Page 22

CHAPTER 22

KORDELL

I woke up the next day with a splitting migraine. My head was pounding, and my face fucking ached. The sun peeking through the window was so bright, and I wanted to black out the room. This was like the worst hangover I’d ever experienced, and walking over to the bathroom mirror, I saw why. Those black eyes were in full swing now, and the bruising under my jaw looked nasty too. I tilted my head from side to side.

Damn, remind me to not get close to the fucker next time. Because there will be a next time. I’m gonna get my revenge. He won’t know what hit him. I’ll bring some of the guys, get him really worn down, have a little fun. Then, get him begging on his knees for me to stop beating his face in. Maybe I’ll break one of those arms he loves so much and ruin his fighting career.

I rubbed the side of my head again. I needed to take something to help with the pain. Rummaging around in my drawers in the bathroom, I finally found some old painkillers I had used back when I wrecked my bike a couple of years ago. I popped two into my mouth and washed them down with some tap water. Those should kick in within an hour. In the meantime, I was hungry as hell. I pulled on some pants, a t-shirt, and my jacket before I walked out of my room and down the hall into the main area of the clubhouse.

Everyone was pretty quiet there, and Damien and Wilder stood together with the prospect we had just promoted to the sergeant of arms last week.

“Oh shit. This is bad—real bad.” Wilder was engrossed in someone on his phone, and I noticed a bunch of people in the room were doing the same thing.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I came to a stop near Wilder.

His eyes snapped up to me, and I snatched the phone out of his hand, hitting the replay button.

The video started at max volume, with all of the words that were being spoken by the filmer showing fucking closed captions to make sure nothing was missed by the viewer. I watched as I got an uppercut and dropped to the ground. Then, the camera followed AJ over to my bike, where he lifted it and threw it over the edge. It showed me getting to my feet and rushing him, and people laughed when I was slammed to the ground again.

Fucking shit.

The video being uploaded at all would have been bad enough. But this video had gone viral—and I wasn’t talking a few thousand views. I was talking hundreds of thousands of views. And it was still climbing. And yet that was still not the worst thing. It was the comments, all coming for my MC because I was wearing my patch in the fight. I started to read them.

GlamourVibes24: What a fucking pussy! Look at him. He even had a gun and lost?! Loser!

WSUrbanNomad: Remind me to never reach out to the BLVD Riders to ride along again.

ChicExplorer: Shit, and this is their vice president? What a bunch of clowns.

TrendSetterBikerB0Y: I’d never join this MC.

It went on and on. I was over and finished. There was no way to live this down.

I looked over at Damien and Wilder.

Wilder looked stressed, and I wondered why. Then, I noticed how many members had gotten closer to me since I’d started watching the video.

“Kordell, I can’t believe I have to do this, but I’m going to need your patch,” Damien said as she held out her hand.

I threw Wilder's phone back at him. He caught it and tucked it back into his pocket.

“Prez, you gotta be kidding. Over a fucking video?” I snapped.

“The club thinks it’ll be best if you just lie low for a while, until it all blows over, but they want you to do it without the patch. The less attention we get right now, the better. Please don’t make this harder than it has to be,” Damien said as she took another step toward me.

I stood there, my mind racing, anger flooding my body.

This doesn’t make any sense. How could this have happened? Am I really about to lose everything I have worked for, all over a woman who picked another man over me?

“Look, I’ll make it right. He’ll get his payback, and I’ll make my girl understand who she really belongs to. You guys don’t have to do this.” I tried reasoning with her, but I was at my wits’ end on remaining semi-calm this morning.

Damien shook her head. “No, you don’t go near the guy, and if you want to get back your patch, you’ll leave her alone too. It’s been nothing but trouble since you first brought her here. It’s either her mixing you up in shit or you’re so distracted by her that you can’t think straight. So, once more, patch. Now. I’m not asking, Kordell.”

I started to rip off my jacket. “Fine! You want my fucking patch?! Take it! Fuck this shit. I have done nothing but give this club every piece of me for YEARS! But I guess you don’t give a shit. Well, say goodbye to being fucked by my cock anymore, you stupid little bitch!”

I threw my jacket in Damien’s face and shoved my way past the guys behind me, burning a path through the clubhouse. I went into my room, grabbed a bag, and started to stuff my shit inside.

