Royally Broken (Royal Bastards MC: Royal Sons CA) Read online

  “Keys, when I left, did I just hop on a plane and say fuck off, assholes, I got shit to handle? No, because that’s not how we do it. Yeah, I left my cut behind, so I didn’t drag my brothers down with me if I’d have fucked shit up, but I was smart. Shut up, King.” Duke didn’t look at his brother as he spoke. “You want to go all Rambo and shit, by all means go right ahead, but you remember your oath.”

  “First thing, Rambo was in the Army. While I respect that branch, they are not and never will be a SEAL, HOOYAH,” he yelled.

  “See, that shit makes no sense to me either. What the fuck is the difference?” Duke asked.

  “Fuck that, man. Let’s get back to what matters and that’s this fucker running off like he’s a one-man whatever. Is this some SEAL shit?” King pointed an accusing finger at him.

  Keys shook his head, keeping his mouth shut.

  “You took an oath when you put that cut on. You may have gone through hell for our country, which I respect you and all our men and women for. I’ve seen your tattoo, brother. The Creed means a lot to you. I asked you if that was going to interfere with club business, and you said no. Our oath, brotherhood and loyalty to our club comes first. You said yes. Are you saying you’re turning your back on us?” King asked, his tone level.

  “King, he’s not doing that. Keys, tell him,” Duke argued.

  Keys shook his head. “You know it’s not and you know I’m not. Fucking A, man.” Keys turned away. His fist flew toward the wall, sheetrock denting under his assault. “I’m going back to the last place on Earth I ever wanted to see again.”

  Duke and King were brothers by blood, both men Keys respected the hell out of. They knew what Keys had told them about his past. He hadn’t lied to them when he’d been patched in as a brother, although he hadn’t told them everything. They’d accompanied him to Twisted Ink, the tattoo shop King and he had met the first time. Tymber inked his skin, nobody making mention of the words he’d had down his side. The Navy would always be a part of him, losing his team was like losing a part of himself, but among the MC, he’d found true friendship that went deeper. A brotherhood. Could he drag them down to where he came from and still have their respect? With the Royal Bastards, he wasn’t the worthless little shit down the dirt road nobody wanted, but a man who had skills they needed and appreciated. He was more than just a soldier who was paid to get shit done. More than a SEAL who others gave a wide berth.

  “I thought you were from California?” Traeger asked.

  Keys looked at his fist, rubbing a thumb across his knuckles. “This is where my life started. Out here in California. Missouri is where my other life ended.”

  Silence met his words.

  “Alright, I’m gonna need a little more than that, brother. What the fuck happened in Missouri? Did you kill someone?” King asked.

  A laugh escaped his tight throat, his shoulders relaxing as the leader of the Royal Sons asked a question about death, murder to be precise, like it was a normal occurrence. “Nah, I didn’t. Wish I fucking did, but”—he turned to face the men he respected above all others, preparing to lose their respect—“I don’t know who my parents are. I was picked up out of the garbage and given to a family who then treated me accordingly.”

  “You saying the family who adopted you treated you like shit?” Duke bit out.

  “They didn’t adopt me. They allowed me to live with them. Well, I wouldn’t say live with them so much as live in their vicinity. Some nights I got to sleep under their roof; some I didn’t. Although, I wished like hell I could’ve ran away and slept anywhere else, the town I lived in would’ve returned me to them, then the beatings would’ve been worse. So yeah, I stuck it out until I was eighteen, then I joined the military and never planned to return until I got an email from a ghost from my past.”

  “You gonna share with the class what the fuck that means?”

  King looked ready to spit nails. Keys paced back and forth, hating to bring the club into his shit. “Fuck, I don’t want to. Listen, I know you think that’s what’s best, but the people who run the town, they have long reaching arms and money. Old money, brother. The last thing I want to do is bring their attention to the Royal Sons.”

  King and Duke stared at him, then each other, their expressions hard to read. Keys was sure they were going to nod and agree. Just as he was preparing to pick his bag up, the two crazy sons of bitches tossed their heads back, laughter rolling from them. He stared at one then the other, waiting for them to stop. Traeger chuckled, shrugging his shoulders as if he had nothing to say.

