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Razor

“F UCK YOU!” I bellowed from my place on the floor.

Pain shooting up my leg, so bad I thought I might puke.

Jesus, I’d never felt anything like it.

I dropped my head to the carpet and took a few deep breaths, before glaring at my walker which was now no less than six feet from me. Exactly where it had fallen sideways because I’d toppled over when my cast had caught a piece of trim that was pulling away from the wall. And I’d toppled over because I was plastered from the tip of my dick to tip of my toes, and I had no sense of balance, therefore I couldn’t stop myself from falling flat on my ass, which ironically, was the only part of my body that wasn’t bruised or broken.

At least it was .

Technically, I was so fucked up, I wasn’t even supposed to be trying to use a walker, but I had to piss, so the call of nature overrode my better judgment.

Fuckin’ cunt Gloria and her obsession with Cash had done this and now I might never ride again.

––––––––

Four weeks ago...

I was sitting in the great room with Jamie, Hatch’s youngest kid, shooting the shit when Hatch barreled into the room. “Where’s my wife?”

“In the kitchen I think,” Jamie said. “Everything okay?”

“It’s officially Fuckuary, if any one of you assholes bugs either of us in the next two hours, I’ll cut your dicks off.”

“Jesus, Dad, too much information.”

“Make it three!” he growled, and stalked toward the kitchen.

“What the hell is ‘Fuckuary’?” one of the recruits asked. His name was Johnny and he was on the cusp of getting kicked out. I highly doubted he’d make it to prospect, mostly because he didn’t know when to shut his goddammed mouth.

Jamie dragged his hands down his face with a groan. “Dad declared a few years ago that February was the month he was gonna fuck my mom every day of the week and we better be prepared not to need her because we monopolize her throughout the holidays, and then it’s back to school shit in January for the grandkids, and she’s always being asked to help. Hence, Fuckuary.”

“If my old lady was as hot as his, every month would be Bonetober,” Johnny murmured.

Case in point.

Before I could comment how that was the exact wrong thing to say, Flea, my Sergeant at Arms, had already sent him to the floor with a punch that would have knocked a smaller man unconscious.

“What the fuck, bro?” he snapped, wiping blood from his mouth. “It was just a joke.”

“First of all, you’re not my bro , and the only joke around here is you,” Flea hissed. “I’ve had my doubts about you from the beginning and now I know why. Pack up your shit and get the fuck outta here.”

“I thought this was a fuckin’ motorcycle club,” he sneered getting up. “Not a daycare center.”

“I don’t wanna see you around here again. In fact, I don’t wanna see you on the street,” Flea growled. “When you see our colors, you better run.”

I made my way over to them and stepped in front of Johnny. “Let’s go, asshole. Don’t make it worse than it already is.”

Johnny spit blood at my feet, then stormed out of the club.

Flea turned to Grip. “Grip! Clean up this goddamn floor before Hatch kills all of us.”

“You got it, boss,” he said, and headed for the supply closet.

I shook my head and made my way to the kitchen. Cash and I were supposed to be having a beer, but he’d gone AWOL, so I went looking for him, finding him standing against the counter, staring at his phone. “Are we havin’ that beer or what?”

“Gloria’s stranded somewhere. Car’s crapped out on her. She’s asked if I can come see what’s wrong with it.”

I frowned. “That bitch, man. She’ll try anything to get in your pants.”

“I really think she’s in a tight spot, brother.”

“Jesus,” I hissed. “Come on, I’ll go with you. We’ll take one of the mobile trucks.”

We headed out, arriving to the location Gloria had texted Cash, and I saw her car with the hood up, parked on a narrow frontage road near an industrial complex.

“Why the fuck’s her hood up?” I grumbled. “Did she think she was going to be able to fix it herself?”

Cash shrugged as he pulled up behind her car. “The day I know what the hell Gloria’s thinkin’ I want you to put a bullet in the back of my head. Come on, let’s get this over with. I want to get home and back in bed before Teagan knows I was ever gone.”

We hopped out and Gloria hugged Cash, giving him a relieved smile. “My hero. Thank you so much for coming to my rescue.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, pulling away. “Let’s see what’s wrong with your car.”

No sooner had he gotten the words out of his mouth, than a black panel van came screeching to a halt beside us. Cash grabbed for his knife at his side but was bum-rushed by three Spiders before he even had a chance to pull it out.

“What the fuck?” he snarled as they zip-tied his arms behind his back and threw him in the van.

Outside the van, I did my best to stand my ground, but I was eventually overtaken by the Spiders. The names on their cuts read ‘Slammer’ and ‘Tiny.’ Trunk jumped in at some point as well, because I almost had the upper hand.

“What do we do with this guy, Trunk?” Slammer asked, pointing to me, despite the fact I was still struggling, despite bleeding from several places on my face. “Kill him?”

“Fuck him up but not so bad he can’t crawl back home,” Trunk said. “Warlock wants to send a message. Vega, Gloria, you come with me and Loverboy here.”

