Tank: A Steel Paragons MC Novel Read online

  With an odd fascination, I studied him in his sleep. I had an urge to get closer but there was no way to do that. What, was I going to just go knock on his door and pretend to be some kind of welcoming committee? I snorted out loud at the thought. I might have been in one place so long that I was going crazy. Yep, that had to be it.

  For the next few weeks, he did nothing. Like literally. He only got up to use the bathroom. He barely ate. He only left the house to return not long after with more bottles of alcohol and on a very rare occasion, a bag of some kind of food. Then he would sit on the couch and proceed to see how fast he could go through said bottles.

  It was the same thing on repeat. This guy was obviously a shell of a person and it made me wonder what the fuck I was even doing here. Why was I given this job? Because clearly, the guy was on his way to drinking himself into an early grave. It was like it was almost too easy. Like ending him would be his greatest gift. But something inside me felt wrong about it.

  “Hey,” I said answering the call from Lucy the moment my phone rang.

  “Hey. So how’s it going?” she asked with hesitation in her voice that was strange and unlike her. Sure, she was pretty much scared of anything outside of her apartment door, but she’d never sounded that way towards me.

  “Not great,” I answered honestly. Though, I had no clue why I felt that way. “I mean this guy is boring as fuck and if I don’t kill him I’m sure his drinking will soon enough.”

  And for a brief moment, I wondered what made him that way. What was it in his life that turned him into the man I’d been watching? I had a feeling that he wasn’t always like that. Call it a hunch, because I didn’t have any idea why I would think that. It wasn’t like I knew this guy at all. Or even cared to.

  “It’s been weeks and you haven't made a move.”

  My skin prickled at her words. She’d never said anything about one of my jobs before. Normally, we stayed out of each other’s shit. But there she was, making a statement that held so many questions behind it.

  I let the silence linger between us as I tried to process everything in my head. She knew me well enough to understand the pause and so she stayed quiet on the other end of the phone, waiting.

  “I got nothing,” I finally said because, well, I had no explanation for it any of it. I breathed out a huge sigh. For the first time in, I don’t know, forever, I didn’t understand what was going on with me.

  A typical job should take me no more than a week. I get my target, set up, watch to find some sort of routine, then find a weakness in that routine. Once I figured out the perfect moment, well, there was a small window of waiting for that moment, then bam. And done. This guy had a whole string of good moments for me to take advantage up but for some reason, I kept finding excuses to hesitate.

  “What’s going on with you?” I asked, needing to get the focus off of me because I simply had no answers to give at the moment.

  “You know…” she answered with her usual vagueness.

  I couldn’t help but notice how she’d been a bit distant the past couple of weeks. We usually communicated a handful of times a week, whether it be a few text messages here and there or an actual pick up the phone talk. But I could only count four times that I’d been able to get a response out of her since this mystery guy had finally shown up. I was smart enough to pick up on that it had something to do with him.

  The only thing I couldn’t figure out was how she even knew him. Part of me wanted to press, to ask her questions that I knew she would do her best to avoid answering. But we had an understanding. I didn’t pry into her world and she didn’t go into details about mine.

  I knew she had the background to each and every one of my targets. She was that good and it wasn’t in her to just sit around. If not just for simply wanting to know. That was the thing about Lucy, she wanted to know everything but it didn’t mean she wanted to do anything with that information unless it pertained to whatever mission she was on. Usually, that was. This time I sensed the line blurring and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

  “Soon…” I said almost in a daze. “I’ll make my move soon.”

  “Oh, look,” she almost squealed and I snapped my attention back to my phone, glad that I had her on speaker.

  He wasn’t alone. There were two men standing in the living room talking to him. I cursed that I didn’t have any sound because I found myself desperate to hear the conversation. Who were these men? They were both wearing cuts from some kind of motorcycle club, but I couldn’t get a clear enough picture to see which one.

