Chapter 41 Army
Army
I don’t hesitate.
My right arm lifts, aiming my gun at my bastard brother.
Tension ratchets up in the compound’s yard, where all the brothers and prospects are gathering.
Guerilla raises his arms. “Take it easy, little brother.” But he’s not concerned; there’s a gleeful glint in his eye, one that’s sadistic as hell. “Is this any way to greet family?”
“You’re not family,” I spit.
Gone is the cool-headed, in-control, pragmatic soldier and MC leader. Right now, I’m a ball of impulsive, hot energy set to explode, and I want to take that motherfucker with me.
Bane places a hand on my shoulder, and Ash strategically steps between Guerilla and me, knowing I won’t shoot him.
“How did you get through the gates?” Ash jerks his chin at the now-closed gates, his eyes narrowing on the prospects who are working it.
Guerilla showing up just as Digits’ security system and perimeter cameras go down? Yeah, that’s suspicious as fuck.
Bane leans in and speaks into my ear. “Let’s see if he gives us some rope to hang him and allies with.” He pointedly looks at my gun, still raised. I lower my arm and holster my weapons, but I’m ready to move like lightning to pull them again.
Guerilla puffs out his chest. “I drove right through the gates because I still wear this cut. I belong with the Havoc Guardians.”
“No, you fucking don’t,” I grind out. “If you had stayed instead of running like a bitch, you would’ve been de-patched.”
He puffs out his chest even more. “On what grounds? Because I fucked around on my old lady?”
Rage fills me that he still calls Leeva his old lady. And rage fills me further because of how he so flippantly talks about his sins and doesn’t even mention how Leeva lost her child right after finding out about his fucking around.
Ash slashes me a dark look and turns back to Guerilla. “Where have you been for over a decade?”
“Doesn’t matter, does it? I’m here now.”
“Why are you here?” Bane demands.
“Why the interrogation?” Guerilla scoffs, looking around at everyone gathered, then he smiles. “Good to see you, Tats and Mauler.”
Both are on-site because Razor is here. I keep my reaction hidden, as do Bane and Ash. But the fact that Guerilla singled them out is a tell—he knows they’ve been following Razor, even though Razor doesn’t seem to be aware.
“Some of the faces are all grown-up, I see.” He motions to Slade’s brothers, Breaker, Tyr, and Sten, who had all been MC brats and grew up around here.
Bane stiffens slightly, likely taking Guerilla’s explicit acknowledgment of them as a veiled threat to Slade.
“Ah, and there are the beauties of the club.” Guerilla licks his lips, looking behind us.
I don’t need to look to know that some of the Club Pussy have come out from the clubhouse and are watching from the wrap-around deck.
He bows to them with a flourish and a wide grin. “I could definitely use a drink and a good-looking bitch choking on my cock. What do you say, brother?” he says to me. “Join me?”
Wrath heats my blood. The fucking prick.
“No?” He cocks his head to the side, his right hand coming to rest on his belt. Another one of his tells—he might look casual, but he’s prepared to grab his gun.
For all his cocky confidence, he knows that if it came down to the two of us, I’m faster, more accurate. I always was, and with my military training on top of that, he wouldn’t stand a fucking chance. That’s why he won’t come at me directly; why he’ll attack from behind like the coward he is.
“Why is it that you won’t have a drink and get a blow job with me? I mean, you are an elite member of an exclusive sex club.”
My blood thrums through my veins. It isn’t a secret that I attend Hedon, but his revelation is another one of his sucker punches.
“You still never fuck any of the Club Pussy here… Why is that, Hayes?”
My teeth grind at his refusal to use my road name. Leeva does, too, but with her it’s different.
“Is it because you’ve only ever had a hard-on for my old lady?” The fucker steps toward me.
Both Ash and Bane shift, as if to prevent me from doing something stupid, or maybe to act as my shields, but I push out from them and step toward the motherfucker who shares my blood.
“Is that why you went after Leeva as soon as she turned eighteen?” I demand. Tension around us coils another notch at the lethal air that sizzles between Guerilla and me.
He licks his lips. “Naw, I loved her.”
“Bullshit.”
“Correction: I love her.”
“Again, I call bullshit.”
