Diamond in the Rough: RBMC Pittsburgh, PA Book 2 Read online

  “You’re not fired,” I mutter. If anything, she needs out of this house where I can keep an eye on her.

  “I see the way you’re looking at me, Brass. Wipe that pity shit off your face. I’m not some damsel in distress. I made some bad life choices, alright?” She shoots me a wink and smiles. “He’s up in the attic. Sorry we didn’t call you sooner. He just got a new drum set and he’s been messing with it for the last few days. You know how he gets.”

  I spare the comment about ‘at least Barney has something to beat on other than your face,’ but I know we’re both thinking it.

  “Probably in your best interest you just go straight to work,” I say. “Probably don’t want to come up there anytime soon.” As the enforcer of the Royal Bastards MC, Pittsburgh, it’s not just my job to enforce the rules to outsiders. It’s my job to keep order within the club, too. We aren’t a bunch of wife beaters and scumbags. If a brother wants to act out line, I don’t hesitate to whip him back into shape.

  I take one last look over my shoulder at Jewel. The fact that she’s one of our own has always been a point of both pride and pain for me. She’s fucking amazing and gorgeous and put together, and brings so much joy to our lives, but dip shit Barney is the one who brought her to us, and that pisses me off. She’s not mine to keep, not mine to covet, but that doesn’t mean I can’t show Barney exactly how I feel about what he did to her and make sure he doesn’t do it again.

  She grimaces and waves me off, slamming the door behind her.

  I take the steps up to the attic. I don’t hear any drumming besides whatever music is coming from the radio. “Barney, what are you doing you fucking idiot?” I shout.

  As I get to the top of the stairs, I wish more than anything in the world I had one of those vanilla candles shoved up my nose right about now. The fragrance in the attic is downright putrid, like sweat and shit and rotting meat. “When’s the last time you took a shower?” I shout.

  I’ve seen my fair share of dead bodies before, but never in my life have I seen a person who hung themselves from the rafters.

  My gut reaction is to get him down, try and do CPR or something on him, but it’s obvious by the way his body hangs limply from the noose he’s already gone. Paralyzed in my tracks, I know I need to make sure Jewel does not see this under any circumstance. I know I’ll never be able to get this image out of my mind, and it’ll probably fuck her up real good if she has to see her old man like this.

  Of course Barney would choose this as his way to go out. He’s always been a dick like that, inflicting the most pain possible on the people he loved.

  “You fucking selfish prick,” I mutter, as I pick up the chair he must’ve kicked out from underneath himself and set it up next to him. I pull my knife out of my pocket and climb up on the chair. I feel for his pulse in his wrist. Maybe this is just some sort of bad prank. Bad dream.

  I don’t like burying my brothers. Even if we had our disagreements, even if I had every intention of kicking his ass, he was a Royal Bastard. He earned his place at the table. I could trust him with my life.

  I know even if I call an ambulance right this second, there ain’t nothing that’s gonna bring him back to life. His flesh is already cold. His face is swollen and his tongue hangs from his mouth garishly. I grab his body around the waist and take my knife to the rope hanging above him.

  Chapter Two

  Jewel:

  I don’t know what’s more humiliating, the fact that Brass saw me like this, or the fact that he thinks I need him to ‘save’ me from my douchebag ex boyfriend.

  My heart pounds as I try to steady my hands enough to swipe some mascara on my eyelashes. I can barely see the bruises anymore, but I pat on another round of powder just to be on the safe side.

  I know Brass saw right through my bullshit story, but it’s not like it’ll matter anymore after today. Once the guys in the club catch wind that I’m leaving Barney for good, I won’t be welcome at the clubhouse anymore.

  I try not to get teary eyed, but it’s so hard. I love my bartending job more than any other job I’ve had before. I try not to think about giving up my friends, my safe place, the steady and amazing paycheck, and the fact that for the first time in my life I feel like I actually have a family, because I know once I start crying, I’m gonna have to start all over again with the primer, the foundation, the powder, the whole nine yards, and I don’t have time for that.

