BANE: A Devils' Due MC Romance Novel (16 page)

He came back to the room after only a few minutes.  Again, he didn’t knock.  I guessed that was the way things will really be from now on.

He threw something on the bed.  It landed on my side.  It was a leather jacket.  It was too small to be his.

“That’s ‘yers,” he said.  “A gift.  From Prez.”

“He... He gave me a gift?” I asked, puzzled.  Loco Truman struck me as a heartless man who veiled his viciousness under the guise of a carefree attitude.  He was single-minded when it came to his devotion to the club... and that made him callous.  I didn’t expect to be the recipient of a gift... from any of the members... most especially from their cruel president.

“He gave
us
a gift,” Bane corrected me.  “Check it out and see for ‘yerself.”

I unfolded the jacket and stretched it out in front of me.  It was just the right size.  And it was very pretty.  Smooth, gristly and cold to the touch.  I smiled as I marveled at its beauty.

But I also felt a bit of apprehension.

Why would Loco give me -
us
- such a present?

“Turn it around,” Bane instructed. 

I did. 

Three patches were stitched at the back.  Each patch contained one word.  All three words formed a phrase that conveyed a strong message of inescapability...

PROPERTY


OF


BANE

I stared at the piece of clothing for what seemed like an eternity.  My hands were frozen while I held the jacket.  The words gazed back at me, as if they were unflaggingly reminding me of how much things have changed... and how my new life was supposed to be from this day forward.

“Heh!  I guess ‘ya don’t like it,” Bane shared his observation.

“No, I think the fabric and the fit are good,” I answered.  My eyes never left the jacket.  “But...”

“But?”

“Uhm... am I supposed to wear this?”

“Ye’re not
supposed
to wear it, kid,” he said firmly.  “You’re expected to wear it.”

It was only then when my eyes rolled towards him.

“Expected?” I repeated.  “I have to wear this?  Like a uniform?”

“I know, I know... the
Property of Bane
crap is a lil’ too much for ‘ya,” Bane answered.  “But the ol’ ladies in this club, they wear shit like that, and ‘ya should too.  It’s a way of tellin’ people that ye’re not someone they should mess with, or else.”

“Or else what?”

“Or else they’ll have to deal with me.”

That sounded so ominous, but, in a very twisted way, it sounded so heartening as well.

Still, I was just eighteen, and I was attending school.  So many questions billowed in my head.
Was I expected to wear this everywhere?  Was I expected to wear this even during classes?  What would the other students say?  If someone from their club gets in trouble, will wearing this jacket make me an immediate suspect?

As I tried to come up with possible answers, Bane removed his kutte and his shirt and lied beside me.  That still shocked me, but not as much as the night before.  I could complain about it, but he’ll just remind me about his bad back and how we were supposed to put on an act and convince everyone that we were lovers.

Lovers.

That word made me swill as my entire body tingled like a wine glass being clinked.  Earlier, he said that the extent of my
service
only involved getting him some beer and massaging his feet.  I cursed myself for being so naive to actually believe that that was all there was to it.  Of course there was more!  We were supposed to be
lovers
...

And how can we pull that off without...

Without...

Oh no...

A million ideas surged in my mind, and none of them were innocent.  I tried to shut them out, but they kept hounding me, easily breaking through the mental walls I have built in my head.

I’ve never had a boyfriend.  I’ve never even been kissed before.  All my life, I have always imagined a really nice wedding for myself and the man I will choose to love for the rest of my life.  Now, those dreams have been reduced to guileless notions of a child who stupidly believed in fairy tales and happy endings and Prince Charmings.

I was his ol’ lady.

For all intents and purposes, I was
married
to him.  I was his property, as the jacket so blatantly screamed.  I was his.

A sham as it may be, there was no way around it. 

Three and a half months more, I told myself.  Three and a half months more and they’ll let me go.  Their oath to my father would be done by then, and I’d be free... and this fraudulent setup would’ve served its purpose and it would end.

Just three and a half months more.

He began to snore quite loudly, and I smiled... finding solace in the fact that I didn’t have to be his forever.

