Lock (Hell's Handlers MC Florida Chapter Book 5), page 1
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Author Note
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twentty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Epilogue
Author Note
FB Group
About the Author
LOCK
Hell’s Handlers MC FL Chapter Book 5
By Lilly Atlas
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Copyright © 2023 Lilly Atlas
All rights reserved.
Other books by Lilly Atlas
No Prisoners MC
Hook: A No Prisoners Novella
Striker
Jester
Acer
Lucky
Snake
Trident Ink
Escapades
Hell’s Handlers MC
Zach
Maverick
Jigsaw
Copper
Rocket
Little Jack
Joy
Screw
Viper
Thunder
Hell’s Handlers Florida Chapter
Curly
Spec
Tracker
Frost
Jinx
Lock
Mayhem Makers Series
Solo Rider
Blue Collar Bensons
First Comes Loathe
Shock and Aww
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PROLOGUE
NO ONE PAID him a lick of attention, yet Lock felt the heat of every eye in the room searing into him, peering through his tattooed exterior to his fucked-up insides.
And he hated it.
Hated them.
Every one of these sad junkies who’d hit rock bottom and landed themselves in this hellhole.
“It happened so fast,” the nineteen-year-old who’d ended up on life support two weeks ago thanks to a severe heroin overdose said as she scratched a gouge into the arm of her wooden chair. “My boyfriend was just d-defending me. This drunk guy at the party kept hitting on me. He wouldn’t leave me alone. When he grabbed me and tried to force me to dance with him, my boyfriend, Mike, got between us and threatened the guy.” The lone hitch in her voice served as the only clue she struggled to tell the story. Otherwise, she droned on in a monotone, almost bored manner.
Back and forth, over and over, she scratched her nail on the chair’s arm. The unpolished fingernail would be down to a nub before too long.
She cleared her throat. “The guy sucker punched him. Mike fell and hit his head on the corner of a table. That was it. One punch, and now he’s d-dead.” Her voice cracked again.
Another peek beyond her mask.
Lock breathed out and shifted his gaze from the pale, sullen-eyed teen to the gorgeous Gulf of Mexico view out the long row of floor-to-ceiling windows.
Deanna loved the beach. At least, once upon a time, she had. Who knew what she’d been into in the months before she’d overdosed? Certainly not her twin brother.
He rubbed a tanned hand across the left side of his chest where an ache had taken up residence months ago and refused all eviction attempts. The second Deanna suffered a heart attack, an all-consuming heaviness entered his heart. He’d do anything for a moment’s relief from the constant reminder of his loss and failures as a brother.
Anything.
Even the very same drugs that had stolen his sister’s life. A good high had been the only reprieve from the relentless pain—a few fleeting hours of peace.
Damn, twin sense. They hadn’t been identical, hell, not even the same gender, yet their entire lives, they’d always had a connection that transcended time, space, and rational thinking. The link had bonded them as children, uniting them as best friends. Even through their teen years, their shared connection kept them closer than the average siblings. In adulthood, their link became a burden. Nothing more than a chaos-meter alerting Lock to the next crisis in Deanna’s life.
This final crisis resulted in her death and left her unborn infant orphaned. By some miracle, the doctors were able to deliver Deanna’s son. But Caleb hadn’t been a happy, healthy baby. The first few months of his life were fraught with drug withdrawal and one medical complication after another.
He’d survived, thrived, and now lived with his primary guardian.
Me.
The fucking head case who’d never even held a goddamn baby. Who’d never prepared a bottle or changed a diaper and hadn’t known babies had a soft and vulnerable spot on the top of their fuzzy heads.
He knew now. Now, he knew everything about living with a baby. He knew about the sleepless nights and the cat-like infant cry every time the baby needed any damn thing. He knew about spit-up and diaper blowouts, even fucking nipple flow rates. But he also knew about gummy smiles and how it felt to have a tiny baby fall asleep on his chest, drunk after downing an entire bottle of formula. And he knew about the enormous weight of responsibility and the fragility of the little life the state had assigned to his care.
What the fuck had they been thinking?
His skin itched, and his insides popped and quivered like live wires. He shifted. Christ, this chair was uncomfortable as fuck.
He needed a hit. Just one bump to take the edge off and silence the demons in his mind. The ones constantly whispering that he’d fuck up and destroy Caleb’s life.