  Tonight I’m gonna go in there, earn my money, say my goodbyes, and walk out the door for the last time into the night and try and figure out how to live my life as a free woman. I know if I stay here in this house much longer, it’s only a matter of time before one of us dies.

  I walk down the hallway to our bedroom for the last time. My bags are mostly packed, but I do another lap around the room, looking for stray earrings in the shag carpet and opening every dresser drawer to make sure I didn’t forget even a t-shirt.

  My goal is to completely erase myself from Barney’ life. I don’t need him finding my nail file six months from now and using it as an excuse to find me and return it to me. I’m not just going away. I’m disappearing. Seeing him ever again would be too painful, and not just because of what he did to me, but because of what he took from me.

  There’s a loud thump in the attic. I know Brass is up there beating Barney’ ass, and I hope he learns his lesson so he doesn’t pull the shit he pulled on me ever again to anybody else. I stop and listen, waiting to hear a scream or a groan, or even more pounding, but everything is strangely silent.

  Brass is a fucking beast, don’t get me wrong. He’s so tall and jacked, I have no idea how he even fits through doorways. He probably could take Barney out with one blow, but Barney is a squirrelly motherfucker. He’s fast. He’s lanky. He’s got a big fucking mouth that gets him in trouble on a daily basis. He’s really good at dodging a punch.

  The silence sets an alarm bell off in my brain that maybe I should go investigate. I know Brass told me not to come up there, but I can’t help myself. I start down the hallway, and breathe a sigh of relief when I hear his heavy footsteps on the hardwood floor above.

  I tiptoe up the steps but before I can reach the top, Brass is standing there, his face white as a sheet, his eyes blank.

  “What’d you do to him?” I laugh nervously, but he doesn’t react.

  “Go downstairs and call 911,” he says.

  “Brass…”

  “Jewel, I’m not playing. Just go downstairs and tell them you need an ambulance.”

  He takes a step closer to me, and I push my way around him. He grabs the back of my shirt, trying to pull me back, but it’s too late.

  All I can see are his dead eyes staring off into space, the rope hanging loosely around his neck. A loud drum solo blares from the speakers on the walls, as if he’s sending me a final fuck you. Bile burns the back of my throat. He doesn’t look peaceful like some people do when they die, he looks satisfied, like he knew this was the only way he could take up space in my head for the rest of my life.

  I drop to the ground and slap my hands over my face, breathing in and out so hard I nearly hyperventilate.

  “I’m sorry, Jewel. I cut him down. Didn’t want you to see him all strung up like that. He wasn’t breathing when I got up here. He was already gone.”

  I wonder how long ago it happened. To think I was just downstairs going about my business while he was upstairs taking his life makes me sick to my stomach. My breaths turn to dry heaves as I try to calculate the exact moment the drumming stopped.

  “I know it’s hard seeing somebody you love like this,” Brass says. His hand touches my back awkwardly. I know he’s trying to comfort me, but Brass isn’t exactly known for being the most socially adapt guy. He’s always been quiet and reserved, always got straight to the point, he’s not exactly the person I’d go running to if I was sad. He’s the kind of man who lives by the mantra ‘actions speak louder than words’, and his actions usually involve fists or knives or guns i
f his monstrous stature doesn’t do the talking first.

  “I don’t love him, Brass,” I confess. Love was really never what drew me to Barney in the first place. He was fun. Loud. Unpredictable. Witty as hell. Always on the move. He was the kind of person who could make you feel the highest of highs but the lows were so fucking low and hurt so fucking bad, you knew everything about having Barney in your life was toxic. It wasn’t love but some sort of disorder, like an inherent urge to throw yourself into moving traffic or touch a hot stove. “I was planning on moving out tonight. My stuff is all packed. We were done.”

  I sob into the sleeve of my shirt, frustration welling up inside me.

  Nothing ever came easy when it came to Barney, not even our last day together.