  “What the fuck?” he asked.

  “We’ve taken down human traffickers, cartels with women and children in lockdown, fucking the worst of the worst, in their homes. They had fire power most countries envied, yet we went in and took back what they shouldn’t have had, along with their money, drugs, weapons. We’re talking men who had more money than surely these good ole boys you speak of. Yet you’re scared they’ll come here and do what?” King asked, wiping beneath his eyes.

  “I don’t know, dammit. For the first fifteen years of my life I was too little to fight back. The last three they learned really quick I was done being their punching bag, so they found something else to punish me with. Do you know what it’s like to go to sleep night after night hungry? I do. They made sure nobody else gave me a handout. I couldn’t get a job in town either. I went to school, but even there I couldn’t eat, because I didn’t have lunch money. I was that kid who ate out of the trash whatever was thrown away. Yeah, I was that desperate. Maybe I’m making them bigger, meaner, more powerful than what they were. Hell, it’s kind of hard not to when I spent the first eighteen years fighting to live.” He didn’t let them see the hurt he still felt for the little kid he’d been.

  “What about the cops or DFS?” Traeger asked.

  Keys narrowed his eyes. “They were all in the Mayor’s pocket. That fucker hated me too. I don’t know why other than his granddaughter was my friend. Fuck, she was the sweetest thing this side of the Mississippi. Palmer Coker, she was too good for the likes of me. I was the unwanted piece of trash from the dirt road. She was the pampered princess who was slotted to marry the good ole boy her granddaddy chose. We rode the bus together, but she was a few years younger than me. I never touched her, never would’ve. When I’d just turned eighteen, she was fifteen—”he closed his eyes, the memory of that day still as fresh as if it was yesterday—“I was the last stop in the morning and first in the afternoon. I never missed the bus, or I’d have to walk to school. I knew getting good grades was the only way I’d get out of that town. Palmer knew that. One day when I wasn’t on the bus after she got on, little Palmer decided to get off and come looking for me. God, she shouldn’t have.”

  He scrubbed his hand down his face. The memories he’d buried came back like an explosion in the desert. Yeah, he’d lived through one of those. He wasn’t sure he’d live through what was coming.

  “Silas, are you okay?”

  He lifted his head from the ground, a blast of pain shot up his arm as he tried to push into a sitting position. “Palmer, what’re you doing here?”

  “Oh, my word, you’re hurt. Who did this to you?”

  She slid onto her knees, getting close to him, closer than she should be, making him acutely aware of how filthy he was and the fact he had nothing on. “You need to leave, Palmer. Go on, get.”

  “Hush, you need to see a doctor. You’re bleeding in several places and that arm. God, it looks like it’s broken,” she cried.

  Silas looked into her cornflower blue eyes, seeing tears well in them, for him. He tried and failed to lift his hand. She was right, his right arm was at least dislocated and bruised really badly. However, he couldn’t go to the hospital. For one, he had no way to pay for it. For two, they’d probably turn him away. For three, they’d report to the mayor, her grandfather who’d then tell the Langley’s who would then repeat the lesson they’d taught him. No, it was better if he lay there and get b
etter or die.

  Gathering his strength, he lifted the arm that wasn’t injured as badly and brushed her tears away. “I need you to listen to me, Sunshine. You need to go before someone finds you with me and then punishes the both of us. I’ve been working my way to the river to get cleaned up. I’ll assess the damage afterward and then decide what to do.”

  Not a total lie. He’ll decide if he should sleep farther away from the house or not, depending on the climate. Damn, he hurt everywhere. The Langley brothers were in their thirties, drunk bastards on the best of days, total fucking pricks on other days who had decided to teach him his place. Not that he had one in their home. Since he’d turned fifteen, he’d been relegated to the shed. Of course, the townsfolk didn’t know any of that.

  Blaine and Blaire Langley had found him sleeping at two in the morning, using a ball bat and taser on him. He shuddered; the electric shocks had sent him into spasms he thought for sure he’d die from.

