Christmas With The Brotherhood: A Novella of the SHMC (The Sacred Brotherhood) Read online

  Christmas with the Brotherhood

  A Novella of the Sacred Hearts Motorcycle Club

  A. J. Downey

  Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Also by A. J. Downey

  About the Author

  Published 2020 by Second Circle Press

  Text Copyright © 2020 A.J. Downey

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner and are not to be construed as real except where noted and authorized. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or names featured are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used.

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Editing & book design by Maggie Kern @ Ms.K Edits

  Cover art by Dar Albert at Wicked Smart Designs

  Dedication

  To all my readers, Merry Christmas

  1

  December

  Sage…

  “Bro, what are you doing?” Connor sighed, exasperated, and sat down on the barstool beside me. The jukebox was all Christmas carols, some slow crooner singing about how Christ our savior was born.

  What a crock of shit… I didn’t believe in any of that bull anymore. Never really had, to be honest. Just fuckin’ fairy tales to make us all feel better because if there was a Hell? We were fuckin’ living in it.

  “Drinkin’ alone, what’s it fuckin’ look like?” I demanded. He sighed and shook his head and I side-eyed him, looking him up and down.

  He looked just like Reaver. Just like his daddy. Had picked up his penchant for fuckin’ knives, too. Slice had ended up being his road name. It fit him.

  “Yeah, but why here?” he demanded. “Booze not good enough back at the club?”

  “No, booze is just fuckin’ fine,” I said and tossed back the rest of the whiskey in my glass.

  “Then what the fuck, over?” I hitched a bit of a laugh. Slice and I had both served – the Marines – and as soon as we’d gotten home? We’d spent our time prospecting for the club and had earned our colors.

  We’d been lucky in some ways. We’d seen way more shit with the club than we ever had overseas. Not sure if it was a blessing or a curse. After we’d patched in, we’d gone to work, had done fuckin’ decent for ourselves.

  It didn’t mean a goddamn thing to me, though. Nothing did anymore. I was just going through the fuckin’ motions over here. I closed my eyes and tapped the bar with two fingers next to my glass.

  When I opened them, the bartender was moving away and Slice had his hand over my glass.

  “You’re cut off,” he said flatly, and I had to laugh at that. I really did. That was rich. Get it? Slice cutting me off?

  “Come on, man. Let’s get you home,” he said, and I got up, stretching. I was fine to ride. I’d been nursing the same damn drink for like the last hour – but Slice didn’t know that.

  “I’ll call you a cab or something,” he said, and I blew him off.

  “Fuck that, I’m fine to ride.”

  “Dice,” he admonished, and I smirked. It wasn’t my road name, that was Smoke, but it was what everyone called me because Slice was my best friend and brother. We were Slice & Dice, and it fit us, so that’s what they all called me.

  “Hey!” I called up the bar length at the bartender. “How much have I had to drink?”

  “Just that one,” the man called back, a slight old guy, skinny and Chinese. I was hiding in the local Chinese restaurant’s bar and lounge after all. Didn’t think anybody would think to look for me here. Leave it to Slice.

  “What did you do, anyway?” I demanded. “Check every bar between here and the county line?”

  “Pretty much, bro… I know how you get around Christmas.”

  I blew him off and pulled some rumpled bills out of my front pocket, leaving them on the bar to pay my tab.

  “Thanks, man,” I mumbled at the guy behind the bar, waving as I went by. The Golden Dynasty was a local secret. Run down, tired looking, and a hole-in-the-wall kind of place, it had the best authentic Chinese food, but the real secret was the drinks. They were strong as fuck and it didn’t matter what night of the week it was, they were usually pretty packed. Except now, this close to the holidays.

  I fucking hated the holidays. Christmas was the time of year my sister, Maren, got with Nox. The time of year mine and Maren’s dad had died… it was chock full of an unpleasant mix of memories and I would have much rather preferred to not go through them every year, but I guess it was what it was. I tended to drown myself in pussy and sorrow most years, but the pussy around these parts had dried up or was on a load of meth, and no fucking thank you on that front… shit.

  It was a problem, and it was becoming a big enough problem that the club was thinking about getting involved vigilante-style to fuckin’ fix it.

  We tended to keep to ourselves more often than not these days, but shit was creeping into our business ventures. We’d caught a couple of girls at Sugar’s selling, and then there was the barista out of one of Everett’s Sacred Grounds coffee stands that’d been dealing.

