12. Favors
FAVORS
CUTTER
“Is it okay if I lie down for a bit? I don’t feel good.”
Staring at my bed, a hundred different images of Kitty burst to life in vivid color. I don’t want Claire’s scent eclipsing Kitty’s. It’ll be all I have left of her after she hears the news.
Pulling the comforter free, I hand it to her while I rip the sheet off and bundle it in my arms. “Now you can.”
She doesn’t question my crazy ass actions, just lays the blanket on the mattress and climbs onto my bed.
Swiping up the half bottle of whisky I’d left earlier, I head to the bathroom, slamming the door closed, rattling the mirror hanging above the sink.
What the hell did I do? Spinning the lid off, it bounces with a clink…
clink…clink…across the tiles, coming to rest by the toilet.
I sink to the cold floor, gulping at the fiery amber liquid, pounding it back until my throat is raw and my gut churns.
Bringing the sheet to my face, I inhale the scent of us and close my eyes.
When I open them, Claire is standing over me dripping water onto my face. “What are you doing?” I croak, my voice gruff.
“Callan is at the door, and I need to pee. You wouldn’t wake up.”
“What time is it?” I attempt to move, and my body protests the action, my limbs stiff, like rigor mortis set in overnight. Maybe I did die and this is my hell.
Bouncing on the spot, she says, “Six in the morning.” Swiveling her attention between me and the toilet, she adds, “I really need to pee.”
“Sorry,” I grunt, noticing the sheet still tightly in my grip. Pushing myself to my feet I shuffle out to find Callan standing between the bed and entryway.
“What the actual fuck? Have you lost your damn mind? My old man will help you find it.” His lips curl into a sneer as he punches out toward the bathroom door.
“It’s complicated,” I grumble, yanking open my closet and chucking the sheet inside.
“Uncomplicate it,” he barks out, his voice carrying through the room, jarring my brain.
I move around him to close the bedroom door and breathe out, “She’s pregnant.”
“Excuse me?” He steps forward until we’re an arm’s length apart and turns his head, putting a hand to his ear like the information was too hard to compute and needs repeating.
I incline my head and say more firmly, “She’s pregnant.”
Snorting, we exchange looks that need no words but he says them anyway. “Well, it isn’t my old man’s—and it can’t be yours.”
“Only you know that.” Leaning my back against the doorframe, I scrub my hands down my face and exhale an exhausted breath that reeks of whisky.
Callan is the only person who knows about me being infertile.
It’s a fact I didn’t want people to know.
Feeling embarrassed and ashamed over something entirely out of my control is pathetic.
It doesn’t make me less of a man. I know that, but knowing and forcing yourself to believe is complex.
“What does that mean?”
The bathroom door opens, and Claire’s head pokes out. “Is it okay to shower?” Her tone is soft, wary, as she flits her gaze between us.
“Do what you want. There’s a fresh towel in the cabinet.”
“I found the towels. Thank you.”
She’s already making herself at home. A second later, the shower blasts.
“Have you lost your mind?” Callan’s face screws up in disgust.
“Your old man wants to fucking kill her.” I jab a hand toward the closed door. “She was puking and begging and I went along with the lie.”
“So, you’re going to be dad to some club slut’s baby?”
I shrug my shoulders. “Might be my only chance to have a kid.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. This isn’t the way, Cutter.”
“It’s done.”
“It can be undone.”
“No.” I stand firm. “This is how it is. How it’s going to be.”
“Has she even told you who the dad is? She may not even be pregnant.”
Blanching, I ask, “Why would she lie?”
“If she thought it’d sway my old man, the bitch will say anything.”
“No.” I shake my head and instantly regret it. “She was throwing up.”
“So what?” He places a hand on his hip and shakes his head. “I threw up last night—half the fucking club did. It means nothing.”
It means Diamond’s chili needs work. Could she be lying? Hit with a sudden wave of doubt, I say, “I’ll get her to pee on a stick.”
“You get her to piss on a bunch of fucking sticks then take a long, hard look and ask yourself if her port is where you want to stow your boat the next eighteen years.”
“We done?” I raise a brow. Getting lectured is the last thing I want right now.
“No, we’re not done. Believe or not, I didn’t come here to discuss diapers. I got a call from Michael.”
