Chapter 25
Our arrival at the compound is met with fist bumps from some, and curious glances from others as Smitty storms from his cabin, fury etched on his face.
“What the fuck are you doing back here?! You ran away like little bitches! Fucking traitors!”
I don’t answer him as I slip out of the car and move to the van as Murf pulls it into the centre of the yard.
“I’m fucking talking to you!” Smitty bellows, and I can see him coming at me from the corner of my eye, but I focus on sliding the van door open, my eyes shifting to the three lifeless men resting in the back before I’m grabbed and spun around. “You’re not fucking welcome here!”
Smitty’s spittle lands on my nose, and I fucking switch, fisting his fucking cut and dragging him nose to nose.
“Stop being a cunt for a fucking second and have some fucking respect!”
The growling bellow that slips from me holds so much rage, it takes everything in me to hold it back and not kill this fucker.
“Respect!” he screams, shoving back and breaking my grip on him. “You should be respecting me!”
“Look! You fucking selfish bastard!” I point into the van, and finally the prick’s eyes follow.
His breathing is ragged, his eyes roaming over our fallen, and he takes a step back, fury still contorting his face.
Swallowing thickly, Smitty clears his throat, dragging his eyes to the men closing in.
He looks stricken.
“We’re lucky to be alive,” I snap. “Someone knew we were there, Nate. Tore the place up with bullets. We had to burn it all to destroy as much evidence as we could, but we had no way of containing it. The neighbours witnessed a fuckton of it through their fucking windows. Not to forget, we weren’t in Sadists territory.
We were in Raiders territory, and even they wouldn’t have attacked the way it happened.
What the fuck are they going to say if they find out we were there?
” I fucking hiss. “It should never have happened like that.”
With a tick of his jaw, Smitty glares at me, jabbing a finger my way.
“No, it shouldn’t. You shouldn’t have even gone. Once a-fucking-gain, your pussy whipped arse has gotten club brothers killed!”
I flinch at the accusation.
I’m well aware this is more of a personal battle than a club one, and usually I’d fight Nate on this, but I don’t have it in me.
Stocky and Trunk were two of my closest mates.
They ran into whatever battle I directed them to without fucking argument, and this time, it got them killed.
Trigger too. None of them deserved that.
“Don’t put this shit on him!” JD roars, shoving between us and getting in Smitty’s face this time. “You were meant to be with us! The level of destruction could have been minimised if we were all there!”
“That’s not my fault!” Smitty shoves JD back. “We were there until you fuckers ran off like little bitches!”
“BECAUSE YOU RAPED DANIEL WITH A FUCKING MOP!”
Abbey’s scream breaks through the building rage between us, all eyes turning to her as she stands a few metres away, little Bobbi bundled to her chest.
Gasps fall from Doxies, and I can’t tell if it’s because of what Abbey said, or because they are seeing her baby for the first time.
“You! Raped! Him!” She seethes, her top lip curling as she bares her teeth, and fuck me, she’s never looked more savage.
“Do you know what that feels like, Nate?” She steps forward, ignoring the eyes watching on, and takes the smallest step back. “Do you know what it feels like to have something shoved inside you so brutally, without any lubrication?! The pain of it?! The violation of it?!”
“I did it for you, you ungrateful bitch!” Smitty snaps, and a fucking growl rips from me, my muscles coiling ready to fucking launch myself at him, but I’m halted by my wife as she presses Bobbi into my chest, and I have no choice but to take hold of the little bundle.
“I didn’t ask you to do that!” she screams, lurching forward and slapping Nate hard across the face.
An eerie silence hangs in the air as what my wife has just done sinks in, but the moment Nate goes to lurch for her, guns come out. Mine. JD’s, Vender’s and Murf’s. Hell, even Mex pulls out his twin knives, one in each hand like he’s gearing up to kill.
But probably the most surprising are the guns from some of our other club brothers surrounding us.
Brody is a given. Not only would JD kill him if he didn’t follow us, but Brody has become close with my Angel, and I know he’d die for her if he had to.
But Ace has his Glock pointed directly at Nate. So do Yabbie, Scooter, Lewy, Dane, Cockroach… fuck, so many of them.
There are others that look confused, and of course Tups and Spud have their weapons in hand, but they can’t seem to figure out who to point at, since everyone seems to be turning against the man they follow like fucking dogs.
“I often wished the arseholes that raped me could know what it’s like, but they were just thoughts, Nate.
” Abbey shakes her head, shame filling her voice.
“In the end, all I wanted was them gone from this world. Gone so they couldn’t do what they did to me to anyone else.
