Rough & Rugged (Notorious Devils Book 3) (27 page)

I smile seeing her truly getting along with Brentlee. She’s a major part of the club and Hattie will be around her a lot. I was worried about Hattie being uncomfortable around her because we fucked back in high school. Hattie’s young, and although she is really mature, I didn’t know if she would be about this. I’m glad to know that she is.

“She looks good, brother. Happy,” Sniper says, walking up next to me.

“I told her about me and Brent back in the day,” I admit. Sniper whistles.

“She don’t seem pissed,” he points out.

“No, she was really cool with it. Basically said the past is the past. I didn’t know how fuckin’ cool she’d be until I walked out and found them laughing together,” I admit.

“She the one, then?” Sniper asks, not responding to my pervious sentence.

“She is,” I admit.

It doesn’t fill me with anxiety or anxiousness to admit it. It fills me with a peace. She’s mine, and she knows it as much as I do. It’s just a simple fact now.

“Good,” he grunts before he walks toward Brentlee.

I watch as he wraps his arms around her waist and buries his face in her neck. I stop looking at them like a fuckin’ weirdo and make my way toward my own woman.

“Everything okay?” Hattie asks me as she hands me a plate with food on it.

“Yeah, we’re gonna talk to those guys who were in your apartment, then tomorrow we’ll go house hunting and get outta this place,” I say, placing a kiss to her temple.

“Okay,” she replies. Her eyes connect with mine.

I feel like she’s trying to look deep into my soul or some shit, but I don’t let her. Instead, I break the contact and place my hand at the small of her back and push her toward a place to sit down and eat.

We sit and eat in silence. I watch her after I’m finished shoveling food into my mouth. She’s picking at hers, not really eating it. She should be starving, so the fact that she isn’t worries me.

“Eat, Hattie,” I instruct. She looks up at me, a bit startled.

“I—please don’t kill those men,” she blurts out.

My eyes widen and I turn to her in surprise.

“What?” I ask in confusion.

“You killed that guy and then you took the others. Please don’t kill them for me,” she says in a whisper.

I gather her in my arms and bring her to my lap, setting her down on my thigh and turning her body to face me. I wrap one hand around the side of her neck and the other I use to cup her cheek, forcing her to look down at me.

“You shouldn’t have seen that. It fuckin’ kills me that you did, princess. But this life isn’t one that’s sunshine and roses. It’s hard and, sometimes, it’s downright ugly. As a man, it’s my job to keep that ugliness from leaking into your life. I’m sick that I didn’t protect you from it. No matter what happens with those men, none of it is on you. They chose to do what they did, and they’ll choose their consequences for their actions.” I run my thumb across her plump lower lip, but her eyes have me captured. They’re watery and I know she’s on the verge of tears.

“Johnny,” she whispers. I press my thumb against her lips to shut her up.

If I hear her plead or beg, then I’ll do whatever she wants, which isn’t how you extract information out of men like the
Bastards
that are being held in our warehouse. Blow used to be one of ours, a fact that Hattie doesn’t and won’t know. He was a traitor and a piece of shit. These other men that are swinging from hooks, they’re of the same breed. They’re probably addicts, too, jonesin’ for a hit as we sit around and eat our lunch.

“You’re gonna have to let it go, Hattie,” I murmur before I run my nose along the side of hers.

“I don’t know if I can,” she whimpers.

“I gotta go, but you need to take a good look around here, princess. You got on the back of my bike, you promised me
you,
and in return I promised you
me
and whatever the fuck you wanted. There’s no going back. So either you live this life at my side, or you live it holed up in a house somewhere in town, oblivious to my dealings but accepting me in your bed. Either way, you ain’t scrapin’ me off, princess,” I announce before I plant a hard kiss on her lips and stand, forcing her to stand as well.

I walk away from her, unable to look back, unable to look into her green eyes, which are no doubt filled with water, and her big bottom lip trembling in fear.

This is me.

This is my life
.

Hattie needs to suck it the fuck up like the rest of the Old Ladies, or she can be like Vaults woman, Rosie, and stay away from everything.

Rosie’s sweet and she’s a nice woman, but she’s too fragile to really be in the fold, to be part of the club like Kent and Brent are. I’ve only ever seen her at family parties and during lockdown. Vault doesn’t bring her around otherwise. I don’t want it to be that way with Hattie. I want her to be in the fold; but if she can’t handle it, then I’ll have to keep her separate. I won’t give up my place in the brotherhood, and I won’t give her up, either.

I watch him walk away from me and it makes my chest ache. I don’t want him to hurt anybody else, but I don’t want him to be upset with me either. I cast my eyes down to my feet and inhale a deep breath. I feel a hand on my bicep and I look over to see Kentlee standing next to me, a sad smile on her lips. She jerks her head to the side and starts to walk away from me. I follow behind her as she walks inside of an office and switches the lights on.