But he hadn’t indulged in six days. Six long rounds of twenty-four hours since his club’s president showed up on his doorstep and ripped him a new asshole. Curly blasted him for neglecting his MC club duties, being a shitty member of his patched family, and being responsible for his brother’s ol’ lady getting hurt.
Twice.
But what Curly harped on, what he ripped into Lock over, was his responsibility toward Caleb. His nephew turned son—the baby he’d been tasked to care for and love.
And he’d been right. Lock had done all that shit and more to let down the people he was supposed to love.
Caleb served as a constant reminder of Deanna’s death and how he’d avoided his sister in the months before she died because her constant drama and neediness had become oppressive. She always needed something, and usually, those things drained Lock of money, time, and happiness. So he’d stopped checking in.
Maybe if he hadn’t been such a selfish prick, she’d be alive, healthy, and raising her son as she should be.
Curly demanded Lock sign himself into a treatment facility within the next week. It was either that or he’d lose his patch and no longer be a Hell’s Handler’s Motorcycle Club member. Even though Lock had had the intense urge to flip his president off and kick him out of his damn house, he’d known deep down that losing the club would be the final straw. It’d put him into a depression so deep he’d end up in a box in the ground beside his twin.
What would happen to Caleb then?
At least he’d had enough humanity left to consider the child.
So, he’d allowed Curly to find a drug treatment facility and voluntarily signed himself in for a thirty-day recovery program.
Did he have an addiction?
Lock didn’t think so. He hadn’t smoked, inhaled, or shot up nearly as much as his club seemed to think. Nor was he suffering from the sweaty, tremoring, and vomiting withdrawals he’d nursed Deanna through countless times.
For the first few days, he’d been an admittedly sullen asshole, refusing all attempts to bond with the other junkies or share his story. They were all chronic drug users who’d destroyed their lives and ruined their loved ones’ lives with their drug-seeking antics. He was nothing like them—those people who couldn’t make it to their first cup of coffee in the morning without injecting a load of shit into their veins.
But then he’d overheard one of the counselors talking to this nineteen-year-old girl who’d been admitted the week before him. Her grief resonated with him. It sounded similar to his in some ways. The counselor had suggested she’d developed a psychological dependency on the drugs to relieve her of the pain of heartache from the loss she’d suffered.
Curious about what had happened to her, Lock paid attention for the first time during a group therapy session.
The middle-aged counselor gave the g
Her finger froze, the only sign she’d heard the counselor’s probing question. Jenna was free to refuse to answer. They were reminded of that on the first day and at the start of every group session. They did not have to participate if they found anything too private or personal to discuss in front of others or weren’t ready to voice something. Keeping quiet was the route Lock had chosen thus far. But, as he’d been informed at least a hundred times since walking into the building, he’d come there of his own free will, and active participation would also be his choice, though a smart one.
My own free will. Ha.
Clearly, none of them had met Curly or been on the receiving end of his threats.
After a few minutes of thick silence, Jenna lifted her gaze, and Lock glimpsed the anguish in the girl’s deep blue eyes for the first time. “Guilty,” she whispered so low he almost didn’t hear it.
No one spoke, not even the damn counselor. He merely let Jenna stew in her feelings. The room fell deathly quiet. Lock’s heart slowed until he could count the agonizing seconds between each beat. He didn’t dare breathe as he waited for the girl’s next words.
“I feel guilty.” She only spoke a notch louder. “I can’t sleep, so I go over the minutes leading up to the fight again and again. Every choice I made, everything I could have done differently, and all the ways I am possibly to blame for Mike dying.”
The counselor and every person in the room stayed so quiet they could have heard a gnat’s wings vibrating the air.
Lock gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles ached and turned white as snow. What would she say next?
His gaze shifted to the counselor, who seemed to have endless patience in these heavy situations. Lock wanted to grab the girl, shake her, and scream how it wasn’t her fault. Why couldn’t she see that? Shit happened sometimes. She was too young to lose herself in the same soul-crushing guilt that had dragged him under.
Still, the counselor didn’t say a fucking thing. Why wasn’t he reassuring Jenna that it wasn’t her fault? His muscles tensed until they felt like rocks beneath his skin. Sweat broke out across his forehead. His chest was so damn tight.
He glared at the counselor so hard it was a wonder the man didn’t feel it.
Say something.
