Clear (Storm's Soldiers MC Book 3) Read online

  We split up at the parking lot, and I went back home. I tried to get some stuff done before I had to head off to the night shift at the bar, but I just couldn’t stop thinking about the rally. I did some searches on white nationalism to see what wikipedia had to say. It turned out there was no unifying philosophy, just a grabbag of whatever petty nonsense a group held against the world.

  I shared my findings with Marissa during my shift at the Volcano, but she wasn’t too interested. “People have to find problems always,” she said. “Or they get bored.”

  “Why not just get drunk then?” I asked, looking out at our clientele.

  “Cause they’re pendejos. Why are you looking this stuff up anyway? You have some self-hatred thing that I don’t know about.”

  “No, no, just kinda curious what a 21st century racist looks like.”

  “Old, fat and ugly, I think.”

  Actually I was well aware what such a man might look like. And sound like and taste and smell like. Also, feel like. Vaughn’s club buddies would look like him, right? It’s just their ideas that would be different.

  Hopefully.

  I finished my shift and headed back home. I had a porchfront visitor waiting.

  “Hey there, stranger,” he said, rising like a hulking white ghost from the shadows.

  I’d seen his profile and heard his voice, but I still couldn’t help from jumping as he moved. “Jesus, Vaughn. Why you being all theatrical?”

  “I just love to make you move,” he said, pinning me to the door with a kiss. All the sharp edges the day had left in my brain melted off, leaving only smooth longing.

  We snuck in. Tara would be asleep by now. Vaughn ticked his head at the stairs and whispered, “Ready to make the floorboards sing?”

  “No,” I hissed, even as my undergarments went wet at the memory of our reunion sex. “We’ve gotta be quiet. She’s got a big performance review tomorrow.”

  His mouth curled up in a wicked smile. “Well I’ve got one for you coming up tonight.”

  He led my hand to his crotch where a long thick measuring stick had sprung against the fabric. I half laughed at his cheesy line, half gasped. I stroked him in that moonlit foyer a bit, loving the way his lean face cast shadows as my little hand made its way up and down.

  His face bowed over mine, our foreheads nudged against each other. His jagged breaths washed down over me, drowning me under his rich scent. It was like the oil and leather had seeped into his very sweat. The smell got me fired up and set me loose all at once.

  I tipped my head up and landed a gentle kiss on his lips. He pressed down brusquely. His powerful arm scooped me around by the small of my back, pinning me in place. I stroked him harder and his tongue darted into my mouth, the first part of him starting to invade me. My brain clouded with lust, but I found the boldness to exhale words into his ears: “Not here. Tara.”

  Vaughn led me upstairs by the small of my back, calm and patient until I had the room door closed behind us. He pressed me down on my own bed, but stopped at the edge, freeing himself from his rough jeans. The part of him I’d been servicing with my hand sprung up, vast and thick and round before me. My mouth wasn’t much bigger than the curl of my grip, but I peeked up at his expectant face and took him in whole.

  His whole body rumbled like an engine starting up as I slid off and on. He thrust in shallow strokes but I took him deeper than that. I held my tongue down and swallowed him until I could set my forehead against his rippling abs.

  “You really want me tonight, huh girl?” he groaned up above.

  I kept my rhythm, savoring his taste. Maybe I did want him more, maybe seeing that poster reminded me how wrong this was and how hot that made it. I wrapped my arms around and took a firm grab of his cute butt. Any more words he had escaped in a hiss.

  He started to twitch inside my mouth and I sped up, but his hands ripped me off. In a flash and flurry, my clothes were strewn around me. He crouched above me with nothing but his jacket on and hanging open. God did I love that look, with his colors ripped open and all his muscles on display.

  I yelped as he entered me.

  “Shhh,” he whispered with a smile. “Think of poor Tara.”

  I clapped my hands to my mouth, but he just pounded me until even that wasn’t enough to hold back my moans. Finally, each stroke came slower and thicker, and then we came together. He clutched me to him and I sighed into his ears. My body flooded with wave after wave of pleasure and my insides were drenched by his thick jets.