  “Hello. Earth to Silas. See, you most definitely need to see a doctor. Come on, I’ll help you.” Palmer bent down, her sweet honey and jasmine scent chasing away the smell of burning hair that had invaded his senses.

  He yelled, unable to stifle the sound as she touched his ribs. “Shit, sorry, Palmer,” he muttered.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’ll go get the doctor and bring him to you.” She started backing away.

  Silas held up his hand, the action hurting like a mothereffer. “Palmer, stop. If you do that, they’ll know and do worse to me next time.” The words tasted like sawdust on his tongue, but he couldn’t allow her to leave and do what she thought was a good thing.

  She shook her head. “Nobody will hurt you again. I’ll tell my PopPop.”

  Oh, such a sweet delusional girl. He wouldn’t shatter her world with the truth. Her grandfather, the mayor, was just fine with the status quo of the trash down the dirt road. In fact, if Silas didn’t know any better, he’d bet his left nut the fucker enjoyed seeing him walking around with a limp knowing he’d suffered another beating.

  “You best get to school before they send out a search party. If they find you with me, I’ll get into trouble. I can’t risk that right now, Palmer. Please just go,” he begged.

  When she bit her lip, looked down at him, then back at the road she’d left, she nodded. “Fine, but I’ll be back.”

  He wanted to tell her not to bother but kept his lips sealed. Watching her hurry away, Silas felt as though his world was losing some of its light. Fucking blonde hair, blue eyed, too good for the likes of him Palmer was gonna get him into trouble.

  It took him over an hour to make it to the stream off of the river where the water ran clear. There he rinsed his body after taking his clothes off. Luckily, in his world at least, his arm wasn’t broken. Slamming his shoulder against the flat boulder, he found himself able to reset it. The yowl was loud, but nobody came looking for him. Thank fuck Blaire had been drunk when he’d been wielding the ball bat, otherwise, he’d probably done some real damage. As it were, he had some pretty nasty looking bruises marring his body along with burn marks from the taser. How the assholes got off on hurting him, he had no clue, but they’d always enjoyed it.

  After soaking in the freezing cold clear water for over an hour, his body didn’t ache as badly as it had before. Slowly, he eased himself onto a rock, looking at his filthy clothes. Blood and dirt coated the shirt and jeans from where he’d crawled, fell, and walked away from the assholes. He looked at the water and the sun. If he dipped them into the water, he could at least get them somewhat clean while the sun would dry them, mostly. Putting action to words, he struggled to scrub the filth off his clothes, wringing them out, and then laid them on a rock to dry.

  Exhaustion pulled at him after he was done. Lack of sleep and all that work culminating to make it impossible for him to keep his eyes open. He lay on the rock, letting his eyes drift closed.

  He woke with the feeling he wasn’t alone, a sense that he was being watched. Immediately he realized he was buckass naked and a sort of fear snaked through him. Putting his hand down to cover his dick, he looked around, shocked to see Palmer sitting across the river from him.

  “Palmer?” he croaked.

  “I came to check on you, but you weren’t where I left you, so I followed your tracks.” She pointed toward the trail.

  “Why?” He tried to figure out a way to the rock with his clothes without flashing his naked parts, but damn, there really was no hope of that.

  “Do you need some help?” she asked in a husky voice.

  Ah, sheot, her voice had his dick twitching behind his hand. A full erection was surely not what the little fifteen-year-old needed or wanted to see.

  “Err, how about you turn around while I get dressed?” he asked, spinning his finger in a circle.

  She smiled, the tilt of her lips so damn fetching he thought for sure his dick was going to jerk right out from behind his hand.

  “Why, Silas, if you’re worried about me seeing you, you should know I’ve already seen it. I’ve been here for a good twenty minutes before you woke up.”

  He groaned. The little peeping Tammy had watched him while he slept and didn’t say a thing or wake him up. The thought should’ve ticked him off. Instead it made him harder. “That don’t matter none. Turn around, princess.”

  Her smile disappeared. “I hate that nickname.”

  The way she crossed her arms under her breasts, her lower lip poking out made him want to go over and suck it into his mouth. “Turn around,” he said again with more force.

