Call Me...Vengeance: Book 1 in the Vengeance MC Series (9 page)

Heading to the kitchen to get his beer, I turn back to him and say,

“If they are friends of yours, Jonas then they’re friends of mine. Don’t worry so much. Everything will be copasetic. Just wait and see.”

“Famous last words,” I hear mumbled before I’m out of earshot.

              Riding is the best way to think, it clears my head. There’s nothing but peace and clarity when I’m coasting along the highway doing seventy-five miles an hour. In saying that, my thoughts aren’t always pleasant, though. Most of them revolve around someone who doesn’t deserve a minute of my time, let alone the hours I’ve given him.

My father, Damien ‘Hog’ Carr, died six years ago. And hopefully, God willing, when he left this Earth he ended up where he belonged; chained up in the burning depths of hell for all eternity. As far as I’m concerned, that bastard got off as easy in death as he did in life. He was an asshole. A lazy, neglectful prick of a father. And a fucking useless MC President. I’d go as far as to say; Hog failed in life, in his role as President, and as a human being in general.

Hog’s reign as President was borderline tyrannical. He definitely wasn’t the kind of man who should ever have been the head of our table at church. But the gavel had been passed down to him by his father, Shank, and Hog was happy to accept the power his position would come with it. After all, the man was an egotistical, self-important asshole, so what better way to gain the attention and adulation he so desperately craved than to rule as king of his domain?

Hog died doing something he loved, which was what grated on me the most. He hadn’t deserved to die doing something he loved, that honor should have been taken from him the way he’d taken from everyone else; mercilessly. Selfishness ran in Hog’s veins; it was a part of his DNA. There wasn’t a time while I’d lived at home that it had ever been about anyone
but
, Hog. So when my father died, I couldn’t help wondering why him of all people, the man who made every day of my life fucking miserable, got the ultimate honor of dying doing the one thing a biker loved above all else; riding.

It was during a freak thunderstorm that Hog lost control of his bike. He was coming around the rocky bend on a stretch of road named, Shadows Pass. The two-lane highway was notorious for collisions and accidents, but if you wanted to get to, Furnace without detouring a hundred miles out of your way, you didn’t have any other choice than to tackle that precarious section of blacktop.

Coming back from a job in, L.A., Hog was forced to lay his bike down, spinning off the road and hitting a fallen tree. He died instantly at the scene, the paramedics who had been called by a concerned motorist on seeing the downed bike told me. Massive internal injuries and an intracranial bleed was what ended his life. Thinking about it, maybe God did exist. All that praying I’d done over the years, that the asshole I was supposed to call Dad would die and leave me in peace worked. Those thoughts might not have been charitable, but they were honest.

Hog had been a hard man. Cruel and unforgiving. He didn’t pass up any opportunity to beat the shit out of me when I fucked up or didn’t live up to his ridiculous expectations. If I wasn’t fast enough, strong enough, smart enough, he’d make it his mission to educate me on how I could be better. Fuck, half the time, Hog made it clear the beatings I was getting were simply because I wasn’t enough, period.

That shit started when I’d just turned eight years old. Too young that I’d had no hope in hell of being able to protect myself against an animal like him. Worse still, looking at the man who was meant to keep me safe, to guide me through the jaded eyes of a kid hardened by his father’s belt did a number on me. It still does, to a point. It taught me an important lesson, though. It showed me that respect was earned, not something that could be demanded. I’d never respected, Hog, and what he died too soon to realize was; was that no matter the how hard he’d hit me, how often, or how severely his blows struck, nothing he would ever do would change that.

I can remember the first time he hit me so hard he busted my lip open. The taste of coppery blood that filled my mouth. The sting his blow delivered that I felt for days afterward. But that wasn’t what stuck with me the most. No, it was the humiliating feeling of helplessness that struck true and held, burying itself deep.