“Who wouldn’t? I mean, she’s a stunner. And to be the one to take her virginity…”
I see black and surge toward him. Ash and Bane grip me, both powerful forces to be reckoned with, and I’m jerked to a halt.
Guerilla jumps back, fear flashing over his face, but then he laughs. “You should’ve seen how she bled on my dick.”
“Shut the. Fuck. Up!”
Everyone is shifting on their feet, ready for war to erupt. I jerk free of Ash and Bane’s hands and force myself to lean into my training and calm myself down.
Guerilla runs his finger over his top lip and laughs again. “I always knew you had a thing for my little lamb.”
“Leeva isn’t your anything.”
“Not true.” He shakes his head like I’m a simpleton. “She’s my old lady.” The sadistic gleam is back in his eyes. “And forbidden territory to you.”
There’s a low murmur that runs through the crowd, and it isn’t lost on me that some of the old guard have shifted closer to Guerilla.
“My little lamb, my little ballerina…” Guerilla eyes me. “She’s all curves now, which we’ll have to rectify. I’ll get her back on a strict diet to lean her back out.”
The ground underneath me feels like it’s vibrating, and I realize it’s me as Guerilla admits to what I suspected.
He knows Leeva is back.
“But first there’s the little punishment that’s required for your sins, brother.”
“What the hell do you mean, Guerilla?” Tats demands, stepping forward with menace rolling off him.
“Hayes here has been a very naughty boy.” Guerilla jerks his chin at me and scans the crowd. “He’s been fucking my old lady.”
Silence rapidly descends, then chaos erupts.
The old guard is shouting, their fingers twitching to grab their guns.
Razor looks like wrath is pouring from his soul.
Some of the brothers are staring at me in shock, some are glaring, while others are shouting along with Bane and Ash at everyone to shut the fuck up.
Prospects don’t know what to do.
The Club Pussy scream and bolt back into the clubhouse. Any of the old ladies and kids that live onsite in the bunkhouses disappear inside as well.
Amid all the chaos, I don’t react as a calmness settles over me. It’s not like when I’m triggered and having a dissociative PTSD event. I’m not sinking to the bottom of the ocean, heeding some unknown siren’s call to coax me into some catatonic state and into oblivion.
This is a different kind of calm; a calm where I’m focusing on my siren, my little dove. The woman I love more than life itself. The woman I have zero regrets about choosing. The only regret that I’ll carry until I take my last breath is that I kept things from her and caused her pain.
Bane, Ash, Mauler, Tats, and even Toxic—the stubborn ass who is still wounded from a previous attack on our MC—have made a protective circle around me, and I push through it.
I see that Pix is outside now, standing apart from everyone.
Her blue eyes snap from me to Guerilla, and her hand lifts to move inside her cut.
I shake my hand, telling her not to kill him where he stands because that will start a war and rip our club to shreds.
Instead, I lock eyes with my brother.
I’m not afraid of him.
And I won’t kneel, bend, or bow to him.
“Calm the fuck down!” Ash booms over the chaos.
Everyone responds to their leader, everyone except the old guard. He walks over to them, Guerilla’s smug smile faltering, but Ash doesn’t pay attention to him.
His brutal gaze is locked on Razor and the others. “Shut the fuck up or you’re all in the Cell.”
“Enough,” Thunder orders them with a scowl. “Listen to the prez.”
He might appear to have switched sides and is all for Ash leading our club—Razor and a few others look at him like he’s betrayed them and the rebellion they want to lead—but I don’t trust Thunder as far as I can punt him.
Regardless, neither Ash, Bane, nor I challenge Thunder right now.
“This is fucking bullshit.” Razor’s face is red with rage, and he points at me while glaring at Ash. “If Army fucked Leeva, then he needs to die just like Grinder.”
Ash’s jaw shifts, and he turns to Guerilla. “Where’s your proof?”
“I don’t need—”
He pushes into Guerilla, getting in his face. “The fuck. You. Don’t.”
“You’re just trying to save him because he’s your bitch on the Council.” Guerilla tries to argue, but he looks about to piss his pants going toe-to-toe with Ash.
Razor fists his hands. “If Army fucked Leeva, then he needs to die just like Grinder,” he repeats. “Fair is fair.”
Ash’s head swivels to him, pinning him with a hard glare. “The decision about Grinder that the Council was forced to make was based on evidence.”