  “Shit.” The word flew out of my mouth with a slight panic.

  I may not have been able to hear what they were saying but I could definitely read the situation. And it was tense as fuck. While my target seemed relaxed enough on the couch, if not a bit irritated, and the other two stood a good distance away, the body language of all three of them was stiff. Then the oddest thought shot through my body.

  What if he’s in trouble?

  Hm, weird. Right?

  I chalked it up to the fact that if these guys were there to off him then I might not get paid. That had to be it. Then all this boredom and sitting still would have been for nothing.

  “No, I think it’s okay. It looks more like they are giving him some sort of lecture. Maybe they are friends and they are just checking on him.” I didn’t miss the way she emphasized friends but I had no clue what she was trying to say. “What did you say the name of this guy that hired you was?”

  I hadn’t.

  Not once had I ever mentioned one of my employers to her. And she fucking knew it. She was trying to get information out of me and I wasn’t sure why. For a heartbeat, I debated on if I should tell her or not. The situation was weird enough already, but then I opened my mouth and his name just sort of fell out of it.

  “Savage.” My voice was tight and my throat suddenly felt dry.

  I didn’t miss the sharp intake of breath from the other end of the phone, and since it was magnified by the speaker, it rang out in the empty room with an eerie feel. There were more pieces to this puzzle and she fucking held them.

  However, I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to know at that moment because he needed to stay a target, one that I needed to hit.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Tank

  I hated every moment I was in that cabin but at the same time, it gave me the space I needed. I hated that everywhere I turned I not only thought of my brothers, but I thought of my son as well. All the times that I’d brought him up here. The first time I took him to the lake and taught him how to fish. The damn smile that spread on his face at the first one he actually caught by himself. The nights we’d spent outside long after the sun went down catching fireflies.

  Somehow, deep down, I knew coming here would only torture me more. I was trying to run from everything but in the end, the only thing I did was put myself right in the middle of all the memories.

  I was trapped in some strange in between. I wasn’t living, yet, I wasn’t dead. I would go into town and bypass everything a normal vacationer would do. But I wasn’t on fucking vacation. I even hated to stop at the local grocery store because food was the furthest thing from my mind, but a couple of times, I found myself running in and grabbing the first thing I could think of. I pretty much just ended up at the rundown liquor store. And every time I went in there, I gathered up as much whiskey as my massive hands could carry, and let me tell you, it was a lot.

  I should have been shocked when not four days later I was back at the same store doing the exact same thing, but the vicious cycle of actions kept me from giving two shits. Not even the concerned look plastered on the old man’s face behind the counter made me falter in my mission.

  The alcohol only seemed to dull the pain. I could never truly escape it, not even when I was so far gone that all I could do was close my eyes and pass out. Somehow in my sleep my demons still chased me.

  My mind was all over the place. My heart was numb a
nd my body felt heavy. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t eat or even bother to bathe. Yeah, I was one stinky, dirty motherfucker. Good thing I didn’t give a fuck and it wasn’t like there was anyone around, anyway.

  Hope toyed with me. The doubt that Logan was even in the house had my head spinning. Even though I wasn’t stupid enough to believe it. But there is something about not seeing a body that at the end of the day always made me question things. Things that had no right to be entertained. I knew in my mind that he was gone, that there was simply no way he could have made it out of the house any other way.

  With every swallow, every bottle, I tried my best to wash away all the things that haunted me. Though, I felt I didn’t deserve to forget. When I would start to sober, the guilt caught up with me and I blamed myself for the whole thing. It kept coming back to the fact that I didn’t stand up to my brothers when I had the chance.

  The what-ifs were always the worst, they were the things that had me tipping the bottle back faster and swallowing harder.

  The burn of the whiskey wasn’t enough to make me feel anything. Part of me was desperate to feel alive in some way, but then the other part of me wanted nothing more than to be done and gone. It was those moments that had me questioning what came next. Not next in life, no, next in death. Like, where was my son now? Was he happy? Was he free? Did the sins of the father carry on and he was now living in some circle of Hell paying for all my shit? Was there even a Hell?

