Sudden, harsh laughter had Rhys looking for the source. From behind the door Rhys had flung open on his entrance, Thomas Shelton stepped forward. In his hand, he held the weapon that had destroyed Rhys’s family.
“You crazy bastard!” Rhys couldn’t understand how he had missed all the warning signs. Shelton had sat too quiet and played too accepting of his own family’s accident.
“You saw to it that murderer who killed my family was released.” Anguish Rhys could now unfortunately understand stared back at him from insane eyes.
“The jury found him innocent.” Pain had turned his voice guttural. ”If you wanted revenge, you could have killed me, not innocent babies.”
“You had the evidence thrown out. Not only that, but you paid off two jurors,” Shelton spat out in fury.
“I didn’t,” Rhys cried. He had used case law and every tactic available, but he had never crossed the line.
“I have the proof. Your money even paid for the deputy to lose evidence forms so that the chain of evidence could be broken. How proud were you when that evidence was thrown out? Did you even care when you decided to accept Dawson’s case that he’d killed my pregnant wife? It was a little girl.” A sob shook the small man’s frame before he regained some semblance of composure. Shelton continued on with a choked voice, “He was drunk two times over the legal limit. You didn’t give a fuck that my life was destroyed when they were killed.”
“You killed innocent children!” Rhys yelled at the man driven for revenge.
“My little girl was just as innocent. Do you think my family didn’t mean as much to me just because we’re poor? That we didn’t attend the same fancy parties? Have the big house in an exclusive neighborhood? I bet if I’d had Dawson’s connections, my family’s murderer wouldn’t have walked away free.” Raising the gun, he pointed the barrel at Rhys.
Placing Michael gently on the floor, he moved to Deena’s side where he reached down, clasping her cold hand in his. Her wedding band glinted, making a mockery of the fact he had failed to protect her when she had needed him most.
“Go ahead and kill me.”
Shelton grinned at him. “I have no intention of killing you. I wouldn’t make it that easy, you dumb bastard. I want you to feel what I’ve felt this last year. What it’s like to have to bury a child that you loved, how painful it is to bury a wife that you adored, who carried a child that never saw the light of day. What it’s like to go home to an empty home. I hope you feel my pain for the rest of your long fucking life and know that you could have prevented it all.”
Rhys heard sirens coming closer to his house. “Kill me!”
Shelton smiled as he raised the gun to his temple, pulling the trigger without hesitation.
Tears fell down Rhys’s cheeks as he let Deena’s hand go before crawling across the bloody floor. He reached for the gun lying in Shelton’s limp hand. Putting the gun to his own temple, Rhys looked up to see a beautiful woman standing over him. She watched him casually, as if he wasn’t holding a gun against his forehead. She was so beautiful Rhys thought she might be an angel until he noticed her gown. No angel would dare to wear the filmy gauze that barely covered her curves.
Closing his eyes, he pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. He opened his eyes and pulled the trigger several times, yet each time she waved her hand, and the gun refused to work.
“Stop!” he screamed at her, somehow certain she had kept the gun from firing.
The woman looked surprised, as though she hadn’t expected him to talk to her at the same time he again pulled the trigger of the useless weapon. Angrily, he threw it at the woman, staring as it sailed through her. Rhys’s grief-stricken mind began to wonder if he had snapped like Shelton.
“This is your fault,” he accused the woman.
The sound of police voices calling out made him realize it was too late to achieve his attempt at ending his own life. Rhys screamed at her, losing what little sanity he had left when he heard her soft reply, “No, Rhys, this was all you.”
Chapter 1
“I found her out back watching the building. Do ya think she’s a cop?” Skid asked.
Rhys’s eyes went to the young biker with long, greasy hair hanging down to his shoulders.
“I’ve never seen a cop with her tits,” Tank said, moving through the crowded bar to stand in front of the woman. When his meaty hand reached out to grab and squeeze one of her breasts, Rhys watched as she reached out a hand to knock his away. In response, Tank’s hand flew out, smacking the woman in the face. She fell back a step and Skid caught her from behind, holding her still as Tank’s hand went back to the woman’s breast again.
“Baby, if you wanted to play with us, all you had to do was come in.” Tank moved closer, his hand sliding down her stomach, unbuttoning her jeans.
