Lord Have Mercy (The Southern Gentleman Series Book 2) Read online

  What’s Next?

  F-Bomb

  Book 9 of The Bear Bottom Guardians MC

  5-14-19

  Prologue

  I didn’t mean to push all your buttons. Just kidding. I really did.

  -Slate to Izzy

  Slate

  3 years ago

  The first time I saw her I was shackled to a table with chains.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, trying to keep my eyes on Izzy but having a hard time doing that since there was a blonde woman that was about five foot nothing at the table next to me, giving the man she was visiting a rundown about a Chuck Norris race that she was running in a week’s time.

  “I’m talking about the fact that our mother is a whore, and she tried to get the daycare that Astrid is enrolled in to allow her ‘visitation time,’” Izzy explained patiently.

  I finally pulled my gaze away from the blonde and looked at my sister.

  “And this surprises you because?” I asked with a raised brow.

  She sighed loudly. “I guess that it doesn’t. I’m just annoyed that I have to deal with it at all. I thought I got rid of her and she keeps popping back like a herpes outbreak.”

  The blonde at the table next to us paused in her conversation with the man and looked at my sister with a grin on her face.

  I sighed and tried not to stare.

  It was nearly impossible, though.

  I wasn’t sure what it was that drew me to her.

  She was very short with blonde hair that was styled in a fighter’s braid down both sides of her head. She had bright pink strands that were woven throughout the braid, and at the very bottom, it transitioned into straight purple.

  Her eyes were an eerie shade of green. Kind of like seafoam…but brighter.

  She had the longest lashes that I’d ever seen, and that was saying something because it looked like she had zero makeup on.

  Her wrists were absolutely tiny and were about the size of two of my fingers put together in width…but those wrists had so many goddamn bracelets that they went almost halfway up her arm.

  “Are you listening to me at all?” Izzy asked. “Are you sick?”

  I looked at my sister, once again peeling my eyes away from the blonde, and shrugged.

  “You’re talking about our mother,” I said, sounding bored. “What did you want me to do? Say ‘huh, that’s weird?’” I asked. “Because it’s not weird for her. Honestly, I’m surprised she hasn’t tried to do anything before now.”

  Izzy sat back with a huff and crossed her arms over her chest, looking adorably annoyed.

  Izzy, my baby sister, had changed a lot since I’d gone to prison.

  She’d grown into her own and had become a beautiful person.

  Not that she hadn’t been one before, but there was a difference between the broken and scared doll that she used to be compared to the beautiful, confident, ‘I can do anything’ that she’d turned in to. Though, that had a lot to do with the fact that she was married now to a man that would kick anyone’s ass that ever hurt her—my mother included.

  Izzy’s dark hair was in a bun on top of her head, and I was fairly sure she had a spit-up stain on the black t-shirt she was wearing. Not that I’d point that out to her yet. I’d make sure we got all the way through our visit before bringing it to her attention.

  “I know,” she sighed. “I’m just…I’ve had a bad couple of nights with Astrid. She hasn’t slept much and she’s always in a terrible mood. And then Mom pulling that shit?” She scrubbed her hands up and down her face. “And I had to clean a house yesterday that was a complete and utter pig sty. I wish I would’ve charged them more. I’m fairly sure they did a super deep clean right before I came over to quote them a price on cleaning for them. When I got there? It was like a tornado had gone through it. I’m going to have to charge them more because it takes me longer to clean tornado destroyed houses than the one they showed me before.”

  “Please tell me that you clean in Bear Bottom.”

  We both looked over at the blonde who was now staring at Izzy with hope on her face.

  “Uhh,” Izzy said. “I do.”

  The woman’s face showed so much utter joy that I felt something low in my belly start to heat up.

  “My name is Harleigh.” She held out her hand. “Can I get your number? Do you have a card? Oh my gosh. I’m so excited to hear this.”

  Izzy’s eyes flicked to me and then back to the blonde, Harleigh.

  Odd name, but it suited her.

  “This is my man’s baby brother, Tray.” She pointed at the inmate next to me. I hadn’t actually seen him much, but that was because he was new and didn’t quite know his place in the hierarchy just yet, so he stayed to himself. “Dre, Tray’s brother, just moved his business to Bear Bottom and I’ve been doing my best to help him, but…it’s like cleaning up in the middle of a hurricane. It’s just not doable when the men don’t clean up after themselves—at all.”

  Izzy pulled out a card that she’d had stashed in her pocket and handed it to the woman.

  “Just text me,” she said. “If you call, I probably won’t answer.”

  Harleigh’s face went bright. “I don’t answer my phone, either, so I’m glad to hear that.”

  “I’m normally pretty fast answering text messages,” she said. “So if you don’t get one back, text me again. Sometimes I just miss them.”