  And the further I fell into the spiral, I never once tried to catch myself. Because I deserved everything that came my way.

  The cabin became my sanctuary and nightmare at the same time. I should have picked someplace else. Headed north or hell, even out west. Somewhere new and clean. But I didn’t make it that far and the current state I was keeping myself in wouldn’t allow me to leave.

  It was no surprise that when two weeks or so later two of my brothers showed up knocking on the damn door. As much as I didn’t want to see any of them, I knew I wasn’t exactly hiding. I contemplated on not even answering, but by the time the third round of banging hit the door, I knew there was no getting out of it.

  “You look like shit,” Axe said, tone passive like he had made the most obvious statement, as he pushed his way into the cabin.

  “Tank,” Loch said taking in my disheveled state with a tiny amount of sadness in his eyes.

  I didn’t even try to cover up or make excuses. I lumbered over to the couch and plopped myself in the same spot that now had my ass imprint permanently etched on it. They could say whatever they wanted, it didn’t mean I was going to listen. I knew it was just better to not fight it and let them get it off their chests. Then it would be done and they could go back home feeling like they’d done something about the situation.

  “Your mom’s worried. I told her I’d come check on you,” Loch said, his arms crossed over his chest and his look attempted to penetrate through my drunken state.

  “Yeah, I know. She’s called me every day.” And she had.

  At first, she’d called every hour, sent me too many text messages to count, and left so many voicemails I was sure my inbox was full. Not that I had responded or even checked any of them. I had become the shittiest son ever. I knew she was worried and yet, I did nothing to ease that.

  “Look, she’s not doin’ good, kid,” Loch said and I almost snorted at being called a kid. I hadn’t been a kid for a long time but then again, he was older than me by a good ten years. “With your sister still gone and now you won’t even talk to her, she’s fallin’ apart. She hasn’t heard from Darcy. She called your mom and told her she was takin’ off and that was the last time anyone has spoken to her.”

  That should have sobered me up. It wasn’t like Darcy to do something like that. But then again, I understood it completely. Only she had been smart enough to leave her shit behind and go someplace where no one could find her. If she’d just taken off and not told anyone I might have been a bit more worried. I might have even pushed all my shit aside to search for her. But the fact that she called Mom to let her know, led me to believe she just wanted to be alone. Much like I did.

  “Tell her I’m fine,” I said knowing I was the exact opposite of that.

  “No, you’re not. You’re a fuckin’ mess, man. I get it, you need time. I know. But listen to me when I say this, you don’t have to go down this road alone. We are fuckin’ here for you.” If I wasn’t mistaken there was a hint of disgust in Loch’s tone. I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that I was a mess or the that I had turned my back on all those that cared about me. “Clean yourself up. And for fuck’s sakes, take a damn shower.”

  “Does Mom know I’m here?” I asked wanting to know if I should brace myself for a hysterical visit soon.

  “No,” Loch said. A long minute passed like he was thinking really hard about something. “And I won’t tell her you’re here if you do one thing for me.”

  Fuck that.

  I wanted to tell him to take a hike, that I wasn’t doing shit, but the thought of having to deal with my mom had me nodding my head.

  “Fine. What?” I barked. My voice was gravelly, a combination of too much booze intake and not talking for so long. And not to mention the lingering effects of smoke inhalation. The air burned my throat as I spoke and I wished I had something to swallow down, but I knew reaching for a bottle of whiskey at that moment wouldn’t be a smart thing to do.

  “Once a week I want you to take your ass out of this house and do somethin’. And, no, drivin’ to the liquor store to get more booze don’t count. Go to the fuckin’ grocery store, buy some food. Hell, go shoppin’ at one of those places that sell that damn cheesy tourist shit. I don’t care. But get out of this house and around people. Breathe some damn fresh air. Just one day is all I ask.”

