Okay, fine, it helps my habit of buying new toys too. Some might consider me the typical all-American redneck with my desire for weapons, but I really do use most of it, either for club work, training opportunities with Operation Hell Hound, or just regular hunting. I don’t collect guns; I select what’s best for the club. Part of my job with the Hounds is to keep us geared up with the best of the best. I know my shit, and I’ve got enough connections to get us good deals if we need something specific. Like land mines. We don’t use them for much more than a deterrent when we have to set up camp in a place that has more enemies around than not, and we need a few hours of rest. Don’t worry, we take the unused ones back with us. We aren’t monsters, despite what a few townies think. We don’t take risks with innocents.
I kept the land as Gramps had it, only added the two buildings and made a few clearings to use for target practice when I want to let off steam or try out a new weapon. I had most of this place built when I went in the Army right out of college, where I got selected at an early age for Delta Force. I was determined to do the job right, so I focused and got the attention of a few people within Delta who recruited me for the elite group. It wasn’t something I sought out when I joined, just wanted away from my dad and, at the time, this place. A few years of learning every type of weapon, as wellas going on a few missions that I considered soul crushing and the government saw as opportunities to gain intel, had me looking for more out there.
That’s about the time the Hounds found me. Law is many things, but one of the best parts is that he’s a great recruiter. He might have never served in any branch of the armed services, but he has enough buddies who do, and they’re great at passing the word around to those who are looking to make a change and also not give up the opportunity to kick ass when needed. Or at least that was how my team lead, Master Sergeant Drew Ross, described it. Guy was a sucker for all things club related, but he was a lifer in the Army. He saw himself as a two-sided coin—wanted to be both but couldn’t—so he did the next best thing. With his rank and status, he saw the best of the best. He could see potential in anyone, and when someone was looking lost, like me, he sent them to the Hounds. Flint, Casper, and I were just a few who found our way into the club because of Ross. Not that we knew each other beforehand, but it was nice that others had a similar background.
I’m from here, so I knew about the club, though nothing beyond that they rode motorcycles. I was too consumed by my own problems to venture out and discover the true offerings of this place. Since I’ve been back, things have changed. I don’t feel the need to run from my past; rather, I fight to hold on to it a bit. Gramps was the only good thing about my childhood, and while he might have seen me as the last thing left of his daughter, this place is the last thing left of him and the good times I had, even if they were limited.
The sound of a whistle has me looking away from the gun magazine I’m cleaning to glance at the open bay doors of my garage. Seeing no one, I arch a brow at the kid. I’m notgoing to play dumb and pretend it was a bird or some shit. To his credit, he doesn’t look up from watching me work, as my eyes might have strayed, but my hands didn’t. Habit I picked up in Delta Force—taking apart a gun and putting it back together blindfolded. Sure, they taught us, but it was the club that made it a game to see who did it the fastest.
Kid just whistles back with a small head turn but otherwise does nothing else except keep watch. I glance once more at the doors, expecting the other person to walk through it. When they do, my hands fumble, and I drop the barrel that I had moved on to. Thank fuck none of my brothers are here to witness me picking up a part of a gun off the floor, or I’d never hear the end of it. That game about who’s the fastest? I got an extra half second on Casper, and I’m not about to lose my unofficial title because of a woman in shorts.
Not just any shorts, mind you. Skintight black ones that are painted on and frayed at the edges. Showing a lot of leg that ends in shitkickers that seem far sexier than a pair of heels on any day of the week. Especially paired with a white wifebeater. But none of that is what has me losing focus. It’s the ink. So much ink.
Before, she wore jeans, and even at Wyatt’s birthday party, her shirt was a quarter sleeve, so I only saw part of the tattoo sleeve she had on her right arm. No clue she had the top half on her left, along with most of her damn left leg, done too. And her hair? Total bedroom look from the tossing and turning all night, no doubt with bedroom eyes to match. She might be tired, but she sure as hell doesn’t look it. And when she speaks? Fuck, it’s like hot liquid with the way her voice is all sultry in the morning.
“How long you been at this?”
“A while,” Ollie answers as I get back to work, focusing everything I have on the cleaning process.