  “Oh darlin’, it’s not your fault,” he whispers, crouching down beside me. He takes a long pause, and the next words that come out of his mouth are quiet and choppy, like he’s having a harder time talking to me than dealing with the dead body at hand. “A real man would’ve done anything they had to do to get you back.”

  “You know Barney as well as I do, Brass. I wouldn’t be surprised if he left a note saying it was all my fault.”

  He sighs and pulls an envelope out of his pocket, my name scrawled across it in Barney’ strangely neat handwriting. “There is a note. You want to read it?”

  I shake my head no. “Is that bad?”

  It really seems like a no brainer to me as to why he decided to off himself today, but maybe that’s just me overvaluing myself and what I meant to him.

  After he beat the shit out of me, I ran off and spent the week sleeping on my friends’ couches while I tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my life. When I came back this afternoon and told him I was moving out, he seemed more concerned with his new drum kit than he did with talking about it. It was almost too good to be true.

  He shrugs and smiles sadly at me.

  “You can read it if you want. I won’t be offended,” I say.

  “How about I just hang onto it for you,” he says, shoving it in his pocket. “I’m sure the police are gonna ask about a note and you don’t need to deal with that bullshit right now.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “We should probably start making phone calls,” he says. “Longer we wait, the harder it’s gonna be.”

  He helps me up from the steps and I take one more good hard look at Barney, trying my hardest to conjure up some sympathy for him. I close my eyes and try to conjure up one nice thing to say about him, one nice memory, what I could’ve possibly said to him to make sure this didn’t happen.

  Nothing comes to my mind.

  I’m officially the worst human being alive.

  At least Brass isn’t much of a talker.

  We go downstairs into the living room, and I walk around blowing out all of Barney’ candles. I don’t know what his fasciation with vanilla was, but if I never smell it again, I’ll be a happy woman. I open up the window, letting the cold winter air into the house. His body might still be upstairs but I need to get his spirit out of this place as soon as possible.

  He talks softly on the phone with the police, and paces back and forth slowly as he calls Rowdy and tells him the details. I sit on the couch curled up in a ball, waiting for somebody to show up and interrogate me.

  “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you didn’t show up when you did,” I say as he hags up the phone and sits down in the recliner. “You’re a blessing, Brass.”

  He’s a good man. A good brother. He’s everything Barney was not. Steady. Reliable. Trustworthy.

  He’s solid muscle and raw power. He doesn’t need to say a word to get his point across. Something about being in the same room as him takes my breath away but makes me feel like I’m wrapped up in a warm hug at the same time. I hope he doesn’t notice me staring, but I don’t think we ever spent any time together alone and seeing him outside his natural habitat of being surrounded by his brothers makes me really appreciate how different he really is than anyone I ever met.

  “I know you’re probably in shock right now. You don’t have to pretend like you’re ok. It’s hard the first time you see something like that. Don’t wanna say you get used to it, but it does get easier.” I didn’t expect the sadness in his eyes. I feel like something about Barney’s death triggered something inside him, a memory that he buried deep inside. I can almost feel the sorrow radiating from him as he does his best to console me and himself at the same time.

  “I’m sorry I’m being a shitty hostess. You want something to drink? I haven’t been here in a week, I don’t know what’s going on in the fridge.” I jump up from the couch and start pacing around, suddenly needing to do something, anything, to keep myself busy.

  Maybe I am in shock.

  There is a dead body upstairs.

  I am going to have to talk to the cops. What if they think I’m a suspect, that I was the one who strung him up in the attic and tried to frame it as a suicide? What if they find out I’m moving out and think I was trying to escape before they found him? What if that’s what Brass and the rest of the MC think?

  “I’m fine, Jewel.”

  “I didn’t do it,” I stammer.

  He rolls his eyes at me. “I know you’re tough, but unless you managed to get a forklift up and down the steps without anybody noticing, I really don’t think anybody is going to accuse you of that. Sit down and relax.”

