Free Checkmate With Bishop: A Hellions MC Novel by J. A. Hornbuckle

make sense of everything.
    But he couldn’t.  There was too much he didn’t know, didn’t understand.  And it was the lack of knowledge, the shortage of truth that had his head and stomach tied in knots. 
    After shooting the deadbolt, he turned to go to his room, only spying the note propped against the top of the stove.  ‘Went to bed early with sick headache,’ it read. ‘Your dinner is in the oven.  Be sure to turn it off before you go to bed.  Love, Mom.’
    “Not even a ‘sorry’,” he mumbled to himself, crumpling the paper in his fist.  That was the rub, that his mom never once said she was sorry for allowing him to believe that his father was dead.  Pulling open the oven door, J.R. used a dishtowel to protect his fingers from the hot plate before reaching into a drawer for some silverware.  The meatloaf, mashed potatoes and corn were soon just a memory as he shoveled the food down in his haste to fill his belly even as his mind rebelled at eating anything she’d made.
    It was when he was rinsing his plate to put it in the dishwasher that he spied her cell sitting on the window ledge over the sink.  Usually, his mother went to bed with it resting in its holder on her nightstand but for whatever reason, that night she’d not taken it with her.
    Maybe there was a way to get to the truth after all , he thought, picking up the dark rectangle and going to recent calls.  That man on the phone had said his name was Bastian too.  Perhaps that guy knew about his father and could provide some answers, ones his mother didn’t think were important enough to share with her own son.
    Transferring the Montana number into his own phone, J.R. decided that it was at least a place to start, to begin to find the facts regarding his parentage. 
    After locking himself in his room, the young man took a deep breath and pressed the icon to place the call, hoping he’d find the answers to all the questions he had bubbling inside.  At least it couldn’t hurt, since any info was better than none.
     
    *.*.*.*.*
    Christ, he hurt!  And had been in pain all goddamn day.
    A full-blown, motherfucking eight on the pain-o-meter for a good fourteen hours which had found him swallowing duo Percocet with pipe-bowls of weed as chasers.  But nothing had touched the hurt, the fires of the hell in his belly.  Pain so deep, he couldn’t think, couldn’t fucking function except to shuffle from the couch to the toilet, from his bed to the kitchen almost mindless in the agony that lived in his gut.
    He bent over the double bowl sink in his kitchen as another wave of nausea hit, sure that there wasn’t anything left in his stomach to empty.  The ringing of his cell at that particular moment was almost welcome, taking his foggy awareness from what was doing in his body onto who would be calling him after ten on a Sunday night.
    “Yeah,” he croaked into the phone, not even checking the display to see who it might be.
    “Er…hello.  I’d like to speak with Bishop Bastian please.”  The voice was young, immature and Bish idly wondered about it even as he reached for another pair of pills trying to remember when he’d taken the last dose.
    “You got him,” he growled, trying to work the cap off the container.  Christ!  He hated child-proof caps that stymied adults but were ones children could probably remove in their sleep.  “What’s doing, kid?”
    “My name is J.R. and I’m hoping you can help me, sir.”  The last bit was offered as a throw-away, almost as a remembrance to be respectful.
    With the cap between his molars as his hand twisted the container, Bishop tried to talk.  “Hall ya haw?”
    “Sorry?  I didn’t understand you,” came the reply down the line.
     The lid released abruptly as the remaining tablets flew out of the plastic canister, pinging as they fell on the countertop, dropping to the floor in a flurry.   Bishop sighed, knowing he’d soon be on his knees trying to pick up each and