“Lock it,” she orders. I lock the door behind me, nervousness coursing through my veins. “You’re new, so I won’t go psycho on you quite yet,” she announces.

I stare at her, unsure of what to do or say. She’s a little frightening at the moment.

“Dirty Johnny is like a brother to me. I’ve known him since he moved to town. He was hot as hell, and one of the most popular boys in school, but his home life was shit. I don’t know many details, but you see things throughout the years in a town this small, and those things that I’ve seen aren’t good. You might be wondering why I’m saying this. I’ll tell you, don’t worry.” She takes a deep breath before she continues.

“Johnny Williams is a good man. He smokes, he drinks, and before you came into the picture, he whored around like no man I’ve ever seen. That being said, I’d trust him with my life and I trust him with my children. Don’t jerk his chain,” she says with a narrowed eye.

“I just don’t want him to hurt those men from my apartment,” I say. I’m trying to be strong, but she’s frightening.

“Who?” she asks as her brows furrow.

“They brought back three of the four men who held me hostage. One man they killed, but they brought the other three back and I didn’t want Johnny to kill them,” I explain.

“Is that all?” she asks, raising her eyebrows in surprise.

“It’s a big deal, murder is,” I say.

“Yeah,” she nods and presses her lips together before she opens her mouth again. “A group of men from the Aryan’s kidnapped me once. One of them was going to make me his whore. When Fury and the whole club stormed into the building they had me in, he dragged me out the back. He almost had me to the getaway van when Sniper was able to shoot him from somewhere off in the distance. Had he not died, I would be living in some underground bunker as his baby maker,” she explains. My eyes widen in surprise, my stomach turns at her words, and my chest aches.

“I—I,” I stutter. She holds her hand up.

“My sister lived in an extremely abusive marriage and got out. She came here for protection and Sniper protected her. He killed her husband right in front of her face. It was ugly, but it was necessary. He wouldn’t have stopped. Those men that had me, they wouldn’t have stopped, either. And those men that had you? Guess what?”

“They won’t stop,” I whisper.

“No, they won’t. Now, I don’t know what they want. I don’t know their endgame, and honestly, I don’t want to know. But what I do know is that they won’t stop. They’ll keep coming, and they’ll come after us and our children to try and get the men to back down, to give them what they’re looking for. These men? They won’t have that. These are strong men. These are men that fight for what they believe is theirs, and what they believe is right,” she says.

“Sounds like survival of the fittest,” I murmur.

“That’s exactly what it is. This isn’t the regular world; the regular laws of society do not exist once you walk through those gates. This club, these men, they have their own set of rules and laws. Its fucking medieval, but if you want to be at Johnny’s side, then you’ll have to accept them and accept
him
. This is his life. It’s been his life since he was seventeen years old, and this is the only family he has.”

“I want to say that I can be at his side and that I’m strong enough,” I exhale.

“You are,” she nods.

“How can you know that?” I ask.

“Any woman who wasn’t capable enough would have broken down in your situation already. You haven’t. You might have nightmares and you might be fearful for a while, but you aren’t in a heap on the floor, unable to cope with your situation. You’re solid and stable, and you’re fucking strong, Hattie. Johnny needs that. He needs a woman who can be that for him, especially when he can’t be. But he also needs somebody he can lean on and have at his side.”

I think back at what Johnny said, how he wants me at his side like Kentlee is at Fury’s side. I want to be that; I want to do that for him, be that for him.

“How do I get past this part of him?” I ask.

“When you fall in love with him, really fall in love with him, then all that other shit will fall away. When he holds your newborn baby in his big ass hands, and looks at you like you’re the most precious and perfect person on this earth, and he’s in awe of you—
everything else will disappear
,” she murmurs. I notice that her eyes are shimmering with wetness.

“I’m going to try,” I whisper.

“That’s all you can do. He’s a good man, Hattie. A really good man,” she mutters before she walks over to me and wraps her arm around my shoulder in a half hug.

“Now, let’s clean up the mess these assholes made and go online house hunting,” she grins.

“House hunting?”

“Yeah. Johnny said you were going to get a place. We’re going to look up some listings. We need something to do, I love to look at houses, and Brentlee loves to shop, so we’re going to help find some places for the two of you to start your lives together.”

Just like that, our serious conversation is over and I follow Kentlee out to the bar area to help clean up.

I don’t know what the future holds for Johnny and me, but if Kentlee and Brentlee can accept the lives their men lead after everything they’ve been through, then I feel as though I should be able to, as well.

I think that maybe I just need to get to know Johnny better—not his personality out here with his brothers and his friends, but the real him. The part of him that he hides from the world.

I’ve seen glimpses of it here and there, but I want more.

Once I have all of him, once I’ve
seen
all of him, then I’ll know if I can turn a blind eye to the shady things he does—the most likely
illegal
things he does.