But it was Jenna who spoke again in a low whisper he had to strain to hear. “I’m also angry at my boyfriend for doing something so stupid that it got him killed. And then I feel guilty for the anger.” Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she looked down at her hands, now clenched in her lap. “All I feel all day long is sadness, anger, and guilt. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t do anything. I hate it, but it won’t stop. It never stops unless…”
Unless.
They all knew what came next—unless she smoked, shot up, or maybe swallowed a handful of pills. Whatever her poison, the drugs were the only relief from the brutal suffering.
Christ, he wanted that relief. Instead, he was stuck there feeling things. Those damn emotions crawled all over him with razor-sharp claws, digging in and making him want to scream.
He stood so fast his chair clattered to the floor with a loud bang that had everyone jumping. All eyes flew to him. His clothes seemed to shrink on his body, strangling him.
“I-I…”
Fuck it.
He turned and stormed from the room. Only once out in the hall and away from the girl spilling her emotional trauma, which mirrored his own, could he finally breathe. Lock slammed his palms on the wall, then let his head thud against the cool, textured surface. He sucked in as much air as he could fit in his lungs before blowing it out again. His legs trembled as he fought to keep the unwelcome feelings at bay. The same horrendous barrage of sensations Jenna described.
Sadness, guilt, and anger.
He knew how to do it and make it all disappear. If it wasn’t for fucking Curly, he could make it go away. He could feel better, even for a moment.
But you’ll lose your son and fail your sister even in her death.
More guilt for the pile.
“Lock?”
He turned his head toward the voice without moving any other part of his body. The counselor stood to his side, shoulder resting on the wall.
He wasn’t going to speak, the bastard.
Fine. If he wanted Lock to go first, that’s what he’d get. “Why?”
The counselor tilted his head. “Why what?”
Now they were playing games. Anger rose to the surface. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell that poor kid in there that her boyfriend’s death wasn’t her goddamn fault?” By the time he got to the end of the question, he was screaming.
Of course, his outburst didn’t faze the counselor. The man barely blinked in the face of his rage.
“Would she have believed me? Do you think she believed everyone she knows who no doubt already told her that? Did you believe everyone who told you that your sister’s death wasn’t your fault?”
Lock narrowed his eyes. This wasn’t about him. It was about that kid in there, suffering misplaced feelings of guilt.
“Did it keep you from the heroin?”
He pushed off the wall. “You motherfu—”
“I’m not here to tell Jenna how to feel, Lock. Just like I’m not here to tell you how to feel. I’m here to teach you how to cope with your feelings so that you stay away from the drugs and process them in a healthy way.” He walked straight to Lock, who stood seething with fists clenched at his sides, and clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s what will help you feel better. That’s what will eventually get you to the place where you realize the truth. That nothing about your sister’s death was your fault and that you have nothing to feel guilty about, including feeling angry as fuck at her for dying and leaving you an infant you had no plans to raise.”
He swallowed. But if I’d only—
“Even now, as I say it, you don’t believe it, do you?”
No. No, he didn’t. He shook his head.
The counselor nodded and then squeezed his shoulder. “Take a minute, then come back and join us. And be proud of yourself, Lock, because you just realized something that takes some people weeks to figure out.” He started back toward the room where he’d left the group.
Lock frowned. “What did I figure out?”
“That I won’t force feed you your recovery. I’ll make you work damn hard for it, but in the end, it’ll stick, and you’ll get your life back.” After a quick salute, the counselor returned to the room, leaving Lock alone in the quiet hallway.
He’d never get his life back. Not the way it was before his sister died. He’d always be without a sibling, a twin, and he’d always be a father.
But he still had his brothers and their incredible women. He still had a business, a house, and a bike he loved. And a nephew he had a responsibility to care for and had fallen in love with if he was honest with himself. So, even though it’d be different as hell, he could get a life back.
But first, he had to survive the torture of digging through his brain and setting it right.
Without the mind-numbing peace afforded by heroin.
Lock wasn’t sure he could do it. He had no confidence in his ability to succeed, but the counselor seemed to, and he was there, so what could it hurt to try?
He walked back into the room, where, thankfully, no one paid him any attention. As his ass hit the seat, he realized that the pain in his chest had dulled to a manageable ache for the first time since Deanna took that fatal dose of meth.
I’m coming back to you, Caleb, bent and twisted as hell but hopefully still whole.
CHAPTER ONE
HALLELUIAH! OLIVER WAS gone.