  That shit was not okay. Not when it could fall back on the club. So, we had to deal with it. We just had to do it carefully. Club creed of no women and no children? Yeah, it was making it a bit difficult. It was also causing our president, Dray, to have some thoughts on the whole meth mill going around our town. As in, whoever was running it or involved with it knew about us and our ways. Hence, why whoever it was kept using females and young kids to pedal their fucking poison.

  I pushed out the lounge doors and into the cold December night.

  “Oh, thank God! You found him!”

  “Eden?” I squinted into the dark and scowled.

  “Yeah,” she said, stepping out of the mouth of the alley leading back to the restaurant’s parking lot.

  “What the fuck?” I growled. She was beautiful, which unnerved me to a certain degree. One, nobody had the right to be that ethereally pretty, and two, I’d watched this girl grow up – except she wasn’t a little girl anymore. Not with what came out of her mouth next.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” she said and sighed, her breath pluming the air a
round her. I couldn’t see her face real well anymore, backlit as she was by the streetlights behind her since she’d shifted out further onto the sidewalk.

  “She the reason you’re out here?” I demanded, turning up my jacket collar and blowing into my hands as the snow fell around us on the dark central town streets.

  “Yeah,” she answered for Slice. “I was worried about you.”

  I snorted.

  “Jesus, fuck,” I said, rolling my eyes. “She’s got you wrapped around her little finger, doesn’t she?” I demanded of my brother as he stepped more fully out of the bar behind me.

  “Shut up, bro. She’s out here looking for you, not me.”

  “How’d you both get here?” I demanded. “A cage, I hope.”

  “Yeah, we took my cage,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “Pussy,” I grunted and gave Slice a shove.

  “Better than being the only fool riding out here,” he said back. “You trying to—”

  I cut him off, sharply. “Don’t even fuckin’ say it.”

  He held up his hands and his breath fogged, whipped away by the wind picking up.

  “Come with us,” Eden begged. “Don’t try to ride, not in this…”

  “I’ll see you back at the club, both of you,” I said. I jabbed two fingers into the breast of Slice’s cut. “You better fuckin’ drive her. Revelator would murder us both if anything happened to his baby girl.”

  Slice just nodded.

  “Get in the cage, Eden.”

  “Don’t you fucking boss me!” she cried, indignantly.

  “Move your ass, little girl!” I barked. “I can’t believe you brought her out in this, bro.”

  Slice rolled his keen blue eyes and flipped me off. “More like she dragged me out in this, which neither one of us would be out here if it weren’t for your dumb ass.”

  “Sort it out later!” Eden cried, throwing her hands out like a referee in a football game about to make a call. I smiled, it reminded me of her cheerleading days, which weren’t that fuckin’ long ago.

  “Take her home, bro, I’ll see you there,” I declared and pulling on my gloves from my jacket pocket, I moved deep into the night dark alley and left them both staring after me open mouthed.

  “Crazy son of a bitch,” I heard Slice mutter, and I couldn’t disagree with that. You tended to get the label right around the time people realized you just stopped giving a fuck.

  2

  Eden…

  “He’s fine, you know,” Slice said, and he sounded confident but I knew better. I stared out the foggy passenger-side window of my own car while we slowly rolled through the late-night streets and I shook my head.

  “I know better,” I murmured.

  “You worry too damn much.”

  “You don’t worry enough,” I countered stubbornly.

  Slice sighed and said, “You’re a good kid, Eden—”

  “I’m not a kid anymore,” I said tartly. “I’m eighteen, legally an adult.”

  “You’re always going to be that kid,” he said quietly, and I turned away from the frosty window to look at him. He gave me some side-eye and his mouth set into a grim line.

  “What kid?” I demanded, scowling.

  “The one that followed Dice like a little lost puppy,” he said, and I felt my frown deepen beneath my red curls. “You’ve been crushing on him since you were fucking six, Eddie, and enough is enough. He’s too old for you.”

  “Ooo, a whole eleven years older!” I rolled my eyes. “That’s nothing,” I said dismissively.

  “Maybe not to you,” he said gently. “For him? Probably too much.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I protested and gritted my teeth as Slice braked for a red light and my little car slid the last several feet to the line made invisible by the hard pack of snow on the streets.

  “It’s not when you really stop to think about it,” he said. I made an exasperated noise, and he made one of frustration. “Look, I’m trying to help both of you out, here,” he said. “You’re both going to wind up hurt if you keep this up, Eden. Just stop.”

  “Not going to happen,” I murmured. I was, after all, my father’s daughter. Stubborn. Relentless… and my auntie Everett had taught me well. I was feminist to the max.

