ASA: BLACK SKULLS MC Read online

  “Who the fuck ordered that?” Carl asked, loudly. “This is about Jared and that woman, isn’t it? Did Jared ask him to do this?”

  Jim was running his hand back and forth across his head. “We don’t need this right now. We don’t need this shit…”

  “Can I finish?” Kyle asked. The three men had murderous looks on their faces but Rodney nodded at him to go on. “Jared wasn’t there. Asa was alone. Molly was screaming for help. Maybe she called Asa, I don’t know. I saw him kick in the door and then he and Andy fought. Andy had a gun. I think he planned on using it on Molly. Asa wrestled it away from him and the gun went off during the struggle. Andy was dead. There was nothing more to do about it…I helped Asa get rid of the gun and the body.”

  “And why the fuck didn’t you call me last night?” Rodney asked. Samantha couldn’t tell what any of the three men were thinking. The knot in her stomach felt like it was twisting tighter just from the tension in the room alone.

  “Because we were busy all night taking care of this…and then this morning some other things happened. I’m going to let Samantha take it from here.”

  She took out her phone and laid it on the table in front of them. She pulled up the first video and pressed play. Molly’s shaky voice floated out and for the next twenty minutes, they listened in complete silence as she told stories of being beaten with a chain, whipped with a leather belt and nearly drowned in the bathtub. Those were some of the milder ones. She said that she had called Jared first when Andy came home the night before, threatening to kill her. Jared hadn’t answered so she called Asa. When Asa showed up Andy had the gun to her head. They struggled and Andy was killed in the process. She sobbed into her hands on tape as she pleaded with them to go easy on Asa. She said he saved her life and maybe Jared's too because that was what Andy had been ranting about, his jealousy of the young biker. When the tape ended, there was dead silence in the room until Carl finally said, “He should have come and told us himself.”

  “He would have,” Samantha said, “But he was busy.”

  Rodney raised an eyebrow again. “Too busy to tell us about this? Doing what?”

  She switched videos and before she pressed play she said, “Asa is talking to a detective with Death Falls P.D. right now. He’s telling them about his role in Johnny Fox’s death.”

  “What the fuck?”

  Samantha was beginning to realize that was Rodney’s favorite phrase. She didn’t answer him, instead, she pushed play. Angel’s pretty face filled the screen and if it had been hard for the men to listen to Molly talk about her abuse, it was practically hell to listen to Angel describe the torture she suffered at the hands of Johnny Fox. She told them how Johnny had left his gun on the nightstand that last night that he raped her and how something inside of her had snapped. Once he went to sleep she grabbed the gun, pointed it at his head and pulled the trigger. Afterward, she tried to wake up her mother but she was spun out on heroin. Finally, she called Asa because he was the only one that had come around from the skulls when he heard the rumors and offered his help. Asa came and took care of everything, she said. She told them how Michael was conceived that night and how Asa had given her money every month to buy him diapers and formula. Once again per Asa’s request, Jared was not mentioned. This time when Sam stopped the video the mood at the table was almost palpable. It was anger…rage even. Rodney pounded his fist on the table and said, “Why the fuck didn’t he just tell us?”

  Kyle took that one. “Because he was your son, Rodney. He was expected to be a model of the perfect soldier and believe it or not, he wanted to live up to that for you. But his heart has always been way too big for a sergeant at arms and I think you always knew that.”

  Rodney looked at Samantha. “Is he going to have to do time over Johnny?”

  “My contact says it’s doubtful. They might charge him with obstruction and improper disposal of a body, but he thinks the D.A. will be willing to offer him probation for that.”

  “What about Andy?” Carl asked.

  “Molly got rid of a suitcase full of his things already,” Kyle said. “The body won’t be found, at least not in our lifetime. She used his ATM this morning to empty the bank account and if anyone even cares to ask, she’s going to say he left her. Samantha had a video of the incident that was already destroyed. Asa and I aren’t talking. As far as anyone else is concerned, Andy never happened.”

  Rodney groaned. It all sounded like a mess but Sam thought that even Rodney would have to admit that they’d wrapped it up nicely. “What about you?” he asked her. “What are you going to do?”

  “Angel gave me an interview in exchange for some things she needed for herself and her children. Her most recent ex and the father of her two youngest children is not a good provider and he left them for another woman. Her life beginning with her abuse at the hands of Johnny and how that and his death affected everything that has happened to her since is my story. Asa has given me the okay to include his part in it as well. It makes your club look good to the public. It makes you look human that someone like Asa was willing to help a young girl like Angel.”

  Jim was rocking back and forth with anxiety. He looked at Rodney and said, “What do you think? Do you think this will bring more down on us, or will it smooth things out so we can get back to our business as normal?”

  Rodney was still staring at Samantha. “Where do you go from here if I choose to let you walk out alive?”

  “Back to my old man’s cabin that I intend to live with. I’ll do my work remotely from there.”

  “So you’ll still be reporting.”

  “Yes, but not on the club. I do have a lead or two about the Blue Spades…”

  Rodney shook his head and cracked a smile. “I think your balls are bigger than my son.”

