Chapter 44
FORTY-FOUR
SILAS
“You really gonna let her stay in that office after what went down yesterday?”
Phoenix uttered it low from where he dug for a wrench in a toolbox near me. Voice muted and hard, casting a ton of speculation my way where I knelt next to my Harley, running a clean cloth over the gleaming black fender that I’d repaired.
My ribs constricted around my heart. It might as well have been his giant, meaty mitt with the way it felt like it was getting pulverized by the thought of her.
That face spinning through my mind on repeat. Of course, that vision had to include her face tipped up at me with my cock stuffed down her throat.
I had been stewing in that memory all fucking day.
“Compound is secure,” I growled.
“Yeah, and that’s the opposite of what we were going for. We are supposed to be playing it cool, remember? Putting on a front like there isn’t a single issue going down at the club? Now you’ve got this place locked down like a military installation.”
Phoenix laid it out like I’d gone dense and it was his duty to educate me.
His dark edges set in a vicious glower.
Unease stirred.
“That bastard was dead for coming here, with or without Brinley in the mix.” I threw it out like a defense.
Phoenix cut a sharp shake of his head. “That’s bullshit, man, and you know it.”
“And what would you expect me to do?” I gritted beneath my breath, hoping to keep the words out of earshot of the rest of the Crows working the shop.
All of us trying to keep up that front and obviously failing.
“You should have kept her locked in that room from the get-go and never let her come out.”
I scoffed. “She’s not a damned prisoner, Phoenix. She needs this.”
Phoenix blew back at the emphasis in my voice. He clearly heard what it contained. I could almost see the crop of hairs lifting at his nape, prickles of awareness crawling through his senses.
Intuition kicking in.
“Thought she was off-limits?” It was fully an accusation.
“She is.” I basically spat it. Guilt constraining. A boot smashing down on the back of my neck with the intent of snuffing the life out of me.
Phoenix chuckled an ominous sound, ruthlessness rippling around him in black waves. Pitch hair shoved back. His eyes that were just as dark were slit into daggers as he stared me down.
“You really gonna pretend like you aren’t dipping your dirty paws into our collateral?”
I was on my feet in a flash, refusal slashing out. “She’s not fucking collateral.”
With the way I said it, I might as well have been pleading guilty.
Phoenix took it as such, and a huff of air left him on a shot of condemnation. “Is that right?”
I turned away, trying to gather myself, roughing a hand down my face as I mumbled, “That’s right. She’s under our protection. Nothing less and nothing more.”
Visions flashed. Her mouth and my hands and the twisted greed that was chipping away at everything I was supposed to stand for.
He exhaled something heavy at my back. The sound packed with his loyalty to this club, which I clearly had a deficit of at this point.
I might have been president, but our mission was just as important to my crew as it was to me.
“She’s the one thing keeping that fuckwit under our thumb,” Phoenix gritted. “You really think he wouldn’t turn on us if she wasn’t here? If he didn’t know she was still breathin’ because we’re allowing her to remain that way?”
A surge of rage had me whirling back, in his face in a nanosecond.
“Allowing her to remain that way?” It was a snarl that erupted from my soul. “It doesn’t matter what that piece of shit does, no one will touch a hair on her head.”
Our heated conversation finally rippled through the other Crows in the shop, and Trevan, Colby, and Brody shifted our way to take in the animosity.
All patched-in members within earshot except for Brody, and Phoenix knew he was already on the inside.
Brody knew the score and the dirty deeds and was all too ready to partake in them.
Phoenix tossed a disbelieving chuckle out into the tension that distorted the air. “Seems to me someone already has.”
I turned away again, nearly fucking convulsing with the tumult that Brinley Webber had incited on my life.
“I’m not fucking her,” I grunted low.
Was that enough? Because it sounded like bullshit, even to me.
Brody cracked up, a riotous, unruly sound, likely only picking up on the back half of the conversation. “That woman is sleeping in your bed, brother, and I’m pretty sure there isn’t a whole lot of sleeping going on.”
I pointed a finger at him. “Don’t start.”
With an arrogant laugh, he raised his hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m just telling it like it is. It’s damned unlikely that I’m the only one around here noticing you basically go rabid whenever she walks into the room. Not that any one of us would blame you.”
Insinuation weaved its way in, an extra thread in the cock of his head.
Oh, but there was plenty of blame there.
Trevan glanced between everyone, attempting to temper the mood. “I don’t see any reason to be throwing around accusations. Prez says nothing is going on, then nothing is going on.”
It did nothing but drive a hot blade of guilt directly through my sternum.
Phoenix slanted tattooed fingers through his hair, doing his best to tamp down his irritation. You’d think he’d still be quenched from yesterday’s kill, but no, he was antsy.
Thirsty for blood.
He seemed to gather himself a fraction, his words subdued but hard. “Worried something is going on here that you’ve become too blind to see. Am worried she’s becoming a liability. We have too much riding on this for intentions to get skewed. What you pulled last night in front of the entire club…?”
He trailed off with the implication.
I wanted to whip around and tell him that what I’d pulled was letting every single asshole there know she was mine.
But she couldn’t be.
I was the one who’d given the charge.
Deemed her off-limits, and it was the kind of rule that was delivered with a stamped seal that there would be dire consequences if someone was stupid enough not to comply.
I heaved out a strained sigh, trying to gather my thoughts that had sprinted in every wrong direction. Remind myself why I couldn’t continue on the path that I was traveling.
All while I did my best to ignore the energy that seeped from the office, her spirit a hum right at the edges of my consciousness, luring me back toward the moment’s paradise that she had given.
Could still feel and taste her all over me.
“She disobeyed me, and I was putting her back into her place. As simple as that. Nothing is clouded. I know the mission and what’s riding on it.”
It was a miracle I didn’t choke to death on the blasphemous words.
Dubiety dented deep into Phoenix’s sinister brow. “Do you?”
“Of course, I do.”
Everything.
I knew I had to put an end to this obscenity.
Because this was getting so much deeper than just my oath to the club, which was hefty enough.
Truth that I’d basically bartered the woman to gain the upper hand on Dereck Webber.
The fact that there was a very good chance I was going to have to put the bastard in the ground made it that much worse.
More than anything, the bare specks of my conscience kept screaming to stop being a pillager of the good. Dragging Brinley deeper and deeper into something she didn’t want to be a part of.
I couldn’t keep dipping my toes into the treachery. Convincing myself I was offering her something good when I was really only stealing for myself.
It was nothing but a scourge of selfishness and greed.
Her spirit whispered out from the office, attempting to become one with mine.
The problem was, I had no fucking clue how to let go.
How to let go of something that made me feel halfway real for the first time in years.