Soulless (Lawless #2)(13)

“I can’t man,” Stone said, punching his open palm and shaking his head. His eyes became glassy and he sucked in his lips, rocking back and forth slowly like he was willing the memories of whatever he didn’t want to tell me. Stone got his name because when it came to taking people out he was a stone cold killer. The type of guy who barely had his gloves off, the body still warm, when he’d pipe up and say ‘I’m hungry, who wants a sandwich?’ To see him reduced to almost tears made me very curious about what the f*ck it was they wanted him to tell me.

“You can do it, man. Just tell him,” Wolf said.

“The BBBs, they’re just f*cking whores,” Stone said like he was reminding himself of that fact.

“Really? Is that what Em was to you? Just a f*cking whore?” Wolf snapped, kicking his foot up onto the bench resting his elbow on his knee.

“Fuck! No,” Stone said, dropping his forehead to the table and running his hands over his shaved head, the black triton tattoo on his temple shimmered with beads of his sweat. “She was… Shit!” Stone stood up so abruptly he almost took the table with him. “They’re just supposed to be whores. Hangers-on. You know that. We all f*cking know that.” Stone paced back and forth as he spoke, wringing out his hands and looking between the grass and me. “They’re there to suck and ride cock without question. If they question, they are out. They can’t say no. They can’t deny a brother. Those girls lived for the party. For the adventure of the club.”

“Yeah, until they stopped living altogether,” Munch chimed in, lighting a cigarette.

“What the f*ck are you guys getting at?”

Stone looked at me straight faced but there was more pain in his eyes, more emotion, then I’d ever seen from him and I’d known him for over ten years. “What I’m getting at is Em.”

“Em?” I asked, not recalling a BBB by that name.

“Yeah. She had jet-black hair and weird purple grey eyes. She came to the club shortly after you left. She had nowhere else to go, her mom died in some sort of accident. Anyway, after the parties when everyone was all passed out we talked. She wasn’t like the others. She listened. She actually liked me. We grew kinda close.” He breathed out a sigh. “Too f*cking close. She was my girl. Despite what she f*cking did with the other brothers before she came to my room at night she was still my f*cking girl.”

“So what the f*ck happened?” It wasn’t the strangest thing I’d ever heard. Over the years I’d seen a few BBBs become old ladies. It was no secret that Sadie was one of them.

“Chop caught wind of it, although it’s not like we were keeping it a secret. He found out that I planned to take her out of the club and the life, and set her up in a place. He shouldn’t have cared. Tons of brothers have done it before. He didn’t even know her f*cking name. But just like with all the other codes or club law Chop had been adding or taking away to suit his own damn moods, suddenly a club whore as an old lady was forbidden.”

“Keep going,” I said, although I was pretty sure I knew exactly how the story was going to end. Because with Chop all the stories ended the same way and most of the people in the stories were no longer breathing.

Wolf lit a cigarette and passed it to Stone, who continued. “Chop called me into his office. He asked me to close the door. I did and took a seat and that’s when I noticed the stilettos poking out from under his desk. I knew it was Em. I’d bought her those f*cking shoes.” He paused and ran his hand over his mouth. “I asked him what he needed, although I felt like I was gonna either puke or f*cking kill him or both. The f*cker smiled the entire time. He made me wait. He knew was he was torturing me and he was enjoying it.”

“Cock sucker,” Munch said, banging his fist on the table.

“I racked my brain to think of what I could have done to ask for this type of punishment but I came up blank,” Stone said. He sat down on the bench again, dropping his head to the tabletop and spoke to the floor. “I was a good soldier. I was the best soldier. I never asked questions. I did what I was told.”

“Tell him the rest. It’s almost over,” Wolf said.

Stone took a drag of his cigarette and a tear fell from the corner of his eye. The guy whistled while killing and he was crying over a club whore? It made no sense. “Then he told me that he didn’t need anything from me but that he had something for me. I asked him what he had. He told me it was a lesson.”

Stone bit his lip and his face grew redder and redder as his sadness turned to anger. My own heart started pounding. “I panicked because I left my side arm in my room, but I never figured I’d ever need it against my own life with Prez ’cause I was a good soldier,” he repeated. “Real f*cking good.”

“I know you were, brother,” I said.

“He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her mouth off of his dick. ‘Don’t be rude, Em. Say hello to our guest.’ She turned to look at me and her lips were still all wet from him. Her eye was swollen and her bottom lip was split open with blood dripping down her chin. I thought I was going to be sick right f*cking there until I saw the fear in her eyes. It wasn’t just fear though. It was like she was blank. Like she’d already given up. Whatever happened before I got in there had to have been bad enough to make her think there was no f*cking way out. I think that might have been the most brutal thing of all. Because she was right.” Stone was now sobbing.