Then the door whooshed shut and drove away.

––––––––

Someone pounding on my door brought me back to the present.

“Gio!”

Fuck. Angelica.

My big sister, and all-around pain in my ass. There were five of us. Four girls, and me. The baby. To say I was doted on... and smothered... was an understatement, with Angelica leading the pack right behind our mother.

“Gio, I’m coming in,” she called, and I heard the key in the lock.

“Fuck,” I hissed.

“Oh my god!” she squealed, then she was suddenly standing over me. “What the hell happened?”

“What the fuck, bro?”

This came from Cash who was now rushing into the room, his boots hitting hard against the old linoleum and I groaned at the impending shit show.

“Why is my brother on the floor?” Angelica demanded.

“I don’t know, Margo ,” he snarled, suddenly appearing above me as well. I would have laughed, considering Christmas Vacation was our favorite movie, but this seriously wasn’t the fucking time. “Why the fuck are you on the floor, Razor? You were supposed to keep your ass in the chair while I ran and got food. I was gone fifteen minutes. Tops.”

“I had to piss,” I bit out.

“So what? You fuckin’ hold it,” Cash snapped. “How did you even manage to use that walker with only one working arm?”

“Not well!” I growled. “Which is the reason I’m on the goddammed floor.”

“You just had surgery, Gio,” my sister said. “You can’t be up and moving around by yourself yet.”

“I’m aware.”

Cash sighed. “Let me put this food down and I’ll help you up.”

Before he could do that, another voice entered the fray.

“What the heck happened?” Katie demanded.

Katie was Flea’s sister, who had been a registered nurse for years, but went back to school to become a Physician’s Assistant, and she now worked in private practice with Gina, the wife of Clutch, the VP of the Burning Saints. Flea was one of my best friends, but that didn’t mean I wanted his sister all up in my business.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ.”

I groaned. This was the voice of my club president, Hatch.

“Why the hell is Razor on the floor?” he bellowed.

“He fell when he got up to pee,” Cash said. “Unsanctioned because he was supposed to keep his ass in the chair while I grabbed food.”

“He’s not supposed to be alone, Cash.”

“I was gone less than fifteen minutes. I made sure he had everything he needed before I left. He was supposed to stay put.”

All of a sudden, I was looking up at Hatch’s wife, Maisie. “Hello, darling.”

She was sweet, she was gorgeous, she was British, and the fact she was seeing me flat on my back was humiliating.

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Hey, Maisie.”

“Did you do anymore damage when you fell, love?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Right, you’re coming home with us.”

“What?” I rasped.

“You clearly cannot be left alone,” she said. “And I’m not okay with one of my boys hurting. We have plenty of space, we have a room on the first floor that’s perfect with an en-suite, and I’m home all day with nothing to do, which means, I can take care of you.”

Hatch let out a quiet grunt. “Sunshine—”

“If anything other than, ‘Yeah, baby, you’re right. Razor needs to come home with us,’ is about to come out of that sexy mouth of yours, husband, then shut it.”

If I hadn’t been in so much pain, I would have laughed, especially when she did a spot-on impression of him, deepening her voice and adopting a rather impressive American accent to boot.

Maisie hunkered down beside me. “Unless, you’d rather be with your mum, darling, but I really think you need to be with your family. People who can take care of you. At least until you’re well enough to be on your own.”

“He can’t go to our mom’s,” Angelica piped in. “She lives in a split level with more stairs than Machu Picchu. It was great for us as kids, but Gio can’t navigate—”

“Okay enough about what I can’t do,” I hissed.

“Let’s get him up,” Cash said, and the women stepped aside so Hatch and Cash could lift me up.

“Watch his shoulder,” Katie warned as she guided my walker in front of me.

Hatch and Cash lifted me to my feet, a herculean task, considering the Spiders that had fucked me up had broken my femur, fibula, and tibia on my right leg, dislocated my left shoulder and wrist, not to mention, given me one hell of a concussion and three broken ribs. Three long and intensive surgeries later, my leg was ‘fixed,’ but I was going to have to wear a cast for the next two months and physical therapy would start as soon as the cast came off.

My bike was and would remain stored at the club for the foreseeable future.

Fuck my life.

* * *

Waverly

I walked into my condo after a long day at work and dropped my keys into the dish on the console by the front door. After hanging up my jacket and setting my purse next to my keys, I headed into the kitchen and poured a glass of wine as I heated up leftovers.

Flipping on the television for background noise, I nearly dropped my glass when a familiar name and face popped up on the screen. I turned up the volume and fought back the bile threatening to spill.

