Naked Dirty Love (4 page)

“Yea.”

Brendan looked at the Prez. “Yea.”

“Yea,” Sean said.

Bookie nodded. “Yea.”

“Yea,” Cricket responded.

Kink glanced at the VP. “Yea.”

Trey nodded his head in complete solidarity. “Yea.”

“Yea.” Dizzy banged the gavel. “We’ll catch up again later this week once we have word back from Emilio. Until then, everyone look sharp and stay tight. If we gotta go on lockdown, we will.”

Trey stood and walked out of the chapel.

He had his own ghosts to contend with, he didn’t need any additional demons on his conscience. Yet without fail, every time chapel ended, it seemed like another person was condemned to go to ground. The bodies kept piling up around them like dominoes.

Right or wrong, it was club life - the path he’d chosen. He would have to deal with the good and the bad, whether it suited him or not.

It was just another sin he would take to the Reaper when his time came.

The clubhouse was strangely quiet with only a few people around. O’Neal—aka Cell—stood behind the bar talking to Chantal, Kink’s sister and Sean’s daughter.

Under normal circumstances, he might have stayed for a drink but he wanted to be alone. His parents’ house in Pine Bluff had been his own for the past several weeks despite all the club members living in Birch Tree.

Trey knew the chance of retaliation from his former club brothers was next to nil. The decision to leave the Bastards and join the Saints hadn’t been his, not when Dizzy intervened and spoke directly to Jonesy. Proverbially speaking, the jig was up, and he didn’t have a choice in the matter. Jonesy would never entirely trust him anyway, knowing he and Dizzy had the same blood flowing through their veins. His parents were dead and the only family he had left was his sister, Trista.

Married to a rock star and living the good life in L.A., Trista was safer than she knew. Desperate times had called for desperate measures and her husband, Lennon “Linx” Carter, made the ultimate sacrifice. He would forever be grateful to his brother-in-law, even if he’d initially thought he was a chump.

The last year had been hard, not only for him but his sister as well.

Although he and Trista had grown up calling the same parents “Mom and Dad,” only he and their parents knew he was a Lennon by name only. Trey’s biological father was Desmond “Dizzy” Cox even though old man Lennon raised him as his own. Now that his little sister knew the truth, he could only hope it wouldn’t change their relationship.

Their parents, brother and his fiancé were murdered the past January in a mysterious car accident. There weren’t signs of foul play but Trista remained mum about the whole situation. Trey had his doubts and assumed they could be in the Witness Protection Program—also known as Witsec—but neither his sister nor Linx would say anything to the positive or the negative.

It made sense overall.

His parents worked as accountants for Dizzy and if they were going to blow the lid on his entire operation to the Feds, he knew his father was cold-hearted enough to order their deaths. They would have rather faked their own demise and started over as opposed to the alternative.

The pavement glided beneath his Harley and it took everything in his power to keep from driving faster. It hadn’t snowed in the last few days but the icy wind and bite in the air hinted of a snowstorm on the horizon. Soon, he’d have to start driving his truck until the roughest part of the winter season ended. Always one to be a little on the flashy side, he owned a pimped out Cadillac Escalade as opposed to a Ford or Chevy.

Yes, it was considered over the top for a biker but he didn’t give a fuck. Sometimes it felt good to go against the grain.

A strange feeling crept over him as he pulled into the silent house much too big for one person. No doubt the Feds would have frozen the property had it not been willed to Trista. She had no criminal record and had still been in their parents’ good graces when they met their untimely death. Trey, on the other hand, was not and had served time in a Nevada state penitentiary. It hadn’t been one of his proudest moments but most—if not all—the brothers eventually ended up with a record, whether it was for something petty or major.

His wasn’t a petty crime but it hadn’t been particularly heavy. He’d done his time, kept his head down, and nose clean. Despite being a person of interest for attempted murder in the Brooklyn Decker case, he’d still come back to the States without issue.

Dizzy had Gisela working on the case. Chances were the charges would be dropped when Brooklyn recanted his story and told the detectives he didn’t know who shot him. They’d already discussed the case with Nel Decker and he thought it was a good enough trade since Trey had already lost the love of his life. He shouldn’t have to spend time in prison too.

Trey walked directly to the master bedroom, shed his leathers, and strode into the attached bathroom. After a quick shower, he cleared the mirror and stared at the face looking back at him.

No one would ever accuse him of not being good looking with his lightly tanned skin, distinctly Irish features inherited from his father, and bright hazel-green eyes, courtesy of his mother. His sable brown hair could use a cut; it was too long in the back for his taste since he preferred his hair tapered.

Like all his brothers, he was a tall drink of water, a few inches over six feet, and possessed a natural athletic build with defined pecs and abs, strong arms and legs. He often drank like a fish, smoked too much bud, and snorted more than the odd line of coke after Keri’s death. Since he’d come home, all his drug use had stopped but he still went through about a pack of smokes per day. In spite of his bad habits, he weight-lifted daily and ran at least five miles on the treadmill. It was enough for him not to feel completely guilty about the kind of lifestyle he lived.

Various tattoos, which covered his arms, chest and back, all had great significance and a story behind each and every one. The only one he regretted was the Bastards’ insignia on his left shoulder. Loire, his half-sister and club tattoo artist, visited him in Northern Ireland. She’d transformed it into a detailed skull’s head, and spent the rest of the week tattooing the Saints insignia on his back.