  He threw his colors to the floor and we lay next to each other.

  “Nicely done,” he said.

  “Gee, thanks.”

  He stroked my damp head. “I mean it. Don’t know what possessed you today, but I hope it sticks around.”

  The light strokes and exhaustion had me starting to drift off, but then I remembered what had me riled up.

  “I saw a poster today,” I said. “At school.”

  “Must be some poster.”

  “It was. Something about a white rights rally in Centennial Park.”

  His eyes flickered open. We were both bright awake and staring at each other.

  “Oh yeah?” he asked.

  “Is that your group giving speeches?”

  “The Soldiers? No. The soldiers don’t talk at rallies.”

  It was a quick answer, but he seemed way too relieve to be done with it.

  “Who’s rally is it then?” I asked

  There was only the sound of our chests moving for awhile. Vaughn turned to the ceiling. “It’s my father. That’s who’s organizing this.”

  Some part of me had always known. “You don’t consider him part of your group?”

  His head shuffled side to side on the pillow. “Hell, no. He’s got some silly civilian group. I’m family but I’m not with them.”

  “Oh.”

  His tipped back to me. “They asked me to talk. I said no. I’ve got nothing to say at those things. Never have.”

  I smiled, but not fully. It was what I’d wanted to hear, but something was still off.

  His eyes lay unblinking on mine, as if expecting another shot to come his way.

  Just like that, I knew the next question: Are you going to be there?

  My lips couldn’t pronounced the words though. Wasn’t him not wanting to talk enough? I remembered him saying how rare these rallies were - maybe once a year. This was just bad timing for us, coming so soon into our relationship. Going against his club was one thing, but I couldn’t expect him to turn his back on his family. Right?

  Of course not. It still didn't change the fact some deep part of me hoped the answer to my question would be a firm and solid: Hell, no, I’m not going.

  Vaughn gave out an exhausted sigh and hugged me deep to him. “Don’t worry about that thing,” he said. “It’s just a dumb little outburst and then it’ll be over.”

  The beat of his heart wore down at my fading consciousness. I nodded into his thick muscles, and let my brain drift out.

  Don’t worry about that thing.

  I could try. I had to try.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Vaughn

  The club room at the Iron Crossroads was small and barren. The walls were just dark planks of wood, and they lay empty, other than for our grinning skull logo hung up near the far end. The long table in the middle had uneven legs and rattled when I leaned on it. I’d been here a few times before, during small meetings and such. I wasn’t exactly leadership, but blood ties lifted me above most of the rest.

  Today, I was listening in on a war meeting.

  I sat at the back. Asher and Thurge were at either side of me, and Leonidas sat next to the former, looking tough, but out of place. He was a footsoldier and it showed, but he’d been there when the shit with the Cartel went down.

  At the far end , Calix and Homer stood murmuring by a chalk board with numbers scrawled all over it.

  “We can’t pay our suppliers any lower,” Calix was saying. “Two gu
ys already called it quits.”

  “Cause of the money or cause they’re pussies?” Homer growled.

  “One got arrested. The base is cracking down on theft. They ain’t gonna move shit for us if we go back to old rates.”

  Homer glowered at the numbers some more, as if he could convince them to rearrange themselves. I got why he was pissed, but we were still profitable. He had to know the situation couldn’t go on forever. It wasn’t the Mexicans who’d tried to change the deal, it’d been us. Once the adrenaline wore off from that messed up day in the quarry, I could see that clear.

  “They ain’t got any other buyers,” Homer decided. “We go back to our old prices and if our sellers in the army don’t play, then we walk.”

  “We already agreed on higher prices. You’re the one who signed off on it,” Calix said.

  “Yeah well, now I’m taking it back.”

  “That’s a bit cold, man,” Asher said. “We’re gonna do them like the Mexicans did us? That’s our troops in the military.”

  “They’re getting paid aren’t they? We’re negotiating here.”

  “Acting like goddamn beaners is what,” Asher muttered to himself.