  “I don’t want any drama,” Slice said and turned a gaze on me that was as wintery as the weather outside.

  I stared him right back in the eyes and said, “You’re getting good at that, but you aren’t him.”

  He scowled at me.

  “Fuck you, kid.”

  “Yeah, fuck you, too,” I said back casually, and he made another inarticulate noise of frustration. Sometimes he was too easy.

  Sage, on the other hand… Sage was not.

  Smoke, I reminded myself for the thousandth time.

  I didn’t think it would ever stick. Not with me.

  I hugged myself as we crept toward the outskirts of town and stared at the passing whiteout, worried about Sage riding in this.

  He was insane…

  He was also beautiful, and I had been in some kind of love with him since, like Slice had said, I was around six. I smiled at the memory when my mother had asked which Disney prince I was going to marry and I had answered dead seriously, none of them; I was going to marry Sage. It was still my intention, someday… if he would ever wake up and see what was right in front of him.

  Boys can be so dumb, I lamented silently.

  “You okay over there?” Slice asked after a time and I didn’t look, just nodded and said back, “Yeah.”

  I didn’t want to talk to him, or about it anymore. I just wanted to go home, regroup, and think of some kind of Plan B.

  “I’m worried about you,” he said and cleared his throat. I nodded and tore my gaze from the windshield to look at Slice’s profile.

  “I don’t know what else to do,” I said, and I scraped my bottom lip between my teeth.

  “Give it up already,” he said.

  “Never give up, never surrender,” I sang out, and he rolled his eyes.

  “I’m surprised he wasn’t drunk off his ass,” he said, changing the subject, and I searched his profile again. Not worried about him, my ass, I thought to myself.

  “I don’t think it was about that.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I don’t necessarily think he wants to forget or even to drown his sorrows.” I shrugged. “I don’t honestly know what it’s about, but I think he thinks and feels like he’s alone.”

  “Not an option,” Slice said. “We don’t do ‘alone.’”

  “No kidding,” I said.

  None of us did ‘alone.’ None of us had to. That wasn’t how the club worked, it wasn’t how any of this worked.

  We crept along snow-covered streets, fat flakes falling like down from the night sky. The angels are having a pillow fight, my grandmother would say. My smile at the memory was brittle. She had died of cancer, and I missed her. I tried to go see my grandpa as much as possible. He was a good man and still preached on most Sundays.

  “Shit,” Slice grunted and his knuckles went white on the steering wheel.

  “Don’t kill us,” I joked dryly, and he frowned without taking his eyes off the road as we fishtailed slightly before regaining traction.

  “You going to the club?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You sure we can get up the driveway?”

  “Dunno, we’re going to find out, aren’t we?”

  I rolled my eyes and huffed out an exasperated breath.

  “We could always just go back to my house,” I said.

  “You want me to take you home?” he asked.

  “Yeah. It’s late. My dad’s gonna kill me.”

  “Wait, you’re out here and Rev doesn’t know?”

  “He doesn’t own me,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “Fuck, how do I know he’s not gonna kill me?” Slice demanded, and I grinned savagely.

  “My dad might hit l
ike a ton of bricks, but your dad is quick,” I answered.

  “Not the point, sister. It’ll still be too late for me. I’ll be dead.”

  I laughed and shook my head, and Slice smiled. The banter was good, but I still worried about Sage.

  “He’s gonna be fine,” Slice repeated quietly, and I looked at him.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “It’s just snow,” he said. “No one out here but us. He’s going to be okay.”

  “You taking my cage back to the club after you drop me off?”

  “Fuck no. I’m staying on your guys’ couch. I got a phone. I’ll text him and make sure.”

  “Only works if he answers.”

  “It’s me. He’ll answer,” Slice said, and I nodded and cranked up the heat in the car as high as it would go. I mean, it was already on and blowing warm air, but it was cold outside and I liked it warm.

  We slid to a stop against the curb in front of my parents’ house. I mean, I guess it was still my house, too, but it didn’t feel like it, you know? I mean, I know I was still my parents’ child or whatever, but I was eighteen, an adult, and I felt like I had outgrown this place. That it was stifling and time to spread my wings.

  God, was that evident the second I walked through the door.

  “Just where the fuck have you been?”

  “Babe!” My mother immediately admonished my father.

  “With Slice, out looking for Dice,” I said as Slice closed the screen door behind us and I edged further into the living room so Slice could shut out the cold.

  “Smoke is a grown-ass man and can take care of himself. You’re my eighteen-year-old daughter, and one with a fuckin’ curfew!”