The air shifts. A cold snake slithers up my spine, settling around my neck. “And?” I edge forward a step.
“He wants to meet.”
Usually, I can read my best friend’s face and tell what he’s thinking, but there’s nothing. “You think he knows something?”
“I don’t know, but he sounded bleak. Said he needed a big favor and that he’d pay us back.”
“When does he want to meet?”
“In an hour. Get cleaned up.” Gesturing up and down my body, he adds, “You look like shit,” before exiting with a slam of the door.
Sleeping on a bathroom floor after lighting the fuse on the fuck-my-life bomb will do that to you.
The shower turns off, and Claire appears through a mist of steam a minute later.
Wearing one towel around her torso and another one twisted over her head, she takes tentative steps to the bed and sits.
“I know this is a lot,” she murmurs, her head bowed, fingers playing with a piece of thread in her lap.
“Are you even pregnant?”
Lifting her gaze to mine and placing a hand on her stomach, she says, “Yes. About eight weeks.”
“Whose is it?” This feels fucking weird, like I don’t have a right to be interrogating her, and a big part of me doesn’t give a fuck about this or her. But I’m not heartless. I cling to the piece of me that’s still human, earning the love of a woman like Kitty.
“Does it matter?”
No. Yes. I don’t fucking know .
“It really was a one-time thing.” She chews her bottom lip.
“Is it a brother? Most of them are about as sharp as a marble but some can do math.”
“It was an outsider—a stranger in a bar.” She shrugs. “I’m not proud of it, but I want the baby, I’ll be a good mom.”
“I’m not judging.”
“Are you going to tell Jericho the truth?” Getting to her feet, she approaches me and takes my hand, squeezing it between her much smaller ones. “You don’t have to do anything for the kid. Just keep my secret and I’ll keep yours.”
“What does that mean?” It sounds a hell of a lot like a threat.
Dropping my hand, she pauses, then says, “I know the dead guy is a Carnell and how big of a deal that is.”
Taking a menacing step toward her, I grit out through clenched teeth, “So, you know cleaning up the loose ends includes you.”
Chest quivering, her thighs hit the lip of the bed, almost making her topple over onto it.
“I’ll do anything, Cutter. I’m not some rat or enemy. I love this club. It’s my life.”
Yeah, I know the feeling.
“All I ever wanted was to be with Jericho, become an ol’lady. I’d be a good ol’lady, I’ll always be loyal to the club.”
“Don’t ever threaten me again.”
“I wasn’t.” Tears leak from her eyes, panic seizing her throat.
“The kid is mine. We’ll figure the rest of the shit out later,” I declare. If I say it enough, maybe people will believe it.
Her head bobs. “Thank you.”
“You should stay in here today. I have some club business to take care of and it’s better if you’re out of the pres’s way.”
“Okay.”
“Help yourself to a clean shirt. I’ll get Diamond to bring you some food.”
Grabbing some fresh clothes, I slam the bathroom door, foregoing the Kitty shower. I’m too pissed to allow myself to tug my cock to the thought of her when I’m about to shatter her heart.
Changing into the new clothes, I brush my teeth, splash cold water over my face, and finger-comb through the mess of my hair, pulling it back into a ponytail at the nape of my neck.
Claire’s under the comforter sleeping when I come back through.
Closing the door behind me, I avoid the zombies lingering through the clubhouse and head straight for Pres’s office.
I rap my knuckles on the door, and his commanding bark orders, “Get in here.”
Tension hangs thick over the room, a storm cloud waiting to erupt. I was hoping Callan would already be here to play Switzerland.
“I know I fucked up with Claire.” The words fall out of my mouth like a kid scared of being scorned.
Being the focus of his anger unsettles me.
I’ve looked up to him my whole life. The day he patched me in was one of the best of my life, second to the first time Kitty came on my cock and told me she hated me.
“You been fucking up a lot lately.” I deserve that. “So, what’s your plan? She keeping the kid?” He leans back in his chair, resting his head against clasped hands.
“Yeah, and I think you’re right about her wanting to be an ol’ lady.”
“Then make her one. Give her a ring. Keep her happy. Keep her quiet .” Cracks splinter from my soul, webbing around my heart.
Callan enters the office, drags the chair out, and sits, tapping his phone against his thigh. “Everything good?” he asks, eyeballing us both.