  He wasn’t soft enough. Homer went charging up the side of the table and jerked him to his feet. Asher came up to his height, but he was lean. It was a sniper’s build, no match for our thick-armed president.

  “The fuck you say, boy?” Homer said in a voice like death.

  “Nothing.”

  Homer didn’t look appeased. Thurge and I scattered out of our chairs and went over before arms could be raised.

  “Easy, boss,” Thurge said, right into the man’s ear. “Asher here meant nothing by it. He’s just sensitive when it comes to dealing with his brothers in arms. Ain’t that right?”

  “Yeah,” Asher said.

  Homer searched his face madly, but Asher had the sense not to meet his eyes. Finally, he released him. Asher dropped back into his seat. Calix nodded his approval to me.

  “Fuck,” Homer said, as he got back to the board. “Fucking hell.”

  “What’s up?” Calix asked.

  “That little prick is right. We are like the beaners. This is a coward’s move.”

  “It’s not. It’s just market forces, boss. Our profit goes down, so does our payment.”

  “Why did our profit drop?” Homer asked. He pounded a fist into the payments column on the board. “Cause the Mexicans didn’t keep their end of the deal. Our costs went up and we didn’t push them to raise their dues.”

  “I tried.”

  “Not nearly enough.”

  Chalk dust fogged the air up front. This was headed in an unproductive direction. I shot Thurge a look, but he paid me no heed.

  Homer turned to us. “The Mexicans told us to fuck off, well we ain’t going to. Who the fuck they think we are?”

  “Boss,” I said. “Think about who they are. This is Cartel. This deal’s like trading cards for them. The guys measure money in billions not thousands.”

  “Then it won’t be much trouble to ask them to peel off a couple stacks to pay us proper.”

  Christ. I could see the way his hard gears turned. We were white and they weren’t. To accept this injustice, he’d have to accept that they were more powerful. Better than us. Homer didn’t even see them as equal.

  It’d been just like me yelling at Meagan’s ex. I’d wanted to wound, knowing full well it’d be unproductive. Except that a war with the Cartel wouldn’t end with us facing a cold shoulder. We’d be facing death.

  “What exactly do you think we can do?” Calix asked.

  Homer looked wild eyed under his long shaggy hair. He took in the assembled leadership team before returning to my brother. “We show them that we know how to use our arms if they won’t pay for them. That Cartel spic who’s there at the drop offs - we take him and hold him for back payments.”

  Calix’s rough face wrinkled deeper with worry. “Kidnapping? They’re not gonna give us much for him. Not nearly enough to justify messing up our deal.”

  “Mess up our deal?” Homer looked about ready to invade Mexico.

  Calix spoke slowly. “You think the Cartel will keep buying from us after this?”

  “They’ve got no choice. If they don’t, we hold their guy.”

  “Boss,” I started.

  He turned his insanity on me. “Did I give you permission to speak, boy?”

  I let it roll off me. “You invited me into this room, didn’t you?”

  “What? What do you got to say?”

  I shrugged. “We want money. This isn’t going to get us money. We’ve got to find another buyer, that’s all.”

  It might have been my imagination, but some of the murder left Homer’s eyes. “Another buyer,” he said.

  “There ain’t just one Cartel, not even around Atlanta. We make contact with one of the others and we’ve got a bidding war. Hell, maybe it’ll start an actual gang war and we can hike prices on both sides.”

  It was a coward’s move, but it had worked damn fine for some countries. War might be glorious, but it wasn’t a way to riches. Fuck, we weren’t even real soldiers. I had no wish to die for this cause, or any cause. Now, I had something to lose.

  Calix took over where I’d stopped. He started talking about contacts we had with other crime groups in the area. I’d been bullshitting mostly, but it turned out Atlanta was a hub.

  Homer was tensing back up with every word. I saw his mouth twitch every time Calix said the word ‘Mexican.’ There was a pause and Thurge finally said one thing too much.

  He looked at me. “Good call, Vaughn.”

  “No,” Homer yelled. “No fucking deal. It’s bad enough we got one pack of spics to deal with, now you want to go groveling to more? We ain’t letting this go.”

