Page 5 of Blood & Honey (Saint’s Outlaws MC: Deadman’s Beach, AL #2)

Chapter Four

I watch Ashley as she struts to her car, pissed off at the world, but mostly she’s angry with me, and she has every fucking right to be.

I hate myself for what I’ve done, and yet there’s a part of me that loves the idea of Shelby finding out that she’s not the only one who can cut someone to the bone.

That is, if she’s even alive. Bitch could be dead for all I know.

She’s not trying to reach out, and I’ve been too much of a fucking coward to ask Goose if he let her go or if he put a bullet between her eyes.

As much as I hate her for what she did, there’s still a hollow place in my heart where my love for her lived.

It’s hard to forget that she wasn’t always a treacherous cunt.

Her baby boy. My brother stares up at me from his fenced-in play area with slobber running down his chin as he grins.

“What am I doing, little man?”

His response is to let out a grunt followed by a fart.

“Right.” I chuckle. “Shit.”

I grab my cell and start to call Goose when I notice Slasher called me last night. It all comes back to me like a grainy film playing in my mind. Slasher said he saw Shelby, and Ashley said someone was texting her.

That’s why we were together last night.

Fucking Shelby. She’s like a fucking herpes, a recurring nightmare.

I dial Ashley, and she sends my call to voicemail. She’s turned her location off too. Fuck me. What if she was going to meet up with her sister? I call Goose like I intended.

“Yo,” he answers, sleepily.

“We need to talk. Are you at the clubhouse?”

“No, I’m at Krystal’s.” He yawns.

“How fast can you get to my place?”

“Give me ten.”

“Bring me a pack of smokes.”

“See you then.”

I end the call and shoot off a text to Tequila.

Find Ashley and keep an eye on her. Check all the food trucks on the main strand.

I dial Slahser but get sent straight to voicemail. The text I send doesn’t deliver. I call my VP, Hemlock, up to find out if Slasher has checked in.

“Why are you calling me so fuckin’ early,” he snaps.

“You heard from Slasher recently?”

“Fuck. I don’t know. It’s too early for this shit. Why?”

“Just let me know if you see or hear from him. Get your beauty rest, princess.”

“Fuck off.”

“Fuck that’s nasty,” Goose grumbles as I wipe Ash’s shit-covered ass.

“Tell me about it.”

“When can you potty train it?”

I arch a brow at him. “He’s a baby, not a dog, man.”

“I’m bone tired. Someone woke my ass up too damn early. Where’d you run off to last night? Felicity was pissed.”

I ignore his remark about Felicity. She was an easy lay. Nothing more. I didn’t make her any promises. “Slasher called me.”

“And?”

I powder my baby brother’s bottom and secure his diaper. “Said he thought he saw Shelby.” I hand Ash to Goose and toss his dirty diaper in the trash and then wash my hands.

“Okay. What do you need from me?”

“I need to know. When you drove her out of town. I need to know if she was still breathing. Was her heart still beating?”

Goose frowns at my questions as Ash yanks on his beard. “I wanted to. I wanted to end her life but couldn’t go through with it. Dropped her at a truck stop. Where she went after that I couldn’t tell you.”

“So it could have been her Slasher saw. And she could have been the one texting Ashley.”

“What kind of texts?”

“Some stupid bullshit telling her to ask me what really happened to Shelby. I should’ve known she couldn’t stay away for long.”

“Has she tried reaching out to you at all?” I shake my head. “Not even to see the kid?”

“Nope,” I tell him.

“Did you check Ashley’s phone? See if she’s talking to her behind your back.”

“She’s not. She’s on my phone plan. I can check who she’s messaging at any time.”

“What about social media? Kids use that shit all the time.”

His calling Ashley a kid has me feeling even more like shit than I already do.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.” I take Ash off his hands and put him down in his crib for a nap.

“What aren’t you saying? I know that look.”

Goose does know me better than anyone, and has never judged me, but if I tell him what I did, he may kick my ass himself.

“Nothing for you to worry about.”

“You got any beer?”

“In the fridge. I need a cigarette.” I swipe the pack he brought me off the coffee table and go out to the deck to light one up. I take a long drag, relishing in the fire burning through my lungs. My headache immediately dulls to a low ache.

“Nothing for me to worry about,” he complains, slapping the marriage license against my chest. “Is this shit legit?”

“Looks that way.” I take another deep drag of my cigarette. Saying it was a mistake leaves a bitter taste on my tongue, but there’s no way I can justify my actions. It doesn’t matter that I was drunk. I’m in a position of power when it comes to Ashley.

“How long has this shit been going on?”

“It’s not like that.”

He looks at me like ‘ yeah right ,’ and I can’t blame him. “Then what’s it like? Because from the outside it doesn’t look good.”

“I’ve never touched her until last night. Not that it makes it any fuckin’ better.”

“She’s eighteen, but if people find out, they may think you’ve been fucking her all this time. Is it serious?”

“I was drunk and pissed off. Had Shelby on my mind and Ashley put some shit in my head about marrying her being the perfect revenge on the cunt.”

He shrugs. “Did it make you feel any better? Make you hate Shelby any less?”

“No.” But it made me love Ashley in a way I’m not ready to. In a way I’m not willing to admit. Not to my closest friend. Not even to myself.

“Bummer.”

“I’ve gotta find someone to annul it.” I need to put this behind me. She may hate me for it, but it’s for her own good. I’ll ruin both of us if I don’t. Hell, I’m already fifty shades of fucked up.

“You’re not married until you file the license, but let’s think about this. If Shelby is out there and fucking with you, what better way than to draw her out? If she finds out you’re with Ashley, she’ll come out of the woodwork to kill you. Or at least try it.”

“What are you thinking?”

“You’ve said you don’t want an ol’ lady, but hear me out. I’m thinking you should make this shit official. Use it to do what we should’ve done from the start. We find this cunt and take her out before she becomes a real problem or does something stupid like try to take Ash.”

“She’s in high school, man.”

“For a few more weeks. She’s about to graduate, and it’s not like she isn’t legal.”

Barely .

“I file that license, and everyone will know. It’ll be in the paper.”

“Exactly. Shelby will see it if she’s sniffing around.”

“And so will the rest of our town.”

“Since when have you cared what anyone thought of you?”

“I can’t marry her.”

“You already did.”

“Fuck.” Am I really considering letting this marriage stand?

“What’s going to happen when you call it off and she tells everyone you pretended to marry her so you could fuck her?”

“Ashley’s not like that.”

“She’s Shelby’s little sister. Cut from the same fucking cloth. Who’s to say she’s not playing some angle here? Or working behind your back with her. Keep your enemies close.”

I check my phone to see if I have anything from Tequila or Ashley.

Nothing.

Maybe Goose is right. What would War, my father, have done in this situation?

He would have put Shelby down the second she crossed him.

Too bad he never got the chance because the cunt murdered him and Eightball.

I owe everything I have. Everything I am to my old man.

And every mother fucking day Shelby still breathes is an insult to him and the club.

Goose is right.

I’ve made my bed with Ashley.

I may as well lie in it.

Till death do us part.

Things could always be worse.

I could have woken up with Felicity in my bed.