Chapter 38
CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
DARE
Something is wrong, but I can’t put my finger on it. I feel it deep in my bones. It’s like a living, breathing thing that surrounds me, but I can’t grasp it. Something is absolutely fucking wrong. I just don’t know what the hell it could be.
I know that Gauge is on his way here today.
Chassis is at home, and she’s healthy and, as far as I know, happy.
The club is doing better than it ever has.
The Russian collaboration seems to be a good fit.
Rustik has given his word that Samuil will not be an issue…
but something is wrong, and I’m waiting for all of this to crumble in my hands.
“You good?” Wrath asks.
He’s sitting across the desk from me, his eyes focused on me—watching and waiting for me to say something, anything.
I don’t know what to say. I’m not fucking good.
In fact, all I can do is think about all the ways shit is about to go really fucking wrong—and how something is off, but I can’t put my finger on it.
If I say anything out loud, I’m just going to sound like a paranoid fucking asshole.
“I’m not,” I confess.
I wouldn’t say that to anyone else but him, but fucking shit… something is going to happen. I can feel it deep in my marrow. Except I don’t know where to keep shit tight and who to start shooting at. My anxiety consumes me as I try to figure out what is happening and why I’m feeling the way I do.
I can only see one way out of this heart-racing, palpitating, anxious sensation—I want to start shooting.
“The Russian,” I state.
It’s the only thing that’s shifted. My woman is having a baby. It’s a boy, and this Russian is a fucking elephant with his foot on my goddamn chest.
Wrath doesn’t say anything immediately. Instead, he leans back, his lips pressed together. I watch as he stands, then moves through the room toward the window.
He turns his head, looking over his shoulder at me. His eyes find mine, and he smirks in my direction. He makes a guess that I don’t think I’ve even admitted to myself, at least not yet.
“You love your wife.”
“I love my wife,” I confess, saying it out loud for the first time, hell, thinking it for the first time. But he’s right. I love my wife.
I shouldn’t be embarrassed about that fact. Wrath loves his woman, and Loot loves his. I shouldn’t give a fuck that I love my woman or feel like shouting it from the rooftop. But something inside me wants to keep this private. Like the way I feel about her, it’s only for her.
“Good. You should,” he murmurs. “What happens with the fuck that tried to weasel his way into club business?” Wrath asks.
He dies.
Shifting my focus to him, I jerk my chin in his direction. “You know what I’m thinking.”
“No, I really don’t,” Wrath mutters. “I have no fucking clue.”
“We gotta get rid of Samuil. He’s a goddamn problem,” I state.
I don’t really know if it’s an actual issue, if he’s going to be a problem, but what I do know is that I won’t be able to think straight without him dead and gone. Wrath presses his lips together, nodding once, then clears his throat before he shifts his attention and turns completely to face me.
“He’s a problem but not an imminent threat. So I don’t think the Perov Bratva is going to just turn a blind eye to any of that shit,” Wrath states.
He’s right. Samuil isn’t an impending threat, at least not right this fucking minute. But that doesn’t mean he won’t be in the very near future. And I know he will be just that—a fucking threat. I want him gone before he has the chance to do anything.
“What the fuck are we going to do about this shit?” I ask.
Wrath’s lips twitch into a smirk before he speaks. “Brother,” he begins, chuckling before he stops himself and then lets out a grunt. “You’re going to get us tangled up in a war,” he states.
I know I am. I should feel bad about that, but I’m not sure how much of a shit I give. I’m under no illusion that I won’t. And as much as I don’t want to, I have a feeling it’s inevitable.
Guilt instantly consumes me at my own thoughts. I’m not sure how I would feel if my men died because of this shit. Granted, they’ve died for less, but I can’t imagine them dying for this, for a cause they didn’t choose.
For something that I started with no real payout to them.
Yes, Samuil was trying to fuck over the Iron Flame MC, but not me personally, and not even this goddamn chapter. If I kill him without cause, that fucks over my relationship with the Bratva, but at the same time, I’m not sure I give a fuck.
It probably starts a war, too, but again—no fucks given.
“I’m feeling very much like throwing caution to the goddamn wind,” I state. “And I know I shouldn’t be. I carry a lot of lives in my hands.”
“Yeah,” Wrath mutters.
“I can’t take this kind of stand when so many lives are at risk,” I say.
Wrath smirks, and I wonder why he finds this so funny. Probably because I’m in love and ready to go to war over it. He faces me before he leans back against the wall. I watch as he folds his arms over his chest, dipping his chin slightly, and then connects his gaze with my own.
“No, you really can’t,” he states. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t be at your back if that’s what you decide to do.”
“Yeah?” I ask. “How do I ask anyone to be at my back when I’m going rogue? Starting a war is fucking crazy. I couldn’t fucking do that.”
Wrath smirks.
He doesn’t respond with words, but the expression he wears is more than I ever need expressed. “Brother,” he begins, “we’re at your back, rogue, wrong, or right. Doesn’t fucking matter. If a war is what you need, then that’s what we’ll fucking do.”
“We do this, we fuck up our cash flow, and I can’t be part of that. Rustik has done nothing, and he’s given us a really fucking sweet deal. The last thing I want to do is ruin that for everyone else. We got babies on the way.”
Wrath winces, because he knows the goddam truth of it all just like me. We got families, homes, and babies. No way in fuck can we bypass a steady paycheck, and that’s exactly what the deal with Rustik is—a steady paycheck.
“The alternative being we wait for him to come after Chassis and the kid?” he asks.
“Which is why I’m not fucking good.”
Wrath hums. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “I get it. We got shit going on, but, brother,” he murmurs, “your woman is fucking important, and so is her baby. She’s your old lady, your wife, and the mother of your child.”
My child.
Wrath knows the truth, but I really fucking like him referring to the baby as mine. The only kid I’ll probably have. I will never let any goddamn fucker touch him. Not ever. Wrath is right. He’s mine. My son. I’ll kill for him with the same hands I’d kill for Chassis with.
“Maybe you have a meet with just Rustik, me, and the Russian?”
“I’ve already had one with Rustik,” I mutter.
“Yeah, well, we want shit to be perfectly clear, and the Russian needs to know just how serious you are.”
He does. I’m just not sure if I want him to know I’ve been thinking about this, about him.
I don’t want to give him that kind of power.
I’m going to have to think about it. I press my lips together, rolling them a few times when Wrath walks over to my desk.
He taps on it with his index finger, then tilts his head toward the office door.
“Let’s cuss and discuss over some beers.”
“And shots,” I add.
“And shots.”