Chapter 9

CHAPTER

NINE

SPENCER

I’m frozen in my tracks as I stare at the disaster that is in this bedroom. Finally, I break my gaze from the room, and I turn my head, looking back to Brew. I widen my gaze at him. He at least shrugs a shoulder.

“Not the neatest man on earth,” he states.

“Not even in the galaxy,” I mutter.

He chuckles and takes a step toward me, then another. “The cabin isn’t this bad, swear,” he murmurs, dipping his chin before he touches his lips to mine.

“Well, thank God for small favors,” I say with a laugh. “I guess I have some work cut out for me.”

He hums, his nose running alongside mine before he murmurs. “Got clean sheets in the closet.”

Those words aren’t sexy at all, but I still have to press my thighs together because my belly dips and my pussy tingles. I press my palms against his chest, feeling the hard wall of muscle beneath my fingertips.

“I’ll clean this shithole once,” I whisper. “After that, I’ll burn it to the ground because you’re a grown-ass man, and you should be cleaning your own room.”

He wraps his arm around me, tugging me against his chest, and laughs. His voice fills the room, bouncing off the undecorated walls around us. Then he drops his head slightly, and his mouth touches mine in a quick, chaste kiss.

Brew takes a step backward, his eyes dancing as they search mine, and then he clears his throat. “I am sorry it’s such a mess. It’s fucking disgusting, but honestly, this is just a place I crash when I’m too drunk to ride home. I haven’t lived here in a long time.”

Sinking my teeth into the corner of my bottom lip, I exhale as I look into his eyes. “I’ll be snooping through everything.”

Brew laughs again, closing the distance between us even more, and cups my cheek. “I have no doubt, and I’m sorry in advance for whatever you find.”

Rolling my eyes to the ceiling, I can’t help but smile. “You’re lucky I know what kind of lifestyle you men lead.”

“And whatever you find, you need to know it’s from the past, not the present, and not the future,” he says.

My heart squeezes, my belly dips, and I swear I actually swoon at those words. I’m not sure if they should affect me the way they do, but hearing him say that the past is just that and the future will be different?

It means something to me because my whole life, I didn’t think that these men could be different. I always had an image of what they were, and at seventeen, I was willing to accept it because I wanted Brew that badly.

Plus, everything I’ve ever known about relationships was pain and abuse, and I knew he would be decent to me. I would be treated with some respect because I would be an old lady if he made me his, but it would never be a fairy-tale kind of love.

It would never be what you’d see in a movie. Relationships like that weren’t possible in this world. I would take what I could get and be happy. But when I walked away or rather ran, I realized that being cheated on and having everything about life hidden from me wasn’t that appealing.

In fact, being in the dark about every aspect of my partner’s life felt a bit… icky.

Then there was also the fact that they could all end up in jail—every single one of them. They had grown up away from this world, seeing more of life outside of the club, outside of Pineville.

It cured me of wanting to be an old lady for the Dark Horse MC. But no matter what I tried to tell myself, tried to convince myself of, my heart and body still craved it—still craved him. Brew keeps me close to him, and I wonder if he’ll ever let me go. I hope he doesn’t. I like it here—in his arms, his eyes focused on me and just me.

“You be good. Hopefully, I’ll be back soon,” he murmurs.

I open my mouth to ask him when, but his lips touch mine, and then his tongue slides inside of me and tastes me with one quick swoop before his hands fall from me, and he takes a step backward.

“Brew,” I call out, my voice smaller than I intend it to be. He jerks his chin toward me, his gaze searching mine before I speak. “How much danger are you going to be in when you go?”

He gives his head a quick shake. “I’m not going to be in any danger, beautiful,” he says, although I don’t quite believe him. He’s confident in his words and tone, but it’s clear that he doesn’t believe them deep in his core. That scares me.

My heart begins to race, slamming against my ribs, and I imagine it bursting from my chest and landing on the dirty floor by my feet.

“Brew,” I warn.

He laughs softly, his eyes sparkling as he watches me for a long moment, and then he clears his throat and shrugs a shoulder. “Don’t worry, Spencer. This is for Clink.”

“My brother?”

He hums. “Your brother, and that’s all you need to know.”

Without another word, he walks out of the room, leaving me alone with his mess and feeling like maybe, just maybe, this could work—this could become something. Chewing on my bottom lip, I turn back to the disaster of a room and wince.

At least I’ll be busy tonight.

Because there is no way I can go to bed with this place being this disgusting.

The first thing I do is begin to gather the clothes off the floor and put them in the empty dirty clothes basket, which is hilarious, because it takes me about five minutes to fill it to capacity. Then I look around for the clean sheets Brew claimed he had.

Once I have the bed stripped and I’m changing the sheets, there is a knock on the door. Leaving the bed half-made, I walk over to the bedroom door, reach for the knob, and gently turn it before I tug it open.