  I pull open the drawer in the coffee table and fish around until I find Barney’s one hitter. I sniff the little chunk of weed still wedged in the pipe and pull a lighter out of my pocket.

  “Not quite that relaxed,” he chuckles. “The cops are gonna be here any minute.”

  “Right right. I’m so fucking stupid, Brass. I’m sorry, this is just… a whole lot happening right now. I’m just trying to process it all.” Mostly I’m trying process the fact that I am a horrible person because I’m more frustrated with the inconvenience of everything than the fact that a man lost his life today in a horrible way.

  There’s a long silence as we both kind of just sit there twiddling our thumbs, staring at the wall, listening for sirens to come. Talking to the police isn’t exactly my wheelhouse, and I know he’s not looking forward to it either.

  He clears his throat, breaking the silence, cocks his head and stares right at me. Something about his glare is so captivating, I feel like I couldn’t escape it if I tried. “Were you really going to leave us?”

  “Us?” I ask with a nervous laugh. Maybe he’s just making small talk. Maybe I’m just hearing things because of the shock of it all.

  I’ve never been good at reading people, but something about Brass has always made me feel like he’s a man who means what he says.

  “You know, we’re going to have to hire somebody else if you quit. Would’ve been nice to get a heads up,” he says.

  “I just figured it would be easier on everybody if I just dipped. I know how you guys are. That patch comes first. Always. No way Barney was gonna be cool with me working at the bar if we weren’t together.”

  And if he was, I know he’d go out of his way to make my life a living hell. He’d probably spend every one of my shifts trying to get in my friends’ pants or telling humiliating stories about me. All these hypotheticals are moot now, though.

  “Yeah, probably,” he says with a shrug. Before I can say another word, the front door swings open.

  Gin rushes over to me, her face puffy from crying. She wraps me up in a hug so tight it knocks my breath out of me. Rowdy and Brass rush upstairs.

  “How’d you beat the cops here?” I ask. I already know the answer to that question. Bad part of town. Ex con with a long wrap sheet. Already dead. Nobody’s in any hurry to come over here and deal with ‘us people.’ Still, it’s easier to make small talk with Gin than to face the actual matter at hand.

  “We got here as fast as we could. You need anything? This is really fucking terrible, babe. Really bad. Never would�
��ve seen it coming, but it sure doesn’t surprise me. It’s just the kind of guy Barney is. No self control.”

  My eyes well up with tears. Gin is one of the sweetest most genuine friends I ever had in my life, a person I could tell anything to, and yet I’ve been lying to her the last week, avoiding her calls and trying to push her away because I was embarrassed about the whole situation. I feel like the worst person in the world.

  She pulls a tissue out of her pocket and dabs at my face before I can stop her. My makeup smears off in layers, down to the bruises. She gasps in horror.

  “It’s not what it looks like,” I say.

  “It’s exactly what it looks like.” She puts her hands on her hips and shakes her head. “That motherfucker. I would’ve killed him myself if I fucking knew. Jewel, why didn’t you tell me?”

  The pounding on the door saves me from this conversation, at least momentarily, and for that I’m thankful. I pull it open and a whole brigade of people barge in, paramedics, cops, the coroner, I can’t even keep track. I just step aside as Gin directs them upstairs.

  “Are you miss O’Malley?” an older man in a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt asks.

  I nod.

  “I’m sorry, I was at the gym when I got the call and rushed over as fast as I could.” He pulls out his badge. “I’m sure this is really difficult for you. I need to ask you a few questions, though.”

  “What is there to possibly ask?” Gin says, shoving her way in between us. “The guy was a psycho and he offed himself. End of story.”

  “Gin, it’s fine. I appreciate what you’re trying to do here, but I want to talk to him,” I say. The sooner I get it over with, the sooner I can put this behind me.

  “I thought you looked familiar,” he says to her with a wink. “It’s Gin now? Last time I talked to you, you told me your name was Cinnamon.”

  She flips him a middle finger. “Last time I talked to you, you were trying to solicit blowjobs at Club X-Tacy.”