted to the spot. Frozen by another death of a King in front of me. Burdett nodded at me as he walked past and disappeared from the room. Before I realized, I was alone with Tex. One minute the room was full of activity trying to keep him alive, the next minute, all the machines were disconnected and the room was cleared. Tex was dead. When I regained control of my feet, I approached him slowly. He looked peaceful—dead—but peaceful. Blood stained the pillow from a wound to the back of his head and his skin was red. Other than that, he showed no other signs of trauma.

  “I’m sorry, Tex.” I had known him for most of my life. When I was seven, he was a prospect in the club and he would play with Bolt and me in the treehouse when we needed babysitting. One time, when I was nine, he picked me up from school on his bike, and when he saw Joey Mattell teasing me he’d pointed at him and given him such a dark look Joey Mattell never teased me again. And when I had my tonsils removed, he visited me in the hospital and snuck in ice cream for me.

  Now, he was dead.

  My head lifted.

  Cade.

  How was he going to take this so soon after Isaac’s death?

  He was so tortured by his demons this could very well push him over the edge.

  I reached for my cell but was interrupted by a nurse.

  “Indy, you’d better come quick. I think some friends of yours are here and Dr. Burdett is about to deliver the notification of death.”

  “Oh, fuck,” I whispered.

  I ran through the ER and pushed through the doors to the waiting room, but stopped when I saw Dahlia, Ronnie, Bull, Caleb, and Cade all standing across the room. Dr. Burdett approached them, and before he even spoke Dahlia started to shake her head. I watched on, helpless, as she collapsed into Ronnie’s arms and began to cry. Cade’s eyes reached for mine and they were dark. His hands fisted at his side. His face stiffened with emotion. Next to him, Caleb exhaled deeply and ran his hands through his hair, while Bull contained his emotions behind his dark glasses. I was frozen to the spot, blood whirling in my ears, as the enormity of the situation crept up my spine.

  Tex’s death so soon after Isaac was going to devastate everyone in the club.

  Slowly, I started to walk,
my feet feeling heavy as I crossed the linoleum floor to where my friends, my family, rallied around Dahlia.

  “I’m sorry, Dahlia,” I said sadly.

  Cade came to me and pressed his lips to my forehead.

  “Are you okay, angel?” he asked, his voice rough.

  I nodded and his big hands caressed the nape of my neck.

  “They tried to save him,” I said. “But it was just too late.”

  “If only I had gotten home sooner,” Dahlia sobbed. “If only I hadn’t stopped to pick up the goddamn groceries!”

  I looked at Cade. His jaw was tight, his brows drawn. The news was beginning to take affect and I was worried about him. This was going to hit him hard so quick after Isaac’s death.

  Two days later, the medical examiner ruled Tex’s death an accident.

  After starting his car in the garage, he had left it running while he ran back inside to get something. On the way back to the car he had slipped and hit his head, knocking himself out. Unfortunately, he’d also fallen on the remote control to the garage door, closing it. Unconscious and unable to escape the exhaust fumes that quickly filled the small garage, Tex had died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

  But I could tell by the look on Cade’s face that he didn’t believe it.

  He didn’t believe it at all.

  CADE

  Chapel was a somber affair. The three empty chairs at the table were a grave reminder of the loss we’d suffered in the last few months. Sometimes I wondered if the damn club was cursed. So much had gone wrong lately.

  Again, charters from all over the country descended on our small town for the funeral. We hadn’t had a funeral in the club for almost eight years, but we were about to have our third in three months.

  And I couldn’t shake the feeling that we hadn’t seen the last of the bad luck.

  I felt helpless. Jackie had died of natural causes. But Isaac, he had been murdered, and the need to find out why was driving me to distraction. Now Tex was dead and I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t an accident.

  It reeked of foul play.

  Before Bull called an end to chapel, he stood up and dropped a patch on the table in front of me. Embroidered in white letters on black leather were the words Vice President.

  The vote had been cast days earlier, prior to Tex’s death, and the vote for me had been unanimous. I was now the VP of the Kings of Mayhem original chapter.

  The room erupted with applause.

  Bull put his hand on my shoulder. “We’ll celebrate after we bury Tex.”

  We buried him the next day. He was laid to rest in a family plot in a cemetery just north of Humphrey. We buried him on a warm fall morning. There was the usual procession of bikes snaking down the highway with chapter flags flying in the cool Mississippi breeze. There was the service and the tears, and the heartbreak and everything that goes with the loss of a son, a father, a husband, and a friend.

  As I watched his cut disappear into the ground, I wound my arm around Indy’s waist, seeking comfort in the warmth of her body. When we were kids, Tex used to bring me Matchbox cars when he babysat me and my brothers. He taught me how to play poker. He snuck me beers at club barbeques when my mom wasn’t looking. He endured a Britney Spears concert because Indy loved Britney and I loved Britney’s boobs. He was there when I returned from Seattle without my girl and made sure I was okay when my heartbreak got too much for my sorry teenage heart.

  Now we were putting him in the fucking ground.

  My fingers twitched. Anger and grief crept up my spine and it was growing in strength. I was going to find out who did this.

  And I was going kill them.