“...in national news, we bring you a story intended for mature viewers only. A high-ranking member of the notorious Aryan Motorcycle Club, the Supreme Riders, Delbert “Boneyard” Fisk was admitted to Lakewood County Hospital near Denver, Colorado, on Friday, having sustained life-threatening injuries. Fisk was found by a passing motorist who spotted him on a nearby road. According to doctors, Fisk’s genitals had been completely removed by an as of yet unidentified person or persons. Law enforcement is asking anyone who has information to contact the Denver Police Department. Fisk has a long criminal record including charges for assault with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment, sexual assault, but had somehow failed to serve any serious jail time. Both Denver PD and federal law-enforcement had long suspected Fisk to be the head of an international weapons trafficking enterprise but neither had been able to convict him on any charges. At this time, there are no suspects and the motive remains unclear. In local news, the annual Rose Festival...”

I changed the channel and stood frozen in place for what seemed like forever. I didn’t know how to feel, to be honest. One of the men who’d drugged and raped me was now a eunuch?

Good.

But also, too little too late.

The beeping of the microwave brought me out of my maudlin thoughts, and I sighed. I’d had a lot of therapy to deal with this shit, but it didn’t mean I still didn’t think about it. Because I’d been drugged during my assault, I didn’t remember most of it. Snippets from time-to-time, but never full memories, and as horrible as being drugged and raped by two bikers sounded, I was grateful I hadn’t been lucid for any of it.

I had been able to compartmentalize in a way.

My best friend, Lennon? Not so much. She’d wanted blood but no one had been able to keep both of them behind bars. Boneyard had been released due to overcrowding and the other creep was in the wind, so I’d had to leave it in the hands of the Denver PD.

Lennon Whitman had been my best friend since we were paired together as college freshmen. She’d been my ride or die from the moment we met, and she was still living in Colorado, recently swept off her feet by a mystery man whom she’d met while visiting with her grandmother. He was a neighbor who apparently helped the elderly woman out with fixing the occasional clogged sink, so he sounded pretty close to perfect, and she sounded happy which made me happy.

After my attack, I’d refocused my studies on Physical Therapy and moved to Portland. Well, technically, I’d moved to Vancouver, Washington. But nobody knew where the fuck Vancouver was. You’d tell them, and they’d say, “Oh, Canada?”

No, you dumb shit, Vancouver, Washington was settled before Vancouver B.C. And then you’d correct them, and they’d say “D.C.?”

Insert facepalm.

On their face.

D.C.’s on the total opposite side of the country.

So, it was just easier to say Portland, because I needed to protect my peace, and their general well-being.

In the end, I’d put everything behind me. It was a clean break, and since I had no family, other than Lennon, really, it was a chance to start over. It was the best decision I’d ever made.

I love, love, loved the rain, so the Pacific Northwest was a perfect fit, and my career involved helping people, which had always been my passion anyway, so Portland was where I landed.

I wasn’t a fan of being so far away from Lennon, but we talked and texted almost daily, and since she was working on her PhD, we pretended she was just super busy, not hundreds of miles away from each other.

I grabbed my phone and dialed her number.

“Hey, Gravy,” she said, answering on the third ring.

I smiled. She’d given me so many nicknames in the past, but landed on ‘Gravy,’ and it didn’t matter how much I’d groaned and lamented how lame it was, it stuck.

“Hey. Did you see the news?”

“You know I don’t watch that crap,” she reminded me. “Why?”

“Delbert Fisk has been emasculated.”

“Like by a dominatrix?” Lennon retorted.

“No, not emotionally.” I sighed. “As in literally. His penis and testicles have been removed.”

“Oh...really?”

“Yes,” I said, and then I realized she hadn’t sounded surprised.

At. All.

“Lennon?”

“Yeah?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Why don’t you sound surprised?”

“Well, I kind of knew already. I heard about it over the weekend.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I wanted to, but I wasn’t sure if it would fuck with your happy and I didn’t want to bring all that up for you again. ”

“I get that, Len, but never feel like you can’t tell me things, okay?”

There was a moment of silence and then another sigh.

“Wait, I just saw about this on a breaking news report. How did you know already?” I demanded.

“Well, I need to talk to you about that, but I just haven’t been sure how to bring it up.”

“What?”

“You know Granger, the guy I’m dating?”

“Yes,” I hedged.

“Um, well, he’s, a...”

I waited several tense seconds for her to speak, but she stayed silent, so I pressed. “He’s a what, Lennon?”

“It’s just so hard, because he’s so great and I don’t want you to form a negative opinion of him before you meet him.”

“Are you trying to tell me you’re dating a lawyer?” I joked.

“No, no, he’s not a lawyer. He’s a biker.”

“You’d better mean avid cyclist,” I bit out.

“No,” she breathed out. “As in he rides a Harley Davidson in a motorcycle club.”

“Oh my god,” I rasped. “ What? ”

“He’s not like Boneyard, I swear. He’s the kindest man—”

“There isn’t one goddamn biker on the planet who’s kind, Lennon,” I snapped. “I’m sorry, I cannot speak to you right now.”

I hung up, turning off my phone because I knew she’d try to call me right back, and I could not, absolutely without a doubt, could not, speak to her right now.

Then I sank to my knees and burst into racking sobs.