Rough & Rugged (Notorious Devils Book 3) (20 page)

“I know Andy, Steve, and even that horrible Willa girl tried to counsel you on your decision, and you refused to listen to them or follow their advice. This, unfortunately, is a pattern of yours. If I go ahead and give you what you want, you, my daughter, will never learn.”

I stand, abandoning the sandwich I should probably wrap up and take with me. Who knows when I’ll be able to buy another one. I don’t bother speaking to him. He’s made his decision. No matter what I say, he won’t budge. I know that much about my father.

I keep it together until the cool October breeze reaches my face, and then
I cry
.

One week
, it seems to be my theme in life. I have one week before I’ll be homeless.

One week
to figure out how to make money.

I’ve been
one week
without Johnny and I want him back.

I walk home, though not quickly. I’m too stressed, depressed, and just plain worried about my future.

What am I going to do?

Suddenly, the joke about me stripping isn’t such a laughing matter anymore.

My phone rings in my hand and my eyes are too blurry from tears to see who it is. I answer it, unknowing who is on the other end.

“Hello,” I whisper through my tears.

“Hattie?”

An involuntary sob escapes my throat at the sound of his voice. That voice, a voice I have been dreaming about is now on the other end of the phone. It’s quite possibly the worst timing, but I honestly don’t care. Not really—
not ever.

“What’s wrong, Hattie?” he demands.

“
Everything
,” I whisper, unable to keep my dramatics to myself.

“You need me? I’ll be on my way,” he murmurs. For whatever insane reason, it makes me cry just a little bit harder.

“No, no just—just a b-b-bad day,” I blubber like a fool while I try to will myself to calm the hell down.

“Breathe, princess,” he whispers.

I take a deep breath in before I let it out, and by my second one I feel calmer. Not better, but calmer.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter as embarrassment washes over me.

“Tell me what’s wrong?” he gently asks.

“It’s nothing, Johnny. Why are you calling me?” I ask in confusion as I continue to walk closer to my apartment building.

“I just wanted to check in with you. I—after everything, I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right,” he murmurs.

I am surprised by his concern and his contact. I left him, after he made it more than clear that I wasn’t going anywhere.

Yet, there was just no way that I could stay—no way that I could live the life he wanted me to. It doesn’t matter how badly it hurts, to have only had a taste of him, and not be able to keep him.

“I’m fine, Johnny,” I murmur as I unlock my apartment door and step inside.

“Okay, Hattie—just, if you need anything or whatever, call me.”

Johnny hangs up and I stare at my phone in surprise. He doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would give a second thought to some girl he only knew a couple of weeks. We’ve known of each other for three years, but it isn’t as if we truly know anything about one another.

I walk into my bedroom with the exciting plans of taking a nap then job searching until I find something that will pay my rent.

I turn the light on and open my mouth to scream at the sight before me—but a hot, smelly, dirty hand covers me before I can get a sound out.

“I
’m fine, Johnny.”

Hattie is anything but
fine
.

With the news of the
Bastards
possibly lying in wait to fuck with us, I wanted to check on her, make sure she was okay. She sounded upset, crying, but not scared necessarily. She’s probably crying about her lack of job, or maybe she broke a nail. Fuck if I know. I feel like a dick for even thinking that. What I should be doing is driving over to see her and make sure she’s okay. If I were a better man, I would.

I lean back in my chair and watch the room. The original charter is packing up to leave and go back to Cali, enjoying one last beer before they head out. My brothers all have concerned looks on their faces. They’re thinking about their families, about the
Bastards
and
The
Cartel
, about the uncertainty that is in the air.

I know that Hattie is safe. They wouldn’t fuck with her because they don’t even know she exists. There are much bigger women in our group that are much bigger parts of our circle. Kentlee, for one, is not only Fury’s wife, but also
MadDog’s
daughter-in-law. She’s a target—a huge target. They’re not going to mess around with Hattie.

I take a swig of my beer and sit in silence. I’m glad when nobody bothers me. My head is occupied and not into the normal, nightly bullshit happenings that go on around here.

“You good?” Torch asks, sitting next to me and taking a pull from his own beer.

“Not at all,” I truthfully admit.

“You need to get your shit together,” he chuckles.

“This club’s getting into deep shit with the
Bastards
and
The
Cartel
possibly honing in. I don’t want to put her in danger,” I say as my lame as excuse for being a pussy.

“She’d be safer in your bed then she would an hour away,” Torch points out.

Fucking right she would, but I fucked that up. Like I fuck everything up. A waste of cum, like my old man always said I was. I’m proving him right again and again.

I down the rest of my beer and look around for something, or namely someone. When I see her, I lift my chin at Torch and leave him to his brooding. I walk across the room toward Tasha, who is sitting next to Harmony.

“Where’s your girl?” Harmony asks.

“Not my girl anymore,” I shrug, watching as her eyes brighten. She puffs out her big tits a bit more and pouts her bottom lip slightly.

“Sorry to hear that, baby,” she murmurs.

The look in her eyes tells me she’s, in fact, not one fuckin’ bit sorry. I don’t really care. I just need to lose myself, to forget about Hattie. I don’t know how to do that. Maybe fucking Harmony will help. Maybe fucking every woman I come across will help? Probably not, but I’m going to fucking try.