  That was the stupidest shit I’d ever heard. What the hell good was that going to do me? But I gave in, knowing that I didn’t actually have to interact with anyone while I was out. He didn’t say I had to. My lips pressed into a thin line as I gave a firm nod.

  I looked over to Axe, who’d been quiet the entire time.

  “Fine, one day a week.” How hard could it be? I could go to the store, pick up some frozen pizzas and call it a damn day.

  Loch headed for the door, passing an unmoved Axe on the way. I was maybe the smallest bit curious as to what he had to add. He’d had his own struggles to deal with in life. I knew all about them and while he wasn’t even close to being normal, he had his ways to work through his darkness. He seemed to have come out pretty level headed considering all the crap he went through as a kid before Cal found him.

  “Find a way to get through this.” His jaw clenched tight and I knew that was all he had to say.

  I couldn’t ignore the slight plea in his tone. It was unusual for him and I knew that he was telling me that I meant more to him than most. Hell, we were more than just MC brothers. I knew it but I’d never seen just how much my friendship meant to him until those words passed his lips.

  “I’m tryin’.” But I really wasn’t and I hated lying to him, but I just couldn’t take anything else at the moment. I didn’t need the burden of his sadness weighing on mine.

  “See ya soon, brother,” he said, back to his normal, flat tone. I nodded and he was out the door and I was left alone surrounded in a heavy silence.

  I flopped back on the couch and let sleep take me under. Their visit had been exhausting even though they hadn’t been there that long.

  Days passed, in a blur. The air in the cabin got stale and the stench of trash and alcohol mixed with whatever funk coated my body. I wasn’t going to try and glorify it, I was downright disgusting.

  My phone rang and my mom’s picture filled the screen. I stared down at it as a tear made its way out of my eye. As miserable as I was, I wanted to hear her voice but I knew I wasn’t ready. So when the picture dimmed letting me know the call had gone to voicemail, I set my phone down on the coffee table.

  I had no idea why
I even kept charging the damn thing. I should have just let it die and then I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. I wouldn’t have to feel like I was being stabbed in the heart with tiny knives every time she called. The only thing I could come up with was that I needed to torture myself a little more.

  I stumbled into the bathroom with all intentions of taking a piss and going back out to the couch but I caught my reflection in the mirror above the sink and paused. I’d lost weight, not eating would do that to you. My fingers rubbed over the odd patches in my beard. The places that had been burned, the hair had grown in white and I had no idea how bad the skin looked under the hair growth. I knew how my arms and side looked, so I could only imagine how bad my face was. I should have considered myself lucky that it only burned my jaw, a place that I could keep covered by a beard. And it wasn’t like I ever shaved anyway. I had been a big guy with a big beard pretty much since I’d been able to grow facial hair. However, I usually kept it clean and trimmed just right. Now it was just a mess. It hadn’t been tended to in over three months.

  My hair wasn’t much better. Now past my shoulders, the strands looked stringy and the color looked dull. Fuck, I did look like shit.

  I had no idea what made me climb into the shower, but once I was in there I figured I might as well make use of the damn thing. Stripping out of my clothes, I turned on the water. The spray of the shower’s lukewarm spray felt good on my filmy skin. I reached for the stray body wash that had been left there by god knows who. Then again, it could have been me. Out of everyone else I was the one who used this place the most. Somehow I found myself energized by the mix of citrus and cedar scent that permeated the steam around me. As I ran the suds over my left arm I felt the dry, rigid skin with my fingertips. It was odd how I didn’t really feel the touch of my fingers as it grazed over the scarred flesh. The urge to give in and just scratch the shit out of it hit me, but I knew better. It wasn’t going to do me any good. The doctor’s warning rang out in my head and for just a moment, I gave a damn. I didn’t want to make it worse and I wondered if it would always feel this way.