Ash turns back to Guerilla, who steps back from him, looking nervous. His grandiose claim wasn’t instantly accepted, so now his bravado is failing.
He gives me an accusing glare before turning to the crowd. “He fucked her at Hedon.”
My fists clench, but I remain silent.
If this is his only evidence, and if Anais—that jealous, traitorous bitch—is how he knows this, or even if Razor was there before I spotted him, there’s no physical evidence because Leeva and I were always masked.
Add to it that I never fucked her or even played with her in front of others at Hedon.
There’s no actual evidence.
“Again, where’s your evidence, Guerilla?” Tats asks.
My brother’s face has faint red splotches, a sign he’s getting frustrated and angry. “He was with her at her house, too.”
Tsk, tsk… Revealing so many things, brother.
Which, I’m happy that he is, but outwardly, I remain cold and stoic.
We need to find out how he kept off our radar and jammed and interfered with our surveillance systems. Maybe he has a device on him.
If I can get it, then Digits could use it to upgrade his systems and our defenses.
I’m not interested in being on the defensive; I want to go on the offensive.
I need to have some semblance of control over where this is heading.
It’s clear Guerilla wants me dead and wants Leeva, and this is his first step in coming back to claim her. And with the dollar signs he’ll see attached to her, he won’t back down. Ever.
So he needs to die. Not just because of my pride or for his sins, but to protect Leeva now and in the future.
Guerilla thinks he has the upper hand, believing that I don’t want my sins revealed. But I have two things going for me that he isn’t aware of.
One, I’m willing to die for Leeva, as long as she’s protected.
And two, she’s not his. If Guerilla was aware that his mark on her is gone—that there’s not a speck of evidence the tattoo ever existed—he wouldn’t be so goddamn smug and triumphant looking right now.
“Leeva is back.” I unclench my fists and regard my bastard brother with a lethal look. Then I turn to the MC brothers and prospects gathered with us. “I have been with her.”
I can almost feel Ash and Bane’s groans even though they don’t make a sound.
I turn back to my brother and smile. “But she’s no longer yours.”
His smug, triumphant smile grows. “The tattoo is permanent, meaning my claim on her is permanent. Always will be.”
Stunned murmurs ripple through the crowd.
“That’s why you had all those questions about tattoo removal, Army?” Tats asks, shocked.
I don’t get to answer because Razor shoves a gun in my face, fury and vengeance making his hand tremble. “I’ll kill you like you killed my boy.” Spit flies with his words and hits his face.
“Stop!”
A female voice shouts over the growing rumble as the group’s shock morphs into anger.
A female voice that shouldn’t be here.
With the distraction, both Thunder and Ash go for Razor. Thunder grabs his friend, pulling him away from me, and Ash grabs the gun, flicking the safety on.
Then I turn and see Leeva standing there, with Pix beside her.
There’s an SUV that would’ve had to be let into the compound—I’m assuming Pix gave the prospects the order—and three men who look like soldiers, dressed for combat in the field, with Ursula and Keifer Wentzell.
Leeva’s amber eyes swing to mine, worried but with defiance and determination.
“Little lamb,” Guerilla says.
Her eyes snap to him, narrowing. Her chin lifts as she walks to him. She’s confident, sure, and sexy as hell. Her neck is bare and exposed. Then she smiles at Guerilla as his mouth presses thin while he studies her skin.
Missing his tattoo.
“Hello, Harrison.”
She uses his birth name, not his road name, and I smile, knowing she isn’t doing it like she does with me.
She says it because she knows it will get under his skin, because she knows he only picked that name so he’d always be my competition, and it’s her way to tell him he’s not my competition. That he’s nothing.
His face is getting redder, splotchier.
Leeva flicks him a dismissive look and turns to the group assembled.
“As you can see, his tattoo no longer exists. I’m here for everyone to examine it if that’s what you need to prove there is no evidence left of it.
There’s no skin discoloration, no change in texture, and no scarring underneath.
It is, in fact, as if it never existed, and his claim over me is removed.
“As a result”—she turns back to me, staring into my soul—“I’m here to make a claim of my own. Hayes Cartwright, Army, sergeant-at-arms and road captain of the Havoc Guardians, is mine.”