Gone so I know when I wake from a nightmare that they still haunt me in, that they can’t really get me.
Not anymore. But rape?” She shakes her head, her shoulders slumping as she points an accusing finger his way.
“You did that all on your own. You did the one thing I’ve been fighting against.” Her hand falls, and she shrugs.
“I thought the Southern Sadists were honourable. I thought you were better than those bastards.”
Nate opens his mouth to say something, but thinks better of it, realising his people have started to turn against him.
“You raped Daniel?” Celina’s unsure voice floats over to us, and a moment later, she steps through the crowd, tears blurring her eyes. “Nate?” she asks, a plea in her voice for him to deny it. To tell her it’s all bullshit.
But he can’t lie. Not in front of so many that witnessed it.
“It was a method of torture. He was a prisoner.” He tries to make an excuse for his actions, but the tears filling Celina’s eyes show she doesn’t care for his excuses.
A lot of our Doxies have come from bad situations.
Most, but not all, had their body violated in some way.
With us, they sought a home. Sure, they use their bodies to help satisfy the men, but they do alright themselves.
We don’t rape women in our club. We don’t take them against their will, or coerce them…
mostly. That line gets blurred sometimes.
But if they say the word, the men stop. If they don’t stop, they fucking deal with me.
“Fists, knives and guns.” Celina scoffs.
“That’s what you told me you used to torture for information.
Not…” She shakes her head, needing to take a moment to clear her throat.
“You promised you wouldn’t do that again,” she whimpers, spinning around and storming back through the crowd with a few Doxies following her.
The fuck… again?
“Fuck’s sake,” Nate mutters, glaring at me. “This shit is on you. Not me.”
“We’re a club. We have rules and bylaws for a fucking reason,” I snap, trying not to be too loud in case I wake Bobbi, still bundled to my chest. “You demanded I marry Abbey to help with the club’s standing.
I used Marx men to help protect my family to free up the club so you could get this place in order and have men to do the new runs.
The only thing I’m guilty of is following your fucking orders. ”
Nate scoffs. “Until you pricks walked away a night ago.”
“I walked away from a situation that was not what our club stands for. I didn’t walk away from the club. I walked away from you.”
Whispers rush through the crowd, and Abbey turns back to me, taking Bobbi before she starts to walk away.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Smitty growls, and the smirk Abbey shoots over her shoulder sends a fucking chill up my spine.
Her monster.
“I’m not a club brother, so I don’t have to be around for what comes next.”
Frowning, Smitty turns his glare to me when my wife keeps walking, going to Jols before they disappear from sight.
“The fuck is she talking about?”
“Club rules. You break them, you deal with the Sergeant-at-Arms.” I raise a brow, and Smitty starts laughing like a fucking hyena.
I discussed this briefly with Abbey in the car. I need to remind my club brothers that I am loyal to them. That I am here. That I will still do my job.
It’s a little unnerving how much she looked like she was happy about that as she walked away a moment ago.
Remind me to never fucking cross my wife.
“You’re going to punish me.” He points to himself before slapping his thigh as he laughs harder.
No one else laughs. No one joins his unhinged antics this time.
“You broke the fucking rules, so damn right I’m gonna punish you,” I snarl.
Technically, something of this nature would call for banishment or death, but all I need to do is knock Smitty off his pedestal for a bit. Fucking remind him that the rules apply to everyone.
Slipping out of my cut, I hand it to JD, who like the others, is putting his gun away, and all Nate can do is stare.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Have you known me to fucking joke?” I snap, and his face hardens.
“Fine.” He reefs off his cut, not even bothering to hand it to Spud, his VP, who is right by his side.
Instead, he tosses the leather to the gravelly ground like it means nothing, and fuck, that makes my jaw tick like crazy.
“I should fucking banish you!” Smitty yells, struggling to contain his anger at being called out and forced to be treated just like anyone else would be.
“I’m not the one who broke the bylaws. You’ll need a majority vote to get rid of me simply because we’re at fucking odds.”
Rolling his shoulders back like this is going to be a fight and not a punishment, Nate looks me dead in the eye when he says, “I could just kill you.”
“Huh,” I smirk, opening and closing my hands, getting ready to make them iron fucking fists. “Why don’t you?”
“I should,” he snaps.
“But you won’t.” I gesture my head to each side, pointing out the club brothers circled around us. “You know you’ll lose their respect.”
His jaw ticks. He knows I’m fucking right.
I ball my fists and widen my stance.
“Be a good boy and take your punishment like a real president,” I snap, and a second later, I swing my fist.