“Is Tasha joining us?” Harmony asks. I look over to Tasha, who is biting on her bottom lip as her eyes dart from Harmony to me, over and over. Fuck it.

“Yeah. C’mon, babe,” I mutter.

I don’t really feel like putting forth as much effort as fucking two bitches takes, but maybe I’ll just let them do all the work tonight. I don’t want to think anymore; I don’t want to think about anything. I just want to feel and I want to come. Physical actions, that’s what I know, and that is all I want tonight. Life was better when all I did was fuck, fight, ride, and drink.

“On our knees?” Harmony asks as soon as we walk over the threshold of my bedroom. I shake my head as I lock the door behind us, not wanting any disturbances tonight. I don’t feel up to anything.

“I want to see you two fuck each other,” I grunt as I start to take my clothes off.

“Can I suck you?” Harmony murmurs, licking her lips.

“Later,” I smirk.

Both Tasha and Harmony make a show of undressing while I sit in a chair across from my bed. I’m not going to fuck them on the floor tonight. Though it feels wrong to fuck them in my bed, I want the memory of Hattie being there gone. I need to rid my space of her memory, or at least try.

I watch as Tasha kisses down Harmony’s neck to her big, fat tits, licking one of her nipples before she sucks it into her mouth. My cock starts to harden at the sight of the two women kissing and touching each other. When Tasha’s hand goes between Harmony’s legs and she starts to rub her clit, I groan. I wrap my hand around my dick and slowly start to stroke myself.

I lose myself in the moment, in the bodies of the two women in front of me. I fuck them both. We spend the night making each other come repeatedly to the point of exhaustion, and not once do I forget Hattie. Not once do I not wish she were here instead of them, the both of us the only two in the room.

It’s when I’m completely exhausted, with both women passed out around me, that I know for certain Hattie is the one for me. But I can’t have her.
I can’t keep her
. I know that I will lose her and it’ll kill me.

At this point, I’ve only lost the idea of her; but to completely have her and lose her years from now, that is a pain I can’t imagine. So I’ll fuck these whores and all the while I’ll be thinking of my sweet Hattie.

I wake up with a racing heart a few hours later, and push both women off of me, informing them that it’s time to go. They grumble but make no real protests as they gather their clothes and stumble out of my room. I open my nightstand drawer and find my cigarettes.
I need a smoke.

Once the nicotine hits my system, I feel a bit calmer. I don’t know what startled me awake, but I feel like my heart is going to explode from my chest. I grab my phone, deciding to play one of my games or scroll through
Facebook
, seeing if I can chill out and go back to sleep.

I unlock my phone and notice a notification for a missed call and new text message. It’s not uncommon for me to have missed calls and texts, usually from my mother or one of the brothers in the club, but I can tell in my gut that something ain’t right. I gave my mother money just the other day; no way would she ask again this soon. She would at least wait a week or two.

I open my text and notice it’s from a private number. The text is a video, and it was sent last night around eight. I was already elbow deep in pussy and didn’t hear it vibrate on the nightstand.

What I see on the screen makes my stomach lurch.

Hattie.

My Hattie.

She’s sitting on her bed in nothing but a sexy, little, black lace bra and black lace panties. I would think it’s hot as fuck, but the look of pure fear and panic on her face says that she did not set this up.

Then I watch as two men appear with black masks covering their faces. One grabs at Hattie’s tit and laughs when she tries to scoot away from him. He doesn’t let her. He wraps his hand in her hair and pulls her closer to him.

“See this bitch, Dirty Johnny? She’s going to be a whore for us if you don’t get your club to back the fuck off. We want the Russian contract; we want it all. Don’t think that this skinny cunt is where we’ll stop either, because it isn’t. First it’s her, then it’s Rosie, then it’s Brentlee, and we’ll save the best for last. Kentlee.

“One by one, your women will be our whores. Maybe we’ll even breed them, but most likely, we’ll sell them off to The Cartel. Do you know how much money they’ll give us for American white women? You have one day to get your club to back out of your contract with the Russians,”
he grunts. Then I see Hattie being yanked off of the bed by her hair and her scream fills my quiet room before the screen goes black.

I sit. Unbelieving. Completely shocked by what I’ve just seen. Then I send out a text for emergency church in ten minutes. I hurry, running to the shower. I quickly change once I’ve rinsed off the smell of the two women who have just vacated my room. Before I can run down to the bar, my stomach lurches and I vomit in the nearest trashcan. I was fucking two whores as Hattie was going through God knows what.

I’m a fucking piece of shit.

When I finally make it down to the bar, it’s swimming with brothers. Fury looks confused as fuck, and I’d laugh at him if I wasn’t so goddamn scared. I don’t say a word or answer their questioning looks. Instead, I walk straight into the room where we hold church. I stand in the corner, near Fury’s chair, and I wait.

“What’s this all about?” Fury asks once everybody is settled in their seats.

“The
Bastards
have Hattie. They sent me a video last night. They want us to sever our contract with the Russian’s or they’ll be taking our women one-by-one and either using them as their whores or selling them to
The
Cartel
,” I say with a shaky voice.

“Fucking hell, how did they even know who she was?” Sniper asks.

“
MadDog
said they’d been watching,” I grumble.

“Do they show their faces in the video?” Fury asks.