Then, a semblance horror suddenly gripped me, completely eradicating the feeling of repose I just found.  It was a different kind of terror, though, one that was somewhere in between the fear of hopelessness and the dread of loss.

Indeed, I didn’t have to be his forever.

But...

Why was there a whisper that kept echoing in the deepest recesses of my heart... a faint voice that kept asking a question that I didn’t want to hear...

What if...

What if I didn’t want this to end?

I wasn’t able to attend my classes for two days.  It was Bane’s idea.  He wanted me to wait until things settled down with the Captolis. 

I wasn’t privy to what the club’s plans were, and I only relied on the things he told me.  The day after he made me his
ol’ lady
- something which I have yet to fully understand and accept - Loco tried to contact the head of the Italian family.  Though a truce was never agreed on,
the fact that the Captolis were amenable to keeping the communication lines open was a good sign
, Bane said.  There were no strikes from either party that day and the next, prompting the club to believe that the worst was over.

I just stayed in the room throughout that period, afraid of going out, afraid of meeting the patches and the girls who might start to question me about my relationship with Bane, afraid that I might just say the wrong things that would jeopardize the act we were putting up.

On the third day, I started to worry about school.  I’ve been gone for so long and the quarterly exams were coming up.  My exile had to end, whether Bane approved of it or not.  I left him a note, though, informing him of my decision.

It was five in the morning when I began to sneak out of the clubhouse, as has been my routine since I started going back to school.  Bane was still asleep when I left the room.

No one was supposed to be at the lobby.  The path to the exit should’ve been clear.  But someone was there, at the bar, busy cleaning up the mess from the merrymaking the night before.

A girl.

One of the mamas.

Long blonde hair that curled near the edges, a slender body that made her legs look even longer and more shapely with her pair of denim shorts, a checkered top tied in a knot from the second button near the collar, hazel eyes that underlined her pretty face though it was tainted by her cluttered mascara... I have seen most of the girls who frequented the place but she was, by far, the prettiest among them. 

Her name’s Wendy.  I have heard some of the patches call her once or twice before.  She was always smiling whenever she was with them, always eager to please their wishes.  She wasn’t that welcoming to me, though, as expected.

She looked at me just as I was slowly and quietly walking on my way out.  She immediately stopped mopping the floor behind the counter.

“Bane knows you’re leaving?” she asked with a tone and an expression as cold as an iceberg.

“Uhm... yeah... I have to go to school,” I mumbled my answer.

“Oh sweet Jesus!  You’re just a
fuck doll
now.  Why do you still have to go to school?”

“I’m not a fuck...” I started to answer defensively.  I stopped myself from continuing as I realized that doing so would’ve just cast some suspicion about my make-believe affair with Bane.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” she said dismissively and irately.  “You prolly think that just because you’re an ol’ lady now, you’re better than most of us, huh?  That you can
pursue your dreams
because your ol’ man supports you all the way, huh?”

“No, no... it’s not like that at all,” I denied her insinuations.  “I’m just trying to finish school because that’s what my dad wants.”

“Your dad?  The rat?” she replied with a mocking grin as she once again stopped what she was doing.

I just bowed my head.  Countless times they have censured me for being my father’s daughter.  I have learned how to control my emotions... but the pain of their words never lessened.

I kept walking towards the door.

“Just remember,” she continued to say before I could leave the clubhouse.  “Even if you’re an ol’ lady now, you still ain’t gonna get any respect from us!”

"So, you asked me to meet you here, despite my old age and my weak knees? You demanded it as if you are the aggrieved party when it was Mr. Bane who mercilessly killed four of my men, including one of my most trusted associates?"

Don Vito Captoli displayed none of the dignified calmness he was known for. He was visibly irked, insulted even, when Loco set the meeting between his camp and ours at Chester's Field - an old abandoned ranch along Highway 34 near Wright. Prez really didn't have a choice. We couldn't pay a fucking courtesy call to their office knowing that he'd have dozens of his lapdogs - angry and armed to the teeth - ready to shoot at us anytime he'd give them the signal. So we met in a neutral territory. The Captolis brought around twenty of their men. We were twelve strong, the full ensemble minus old man Ducky. Prez and Veep were there, of course, together with the club’s sergeant-at-arms, Talon.  The Three Musketeers - Mason, Bear and Romeo - were likewise present.  We were still outnumbered but the open area provided us the space to spread out and whittle them to smaller groups if ever it has to come to that.