  His look challenged anyone to dare him, but I couldn’t meet his eyes. Thurge and Asher seemed kinda energized if uncertain.

  This wasn’t a place any of us had been before. This wasn’t the war we were supposed to fight. I couldn’t see how bleeding our numbers against a criminal cartel was supposed to pave the way for a white nation.

  But maybe this was how it would be. Once you made war a matter of proving your race’s might, then it became a necessity rather than a last resort. Would a white nation be ok with peace or would it always be picking fights?

  Fuck I was never going to see a white nation anyway. I didn’t even want to anymore.

  “So, plans,” Homer said. “Tell me how we make this go down.”

  “I’m not doing this,” I said.

  Everyone turned to me, with various looks of shock. I would have done the same to myself. The words weren’t planned, but it turns out I had more. “I’m not fighting a war.”

  “Hey,” Calix said. “You might not agree, but that’s your commanding officer you’re talking to there. You don’t get to decide whether you fight or not, soldier.”

  There was no trace of humor on his face. I shook my head. “We ain’t soldiers,” I said. “You do this if you want. I ain’t gonna die for nothing.”

  Before another word could be said, I pushed out the club door. Thurge rushed out after me, yelling to stop, but I headed out of the bar. He grabbed me by the shoulder as I stepped out into the night.

  “What do you want?” I asked, trying to shrug him off. “I ain’t in the mood for a lecture.”

  “I’m not going to lecture. You’re right.”

  “You don’t think that. I saw your face, man. You want to go after the Cartel.”

  “I did. Or at least I thought so till you reminded me of my duty.”

  Thurge looked at me like some messiah. I had no idea what I’d said to earn that. “My duty?”

  “You said you ain’t gonna die for nothing. You’re right. That’s what this would be. I’d love to shoot some spic asses, but what does it earn us, but more bloodshed? In all likelihood, it’ll just dwindle our numbers without any motion. Not towards money or our true cause.”


  I didn’t talk. I couldn’t trust my mouth to keep the lid on my thoughts tonight.

  “Anyway, don’t worry.” Thurge patted my shoulder. “We’ll talk him out of it, somehow. You just focus on the rally tomorrow.”

  He turned back in, leaving me to watch the doors swing alone in the dirt lot.

  The rally tomorrow - another war I had no interest in fighting. I thought of Meagan’s eyes flared at me, asking what I wanted. I wanted her. That was it. The things I had to do to keep eyes off me though, those I could do without.

  If the Soldiers were going to start blood vendettas, well, staying seemed less and less worth it.

  The crickets chirped in the darkened groves around me, and I made my way over to Viper. Meagan and I had no plans on meeting tonight, but I needed her. I needed to know that there was one thing in my life that I could still hold on to.

  I rang her number and counted the stars. On the fifth she picked up.

  “Vaughn?” she asked.

  “You free?” I rubbed my hand across the leather handlebars, trying to remember the feel of her.

  “It ain’t one of our nights.”

  “I know. I just want to see you.”

  “I got school work.”

  “Damn, girl. It ain’t gonna be for long.”

  A pause came between us, lengthened into a silence. “I’d rather not tonight,” she said finally.

  “What?” I asked. “Why not?”

  Another pause. “Cause of tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Don’t play, Vaughn. You know what I mean.”

  I knew. The way my stomach fell into a pit, I knew what that meant, but I still had to hear it. “What are you talking about?”

  “The rally.” She gave me space to talk, and when I didn’t, she went on. “You’re gonna be in it right?”

  My turn for silence. Stupid lies passed through my head, but nothing worthy of her brain. “Yes,” I said. “I’ve gotta be there.”

  “I knew.”

  “You mad?” I asked. “I don’t want to be there. I ain’t gonna do anything, just gear up and stand in line. It’s just for show.”

  “What are you trying to show?”

  I looked back at the bar, at the place full of the people I was still trying to align with. “I’m trying to show them that I’m still with them. I need them to think that I’m still the guy they know.”