I’d just walked in the door from school when it happened. A large hand snaked out from behind the wall separating the front door from our living room, gripping my upper arm painfully. The backhand came next. Connecting with my cheekbone, top lip, and the side of my head, Hog’s silver ring, the one he wore on his middle finger cut through the tender flesh, causing blood to run down my face and pool in my mouth.

“Can’t you do anything I tell you to, boy,” he sneered at me, his face a mask of fury. Hog’s neck was flushed red, the vein at his temple pulsing. “I fucking told you to clean this shit up before you left the house.”

He was referring to the mess he’d left the night before. Empty beer bottles, overfull ashtrays spilling their contents across the coffee table onto the floor, food wrappers, and used condoms littered the space, still where they’d been when I walked out this morning. I knew I was going to catch hell for leaving it, but I’d woken up late after being kept awake most of the night because of Hog’s partying. I didn’t have the time or energy to deal with it before school, telling myself I could do it when I got home. Hopefully, before he got back from taking care of whatever business he had to attend to for the club that day.

Obviously, I was wrong. Hog had gotten home hours earlier than usual and now I’d be left to explain why I didn’t follow up on his demand.

“I’m sorry, Dad. I was gonna miss the bus if I didn’t hurry this morning. I’ll do it now, okay?” I asked hoping he’d leave it at that.

Stalking toward me, I backed up against the couch, pressing myself as close as I could to keep some distance between us.

“I don’t give a shit if you were gonna miss the fucking bus. I tell you to do something, you do it. End of. Fucking useless,” he muttered before giving me a hard shove that saw me landing on the floor after hitting the corner of the coffee table.

Pain flared through my side causing me to gasp, desperately trying to hold back tears I knew would only make him angrier.

“I-I’ll do it now. Right now,” I stuttered, crawling toward a half-filled trashcan.

Kicking out, connecting with the top of my thigh, Hog spat,

“Your cunt of a mother should’ve taken you with her when she fucked off. Waste of fucking space you are.” Gesturing to the room, he spun on his boot demanding, “This shit better be cleaned up by the time I get back, boy. You don’t wanna see what’ll happen to you if it isn’t.”

I didn’t reply, and I didn’t fight back no matter how much I wanted to. I was eight, I knew I couldn’t win. Hence the overwhelming feeling of helplessness that assaulted me at his cruelty. I should have expected it. It was only a matter of time before what I’d seen him do to others would start coming my way. But like all kids, I hoped that never came to pass. The other reason for my despair that day was because I knew I wouldn’t be rescued. I didn’t have anyone who was coming home to save me. No brothers and sisters. No aunts and uncles. No grandparents. No Mom. I was alone, but for one exception; Emily. 

My Mom took off soon after I was born, just before my first birthday, and she never looked back. Not that I blame her, I would have too. Sadly, for me, that meant I didn’t have memories of my Mom. They simply don’t exist.

I can’t remember her rocking me to sleep, feeding me, soothing me when I was sick. I don’t know her name. I don’t even have a picture of her. As far as I’m concerned, she was the vessel that brought me into this world and left me to the cruel hand that raised me in it. I’d never missed her as a kid, because how can you miss someone you’ve got no recollection of?

That used to bother me. Shit, it used to bother me a lot, feeling such hatred toward a woman I’ve never met. But now, the only thing I mourn when I think about her is what could have been. What should have been.

However, like I said, the one woman who didn’t look at me like I was a burden who didn’t do things for me for any other reason than she deemed me worthy of it was Emily. She’s my best friend, and VP, Diesel’s Mom, and still one of the most important people in my life.

Where Emily was compassion and love, Hog was the opposite. He’d had no real hand in raising me. Shy of passing on a beating or kicking me on his way past, Hog was almost non-existent in my day-to-day life. It was probably a blessing, seeing the bastard was only ever cussing at me, delivering a beating, or scowling at me anyway. In fact, I know it was a blessing. It still didn’t change the fact that I craved the relationship other boys had with their Dad’s. I’d never get that, but I longed for it nevertheless.

