Highest Sins: Mountain Misfits MC Book 2 Read online

“You’re fucking gross.”

  “You’re fucking ugly.”

  It’s going to be a long two days.

  8

  Esther:

  I spend most of the day pacing around my trailer, holding my phone in my hand, trying to figure out what the hell I should do.

  The one person I usually call in situations like this is the one person that has me in this situation.

  Why in the hell would Brooks’s wallet be in that bush? I can’t hardly believe something picked it up and carried it there. That and the boot prints. This wasn’t just something that happened today. How long has it been going on? How much has he seen?

  Even more baffling, why?

  Why would one of my best friends be spying on me through my bedroom window? We’ve made it perfectly clear that the two of us will never be together. On one hand, I feel kind of repulsed and disgusted.

  On the other, the thought of him watching me, the dirty disgusting things going on in his mind while he hides in my bushes and sees me undress, sees me touch myself, sees me cum over and over again, throwing my head back and screaming, praying, crying… imagining him doing the same thing with me. How he feels. How he sounds. How he tastes. I don’t know if my discovery is really such a bad thing.

  If I know anything from my time as a Misfit, it’s that leverage will get you everywhere. Leverage will get you everything you want. And this wallet in my hand, these footprints in my shrubs, plain as day, are just that. But the real question is, do I actually want everything I want?

  “What are you all dressed up for?” Morgan scowls at me as I come to relieve her from her shift at the bar. This bitch has always had it out for me. It sucks she’s such a good bartender and the guys like her so much, because I would’ve fired her a long time ago on the grounds of her bad attitude towards me. She can’t keep her filthy hands off of anything with a dick, and she is the first person to throw any other chick slightly more attractive than her under a bus if she has the opportunity.

  She’s slept her way through every man in the club with the intention of becoming an old lady, and now all she is is old. Old like me. We’re two peas in a pod; we both fuck in hopes that we’ll get what we want.

  Except she wants power, a title, a man to love.

  I just want to protect the patch and give the men I do love a chance to keep living the life that we live.

  “Laundry day,” I say to her, my short stretchy floral sundress more of a statement of my laziness than a fashion choice.

  “Well, you look like you’re getting ready to work the corner. Hot date tonight?” she laughs.

  “Morgan, you wouldn’t even make it a day on my corner. You’d fuck anything for free.”

  “Damn right I would,” she cackles as Clutch and Austin walk through the front door. They’re both good-looking enough: Clutch, a former military dude with pretty boy tendencies, and Austin, just a big hairy redhead who grunts more than he talks. Not really my cup of tea, but they seem to always have a harem following them wherever they go. “And just in time for my shift drink, too.”

  My dad follows behind them, scowling. He looks like a storm cloud, everything about the air around him black, dark, electric. Everyone in the bar goes silent at the same time, and the only sound you can hear besides Heat’s wheezing cough is his footsteps on the ground.

  “Esther, I need to see you in the office,” he says, not making eye contact with anyone else in the room.

  “Looks like your shift drink is gonna have to wait, Morgan,” I say, sticking my tongue out at her. “Try to keep it in your pants while I’m gone, sweetie.”

  9

  Brooks:

  “I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal, Brooks. I’ll get it. Just get me back later.”

  We are sitting at the table in the little truck stop diner, and when the waitress brings the check, I reach into my pocket to find my wallet missing. I’m wearing the same jeans as yesterday. There’s really no reason why it shouldn’t be in there.

  I guess it could’ve fallen out on the floor of my bedroom. I wasn’t really paying attention this morning while I was getting ready. The thing is, I kind of doubt that’s the case, and I instantly start sweating bullets.

  I make Gavin take me back to the house just to double-check, silent the whole way there.

  “You’re being ridiculous,” he whines, standing in my bedroom doorway as I look high and low and under my bed for my wallet. “By the time we get out there, it’s going to be dark. We just wasted a whole fucking day. What do you need your wallet in the woods for anyway?”

  “Just go,” I say. “We’ll try again tomorrow.” I need to get this figured out. If it’s not here, then it’s definitely there. And if it’s there, then where? I pull out my phone and text Esther, hoping maybe she found it on her kitchen counter or something.

  Hey girl, u seen my wallet?

  “I’m a busy man, Brooks. My week is jam-packed.”

  “Just because you have pet goats doesn’t mean you’re a busy man. It means you do whatever your old lady asks you to do.”

  “Hey, she thought they were cute. They kinda are until they break into your house and start chewing up your couch cushions.”

  “Just come get me tomorrow morning,” I say. Usually Esther texts back pretty quick. Maybe she’s already at work. Maybe she’s busy. That could be a good thing. I can go over to her house and look for it while she’s gone. “I’ll make it up to you.”

  “You’re acting like a real weirdo today. Weirder than usual, Brooks. Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “Get out of my house. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say. There’s really nothing I can tell him about the situation that would make it seem less weird than it is. I think my wallet is in the bushes at his sister’s house. The bush that I hide in and watch her from.

  10

  Esther:

  “Whiskey?” my dad asks, uncapping the bottle and grabbing two glasses from the shelf behind his desk.