There, on the dry grounds of the field, Loco stood face to face with the wheelchair-bound patriarch of the Italian family. The Don's men were positioned behind him, though we suspected some snipers lurking in the thickets. We had our president's back.

"Vivi, Vivi, Vivi,"
Prez replied irreverently with his trademark jolliness that always masked his vicious streak. "Vivi Baby... I’m saddened by your choice of words, my friend. You're actually hurting my feelings. First of all, we didn't demand this meeting place. We simply...
suggested
it. Secondly, Bane didn't
mercilessly
kill your guys. He merely defended himself."

"Defending himself?" the old fuck questioned furiously. "He was protecting the girl! The traitor's offspring!"

"Well, yeah, that's true," Prez conceded. "But what's a man supposed to do when his bitch is endangered like that?"

"What do you mean, Mr. President?" the Don wanted to know. "The girl means nothing to you."

"That's not entirely correct, Vivi," Loco answered. "She may be a rat's daughter... but Bane here? He's been tappin' that sweet, lovely ass for quite some time now."

"Tapping?" the Don was confused. His vernacular was way out of date.

"Yeah, tappin'. As in
Sweet Jesus Fire In The Hole Face First Or Doggy Style In The Cunt Or Up In The Ass
kind of action, each and every night, baby,
swoosh!
" Prez animatedly explained and the brothers laughed.

"You mean he's copulating with her?"

"Yeah... and more. Bane made her his ol' lady."

"Old lady?" the Don got even more puzzled.

"Ol' lady. No
D
. Only ignoramuses spell it with a D. Not that you're an ignoramus, of course, Vivi." Loco's comment brought in another round of laughter from the boys.

"And how is that significant?" the Don asked, more annoyed than before.

"Well... with our kind, an ol' lady is more than just a brother's personal whore. Being an ol' lady is sacred to us. Ol' ladies are family... and you know how it goes, Vivi... we don't give up on family."

The Don fell silent. He stared at Loco with eyes brimming with pent up rage.

"Are you telling me that you will not be surrendering this girl?" he finally delivered his question.

"I'm telling you that we should discuss another way to make things right between our crews," Prez corrected him, his carefree demeanor suddenly disappeared, replaced by solid seriousness that clearly showed what he wanted - an undeniable resolution to the matter.

"Only the girl's dead body can make this right," the Don firmly countered.

"Surely there is something else we can agree on. There are other options available to us."

"Like what?"

"Our services. For free, for a certain period. Protection. Escort runs. Negotiating distribution channels. Anything that’s within our...
line of expertise
."

"I don't need those. That girl's father brought down my entire mid-eastern business. What is there to protect? To escort? To distribute?"

"
Pro rata
compensation then? Our club's not rich, but we can shoulder some of the losses you suffered."

"How much of the thirty million dollars will you be able to shoulder?"

"Uhm... errr..." Prez scratched his head as he did some mental computations. "Two percent?" he eventually answered, weakly.

"Two percent?!" the Don repeated in disgust. "Are you trying to insult me Mr. President? That won't even be enough to build another lab!" His lackeys, fucking airheads as they were, even understood the absurdity of Loco's offer. They gritted their teeth as their hands stiffened over the guns on their holsters.

"Not enough huh?" Prez played dumb. "Tell you what, Vivi... I got a deal in the works with some Canadian Lords who want to establish a weed pipeline from the north to the heartlands. I can make you an industrial partner for that shit... and trust me, it's gonna be a big dump! I'm talking about a mountain load of poop, my good man!"

"Your knowledge of history is completely unforgivable, Mr. President!" the Don screamed at him. "You want us,
Italians
- born and raised - to deal with the
French?
We'd die first before we do business with Napoleon's bastards!"

"But they're not French!" Prez reasoned out. "They're fucking Canadians!"

"Same thing. That doesn't make them any different from their colonizers."

Prez sighed.