Kyle and Shawn are standing in front of me, smiling. “Ryan is taking a nap with all of the kids. We came to help,” Shawn says, her voice overly cheery.

Then she lifts her hands, and she’s got trash bags in her grasp. I flick my gaze over to Kyle, who brings her hands up and waves them in front of me, holding some cleaner with cleaning rags and a broom.

“How did you know?” I ask.

Shawn snorts. “Their rooms all looked like nightmares before we got here.”

“It’s really horrible,” I murmur.

“That’s why we’re here. Plus, there’s nothing else to do, so we can at least clean and bitch about these men at the same time. It’s productive, really.”

Laughing, I stand to the side and allow them to pass by me and walk into the room. It doesn’t take us long to get the trash taken care of and in bags, but I have to confess, it was completely disgusting, and I’m embarrassed that they had to see any of it, even though they assured me that their men’s rooms were the same level of gross.

I’m glad they were here, though, because finding discarded used condoms almost sent me over the edge, even though I have zero reason to be upset about them. They are from the past, and we aren’t even anything yet. We’ve shared a couple of chaste kisses but nothing else.

So, while I want to be jealous as hell, I really don’t have a leg to stand on about it, so I keep my mouth shut. To their credit, Shawn and Kyle are an easy distraction from it all. I don’t know if they know finding them was upsetting, but they don’t mention it and keep me moving.

Once the room is clean and my bags are unpacked… we even cleared a drawer for me in his small dresser, we are finished. Shawn moves to stand beside me as we survey the space.

“It’s not going to be on television for an amazing makeover or anything, but it looks damn good.”

“It does,” I admit. “I wish he had linen sheets, though,” I mutter.

“I hear those are amazing,” Shawn says.

“They really are.” I almost whimper, dreaming about my linen sheets. I wonder if Brew would like them. Then I chastise myself because why do I care if he would like linen sheets or not?

“Let’s get some cupcakes. I feel like we earned them,” she murmurs.

I turn my head, my lips part, and my mouth waters at the same time before I can speak. “You have cupcakes?” I ask.

She snorts. “Girl,” she begins, “I’m not going on lockdown without bringing cupcakes.”

Kyle and I laugh simultaneously at her words. Because I don’t blame her, and without another word, the three of us hurry down to the kitchen, where we find Ryan with her little boy, Adam, and two babies. The cupcake box is in the center of the counter, and Adam has one pressed to his lips.

It is officially dessert time.

brEW

As much as I want to burst into the building and shoot everything and everyone on sight, I don’t. Instead, I am crouched down in some bushes beside Atomic, with my gun in my hand. My fingers twitch to pull the trigger, but I hold off.

Listening to my brother, I take his lead.

I wait because this will be done tonight, and I can have at least a semblance of patience… if only for a little while.

Flicking my gaze around the perimeter of the property, I smirk at the sight of the men surrounding the grounds. Our men. I hear a buzzing beside me and look over to Atomic, arching a brow in question.

“It’s Nash,” he hisses. “He called earlier wanting me to go down to Corpus and look at the building,” he murmurs. “They’re ready to open.”

“That was fast,” I say.

He chuckles. “Bunch of old fucks wanna get their rocks off watching girls dance naked. Who am I to tell them no? Also, it’s going to make a fuckton of money for the club.”

Biting back the laughter, I clear my throat, attempting to keep from being too loud. “They aren’t that old,” I point out. “We’re on their fucking heels.”

Atomic snorts. “That we are. Are you ready for this? Everyone is in position.”

“Do you know if the old man is inside?”

Atomic doesn’t respond immediately. Instead, he jerks his chin toward the building. “He hasn’t left Louisiana. I’ve had a couple men on these assholes since shit went down. I didn’t trust the treaty. I knew Loner was going to fuck with us some more. And Albert is fucking clueless. He’s living in this world like it’s still by the old-school rules. But these men aren’t playing by any rules. Not anymore.”

He’s right.

He’s absolutely right.

Nobody is playing by the old-school anything anymore. And Atomic is fucking smart as shit to keep this from everyone and to keep an eye on the Southern Mafia.

“So, were they watching us, too?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “No,” he snorts. “Well, just the warehouse routes. They likely thought we were going to continue to go to Shreveport. When we didn’t, it pissed them off. I’m pretty sure they thought they had us by the balls.”

“And when we didn’t, they couldn’t fucking stand it.”

“So they made sure we weren’t going to be successful, or at least they tried,” I murmur, thinking over the whole situation.

“They tried,” he agrees with a simple nod. “But they’re going to lose this fight.”

Leaning closer to my brother, I say one last thing, knowing he’s getting ready to give the signal. We’re rushing into this shit and leaving zero survivors.

Not a single one.

I would feel guilty about that, knowing there are men in there who are innocent and just following orders. Men who are husbands and fathers. But they’ve aligned themselves with the wrong fucking people.

And now, it’s time to fucking pay the price.