  Ugh, I think. I can tell by the way he’s pacing and muttering under his breath that he’s in a mood. The fact that he’s doing the usual ritual involving plying me with alcohol means that I likely have a job coming up. “I’m good,” I tell him. “I gotta close the bar tonight. What’s the damage, Dad?”

  He looks nothing short of terrible. Ever since his heart attack, his skin has looked gray to me. His voice that was once gravelly and low now can’t even make it a sentence without hacking his lungs up. Yet here he is, lighting up a cigar and downing Tullamore Dew like he’s still in his thirties. Not my place to say anything. I love my dad, but if he wants to put himself out of his misery at a rapid rate, he’ll be doing us all a favor.

  “Salazar,” he says, and I involuntarily cringe. Joe Salazar has more money than he knows what to do with, the kind of money he married into. I could get past his shortness, fatness, and baldness if he wasn’t such a humongous asshole. He’s the kind of man who thinks he can own people because he’s so rich. He’s the kind of man who knows exactly how repulsive he is, but doesn’t give a fuck. He’s used to being able to buy whatever he wants.

  I die a little inside every time he ‘buys’ me, even if it’s just for work, just for pretend.

  “Dad, you know I hate him. I don’t wanna do deals with him anymore.” Joe always makes me feel like a street beggar. He makes me feel weak, like he’s holding something over my head. He’s not like our other usual clients. “He makes me feel like shit about myself.”

  “I know; I’m sorry. I don’t have any other options, though. It’s just pretend, Esther, you know that. Acting. It’s always just pretend. Use your tools.”

  I hate when he says that. My ‘tools’ were given to me without my consent. My tools were gifted to me when I was battered, broken, completely alone in this world, a teenager just looking for someone, anyone, to save her from this nightmare. My tools can put me into a frame of mind where everything is blank, everything was hollow, and I was just a shell of a human
being.

  “Can’t we send someone else? Honestly, I will do any other damn job you come up with. That man sketches me out, though.”

  “We need ARs. Lots of them. If we can’t deliver to the Vipers by the end of the week, we’re all going to be Salazar’s bitches. We need you, Esther.”

  I nod back my tears. He doesn’t need to see me cry. He’s right. This is my place in this world. This is my duty to the Misfits, the men I love, the patch that I would lay my life down for.

  “I’m working on finding you a replacement anyway.” He shrugs. “It’s not like you’re in your prime anymore.”

  The thought makes me shudder. What I was put through when I was ‘in my prime’ is nothing that any self-respecting woman should have to undergo. It’s clear as day that I need to keep doing what I do, not only to protect my club, but to save someone else from a life of misery. He’s not going to live forever, and if I can just hang on until that day, I have faith that Gavin and Brooks will turn this train wreck around.

  “No matter who you train, they’ll never have what I have, Dad,” I say. “The one thing that every man you do business wants…”

  He raises his eyebrows at me, and smirks. He knows exactly what I’m about to say.

  “The ability to destroy you.”

  I’m the vessel to Moses Boden. I’m the arbitrator between the head of one of the most powerful biker gangs and the con artists he works with. They don’t want me because I’m pretty or because I’m an awesome fuck. They want me because every time they fuck me, they’re fucking him.

  Every time they hurt me, they’re hurting his bloodline.

  Every time I come out on top, which is EVERY time, I’m sending them a clear message. My club always gets its own way. We always get what we want. We will fuck you raw in every possible way if you mess with us.

  Just like that, I feel good. I feel powerful. I feel like the queen of this nightmare. A dose of reality. Confidence is pumping through my veins. I might not like what I do, but it is my destiny. It turns me on, the power I know that I hold.

  And now I’m going to use that power.

  I smile, thinking about the text that Brooks sent me. I bet he’s tearing his house apart looking for his wallet. That, or at my place, digging around in the bushes.

  This might be a one-time thing. A one-time shot. But I’m going to use my power to the best of my ability.

  “I’m gonna need off the rest of the week,” I tell him. “You gotta tell Morgan to cover for me.” If I’m going to be keeping the club alive to see another day, I’m definitely entitled for a few days off at the bar.

  “You’re gonna do it?”

  “You bet,” I say, walking out the door with a spring in my step. “I’ll see you in the war room. We’ll work out the logistics then.”

  Right now I have a plan of my own to put into play.

  I nearly float through the bar, past all the people, Morgan wailing after me, “WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING?”

  It takes everything in me not to flip her off over my shoulder. Everyone around me is allowed to do whatever they want whenever they want. It’s time for me to do something nice for myself.

  11

  Brooks:

  You in the woods?

  She finally texts me back. I’ve been in the garage, pissing around with the timing gear on the old Indian I’ve been trying to restore. I didn’t want to go to her house unless I knew she wasn’t there, and I figured I could keep busy working on this engine.

  No, came home. U got it?

  A minute or two goes by, and I just stand there, staring, waiting. I’m probably just being ridiculous.

  Are you alone?

  I don’t know why she cares. I don’t know what she’s up to. There’s a lump in my throat. I have a feeling that she does have my wallet, and I have a feeling it’s the worst-case scenario. How could I be so dumb?

  She probably thinks I’m a total creep. She should.