  Samantha looked the huge man straight in the eye and said, “I think you should give your son a lot more credit for the size of his balls than you do. May I go now?”

  “Don’t make me regret not killing you,” he told her.

  She didn’t answer him. She smiled instead and squeezed Kyle on the shoulder as she left the room, thanking him for what he had done. On the way out to her car, she realized that she was shaking all over. She didn’t know if it was the adrenaline finally leaving her body, the fact that she hadn’t eaten or slept in two days or the distinct growl of the Harley that she could see approaching, coming toward the club from the north on the dirt road. One decision she had left the motel with after writing her story and before meeting with Harry was that Asa might be dangerous. He might be a killer in some people’s eyes. He might live in a world she would never understand and may always be a little afraid of, but she couldn’t imagine going a day without him.

  He was hers and she was his.

  She smiled as she caught sight of the biker riding the approaching Harley. Asa pulled his Hog through the dusty lot and came to a stop in front of her. When he met her gaze, he looked white-faced and shaken. His life had in fact been in her hands, and he didn’t yet know for sure if her plan had worked or not. She went to him and without saying a word she took hold of his face and kissed him deeply. Then she said, “How did it go?”

  “It wasn’t bad,” he said. “It was hard on Angel, but she was a trooper. The D.A. is going to consider whether they want to file charges or not but at this point the consensus is probably not.”

  She threw her arms around him again. “I’m so glad.” He hugged her tightly and said,

  “So am I. What about you? How did things go here?”

  “They’re not going to kill us,” she said with a grin. “And, I think Rodney has a new respect for his son.”

  He hugged her again. “Thank you. Jared was left out of it?”

  “Completely,” she said.

  “Thank you,” he said again.

  She winked and said, “I’m a ride or die chick. We take care of our own.”

  “Get on,” he told her. She jumped on the back of his Harley, wr
apped her arms around his strong waist, and said, “There’s one more thing.”

  “Uh-oh, what’s that?”

  “I told Rodney I was your old lady and that I’d be living with you.”

  Asa threw his head back and laughed. “You sure live up to your name Samantha Wilde. But, I can’t imagine anything I want more than that exact thing.” She squeezed him and laid her head against the cool leather vest on his back.

  “Let’s go,” she told him.

  Throwing his bike in gear and ripping the clutch so that a deafening growl rang out, Asa hit the gas and they peeled out of the parking lot.

  This is what it’s all about, thought Samantha.

  Warm wind. The open road. A new beginning with a gorgeous man she loved.

  It wasn’t long before—overcome with emotion she could no longer fight—she shouted in his ear over the sounds of the whipping wind for him to pull over.

  She wanted him, needed him fully and immediately and so badly that it felt like she was coming apart at the seams.

  Asa veered off the dusty road, angling towards a lone tree off to the wayside. No sooner than they came to a stop, they jumped off, tearing their clothes off, and yielded to their mutual and unrelenting desire.

  She could get used to this...

  HOUSE OF PAINE

  CHAPTER ONE

  The brilliant glare of the sun and the vivid colors of the spring day were offensive to Paige. It was as if there was a conspiracy to show her how the world would go on without him. It made Paige angry. The world shouldn’t still be spinning on its axis while her brother lay in a box that currently perched on the shoulders of his comrades as they carried it towards the freshly dug hole in the ground. Paige thought that everything should be as grey and ugly as her emotions. Funerals should never take place in the spring. The air should at least be cold and damp…or foggy. The singing birds and blooming flowers made her angrier than she already was and as she walked through the churchyard like a silhouette of herself she wished that she was as insubstantial as the shadows. Perhaps then her insides wouldn’t be tangled into painful knots. Her mother clutched onto her hand…looking for support Paige felt too weak to give her as the honor guard designee escorted them to the staging area. He turned and saluted them, and then he saluted the casket as the rest of the honor guard carried it towards them. She despised the casket. It was the symbol of why they were here and because she needed something to focus her angst upon, she chose to focus it on the wooden box that cocooned what was left of her brother.

  Greg is gone.

  The light he brought to the world had been extinguished forever she thought quietly to herself as the tears gently rolled down her cheeks.

  They took their seats in one of the white chairs in the front row…the ones that were reserved for family. She could hear her mother’s soft sobs and she could feel her trembling. Paige sat in silent grief and waited for her brother’s funeral service to begin. She was no stranger to grief. She’d only been ten years old when she lost her father. But the grief was buffered back then by the fact that she not only still had her mother…but she had Greg. This felt different. It was stronger…deeper, more painful. She and her brother were always close but the tragedy of losing their father at such a young age forged an even stronger bond between them…one that couldn’t be broken by anything…not even death. Paige lifted her head and watched as the casket was placed in its place of honor.

  Then the chief of police said, “Will everyone please rise for the presentation of colors by the New York Police Department Honor Guard. The singing of the National Anthem will be performed by Officer Hayley Barrett.”

  Paige gripped her mother’s hand and helped her to her feet. She glanced at her face. She was almost unrecognizable to her daughter. Greg’s death had aged her beyond her forty-five years. She looked sixty-five today at least. Her face was gray and drawn and no trace of the mother Paige knew lived in her eyes at that moment. Paige had a good idea that part of her mother’s grief was also regret. She had never been as close to either of the kids as their father was. His death, instead of bringing them closer to her had pushed them even further apart emotionally. Nevertheless, a parent should never have to bury their child.

