Order (Tattoos and Ties Duet #2)(9)

“Umm. Yeah. I’ll help get the car off the truck. He’s gotta go before he fuckin’ freaks out my customers.”

“Prez says for you to stop by this afternoon,” Hound’s gravelly voice called out from the other side of the truck.

Keyes nodded, knowing that was code for another drug run. They were growing in frequency, which was risky as hell with the way the Dallas district attorney still breathed down their backs, but the prez knew what he was doing. He could trust that. Besides, Keyes was banking and socking that bonus cash away, so he’d count it as a win-win for everyone.

“He also called everybody to church tomorrow afternoon.”

Keyes paused in loosening the chain holding the back of the vehicle in place. A club meeting would mean two nights in a row he’d have to stay on this side of town. Technically, that wasn’t abnormal except he’d been going over to Alec’s every night this week, and he liked it. Alec seemed to like him there too.

“Smoke’s declinin’. They told me not to say anything, but I thought you should know,” Hound said, leaning toward Keyes, angling his body across the back of the truck bed. They made eye contact, and it held as Hound nodded toward his father. Honestly, Keyes didn’t want to know how or why his old man might have taken a turn for the worse. It was out of his control. No matter how hard he’d tried in the past to build a relationship with his father, it wasn’t ever going to happen. The man hated him, and there was no love lost on his end either, so it was best if they stayed out of each other’s way.

He didn’t say a word. Instead, he moved to the front of the loaded car to help lower the vehicle. As he worked, his father hit the outer side panel of the truck, drawing Keyes’s attention that direction. He caught his old man’s reflection in the side mirror. His father looked much thinner than the last time he’d seen him, and that couldn’t have been more than a month ago.

“You’re a fuckin’ pussy,” his father drawled with venom in his voice that didn’t match the sickly shell of the man he’d become. His father held his gaze in the side mirror then lifted his hand, pointing at him, making a pistol out of his forefinger and thumb. He fired at Keyes through the mirror. “It’s gonna fuckin’ happen, pussy.”

Keyes made a show of rolling his eyes then lifted his middle finger at his father before turning back to the car, refusing to engage no matter how badly he wanted to shove his fist into his father’s gaunt face for threatening him like that. He’d leveled far bigger and badder men than his father for much less of an insult.

When the car settled on the pavement, his father unlatched the passenger side door. Keyes whipped his head that direction. There were maybe ten feet and that damn door separating him from his old man.

“Don’t you get out of that fuckin’ truck, old man,” he warned.

From the side mirror, he watched his father remove the oxygen tube from his nose and an arm shoved the door open wider with a dirty jean-clad leg following. His father’s work boot hit the pavement as he lifted his middle finger at Keyes. “What you gonna do, fuckin’ queer?”

Keyes saw red. Lost to the burst of anger, he went straight for his old man even as he heard Hound scurrying around the back of the truck. “I got it, bro. Key, stay back.”

The hate they had for one another was legendary. His father had been viciously cruel to him for as long as he could remember, but when he had found out about Keyes’s sexual preferences, shit became unbearable. His father’s deep-seated contempt for him caused problems throughout every layer of the motorcycle club. Keyes was done being so damned disrespected.

“You ain’t shit. What you gonna do? Every time anything happens, you coward away,” his father snarled, stepping fully out of the truck. “This is my business, and I’m takin’ it back. Nobody’s gonna wanna do business here if they find out you’re a fuckin’ queer.”

Not the first time he and his old man would come to blows. His whole life, he’d been nothing more than his father’s regular punching bag. Not once had Keyes ever truly fought back, until now. He been tortured, abused, and humiliated at this man’s hand for far too many years. Keyes stalked forward, remembering this scum’s hate-filled text messages that had almost caused him to ruin the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Against the fire brewing inside him, Keyes’s balled fists relaxed as he barreled down on his old man. He was skin and bones, looked sickly as hell and shaky on his feet. Yeah, there was something really wrong with the man. His dire health kept Keyes’s fist from making contact, but that was it. As his father got into fight mode, he took a swing. Keyes ducked and dodged the hit as he reached out for his father, manhandling him back inside the truck. He wasn’t careful as he shoved his old man through the open door with Hound on his ass, trying to grab him from behind.

“Get the fuck off me, Hound,” he growled, easily breaking any hold Hound managed as he reached for the door, slamming it shut on his loudly cursing father.

“Stay the fuck away from me,” Keyes warned his old man. His jaw clenched tightly closed, the need to level this hateful man eating at him. The finger he pointed at his old man curled into his fist again. It would be so easy to knock the son of a bitch out right where he sat.

His father started beating up the interior of the truck, his breathing labored, but he didn’t open the door again. “You’re the fuckin’ embarrassment of my life.”