  I’m just gonna play it cool.

  For now.

  She texts me back a couple of smiley emojis. The girl is kind of twisted. Maybe she’s on the way over here to shoot me. I’ve seen the Boden family do worse.

  Two seconds later, my phone is ringing. It’s not just a regular call though; she’s got me on video chat. She probably just smashed her phone with her face. I’ve done it a million times before.

  I hit the reject button and call her back normal.

  She hits the reject button and calls me back in video chat.

  Apparently she’s not doing that by accident.

  “What’s up, Esther?” I ask, trying to hold the phone far enough away from my face so that she’s not looking right up my nose. This is weird to me. I’m more of a three-word text kind of guy. “I think I left my wallet at your place last night.”

  “Is that so?” she says, pouting her perfect pink lips, her green eyes glimmering with mischief. “Do you think you did?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “It’s not at my place.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be out in the woods?” I hear her voice, but I can tell she’s moving around, the picture on the phone suddenly blurry. “What the hell are you so worried about?”

  “I dunno. I just like to have it just in case?” I half ask, half tell.

  “Did you think you’d be needing this?” she laughs. I can see her sitting on her bed, long bare legs crossed. She’s holding a condom in between her fingers. “This thing expired like four years ago. It’s probably dry-rotted out by now. That’s not very safe.”

  I shrug. So what? I have condoms. It’s not like that should come as a shock to her.

  I’m more transfixed with what she’s wearing than what she’s saying.

  “Is that my t-shirt?” I ask. She’s damn near swimming in the big black Slipknot shirt. I didn’t really notice it missing, but now that I think about it, I haven’t seen in it a long time.

  She nods and smiles. “I like to wear it around the house sometimes. Fits me perfectly,” she say. “I’m surprised you don’t know that, though.”

  Oh shit. She knows.

  She has to.

  Unless she’s faking me out.

  “I don’t know what you mean, Esther, but whatever, you can keep it. Can I have my wallet back?”

  “Don’t lie to me, you fucker.” She grins. “You know exactly what I mean. Mr. Gingerbread might not be in his heyday anymore but he’s one hell of a detective. And you, my friend, are pretty shitty at covering up your footsteps. Literally. Looks like about a year’s worth of boot prints in my bushes.”

  I’m speechless. She’s just laughing her head off like a crazy woman.

  “Esther, I can explain,” I say. No, I can’t. There’s really no explanation for the things I do other than I want to do them. If I hadn’t got caught, I’d probably keep doing them.

  “You know, if you didn’t drop your wallet on the ground, we’d be having a totally different discussion right now. I’d probably be calling you and asking you to put up a security camera at my house. You’d probably like that, though. You’d probably rig it so you had full access to my place. You wouldn’t even have to ‘bring me my mail’ or whatever it is you do.”

  “You’re mad; I get it. I crossed a boundary. I’m an asshole,” I plead. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Do you want your wallet back?”

  “I mean, I guess so. Just give it to Gavin or something.”

  “No,” she quips. “If you want it back, you’re going to have to earn it. You’ve been watching me, and I know what you’ve been watching me doing, and now you’re going to put on a show for me. It’s only fair.”

  I raise my eyebrow, not really believing what I’m hearing. If this is some sort of ploy to humiliate me, she’s gotta understand that that’s fairly difficult to do. All our friends have seen me at my worst. Hell, I just got busted for being a peeping pervert in her bushes. Shame isn’t a quality that I’ve been blessed with.

  “Are you alo
ne?” I ask her, just to be on the safe side. I can feel my dick begin to stir in my jeans, just looking at her perfect body, thinking about what’s underneath my t-shirt. Something about it is so sexy on her, something about it makes me feel like she has some secrets, too.

  “Kinda.” She smiles, pulling her hair down from the ponytail on top of her head and shaking it out, running her fingers through it as she cracks her neck. Slow and deliberate. Such a fucking tease. She picks up a little pink vibrator and I about lose my load as she clicks it on and off. “I’m sure you’ve seen this one before. It’s one of my favorites, but I’m sure you know that. Now go in your bedroom and take off your clothes. I want to see if you live up to your hype,” she says, winking at me.

  Who am I to say no?

  I know this is a dangerous dance we’re doing.

  I know this is probably a really bad idea.

  But she started it. I’m going to finish it. What’s one more regret in a life of many?

  The only real challenge is going to be knowing that she’s less than half a mile away, just a quick walk through the woods. The only challenge is going to be not running over there right now and making her swear off that vibrator for the rest of her life.

  It might be her favorite now, but she’s never seen what I’m capable of. She’s about to find out though.

  I flick on the lamp on my nightstand and lean my phone up against the footboard of my bed.

  This kind of feels really fucking ridiculous. This is definitely not how I operate. But if this is how we’re going to open the door, if this is what she wants, by all means, I’ll give her everything I’ve got.

  12

  Esther:

  I can’t believe he’s actually doing this. Indulging me like this. I thought he would just assume I was kidding, come roaring into my driveway on his bike to claim his wallet and his t-shirt. Try to fabricate it as some sort of funny misunderstanding. But instead, he’s playing along with my goofy game.