Then Max walks in ruffling his long dark hair after taking off his bike helmet. He's a handsome kid, looks just like Tate. He's also tall for a ten-year-old, not overly but he'll be a big guy when he's older. He's gonna be packed full of muscle, he already looks like he works out, which is crazy given his age. But I can tell he's an active kid.
He's halfway through a glass of water before he notices me standing there. Slowly, he brings the glass away from his mouth and places it on the counter, his eyes haven't left mine yet. He's a cautious kid, I'll give him that.
“Max, this is Nova,” Lynette tells him excitedly.
“So you found her, then.” Wow, it wasn't even a question, and there was so much disinterest in his words it made me shiver. I can already see he doesn't like me, and that's disheartening.
“Hey!” Even I jump when Jett yells at him. The kid doesn't even look bothered. But then he's probably used to Jett yelling at him. “Dad has longed for this day for fifteen years, longer than you've been alive, you little shit! Our sister is finally home, so show her some damn respect!”
He should take a leaf out of his own book. He's giving Max a hard time for being a brat, yet he's an ignorant prick and won't even look at me.
“Max,” he turns to look at my father – our father. “Remember what I told you about Nova?” He nods his head, his long hair falling in his eyes. “Well, after all this time, she came to find us.” Max just shrugs his shoulders and takes off to his room, I'm guessing.
I sigh to myself. My dad wraps his arm around my shoulder and hugs me to him. Sophie giggles at me and it makes me smile, at least she doesn't hate me.
“We're back!”
“That'll be Willow and VJ.” Great, more people to hate me.
The boy that enters the den this time is tall, like, really tall for a twelve-year-old. He looks like a sixteen-year-old! He is the absolute image of Jett, of my dad. Unlike his little brother, he doesn't look like a skater/emo. He looks like a biker in the making, jeans, wife beater, biker boots. He eyes are a piercing blue, and he has a real sense of power about him. God help us all when he's of age.
God help us because I can already see his going to be just like me. A little bit of a psychopath.
I'll explain later.
While Lynette is busy whispering to whom I imagine is Willow, VJ is eyeing me in a way that is totally inappropriate. Of course, he doesn't know who the hell I am, but he's definitely a ladies man. Already! He's so handsome, he's going to leave broken hearts all over the place.
With a smirk, he holds his hand out to me. With a chuckle, I shake it. But he goes one further, the little charmer, he kisses my hand and winks at me. “I'm VJ. It's nice to meet you...?”
I open my mouth to speak but the heavy chuckles from my dad and Jett stop me. “Dude,” Jett is almost hysterical with laughter. “You're hitting on your own sister!”
I can't help laughing, his bright eyes are so wide. “Nova?” I nod slightly. His eyes shoot to our father. “You found her?”
“She found us, son.”
He looks at me for a moment, his eyes never leaving mine. He's going to run from me like Max did... Nope, I was wrong. He rushes toward me and wraps his arms around me tightly. I look at my dad for a second, I feel a little emotional. He winks at me. I wrap my arms around my little brother and hold him for a moment. God, he's taller than I am!
Willow comes rushing over and wraps her arms around me, telling me how she can't believe I'm finally here, how she's missed me. And I have a vague memory of her and I playing as children.
So this is my family. I only hope me being here doesn't end in disaster. I won't let anything happen to any of them, and that's a fact.
“There's something about that girl.” Ghost says before knocking back his scotch. Nova is sitting in a booth over from us with a couple of the women who belonged to Gunner and Ripper.
Since she walked into our lives a week ago, she'd made firm friends with Eileen, Ripper's girl, and Tonya, Gunner's wife. Gunner is the only one of us who's married apart from the Prez, Blackjack, Red, and Stryker. Even the older members of our MC aren't married. But then Gunner fell in love with Tonya within days of meeting her. He patched her just three days later and married her a month into their relationship.
Now, three years later, they're happier than I've ever seen two people. I don't believe in the whole love and marriage crap myself, but each to his own. How fucked up is that when I want nothin' more than to meet a woman I can make mine?
I don't know what's wrong with me lately. I feel like a damned idiot. But I've wanted a family of my own since my parents were killed. Yes, I have my brother, he means more to me than I think he actually knows. But he's the only blood relative I have in the world. I want my own family. A woman I can call my own, a kid who'll call me dad.