"Well, you got me stumped, Vivi," he said. "I'm offering you everything I've got but you don't want any of it. How else can we solve this little issue between our people?"

"Yes, indeed, we have reached an impasse, Mr. President."

"Yeah, we have."

"Very well. Go home, then. Sleep on it. We will do the same. I'm sure
fate
will find a way to work things out."

"Ah, now there's the Vivi I know... reasonable and understanding," Prez acknowledged his counterpart's show of diplomacy. "Okay then. We'll split. Hopefully, we'll find something we can agree on in the coming days."

"Yes, yes.. I'm sure we will," the Don agreed... with an eerily impish grin.

That night, back at the clubhouse, the brothers partied harder than usual.  Loud music blared as they danced with the broads of their choice.  Beer flowed left and right like water sprouting from holes on the dam that the fucking Little Dutch Boy failed to poke with his fingers.  A fog of tobacco and marijuana smoke hovered below the ceiling.  Some of the boys - namely Warren and K.O., the remaining oldies aside from me and Ducky - were burning meth and injecting them through the large veins that lined up the area above their forearms.  Others, like the Three Musketeers, were snorting coke.  The younger ones, like Pip and Chakra who were in their early twenties, were content with E, holding bottles of water - like they were a pair of school girls - to push down the drug.

The girls were equally as merry.  Lots of pairs of tits were flapping around the place.  Some of the mamas took the bar counter and made it a ledge for their dancin’, wildly gyrating their hips so that they’d win the attention of the brothers.  There’s this sweet butt named
Sindee
- yup, that’s how she preferred to spell her name - who wasn’t wearin’ her pants, her legs were spread wide open, exposing her cunt, brownish outie and all.  It was, by no means, a world class
vaj
... but it was a
vaj
nonetheless.  Ducky sat on the stool in front of Sindee’s pussy and marveled at it the entire night.  Poor gramps.  He’s just too old to actually take that young lady and fuck the bejeezus outta her.

Lana sat on my lap as the merrymaking ensued. 

As I looked at her, though, I immediately realized that she didn’t think of this as any ordinary evening.  She was staring at every sight that caught her fancy, unlike before when she’d just keep her head bowed and shy away from the festivities around her.  She was tapping her foot to the beat of the folk rock song being played.  She laughed when she’d overhear a funny joke from the other tables.  She even waved and said hi to the people who she has mingled with before - namely Prez, Bumbux and old man Ducky who lived in the room next to ours.

Some of the girls still gazed at her with scorn, though.  They’d whisper while they stared at her.  They’d stop when they’d notice me looking at them.  Lana was rattled a bit whenever she’d see them like that, but she was always quick in forcing herself to smile away whatever bad vibes those bitches caused.

“Get me a beer,” I ordered her, and she gave me a gleeful but confused look.

“Where can I get one?” she asked, still smiling.

“Over there, by the counter, where Bumbux is,” I answered.  “It’s on the chiller right beside the fridge where ‘ya get ‘yer water.”

Her eyes raced to where the bar was.  I saw her gulp.  She was hesitant to obey me, not because she was being stubborn, but because she wasn’t completely comfortable with the idea of walking across the lobby just to reach the beer station.  Too many big, smelly men dancing all over the place.  Too many disdainful girls who wanted to slit her throat.  She gave me another look.  Her face was painted with worry.

And something tugged at my cold, callous heart.

If I followed my instinct, I would’ve gotten up and grabbed a bottle myself.

But that wouldn’t be right.  She had to learn how to conquer her fears.  She had to learn how deal with her apprehensions.  She had to be stronger.  It was the only way she could call this shit hole her home.

My eyes squinted.  My brows met in the middle.  I gave her a mean glare... and she gave me the damn cutest pout I’ve ever seen.

She stood up and started to trudge towards the counter.  She was wearing a sleeveless tanktop, so soft that its fabric hugged the shape of her perky breasts.  Unlike the other girls , however, she didn’t display her tits like they were some fucking medals of valor.  She slouched a bit, concealing her bosoms as she walked through the throng of people that stood between our table and the bar.  But there was more spring in the way she took her steps, compared to before.  Her ass bounced left and right, and it was a fan-fucking-tastic sight to behold.