Page 1 of Devil's Own: Roughneck

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Shit.

Of course, it would start to rain today. And not just any rain—oh, no. Those fat, giant raindrops that splat with a high rate of destruction and get in your eyes, making your vision blurry. How the hell did Mother Nature know to make it rain on days like today?

Cut and Aja make their way through the mass of black leather to head over to me. Aja didn’t know Gruff. She was here to support her man and support the club.

Gruff had been in lockup on gun charges when we took the club from Rage. Gruff was an OG of the club. Too old to want to take the reins when Rage took over and too old to fight back when Rage took the club in a direction that we weren’t comfortable with. Now he’s dead. Fucking dead. I shake my head, trying to get the image of his lifeless body out of my head. Someone tore him up. They tortured that old man before they finally put him down.

He didn’t deserve that.

No one deserves that.

Those deep-gray clouds look like they’ve hunkered down, ready to dig in and stay a while. I just want to drink this mess away. Gruff got attacked in his own home, albeit a broken-down single-wide trailer on the outskirts of Bentley, where one good kick up by the lock popped the door wide open. It was still his home. He lived there because he wanted to. Because he blew through his monthly take at the casinos and on stupid expensive dinners. But it was his money, and he lived how he wanted to live. The brother was so old that he couldn’t keep balance on his bike, so he spent 100K on a custom trike.

Whoever killed him didn’t do it for the trike. Robbery wasn’t the motive. We don’t know the motive.

Vlad walks up to the front of the assembled group to get this service going. Gruff had no religious affiliations, so being our president, it falls on Vlad to speak. He’s a large, looming motherfucker and looks intimidating as hell to outsiders. As our president, I respect him, but he’s been one of my brothers for so long that I’m not intimidated—though I’m happy to fight at his side rather than against him. That man could fuck just about anyone up and hardly break a sweat doing it.

“Brothers,” he starts, then his eyes find his wife Nicola’s. “And our Horde old ladies—sucks we have to come together like this again.”Again,is right. The last time we held a funeral, we’d buried Dela, Green’s old lady at the time. The Bible Belt Killer sliced her up like a Thanksgiving turkey. He also shot Winkey, one of our brothers who’d been on her protection duty. What I wouldn’t give to have a woman like Nic in my bed to help me forget all this bullshit happening. Not just because she’s gorgeous, which she is—thick, brownish-auburn hair spills down in a cascade over her shoulders and back, a nice rack, and an ass every brother in the Horde wanted to sink his dick in before Vlad claimed her, but because she’s kind. She cares for all of us. If I have a bad day, she wants to hear about it. Not many women have her kind of compassion paired with a body ready to perform miracles. And I know damn well when the funeral is over, she’ll be using that sweet body to make him thank God he’s still alive.

The club’s unofficial grandmother, Miss Mable, has all the kids with her up at Dark and Rae’s place. She was Rae’s neighbor, and they adopted her, bringing her to live with them after they built their home. Then, because she’s so damn sweet and feisty, the rest of the club adopted her, too. I know everyone is glad to have her on a day like today. A funeral like this is no place for kids.

Who the hell would hurt an old man like that? They got one over on us. It won’t happen again. Even if no one else goes after him, I sure as shit will. They all got old ladies and kids. I got no one but my brothers.

Soaking wet, once the service ends, the brothers agree to head up to the clubhouse to get smashed, but I need to get out of these clothes, and I don’t know that I have it in me to party with them. It’s days like today that I feel envious of my brothers. Vlad, Sarge, Dark, Reaper, Cutter, and Green all have women. Warm bodies, warmer pussies to sink their dicks in to help forget the shit show that life is right now.

My life is filled with empty pussy. I don’t know if that will cut it today. I guess I’ll see how the rest of the night unfolds.

I clap Cut on the shoulder and lean it to kiss Aja on the cheek. Cut’s been my best friend for so long now, that even though she’s a knockout with all that long, black hair, deep bedroom eyes, and feminine features, I look at her like a sister, and he knows it. I’m happy for them and their budding little family. I just wish I didn’t feel so alone now. These women are the best, worst things to happen to our club. “I’m out,” I tell them.

“See you up at the clubhouse?” Cut asks. He never quite fit the biker aesthetic—too clean-cut. No tattoos. Too pretty for the life. If he hadn’t sliced our former president’s face from brow to chin when he was a prospect, Cutter’s name would’ve been Hollywood instead. He looked like he belonged there, not here. But I sure as shit am happy to have him at my back when I need him.

“Probably not. Think I want to be alone right now.”