  INDY

  The night of the lingerie incident, Cade had gotten in late, and when he had come to bed I had pretended I was still asleep because I wasn’t ready to talk to him. I was hurt. Lonely. And I wasn’t ready to push him to open up to me. I knew what it was like to lose someone you loved—it fucked with your head in ways you could never imagine—and I didn’t want to push him away while trying to pull him to me.

  But he was keeping something from me, and I wanted to know what it was.

  Two days after Tex’s funeral, I stood across from him in the kitchen of our new home, watching him drink his cup of coffee, and I was tempted to ask him about it. But I realized the likelihood of him telling me was zero to none.

  So, when he walked out, saying he had things to do and wouldn’t be back until late, and when he took his car and not his bike, I decided to follow him.

  Now I was in my car in front of a diner halfway between Destiny and Humphrey, watching Cade escort two women inside. They sat at a window booth overlooking the parking lot. I watched them order, saw the waitress bring them coffee, saw both women light up a cigarette and Cade start talking. After a while, the waitress brought over two plates of pie, and while she was there she refilled Cade’s coffee. The conversation seemed easy. There were no awkward pauses. No uncomfortable silences. Cade knew these women, and by the looks of it, this situation was familiar to him.

  Climbing out of my car, I crossed the parking lot. When I walked into the diner and paused on the step, a small bell above the door alerted everyone to my presence. Cade sat with the women two tables down and all three of them looked up. If he was surprised by my arrival, then he didn’t show it. He remained completely poker faced.

  Straightening my shoulders, I walked over to them and calmly sat down, folding my hands in front of me on the table. Right away, the blonde woman widened her heavily made-up eyes and scoffed at me.

  “Um, hello? This table is taken,” she said. “You can’t just—”

  I shut her up with one look.

  “It’s okay, Nancy. This is Indy.” Cade’s eyes didn’t leave mine as he spoke. “My old lady.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him.

  And he raised one right back.

  “You’re his old lady?” Nancy gasped. She looked at Cade. “You’re married?”

  “As good as,” he replied, his eyes remaining glued to mine.

  “I think we should go,” said the redhead sitting next to me. She stood up, the bracelets on her arms jangling as she stubbed out her cigarette and reached for her handbag.

  “No need,” I said, without removing my eyes from Cade. “You should sit down.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the two women exchange a look before the redhead slowly eased back down.

  “So,” I said, cocking an eyebrow and tilting my head to the side. “What does a girl need to do to get a cup of coffee around here?”

  CADE

  I don’t know if I have ever loved her as much as I did in that one moment. Seeing her walk into the diner and calmly sit down at the table. Seeing how she hadn’t mistaken this for anything other than what it was. She knew something was up, but she wasn’t jumping to any conclusions. Not that I would blame her if she did. Especially with our past. But she didn’t. My queen was fiercely loyal and now it seemed, fiercely trusting.

  A smile tugged on my lips as I watched Rosie and Nancy. They looked anxious. Confused. Nancy seemed suspicious, while Rosie bit her lower lip and squinted her eyes as she scrutinized the situation.

  We’d had pie once more since the first night we met, and again this afternoon. The second time we met up was because of an encounter Rosie had with a john who liked to talk while he jerked himself off over her huge breasts. “Men are most vulnerable when they’re coming,” she explained. “You’d be surprised by the secrets they let out with a stream of ejaculation.” Apparently, the talker was a member of the Satan’s Tribe, a rival gang who ran out of Gulfport. He shot off his mouth as he shot cum all over her tits. He said their president—a Behemoth of a man called Balthazar—had arranged the hit on Isaac.

  Armed with this information, Bull had dug deeper. Probed harder. Twisted balls. Found out the john was a wannabe club member who hung around the clubhouse like a bad stink, occasionally doing odd jobs for the club but never bei
ng drawn into the inner sanctum. There was no truth to what he said; he’d made up the story to sound like a tough guy. It was all part of his fucked-up fantasy.

  Today I had asked to meet Nancy and Rosie because I was convinced Tex’s death was no accident and I wanted to know what the word was on the street.

  So far there was nothing, they said. No rumors. No gossip. No word.

  They were just about to leave when Indy showed up and sat down. And I couldn’t help but smile when my two very street-smart companions were knocked on their asses by one sharp look from my queen.

  Amused, I watched as Indy listened to Rosie and Nancy explain our deal. They gave me intel and I gave them pie. That was it. Nothing else. Indy was calm. But I could tell she was angry with me, because I knew her. I knew the way she bit her bottom lip when she was trying to calm her thoughts. Knew the way she cocked one eyebrow when she was just keeping her temper in check.

  I wasn’t even sure what she was saying, I was too busy watching her, watching the way she talked to them, watching the way they took to her once they knew she wasn’t a crazy old lady who wasn’t going to rain hellfire and brimstone on them for meeting with her old man.

  Because that was what I was. I was her old man.

  And she was my old lady.

  INDY

  The ladies left, leaving me and Cade alone. We sat across from each other, an electricity of unsaid words charging the air between us.

  I waited for him to speak.

  And he waited for me to speak.

  “Okay, let me have it,” he finally said.

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “You’re angry,” he said.

  I nodded but spoke calmly. “Yes.”

  “I haven’t touched those girls.”

  “I know.”

  His eyebrow went up.

  I sighed. “I’m angry because you’ve shut me out. We’re supposed to be together but you’re turning away from me.”