“President! Maybe you should let me—” Wilder’s voice carried down the hall as I heard footsteps coming my way.

“No. I got this, Road Captain. You can leave us.”

I glared behind me as she entered my room and closed the door behind her. She no longer held my jacket, and instead of being the strong, determined woman president of the MC, she looked like a distraught girl. She walked over and wrapped her arms around my middle.

“Please, Kordell. Please don’t go. I’m fucking sorry I had to do that. But the clubhouse left me no choice! You know how tied my hands can be. But just stay. Maybe in a while, when other people cool down and the video fades into the background, I can talk to them about reinstating you,” she begged against my back.

I ripped her hands off me and turned, shoving her away. “That’s fucking great! Am I supposed to say thank you ?! Do you realize, without me, you wouldn’t be HALF the president you are? Who picked you up when your sister died? Me. Who was there for you when the old VP was dying and you were drowning in how to run this club by yourself? Me. And who fucked you like he cared, even when I didn’t, just to make you feel better about yourself? ME.”

I threw my hands up and then wrenched them through my hair. I wanted to hurt someone, but I knew if I laid hands on Damien, there would be zero chance of salvaging this situation at all.

She looked down at the ground.

“How could you do this to me, Damien? Look at me. LOOK AT ME!”

“Kordell, I’m sorry! I’m pretty powerless right now. You are the one that got us into this situation! Do you think I wanted this to happen?! I love you, dumbass! But you just had to keep getting involved with that girl from the city, and she brought you nothing but trouble. You literally can’t blame me for the fact that you were thinking with your dick instead of your head.”

She reached out again, and I clenched my fists as she wrapped her arms around me and tucked her head under my chin.

Don’t hit her. Calm down enough to not murder the president of your own clubhouse. Well… ex-clubhouse. You wouldn’t be able to fight your way out if you did.

“So, stay, please, so I can try to fix this. But it’s going to take time.”

She sounded so desperate. So fucking pitiful. And this was who we had leading the BLVD Riders. Someone without a backbone strong enough to tell the other members that she was in charge, not them.

When did I settle to be led by someone like this? Hell, her pussy isn’t even that great either.

“I need to get outta here. Take a ride and clear my head,” I muttered.

She pulled back and looked up at me. “Kordell, you are free to come and go. No one will stop you from coming back. But, please, be careful. I need you.”

Damien let go of my body, and I stomped over and grabbed a new jacket and my helmet, then tugged them on as I walked back down the hallway. Damien followed closely behind, and I knew the other members were watching me like a hawk, but I didn’t give a flying fuck.

I slammed the door of the clubhouse shut and walked over to my bike. I sat on it, turned it on, and revved it loudly before taking off down the road. I dodged in and out of traffic in a hurry to get away from everything for a while. To just open my bike up on the freeway and clear my head of all the noise.

But I just kept hearing the laughter of Rosalie’s friends on repeat, and the words they said— bitch, loser, pussy —echoed around my mind on top of it. I pulled the throttle back farther, my bike whining against the relentless need for power I had.

Faster, faster, FASTER.

I rode until my fuel gauge was pushing E, and it was well into the afternoon. But when I realized the area I was in, I groaned. This place was in the Wayward Suns’ territory. And sure enough, I could see some Harleys parked outside the only gas station close enough to fill up at.

Just get gas and get gone.

When I pulled in, some of the bikers turned and watched me, but didn’t move toward me or say anything. I got the pump into my gas tank and started filling it up when, a few seconds later, a hand grabbed it and yanked it out. Of course, it wouldn’t be that easy. At first, I’d thought it would be. How fucking stupid.

“What the fuck’s your problem?” I growled out as I turned.

And standing right in front of me were three of the Wayward Suns patched members. One was fat as hell, and the other two looked more muscular, but one of them was bald as shit. And I didn’t care for the looks they were giving me. The sneers they flashed had my fingers twitching to remove them from their faces.

“Hey, Axel. This is the guy you told me about, right?” the big one on the right said to the other two.

“Yeah, it’s him all right. No mistaking the BLVD’s VP. Gotta say, big fan of your latest film role,” the one called Axel said, and the bald one laughed.