“You packing?”
Her words have me looking fast and hard at her like she’s crazy, but her eyes aren’t on me. I turn to the kid and see him nod a second before he shows her one of the carving knives I keep in the kitchen. No fucking clue when he got it. Even worse, I had no fucking clue he had it.
I’m both impressed with the kid and worried about who the club let into my house. Maybe I should be the one worried that I’m going to get cut up into tiny pieces and spread through the trees.
“Nah, would take too long,” Ollie says with not a hint of humor in his voice as he puts the knife back behind him.
The fact that I spoke my thoughts out loud is drowned out by the way he’s acting. He’s freaking me out a bit. I mean, what kind of kid sits quietly for hours, helps when asked, watches without blinking, and carries around a knife larger than his hand?
A psychopath.
Or maybe a kid who’s been through some shit and has learned that being quiet, watching a threat, and protecting himself is the only way to survive. Fuuuuck.
I close my eyes for a split second and let that realization sink in. He’s not out here with me because he’s curious and lonely. Nah, he’s out here playing sentry duty. Watching my every move to see if I need to be put down.
I shake my head at that. I might be an ass, might know how to kill a person sixty different ways, and within reach ofme are about thirty things I could use to get rid of the kid and his mom without a second thought, but I don’t—and Iwon’t. I’ve seen enough victims to know when someone is faking it, and these two aren’t.
Even before the shooting last night, she and the kid kept bouncing around in my head. I doubt I would have stayed away as it was. I’m not wired to look the other way like that. No Hound is. I just probably would have done it from a distance, and with Flint’s or Gator’s computer skills at the ready to keep a lookout.
Now I get to be up close and personal to this shit. I don’t like people in my space, but I’d rather know they’re safe here than out in the world of the unknown. It sedates a part of me, a part I don’t hide from. I’ve got a protective streak. You have to have one to be in Delta, even if shit is so fucked up and they try to take the humanity out of you on a few missions. My protective instinct is dimmed down now for sure, but it’s not snuffed out. It’s half the reason Law has me taking a bigger part in setting up Operation Hell Hound, linking all our sister chapters. Not only do I need to know it’s okay to have that side in me but also ’cause I’m able to see it in others. Not saying I can save every brother out there who’s reeling from some nasty shit in their past, but I can at least know if a brother is volunteering for the right reasons or just looking to fuel the demon inside him.
Again, nothing wrong with that. We’ve all got a demon, hence why the Reaper chose us to be his Hounds. But there’s a difference between owning your demon and your demon owning you. Sometimes we need a brother to go psycho on someone, but we also need that same brother to notice when an innocent is in the crossfire and not to smile if they get hurt.
I finish my cleaning and put my stuff away. Neither mom nor kid says anything. At least I’m starting to understand Ollie a bit more. But Milly? I’m still trying to get a read on her. She might be a victim, but she doesn’t seem as lost to the depths as Ollie does sometimes. There’s a sadness in her eyes when she looks at her kid, but then it usually changes so quickly to anger that I’d miss it if I wasn’t looking.
And I’m looking. I’m looking a lot.
Club wants answers. While the boys work the computer angle, I’m working the mental one. Not trying to see what makes her tick, just what would set her off. We protect our own, but we also protect those who wander into our lives.
Even if it’s from themselves.
Chapter 10—Milly
“Let’s go.”
I don’t respond well to commands, a fact my family learned very early in my life. Something Bass obviously wasn’t privy to. Besides, for all that this place has, there’s not a single energy drink in sight. Sure, there’s coffee, but I only drink it if I’m dead to the world and need that strong pick-me-up. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against it like some I know, but I can also live without it. Unlike my energy drinks. I’ve gone without before, sure. Not a biggie. But I already have a headache from the lack of sleep last night, and now the lack of caffeine is getting to me. I’m grouchy to say the least, and I don’t feel like I need to do anything but glare.
A glare has gotten me far in life. It conveys so much. Mostly “fuck off,” which is all I need right now. I’m here against my will with someone keeping me from leaving. Sure, it’s comfortable compared to what a person might picture as a prison, but lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it look any better than what it is.