  She sighed, but finally did as asked. “Just so you know, I’ve seen the male penis, and yours is far superior even when you...were asleep and clearly it was too.”

  Silas looked down at his no longer sleeping penis as she called it in her proper southern drawl. If the good ole boys from town saw them, he’d be locked up behind bars or worse. It was the or worse that got him moving, even though every ache in his body let itself be known.

  “Do you need some help back there?”

  “No, I don’t. Girl, you’re trying to get me killed,” he wheezed. Finally, he had his jeans up, the damp denim at least no longer had dirt and grime on them. His T-shirt was dry, and it was marginally cleaner. Moving back to the bank, he stepped on rocks, careful not to fall into the water.

  She watched him until he was next to her. “You’re holding your side. Are you sure you don’t want to see a doctor?”

  He let out a frustrated sigh. “In two months, I’m leaving here, Palmer. The last fucking thing I need is to have the doc take a look at me and put something in a chart that will make the Navy not accept me.”

  “You’re leaving?” Palmer whispered, her hand coming up to his chest.

  She was five foot nothing while he was over six feet in his stocking feet. He looked at her tan hand against his dirt stained shirt. Her nails were painted a pale pink with white tips, some professional name he couldn’t think of. Shit, the absolute last thing he needed was to have her touching the likes of him, especially when his dick was reacting to her closeness. Eighteen and fifteen might not be illegal in most states, but in their little town of backwater Missouri, it damn well was.

  He put his hand over hers, glad the dirt and shit all else was washed away so at least he was touching her with clean hands. “Palmer, this town has nothing to offer me but a park bench when I graduate.” Sure, he could’ve lied and said something, anything else, but she had to know his reality.

  “Why do they treat you so poorly?” Her hand ran a slow circle over his heart.

  Fuck, it felt good having another touch him without expecting pain. “I don’t know, Sunshine, I really don’t. You being here is dangerous for the both of us though. You know that, right?” He stopped her hand before she could continue petting him. He wasn’t a damn house pet you tamed; she needed to remember that.

  “I...I know. I should be going. MeMaw will be wondering where I ran off to. You sure you’re gonna be alright?”
she asked, staring up at him, blue eyes glistening.

  “Yeah, I’ll be right as rain, Sunshine. You best get on before you’re missed. I’ll see you on the bus.” That was the only time he ever saw her, the only time he allowed himself to. She was too sweet, too good, and too young for him.

  That night, he watched dumb and dumber drive down the road, whooping and hollering like usual. He knew they’d be drunk when they got home. Their mama was every bit as mean as they were, but he was bigger than she was now. Palmer had left him a bag of food. Of course, she hadn’t let him see it until she’d gone. For the last two years or so, he’d found similar bags near his tree where he got on and off the bus. The confirmation wasn’t needed, but it was somewhat welcome.

  He looked at the shed he slept in most nights. The space had a tin roof, which kept him dry when it rained, but until he’d gotten all the cracks filled with straw, magazines, and whatever else he could scavenge without the Langley’s missing them, it had been a cold and wet space. He hated his entire existence, worked to keep away from the place for as long as he could every day. If he could’ve, he’d have run away, but the old bitch who had taken him in promised to tell him who his parents were when he graduated high school. One more month and he was out.

  Silas thought about sleeping in the shed, then remembered his wake-up call from before. Instead he slipped in, grabbing some things he’d need for a few days. Hell, he wasn’t sure if he’d be coming back. Not like they offered much in the way of creature comforts, nor would they report him missing. All he had to do was show up to school, get his degree and he was out. He’d already turned eighteen a few months back, signed up for the Navy without telling a soul, and passed all the tests he needed. Now all he had to do was graduate and get the one answer he’d waited for.

  A month later...

  “You said you’d tell me who my parents were,” he gritted out, staring at the bitch on the front porch.

  Silas held the cap he’d worn during graduation. One of his teachers had surprised him with the ensemble, telling him no student with straight A’s should have to walk across the stage without the proper attire. Silas didn’t care about all that. Hell, he didn’t give two shits about walking across the stage. All he cared about was getting to the recruiters’ office and signing that final piece of paper so he could get out of the shithole he lived in.