Living and spending most of my time with, Emily and Diesel, Diesel’s Dad had died of a heart attack when Diesel was fourteen, I managed to escape Hog’s wrath most days. Not that Hog ever bothered coming home to make sure I was fed, replace the clothes I’d grown out of, or check I’d even come home from school most days anyway. He didn’t. Emily clothed, fed and cared for me as best she could, and for that I would be forever grateful.

But that was then and this is now. I’ve got bigger things to worry about than the ghost of a dead man.

With my days filled with problems that are compounding, one on top of the other, before I can solve whichever one I’m currently dealing with, it’s getting harder to keep the balance. On the surface, the club is fine financially speaking. Brothers are happy, families are growing, business is being done and we’re making more green than we ever have. But the balance between energy expended to keep it that way and what it’s worth? Every hour that passes, it’s getting harder to keep in check.

Vengeance doesn’t only run guns and coke and offer protection and transportation during Hog’s reign as President, we had our hands in lots of pies back then. Our legal strip club, Vengeance Reigns, does substantial business, and our custom bike garage, Pipes, even more so.

Like a lot of outlaw MC’s, legit businesses are paramount when it comes to needing somewhere to run the cash we earn from our not so legal dealings through. And as cliché as it is, strip clubs and garages make sense. People, especially the cops, expect MC’s to own and operate businesses like these. It doesn’t throw up any red flags for us to open one or both, and as long as all the permits and licenses are in order, they don’t give us too much of a hard time. In saying that, we still get our fair share of search and seize warrants.

What changed the club's course for the future was only in part to do with danger and risk. The primary motivator was; shit just didn’t work the same way it did a decade ago. Not for men like us anyway.

This meant, my job was to guide Vengeance on a new path, one that wouldn’t see myself and my brothers incarcerated for twenty-five to life. Meaning the focus had to shift toward the legitimate businesses we own, not the shadier deals we’d been involved in. We’ve been gearing up for this, slowly but surely, investing a decent percentage of the profits from the runs we’ve taken on in the last three years into our endeavors.

Like I said, Pipes does substantial business, turning over profits we hadn’t dreamed of when we’d first opened. Recently expanding, we added three more bays to the already five-bay garage and are working toward incorporating custom muscle car builds as well. It doesn’t hurt that, our newest prospect, Aaron ‘Gunner’ Yass, specializes in classic cars either. His skills are exactly what we needed to take this from a possibility and make it our new reality.

Back to our end game, though.

Diesel and I spent the first three years after Hog died, strategizing, stockpiling funds, cutting back the number of runs we currently had and would be willing to take on, and applying for permits and planning permissions to get this plan off the ground. The last three years, we’ve devoted ourselves to building a solid reputation and kickass bikes. Finally, all that hard work is starting to yield results, paying off in ways we hadn’t imagined.

I was proud of what we’d achieved in so little time. A lot of MC’s haven’t been able to accomplish what we have in decades, let alone half of one. That was in no small part due to my brothers all putting their time in at the garage – by choice – because they wanted to make a go of this just as much as we did. If they aren’t building, fabricating, servicing or painting, they’re filling parts orders, keeping the books, or transporting the finished bikes to their new owners.

Which brings us to now.

Having just ridden in from, Boulder, I dismount my bike in the forecourt out front of the clubhouse. Throwing my leg over the seat, shoving my gloves in my saddlebag, I’m in desperate need of a cold beer and a soft chair.

After the day I’d just had, I’m jonesing to get back into the shop and cover myself with grease and chrome. Sadly, that won’t happen for a few more hours, though. The soft chair and beer that is. The grease and paint fumes would have to wait even longer. Until tomorrow at least. And that’s only if nothing else comes up that takes precedence, which is more than likely considering I’m three brothers and two prospects light at the moment.