  Harleigh’s smile fell off her face when her eyes met mine, and I felt like the sun had suddenly been stolen straight out of my hands.

  I looked away and hunched my shoulders a little, causing me to appear slightly smaller.

  I was a big guy.

  At six-foot-five, there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t look down on most of the people around me.

  Seeing the woman that I hadn’t been able to keep my eyes off of look at me like that? Well, I hadn’t realized I could be any more ashamed than I was. Turns out that I could.

  Izzy, after a few more words to Harleigh, turned back to me with a smile.

  The smile fell off her face when she got a look at mine.

  “What is it?” she asked softly.

  I shrugged and changed the subject.

  “Tell me about Rome,” I ordered.

  Izzy’s face went stoic, and she sighed before leaning back in her chair and saying, “Rome’s good. I’m supposed to relay a few things to you, but I’m not sure what they mean.”

  I gestured for her to tell me, and she did, looking at me curiously afterward.

  “Why couldn’t Bayou just tell you that?” she paused. “Or Rome, at that?”

  Rome and Bayou both worked at the prison that I found myself an inhabitant of. It was better not to tell me directly so that they didn’t get seen talking to me.

  That, and telling me that I had an inmate that was out for my blood would probably get them targeted.

  Eight years ago, while on the job, my partner had been shot and killed before my eyes. My partner who just so happened to be my fiancée. My fiancée who just so happened to be pregnant.

  When I’d found the man that had been responsible for killing them, I’d beaten the absolute shit out of him, and he’d died of his wounds.

  I hadn’t cared that I’d go to jail.

  Honestly, I hadn’t been thinking all that straight, but I never once regretted doing what I’d done.

  To this day, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

  “Slate?” Izzy nudged me with her foot under the table.

  “Bayou and Rome are busy,” I shrugged. “And it doesn’t look suspicious when my sister talks to me.”

  Izzy rolled her eyes and pulled a napkin out of her pocket, discreetly handing it over to me without a word.

  I looked at the rolled-up napkin and felt my mouth water.

  “Please tell me that’s what I think it is,” I begged.

  That was when I felt someone’s eyes on me.

  I flicked my eyes to the side, surprised
to see the blonde staring at me with a look of concentration on her face.

  I quickly looked away before she could read any of the thoughts rolling through me, and turned back to my sister before flicking my eyes around the room.

  When I didn’t see any of the usual little assholes staring at me—little assholes being the other inmates and not the guards—I opened the napkin and nearly groaned at the two cookies.

  “Abuela made these?” I asked hopefully.

  “Yes,” she rolled her eyes. “I tried to make some the other day and they turned out like crap.”

  I popped the first cookie into my mouth and nearly moaned at the flavor that exploded on my taste buds.

  “God, these are so good,” I muttered.

  One thing I could say about being locked up like I was? My health was on point. I couldn’t eat bad because we were fed ‘balanced diets.’ I also couldn’t cheat, and I had nothing else to do all day but workout and workout some more.

  That was, of course, when I wasn’t doing other things like spying on inmates and feeding the motorcycle club, the Bear Bottom Guardians MC, that Rome had somehow talked me into joining, information.

  Not that it took too much participation on my part.

  Despite my large size, people overlooked me.

  I wasn’t sure why, and it’d been something that happened since I was young. That, and people just talked to me. They always had, and it’d been why I’d been such a good cop—you know, before I was convicted of murder and all.

  The bell above the doors started to ring, signaling that our time was up.

  Instead of standing up and throwing my arms around my sister like I would’ve liked, I remained seated and clenched my jaw.

  Izzy caught the look and grinned. “Just a few more months and you can hug me.”

  I snorted.

  Her version of a ‘few more months’ was more like thirty-six, but who was counting?

  “Be good, Iz,” I said softly. “And don’t let Mom get to you. Put her on the ‘no-fly’ list and make sure everyone at the daycare knows that she’s not to be given access to her. Love you.”

  Izzy blew me a kiss, then pushed the last cookie closer to me. “Eat that before I get in trouble.”

  I did as she asked, shoving it into my mouth right as she turned to leave.

  That was when I saw the woman at Izzy’s side turn as well, but not before flicking her eyes away from mine.

  I watched them both go and sat there for another two minutes as we were all led out, one by one.

  When the guards finally came for me, I stood up and waited patiently for them to unchain me.

  It was when we were all being led back to our cells that the man that the blonde had been visiting turned to me.

  “You get cookies?”

  I shrugged. “I get what I want.”

  His eyes narrowed. “How do I get what I want?”

  “Become a cop, protect the guards’ backs, and keep your nose clean?” I shrugged. “But that’ll also get your ass kicked by the other inmates, so choose wisely.”

  With that, I walked away and tried not to think of the blonde or her beautiful looks.