“Fine. We’ve been waiting for you.”
“Here I am.”
Pres drops his hands and leans forward. “This isn’t a business meet. Michael reached out to Callan personally. I haven’t had a request from Senior,” Pres informs me.
Pocketing his phone, Callan says, “We can’t go with numbers. It’ll look like we’re expecting trouble.”
“You’re not going to that house alone,” Pres scoffs, stroking his hand down his beard.
“He won’t be alone,” I interject.
Dark, accusing eyes crinkle around the edges, narrowing on me. “Usually, that would mean something. Today, not so much.”
Ouch . I don’t rise to the bait. He’s a proud man and will need time to wrap his head around the whole Claire and me thing. Hell, I need time to wrap my head around it.
“The meet isn’t at the house.”
Pres and I frown at that information.
“I don’t think he wants his old man to know we’re meeting.”
“Where is it?” I ask, folding my arms over my chest.
The tension expands, snapping like a rubber band when he says, “At the Redwing hangout.”
Sunlight claims the sky, threading through the treeline in woven strands.
We’re parked overlooking a field of cracked mud and brown tufts of grass desperate for rain.
The Redwing house sits on the border in a row of dilapidated houses, all one earth tremor away from collapsing.
Exiting the car and checking the clip in my pistol, I take off the safety and place it in the back of the waistband of my jeans, nodding to Callan over the hood.
We zip our jackets to hide our club colors sitting proudly on our cuts underneath and walk the fifty yards to Michael’s black Mercedes.
Monster and Dodger are parked a mile up the road, no explanation needed when Callan told them we had some business to take care of and needed them to sit tight and have their phones ready.
They’re good soldiers, and Monster is the brother you want at your back if shit turns sour.
The locks disengage on our approach, and we slip into the back seats on either side, the air conditioner offering a reprieve from the stagnant air.
Michael sits in the passenger seat in jeans and a t-shirt, his hair unstyled.
For the first time in all the years I’ve known him, he’s not wearing a suit.
His driver is in a black suit, sunglasses covering his eyes.
After a nod from Michael, he exits the car and stands beneath the canopy of trees.
“I appreciate you meeting me here like this.”
“What’s going on?” Callan speaks to the headrest, side-eyeing me warily.
“We didn’t find Nicolas the night you came over.
” There’s strain in his voice, his posture sagging into the leather seat, eyes cast toward the Redwing house.
We remain silent, allowing him to collect his thoughts.
“His phone was recovered on a member of that fucking street gang.” Clenching the air with his fist, he punches the dashboard, a crack splitting through the air.
Blood sprouts from a cut across his knuckles.
He doesn’t seem to notice the pain. “We took the skin from his bones, and in his plea to end the suffering, he admitted a bunch of them obeyed an order to feed a body to the river but he didn’t see who it was. ”
Someone is looking down on us, offering solution after solution to this fucked up situation. Murder isn’t something new for street gangs, and the timing of this one couldn’t have been better.
“We may never get his body.”
“It might not be him,” I tell him, the words intended to offer hope.
“I want them all fucking dead. We were going to take the leader to send a message, but now—I want them exterminated like the fucking vermin they are. Our father is cautious to pull the trigger on this, but I want it done. Knowing his killer is in there, still breathing, is consuming me.”
“You want us to take care of the problem?” Callan surmises. It’s only fair we have to clear the nest. Eliminating the entire crew is the best-case scenario. No one can deny responsibility if there’s no one left to ask.
“A favor between friends—one I won’t forget and will be indebted to you for.” I should feel like a cunt, sitting with his brother’s blood on my hands while he offers his appreciation and debt, but all I feel is relief. Callan was right. Michael didn’t look further than the Redwings.
We got away with this.
Placing a hand on his shoulder, Callan says, “We’ll take care of them.” He pauses, then adds, “It will be done tonight.”
“Burn them all,” Michael breathes, clenching his teeth. “For Nicolas.”
“And you,” I say shamelessly.
We’ll burn them all. Set every last Redwing hangout ablaze. And when they flee like scurrying rats, we’ll be waiting with rifles, ready to shoot them like fish in a barrel. Easy. Fun.
One day, my sins will come for me, drag me into the endless sleep. Not now, though. Now, the Carnells will be in our debt.