I won't just settle for any woman out there, I want to love her, I want her to love me. And I won't risk getting any woman pregnant until I know for sure she's mine.
“What are you talkin' about?” I ask him.
“I've seen her somewhere before.”
“Have you?” I ask nonchalantly.
He can't have seen her before, none of us even knew she existed until last week. Okay, I knew she existed but I hadn't seen her since she was a little girl. Everyone believed the Prez's daughter was dead. Then she walks in here looking so fuckin' hot I've done nothing but think about fucking her little pussy for hours on end since. I'd have her riding my dick like her fuckin' life depended on it. I'd wreck that pussy like you wouldn't believe. But, as it is, I can't touch her. Prez would tear me a new asshole and then some.
“This is going to sound insane,” Whatever Ghost says usually does. “But do you remember the stories about The Exorcist?”
“The film?”
“No, dickhead!” He snaps, causing me to laugh. “The guy who wipes out scum for a huge price. There's never any trace, no evidence of what he's done but for the rosary beads he leaves behind on his victims’ bodies.”
I nod.
Of course, I've heard of him. Who hasn't? He's smart, quick, never leaves a trace he's even been there. His victims are taken out in the worst way. Some are even tortured to death. I've killed in my time, once or twice... Or fifty times. But nothing like that guy. The man is crazy and then some. And not one person has ever been able to find him.
There are no photographs of him. No one knows his real name or age, where he really comes from. Nothing. It is known that he's the best in his field. If he wants you dead, you'll be dead fast. There's no way to stop him once the wheels have been set in motion. It's said that whoever you contact to hire this guy asks you once and once only if you're sure you want to go ahead. Because once you tell him yes, there is no way back. Even if you change your mind.
That and you need a literal fortune to hire this guy.
Put it this way, I wouldn't want him coming after me.
Not that I'd know he was after me. It's said that his victim don't even know what's hit them. He could be the man next to them on a bus, in a bar, they could even be talking to him like an old friend and they wouldn't know he was about to end their lives.
He can get into any place he wants without being seen. Going on lockdown wouldn't help even a club as big as this one. It wouldn't save us from him if wanted us dead.
I pity the little people of the world. I don't even think the local mob would be safe from this guy.
“They say no one has ever seen him.”
“I know this. But if that's the case how the hell does anyone hire him?” That's the question that has bugged me for months. If no one's seen the guy or ever actually spoken to him personally, how does anyone hire him?
Because he doesn't post anything online, not even subtly. Believe me, people have checked time and time again. The mob have had the best men in the business looking for this guy. On the streets, internet, even by word of mouth. Nothing has ever come up.
Either the guy is a phantom or he's smarter than an
y other person around.
Could be an asset to the right person.
“Through her.” Ghost points to Nova. I turn to look at her. She's laughing with the girls. That beautiful smile of hers drives me crazy with want for her. Why is it I want her so damn much more than I've ever wanted another woman? Maybe it's because I can't have her. Yeah, that must be it.
I turn to look at Ghost. The man's lost it. She's just twenty-two years old. Yeah, she’s confident but she's no killer’s bitch. “Are you insane? She's just a girl, man.”
“A dangerous one. Do you remember when Hammer hired a guy to take out those who killed his girl?” I nod. I do remember. Of course, I do. How could any of us forget?
Hammer was all set to kill the whole state he was so angry. Hammer is a good man, my brother. Cindy was everything to him. She was kidnapped a couple years ago and killed in retaliation for us killing a member of the Sons of Hades. An MC that we've had trouble with for a couple years now.
“Hammer hired The Exorcist to do the job.”
“He did?” That I didn't know. Okay, I knew he'd hired someone to do the job, but I had no idea who he'd hired. Shepard had forbidden him from hiring anyone. But, of course, he found out, but Hammer wouldn't say who it was, no matter what Shepard did to him. And trust me, he didn't let Hammer off easily.
Man's a lunatic. Runs in the blood. So how could he keep such a thing from me of all people? I'm his brother by blood, for fuck sake!
“How in the hell did he manage that?”