Trey walked back into the master bedroom, grabbed a pair of gray sweats and slid them on commando-style. After contemplating whether he wanted to go straight to bed or stay up for a while, sleep lost when he found himself walking toward the kitchen. With a bottle of beer in one hand and a pack of smokes in the other, he sat down in the sitting room and turned on the sixty-inch television.

Although it was extremely cheesy, he found himself watching the sixth season of
Sons of Anarchy
. It was a guilty pleasure, merely because he could suspend disbelief and enjoy the show for what it was: great entertainment with suspenseful plotlines and talented actors.

Halfway into a pivotal episode from the season, the doorbell rang.

Trey sure as fuck wasn’t expecting company and the idea someone was on the other side of the front door sent nervous chills down his spine. He stood and walked toward the door, stopping briefly to grab a nine-millimeter Glock he kept in an innocuous wool coat hanging a few steps from the door.

His movements were stealth, quiet and extremely calculated. If someone was there to do him harm, they’d most certainly meet the Grim Reaper along with him.

As he reached for the doorknob, a familiar male voice on the other side yelled, “I know you’re in there, Trey. If I wanted to hurt you, believe me, you’d already be dead.”

He breathed a sigh of relief.

Cillian.

What the fuck was
he
doing there?

Trey opened the door quickly and his brother pushed past him, walking toward the kitchen without preamble. He closed and locked the door before he strode toward the sitting room. Cillian knew the layout and would meet him in there soon enough. He didn’t need to follow him around the house like a fucking nursemaid.

He sat down on the sofa and continued to drink his beer in silence.

Cillian strolled into the room, his shit kickers making a distinctive sound on the hardwood floor. He sat down cater corner to Trey and swigged from his beer but remained silent, ever watchful.

Trey stared at the VP. “What brings you out here tonight?”

His brother smiled. “I’m on my way home but…I gotta talk to you about somethin’. You know how you told the brothers Keri was pregnant when she died?”

“Yeah, what about it?” he questioned nonchalantly. It was easier to act like losing a baby he’d never known didn’t mean much to him rather than caring at all.

“Well, all of us know how you fucked my ex-old lady when you were a Bastard. Do you remember that?” Cillian’s crystal blue eyes shone hard and brittle.

“Yeah, ‘course I do. My memory’s not that fuckin’ short. In fact, it’s pretty long, brother.”

“I know.” He washed down the remainder of his beer in several large gulps. “Listen, I’m not gonna presume to know what went down between you two but I do know you were dumb enough not to use a condom. It never occurred to you—social diseases and all with the way she was giving her pussy away?”

“It did but I was drunk and horny—I didn’t give a fuck,” Trey replied. “Figured she couldn’t have anything worse than the clap or maybe Chlamydia. I saw my GP a few days later and he gave me the all clear. After that, I didn’t really dwell on it, know what I mean?”

Cillian nodded. “I get that. The point I’m tryin’ to make is…that night had consequences. Nine months later to be exact, Brianna gave birth to our daughter, Caitlin. I knew she wasn’t mine and my ex-old lady knew it too. It was kinda a ‘fuck you’ to me, so to speak. What could I do? I loved her from the moment I held her in my arms—blood relations didn’t matter. After all, she’s still my half-niece.”

Trey’s heart began to thump in his chest as a cool sheen of sweat covered his body.

What. The. Fuck.

He had a fucking daughter and didn’t know jack shit about her?

How old was she now? Seven or eight? He was a fucking baby himself when she came into the world. Nineteen-fucking-years-old and a father? How fucked up was this shit?

He met his brother’s eyes; they were upset but there was also something else there…panic, perhaps. Cillian had no intention of handing her over so he must’ve wanted to tell him something else.

“Okay. This is…I don’t know what to say. I didn’t know and even if I did, I don’t have any legal recourse. Caitlin was born within your marriage, brother. She’s your kid, legally speaking. I wouldn’t do anything to destroy that. I can be accused of a lot but I’m not fuckin’ stupid,” Trey explained, sounding calmer than he felt. “I know you’re not and that’s why I’m tellin’ you about this.”

Cillian leaned toward him and continued, “She’s mine. I know you supposedly got rights with you bein’ her birth father and all but if you ever pull a stunt like my old man did with you, I’ll put you in the ground myself. I don’t give a fuck. I know what that means too. It means the brothers would most likely vote to put my ass in the ground as well but it’s a chance I’m willing to take. Caitlyn. Can. Never. Know. About. You. Got me?”

The whole picture became crystal clear to Trey.

Cillian was worried and with good reason. If their father had basically stolen his son from under his father’s nose, he might try to do the same.

“I respect you, brother,” Trey began with sincerity. “Not because you’re gonna be Prez one day soon but because you’re my blood. We got the same blood flowin’ through our veins. Ask Trista how hard I love and what I will do to protect those I do. I could never betray you like that. Relax, man. You’ve got nothin’ to fear ’cause that shit will never happen. I give you my word. Right here. Right now.”

Cillian nodded, his blue eyes softening. “Glad to see we’re on the same page. And just so you know, I didn’t tell you because I had to. I told you ’cause you had a right to know. The Feds—they’d use it against the club if they could. I don’t want those sons of bitches to have any leverage when it comes to us. Furthermore, I’m tired of what you and my ex-old lady did causin’ bad blood between you and me. We gotta work through that shit. Like it or not, we have to protect and have each other’s backs. I’ve got yours—I need to know you got mine.”