“We always knew you were a pussy-ass bitch, but, shit, to get your ass kicked on film? That’s a whole new level of pathetic,” Baldy said.

I stepped around my bike as the bald one put the pump back on its hanger.

“Say it again,” I said. My voice was calm, but inside, I was going insane with fury.

“I said you’re a puss—” But Baldy’s words were cut short as I kicked him square in the chest, sending him flying on his ass.

Then, I felt the big guy’s hands grab my arms and try to pull them behind my back. I struggled against him. I knew if they got me on the ground, this would turn out a lot worse for me. Good thing that even though he was a big guy, he didn’t have a lot of strength to him, so I wrenched my arms out of his hands. Then, I turned around and slugged him in the face.

He swung back but missed, and by this time, Axel was getting closer and closer, trying to egg me on.

“Did we hit a nerve, poor little boy? Well, that’s too damn bad. What are you gonna do about it? Cry like a bitch?” Axel snapped at me.

He pulled out a knife from his belt, and I backed up toward my bike as Baldy got back up from the ground. The last thing I needed was to fight, unarmed, against them. And I doubted I could get my gun out of my back holster before they got to me.

Shit, there isn’t any way I can take them all. They have the upper hand here. How the hell can I get on my bike and get out of here?

I glanced around me and caught sight of the gas pump. It wasn’t fully on the hook, so I could use it. I grabbed it off the hook again and sprayed it at them. They dived out of the way, yelling at me, and I took the opportunity to hop on my bike, start it, and take the fuck off. As if this day couldn’t get any worse, just as I was about to get out of the parking lot of the gas station, my exit was blocked by a car. I quickly tried to find a way around it, but before I could turn my bike to try to leave through the small opening, I got ripped off by Axel. Hearing my bike fall to the concrete, scraping its fairing, made me even more furious at this whole fucking day.

“That’s it. I was gonna leave and just forget this shit. But now, you’re all going to die,” I growled out as I pushed myself to my feet.

Fuck them. Fuck everything at this point.

I pulled out my gun as Axel ran at me, his knife raised over his head. I pulled the trigger as I was still moving the gun in front of me. I shot him in the thigh, and he dropped to his knee as Baldy started to pull out his own handgun. I jumped behind a parked car as he opened fire.

“Fuuuck!” I yelled.

I peeked over the edge of the car and saw the fat one making his way over to the gas station, grabbing the pay phone. I had to quickly duck again as Baldy started shooting off more rounds. I could hear Axel groaning over his leg when I returned fire. After a few more shots back and forth, I heard a groan, and something slumped to the ground.

“You son of a bitch!” Axel shouted at me.

I peeked over and saw Baldy lying face down in a pool of blood.

Bull’s-eye.

I stood up, determined to end the other two as well, when I heard cop sirens in the distance.

Shit! The cops! Fuck it.

I shot Axel in the chest twice, my last two bullets in the magazine, and ran back over to my bike. Lifting it, I started it back up and took off. I saw lights flashing in the distance, coming in the opposite lane of traffic. Five squad cards zoomed past me, and then it dawned on me. Shit, I hoped that the gas station didn’t have any video footage. The last thing I needed was to be filmed again while being violent. I pushed the thoughts to the back of my mind and kept my focus on the road until I found a rest stop to pull into.

I sat there on my bike, thinking about how to make it all right again, but it just seemed like everything was all slipping out of my control. And once this brawl got back to the BLVDs? I wasn’t sure what would happen.

It’d felt like things started to fall apart the moment I heard Rosalie had been hanging around her ex. And it suddenly clicked. Things had gone smoothly for me in my life when I met Rosalie Wells. From my deal going right in the end with the Kkangpae to the MC fully backing me for my promotion to vice president after we saved her. So, if she had been the start of it, she should be what fixed it, right? So, my choice was clear—make Rosalie get back together with me to make everything go back to the way it had been. And if she tried to say no because of the other guy, I’d take him out of the running.

I pulled out my phone and texted her.

Kordell

Hey, mama, I know you think yesterday meant you dumped me, but it didn’t. I’m not letting you go like that.

And—surprise, surprise—I saw the word Read appear in my message. Which meant she hadn’t blocked my number, so she must still have feelings for me.

Perfect.