Nolan by Lane Hart, D.B. West

Chapter Ten

Nolan

Present day five years later…

Something awful is happening to the Savage Kings MC.

The biggest, baddest playboys are doing the unthinkable – they’re all starting to settle the fuck down.

I don’t know what the hell they’re doing or why. Well, the why is pretty easy – they’re all pussy whipped. I don’t want any part of that shit, fuck you very much. Been there, done the time. Twice.

The last time that I fell for a beautiful woman, one who I thought I could be with for the long term, that I wouldn’t ever be able to get enough of, it bit me in the ass so hard that I’m still dealing with the consequences.

Abel, Hugo, and I used to love riding up and down the east coast with no attachments to any one place, just riding, drinking, and fucking whoever we wanted whenever we wanted. I know that if not for my probation requirement to have a permanent address, one where I need to be nearby for surprise inspections, the three of us would still be roaming the highway.

I didn’t ask my boys to park their Harleys when I put in a transfer to the Savage Kings MC in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. No, they just followed me here, saying they were ready to put down some roots. They are so full of shit, because neither of them has seen the same woman more than once.

The three of us share a cozy little three-bedroom house, and they keep their guns locked up in their bikes so that they won’t be confiscated by my probation officer during an inspection, and I’ve learned to carry nothing but a big ass hunting knife. It’s not like I need anything more for protection. Who the hell would be stupid enough to mess with any member of the Savage Kings MC?

As if God heard my silent thought from the barstool where I was silently sipping my beer, a giant, bald motherfucker standing at nearly seven feet tall and three times the size of a normal man bursts through the door of the clubhouse. The wooden door slams into the wall with a womp loud enough to make us all jump out of our skin.

“What the hell was that?” Roman McNamara, the club’s president, asks when he strolls out of his office with his gun already in his hand and at the ready. Fuck, I miss being able to carry.

Roman’s boots come to an abrupt halt when he sees the oaf. His gaze does a quick sweep of the bar to see how many men are available to help him tackle the son of a bitch if necessary. Between our prez, who is a former Marine, me, Hugo, Abel, Leo behind the bar, and Marcus supervising the two prospects’ game of pool, I think we have enough bodies to take him on.

Maybe.

He’s bigger than two goddamn bodybuilders combined!

“Who the fuck are you?” Roman asks, keeping his gun lowered to his side. Good on him for not overreacting just yet. If I had a piece, I’d have it cocked and aimed by now. I know Abel and Hugo are thinking the same thing from their barstools next to mine, but they don’t want to make a move to pull their guns, afraid that may set off the hulk. For all we know, he could very well be bulletproof.

“Which of you pussy bastards is Nolan Bishop?”

His voice is so growly deep it’s barely more than a mumble, but I think…I think he just said he’s looking for me.

Fucking great.

“What do you want with Nolan?” Roman asks the giant.

“That’s between me and him, ain’t it?” he responds. “I’ll bust every head in here until I find out where that son of a bitch is.”

Behind the bar, Leo clears his throat and nods his head at me.

“What the hell?” I ask him.

“Sorry, man,” the youngest member of the MC says with a wince. “I’m too young to die, and it sounds like a personal beef…”

Before I can even turn my head back around to look at the man, I’m being yanked up off my stool backward as if I weigh fifty pounds instead of two hundred and then flattened to a table on my back. I consider shoving a boot between his legs, but he’s made sure to keep his nads out of the way.

Dammit.

The only comfort when a log-size forearm presses to my throat is the sound of no less than seven guns being cocked while he’s distracted. Even Leo, the asshole, has his out and ready.

“I don’t know who the hell you are…but is this really worth…taking a shitload of bullets?” I ask through gasps.

“This time I’m just here to give you a warning,” the bald man growls in my face, baring his crooked, discolored teeth. “The next time, I’ll snap you in half.”

“Okay, great. Warn me all you want, buddy. I’m all ears.”

“It’s time for you to let Rita go,” he growls.

“R-Rita?” I repeat in confusion, and the pressure he applies to my throat nearly makes me choke.

“Don’t play stupid. I’m not an idiot!” he roars in my face, his breath smelling of onions and stale coffee, a horrid combination. “Sign the divorce papers and turn them in by the end of the week, or I’ll come back here and make you sign them with your blood!”

“Divorce papers? You want me to sign…divorce papers?”

“That’s it. Sign them, and we won’t have a problem. You got me?”

“Oh yeah. I’ve got you,” I agree, and he thankfully lifts his forearm from my throat. Glaring at the others, he stomps out of the bar.

“You all right?” Roman asks, offering me a hand up that I refuse.

“What the fuck do you think?” I ask him. “A man who can kill me with his pinkie just threatened my life about some shit he’s made up in his psychotic melon head.”

“You’re married?” Marcus asks as he wanders over to the door to open it and see if the big buffoon has left yet.

“Not unless he got hitched after he joined our chapter,” Roman grits out as he puts his gun away. “Reece does the background checks, and there were no marriage filings. What gives, Nolan? Do we need to kill that big bastard?”

Of course they had the original Savage Kings IT genius look into us before we patched in here. I’ve known from day one that they didn’t trust us nomads and never would.

“Did you elope or some shit recently?” Roman asks.

“No, I didn’t elope, and I sure as hell am not married!” I exclaim. “I don’t know what the hell the fucker was talking about!”

“You do know a Rita…” Abel trails off.

“Yeah? So? It can’t be the same one. I haven’t heard from her in years.” It was five years last month to be exact, not that I’ve been keeping track.

“Why not?” Hugo asks. “She made your life hell before. Maybe she’s decided to do it again!”

“Who is Rita?” Roman demands, hands on his hips in annoyance at having his afternoon interrupted by a giant bar-crasher.

“The crazy bitch Nolan went to prison for five years ago,” Abel answers before I can say anything. I glare at him in thanks for opening up that can of worms.

“That was my decision. Not hers,” I remind him and Hugo.

Frowning, Roman says, “You went to prison for a B&E and larceny, right?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t do that shit, not really. I just told the cops I did.”

Roman’s brow furrows. “So, the same woman who let you take the fall for her five years ago is now suddenly sending some big motherfucker to threaten you to divorce her, even though you were never married?”

“She didn’t let me take the fall. It was…complicated,” I tell him. “And I have no clue why she would tell him we’re married when we only dated for a few weeks five fucking years ago.”

“Well, you better find out,” Roman grumbles. “Everything is finally peaceful around here for once. We don’t need any new enemies.”

“He was on a Harley,” Marcus informs us when he comes back from the door. “Possibly even a member of another MC.”

“He wasn’t wearing a cut,” Jake, one of the prospects, so helpfully offers.

“Probably because they don’t come in extra motherfucking large,” Hugo replies.

“They would need an entire herd of cows to make that son of a bitch’s leather cut,” Abel adds with a chuckle.

“You need to track down this Rita and figure out what’s going on before you end up dead in a ditch,” Roman tells me.

“Yeah, I know,” I say with a sigh.

“If you’ve got a last name, I’ll have Reece look her up,” Roman offers. I nod my agreement as I follow him back to his office, feeling like my guts have all been rearranged.

I haven’t seen or heard from Rita Collins since the morning before I turned myself in to the police station. I thought she would be happy I took the fall instead of her or her brother, but then nothing, not a single word.

Hell, sometimes I just wonder what the fuck I was thinking back then. Still, it wasn’t totally on her. It was my own damn fault for falling for her too fast, thinking she felt the same way about me.

I sure as shit won’t make that same mistake again.