  It’s unnatural.

  Thoughts were swirling so rapidly through Paige’s head that the sound of the National Anthem was like background noise to her. She barely heard it when they were asked to take a seat. Her mother tugged at her hand and she sat down. As the priest was giving the invocation and then the prayer, Paige let her mind wander into the past.

  Paige was in her fourth year of medical school at Princeton. She lived with her mother simply because financially while she was in school, it was easier on them both. Greg was in New York. After graduating from the police academy in New Jersey he had worked patrol for about a year before taking the test for detective. Paige knew that her brother had one goal in mind and that was to bring down some of New York’s most notorious drug lords. That was an obsession that had taken root in his mind as a teenager when they had found out the man their mother married controlled most of New York’s drug traffic.

  When Greg was twenty-five he got a job with the NYPD in their Vice squad. Within six months he was working undercover. He didn’t give his sister and his mother any details but he sent Paige a text once a month to let them know he was okay. During that first year, she went to New York three or four times and they would spend the weekend hanging out and just having a good time like they did when they were kids. He seemed happy and as long as she saw him happy and healthy and she got his text each month, her world was okay. It was on her last visit to Greg that the bad feeling crept into her soul and took up residence there. She somehow knew instinctively that things were about to change, dramatically.

  She arrived on a Saturday morning like she always did and let herself into his apartment with her key. She was met with a shirtless, sweaty, shaky Greg…cocking his gun.

  “What the fuck Greg!”

  “Shit! Paige, what are you doing here?”

  “What are you talking about? I just talked to you three days ago. I told you I was coming. Put that gun the fuck down, will you?”

  Greg looked at the gun in his hand like he just realized it was there. Paige was suddenly feeling sick. His hair was greasy and long and he had at least three days growth of hair on his face. He looked like he’d lost twenty pounds since the last time she saw him and along with the shaking and sweating, his pupils were as large as saucers, taking up nearly his entire iris and making his usually pretty eyes look scary.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled and went over to the desk in the corner of the room. He sat the gun down and ran a trembling hand through his matted hair.

  “Greg? What’s going on?”

  She saw his shoulders rise and fall. He was taking a deep breath before he turned around to face her. “Nothing is going on. I was startled, that’s all; Stop being so fucking paranoid. I’m a cop…I own a gun.”

  “Yeah, I know. Usually seeing you takes care of that…but you look like shit, Greg. Are you sick?”

  “No, I’m just tired. I’m not sleeping well.”

  “You’re skinny. Are you eating?”

  “I eat. Jeez Paige what’s with the fucking inquisition?”

  “I just want to know you’re okay. Look at yourself.”

  She looked around the apartment. All of the blinds were drawn but even in the semi-dark she could see that the place was a pig-sty and it had a funny smell.

  “Look at this place. What’s going on Greg?”

  He looked around the room with a confused look on his face like he had no idea what she was talking about before saying, “I work a lot. I don’t have much time for housekeeping. Let’s go out. Let’s go have a drink.”

  “Greg it’s ten a.m.”

  “So now you’re the fucking drink police too? That medical school bullshit is going to your head.”

  “Greg…”
>
  “You know what Paige? It’s just been a fucked up week, okay? I’ve had a bad week, I’m taking the weekend off and I’d like to relax and not have to explain myself to anyone, let alone my little sister. Maybe we could do this another time.”

  “You want me to go?”

  “Yeah, I think that would be best. I’m sorry; I just need to get some sleep before I have to go back out there. I need to be alert….”

  “Go ahead and sleep. I won’t bother you. I’ll clean up while you…”

  “No! No, Paige. You’re not my housekeeper. Please…just go home. I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “That’s not what the ladies say,” he said with a grin and a wink. He was trying to pacify her…make her feel better so she would leave. That bad feeling was telling her not to go. If she didn’t know better she might think he was on drugs. He looked like a junkie that was just about to go out looking for a fix. Greg would never use drugs though. He hated them and anyone involved with them. But she had to ask…

  “Greg…are you taking something?”

  “Taking something?” he said, like he didn’t understand the question.

  “Are you using drugs?”

  “Fuck Paige! No! I’m a fucking undercover cop.”

  “You’re human…you’re around them all the time…”

  “Go home, Paige.”

  “Greg…”

  “No! Go home. I’m fine and I’m not a fucking junkie, okay? Go home and worry about your own life. Mine is fine.”

  Nothing about her brother was fine that day. When he was a kid his room was so clean you could have literally eaten off the floors. He always had that kind of obsessive compulsive component to his personality that made him do just about everything with a sort of military precision. He would have never lived in the sty that his apartment had become. He also took a lot of care with his appearance. His dark hair was always styled, his face cleanly shaved unless he happened to be wearing a goatee and then he kept that neatly trimmed. He was always clean…always well-dressed. Everything she had seen that day was contrary to what she knew about her brother. That person was not Greg…she wasn’t going to leave him until she had some answers.