Rhys’s attention was diverted when Layla sat down at the table next to him. Her black tank showed a generous amount of flesh as she leaned forward, reaching for his glass before taking a drink.
“Come on, Rhys, let’s dance. Why do you have to be so gloomy all the time? Have some fun. I could help you with that.” Layla reached forward, running her hand up his leg, then licked her red lips, making it obvious what she was offering.
His hand snapped out, grabbing her by the back of her neck. “You know what I want?”
Layla nodded her head.
Rhys leaned back in his chair, tugging her closer, pushing her down with a hand on her shoulder until she was kneeling between his denim-clad thighs. Rhys looked down as Layla unbuttoned his jeans and then pulled his cock out. She slid closer to him, rubbing her breasts on his thigh as her mouth went down on him eagerly.
No one paid any attention to what was going on at his table. They were used to much worse going on in the dangerous clubhouse.
The large room had outdated wooden paneling, tables that wobbled when you set your drink down, a bar that served one brand of beer and hard liquor, and whores to serve them both. Drugs were to be had in low quantities, which the brothers sold most of, using only what they needed for their own good time. They weren’t afraid of the law; several of the members of law enforcement were on their payroll or regular customers. Adam always took a few photos for safe keeping as insurance for their continued silence as well.
Rhys took another swallow of his drink as Layla sucked his cock to the back of her throat. His hand in her hair pushed her down farther, not even bothering to thrust, making her do all the work.
A loud scream from across the room drew Rhys’s eyes as the woman still struggled against Skid’s hold while Tank shoved his hand in her unbuttoned pants. The biker was laughing while the woman screamed and fought, her legs kicking out only enabling him to rip off her jeans, leaving her in her white panties.
There was nothing decent left in him that shouted at his conscience to stop the foolhardy woman from getting raped. He had not crossed that line, but there were several illegal aspects of the club that he had participated in; raping women just hadn’t been one of them.
Since the moment his wife and children had been killed, the Rhys born and bred in the upper echelon of society had died. After he had buried his wife and sons, he had sold all his possessions and donated the proceeds to several children’s charities. He had also sold the BMW he’d driven, buying a cheap motorcycle that had been redone after being involved in a crash. He had then driven around the country, stopping only when he became too tired to ride. At that point, Rhys would have to find a bar and drown his memories for the night, so when he laid down in his cheap motel room, he could close his eyes without seeing Deena’s and his sons’ blank stares.
After one drinking session three years ago, he had left the bar and was stumbling to a nearby motel when three men had jumped him to rob him. He hadn’t even put up a fight, taking the beating while hoping this was the end he had been searching for, when one had pulled a knife and stabbed him in the side.
In the next moment, the sound of roaring motors had filled the
lot. The men attacking him had stood still then tried to flee when the rough looking bikers had moved lethally towards them, leaving Rhys lying in the dirt.
A cold voice broke the sudden silence of the frigid night, “Three against one… doesn’t seem fair to me, but twenty-two against three doesn’t seem fair to me, either. Mason, Jace, take care of these fuckers. Show them what a fair fight is, then get rid of them.” The finality intoned in his voice revealed he didn’t expect any of the attackers to still be alive at the end of the fight.
Rhys looked up into a set of cold, green eyes as the large man squatted down next to him.
“You okay, brother?”
Rhys nodded his head, feeling his jacket opened and then his shirt raised to have the knife wound probed.
“Yeah.” Rhys winced as his shirt was pulled back down.
“Name’s Adam. Yours?”
“Rhys.”
“You got a room at the motel?” The gruff biker looked over his shoulder at the dingy motel.
“Key’s in my pocket.”
Adam searched in his pocket, pulling out the key then effortlessly lifting him into his arms and carrying him across the lot to his room. Inside, he had laid him down on the bed.
“Bones, take a look at him.”
Another biker stepped forward, taking off his jacket and shirt.
“He’s going to need stitches.” Bones’s brief words weren’t a surprise.
“Fix him up.”
Rhys didn’t say anything while the biker named Bones stitched him up.
When he was done, Adam introduced the members of his club, telling him they rode together as the Dark Highwaymen. They were coming from making a delivery of drugs. Adam had watched for his reaction, and when Rhys hadn’t had one, he’d sent one of his men for a bottle of whiskey. The Dark Highwaymen had drunk until late in the night before crashing on the floor in Rhys’s room.