“Is that a good idea?” Aja asks. “You need your brothers around you when things like this happen.”

So damn sweet. Given the life she’d led before finding her way to the club and Cutter’s bed, I don't know how she stayed this sweet. They made me one of little Freya’s godfathers, along with Reaper. Reap’s wife, Dusty, is her only godmother. I smile. It’s my first smile today, but I love that little girl and am more than happy to be Uncle Rough. She’s still a baby and can’t speak, but they make sure to call me that whenever I pick her up. I’d love to have what they have, but as of yet, it hasn’t been in the cards.

“I’ll be around tomorrow,” I say rather than respond. Cut nods. He gets it. Sometimes a man just has to be alone with his thoughts. To get his head on straight. To… not have to sit with empty pussy on my lap while he and my other brothers have their heartache soothed away by women who love them, who give them lives not a one of them ever thought they’d get, much less deserve.

On my bike, I tear out of that gathering, opening up once I reach the main road and make the regular thirty-minute drive in twenty. Once I hit home, I change into dry jeans and a clean, dry T-shirt, slink back into my cut and boots, and I head for an old dive bar outside Middlesboro. It doesn’t even have a paved drive—dirt and gravel crackle under my wheels. Part of the front window shattered years ago like a big-ass rock hit it when some drunk shit spun their tires. The Big Sipper used to shine in red neon, but several of the letters burnt out, so the sign reads, “The Big Sir.” Occasionally, we get men in there who think it’s an entirely different kind of bar. They don’t stay long once they see the clientele.

I don’t give a shit. They got to be who they are. Before walking inside, I turn the ringer off my phone because I don’t have it in me to deal with brothers, then yank open the door. The smell, a mixture of stale alcohol and bad decisions, hits me first. It reminds me of my teen years. I guess I’d call it the smell of home. Only two steps in, and I immediately zero in on a smoking-hot woman sitting in the corner of the room drinking what appears to be whiskey. Thick, brown hair falling around her shoulders and her own version of dark bedroom eyes different from Aja’s. Her top shows off her huge tits and emphasizes a smallish waist. I’d bet my next paycheck that if she stands right now, I’ll see jeans plastered over killer curves to her hips and a rounded ass perfect for a man to sink his teeth into while he’s fucking her. She looks like a woman who not onlycantake a rough fuck, but seeks it out.

My dick twitches in my pants. Part of me wants to walk over, buy her a drink, and then invite her to let me make her feel really good for the rest of the night, but the watchful way she peruses the crowd makes me wonder what she’s thinking. What brought a hot piece to a shit bar like this? Why is she sitting alone?

I don’t have it in me today to find out. Maybe if I saw her tomorrow, but today, with Gruff’s funeral, I don’t have the headspace to deal with whatever issues brought her here. And if it’s one thing I know about women like her, they have issues. The kind that draws a man in. The kind that makes a man want to throw down for her, to protect her.

Sighing, I take a seat at the bar. “Bourbon. Double,” I call over to the old bartender. His name is Knutey. We all call him “Nutty,” and he laughs every time. The man has a thick, stark-white mustache that trails down the sides of his face to box his mouth in on three sides. His all-white combover does nothing to hide the massive bald spot on the top of his head, and he manages to laugh at everything anyone says, whether it’s funny or not even meant to be funny.

Known Nutty for years. Grew up in Pineville, less than a twenty-minute drive to Middlesboro. As a kid, once my friends and I got our licenses, we drove to Middlesboro all the time to find trouble. We got intoa lotof trouble. Got caught by the cops while making that trouble and got community service. I cleaned up the street in front of this place. Nutty was the first person to give a shit about me. My dad split years ago. My mom spent her free time whoring herself throughout Pineville and the surrounding towns; my older sister moved away with her husband. They got married right after he graduated and knocked her up. He joined the military, and she quit school to move with him. Haven’t heard from her in years. Then, my older brother is in for the long haul. Murder one. Drugs.

After I finished my community service, Nutty gave me my first job right here unloading trucks, lugging heavy shit around, and cleaning the restrooms. He also told me that if I got my high school diploma, he’d help me get on one of those oil rigs in the Gulf. His brother worked one and had an inside on getting hired, but if he was going to recommend me, I had to get my shit together.

Since I heard those things paid well, especially to a kid from Pineville, I got my shit together, stopped causing trouble, and graduated in the top half of my class.

Good to his word, Nutty called his brother, and at eighteen, I had a job on the rig. Fuck, I wasn’t ready for that level of commitment. The pay was great for a young punk, but I worked twelve hours a day for fourteen days straight. Then, I’d get twenty-one days off.

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