Chapter Ten
Taking any woman to the place where club justice was playing out was pretty much a no-no, except for maybe Ryder taking Tori along, since she was about as dangerous as any of us.
Jamie would be just as deadly, but she was still mostly law abiding, so I doubted Grease would bring her, in fact, I hoped he wouldn’t bring himself either.
I doubted I’d be that fucking lucky though.
I never planned for V to be with us, but the damn woman had managed to keep pace with us as we headed to warehouse on our rides.
See, this is the thing about going to do something illegal.
You ride sensibly, because you don’t want to attract attention.
That meant it was easy for her to follow us, and park her cage alongside the fucking motorcycles and vans parked up outside.
If it wasn’t so fucking quiet here, I’d worry about the spectacle we were making, right where anyone could see.
“V, please, don’t fucking come in here. You’re not gonna…”
I trailed off as I watched my damn brother.
Has was staring at the closed door, his hands smoothing over his cut almost fucking obsessively, like he was steeling himself for what was about to happen.
I hadn’t asked what the deal was, but there were few things that could scar a person like this, so I was starting to suspect what his deal was.
If what I was imagining… fuck me… if they did what I was suspecting, then they deserved hours or days of fucking agony.
“I might be needed,” V hissed at me, her arms wrapped around Nixie as she too focused on Has, on his breathing, which became more ragged by the second.
“I don’t think he needs an audience in this moment, for fuck’s sake.”
Has groaned, and turned to look at us, his eyes wide and tortured.
“Actually, you two bitching at each other is helping a bit. I need to be fucking strong right now, and I feel like I’m failing.
The… facing those fuckers is…” he glanced behind him at the door again, as a shudder ran through him, “I never thought this moment would come, and now…” he trailed off, turning to face us again.
“Brother, they’re not getting out alive, but if you need to not be there, that’s okay.”
He sucked in another ragged breath, and shook his head. “No. I… I need to. I do. I need to see them pay… need to see them leave this fucking Earth, and know it’s safe. For… for everyone.”
Fuck. Just how many people had these cunts harmed like this?
V stepped closer to him, passing Nixie back to him.
“Give yourself a moment, Has-Been. Nothing happens until you’re ready.”
I stared at her, wondering how the fuck she was so…
so integrated into this deeply intimate situation, and making sense.
She was probably better for helping him in this moment than me.
I was struck dumb and useless by how the night had turned, and my lack of knowledge, coupled with my inability to offer any kind of emotional support, left me unsure of what to say in this moment.
She was offering him what I couldn’t, and I was grateful to her, while desperate to keep her from seeing whatever happened next.
I probably wouldn’t personally get to deal out any physical form of justice, although I really fucking wanted to, for my brother, for Has-Been, but whether I did or didn’t, what happened in this building would be life changing for everyone inside.
“I uh… fuck. I can’t…” Has passed Nixie back to her, and scrunched his eyes closed, his fists in front of his chest as he took a few deep breaths. “I… fuck, I’m such a pussy.”
“You’re not. Whatever someone did to you, that doesn’t make you weak. Facing any kind of trauma head on is the hardest thing you’ll do,” V told him, while again I wondered what use I was.
“Want me to punch you?” I offered in the end, because that was all I was good for. A thug. A meat-head. Muscle without brains. The brawn. That’s what they all saw, right?
V gasped and slapped my arm, but Has’s eyes shot open and fixed on me.
“Fuck, yes,” he breathed, moving closer to me, apparently needing some kind of physical fucking reset button.
“I’m doing this because I love ya, man.” I drew my fist back and slammed it forward, smashing into his face, catching his cheek rather than fully on his nose, and let’s be honest, it was probably the gentlest punch of my life, but it rocked him a little and he grinned at me as he rubbed his cheekbone.
“Elise hits harder than you, man.” I grinned back, feeling the balance resettle a little as I flipped him off.
“She probably loves you more,” I murmured, catching V as she stepped in his direction. Despite her instincts in this moment, touching Has was the wrong move.
Has took a deep breath, clenched his fists as let out a shrill whoop of stress relief, and nodded at us.
“Let’s do this.”
He pulled open the heavy door, and I turned to V one last time.
“Please.”
She shook her head, cuddling Nixie close.
“I’m definitely needed. I mean, you guys punch each other to offer comfort.”
She smiled at me, as I held the door open for her, because for some reason I was still taking her with me, despite my attempts to keep her away from this.
“Stay back, stay quiet, and don’t let Nixie loose.”
“Duh.”
I pushed the door closed, watching my brother striding toward the bizarre tableau of men surrounding what had to be two suited cunts about to die. He looked strong and ready for this, but I knew on the inside he was anything but.
“You know, if I was feeling mean, which I never am,” V said, following me in their direction, “I’d point out that even Caroline hits harder than you.”
Despite everything, I barked out a surprised laugh, turning to shake my head at her.
Men turned, almost in a wave, as they faced their brother as he headed toward his own fucking retribution, and that’s when we saw the two men they’d brought here.
Clearly they’d already been smacked a little by someone, and they were tied to two wooden chairs, and glaring silently at us as we approached, tape brutally covering their mouths.
“Why’s she here?” Torch asked, and that’s when all eyes fell on us, or more truthfully, and frustratingly, on V. Why did I hate that so much?
“V, you shouldn’t be here, darlin’,” Harley said, shooting a surprised look at Micro as he strode in our direction.
“I tried, man.”
V kicked the back of my leg, and I bit back a hiss of pain. Fuck’s sake.
“I think I should be here,” she said, lifting her chin to glare at Harley.
Hell, she was tall like us, not at all backing down from the mass of men from two entire chapters of a club.
There must have been about forty guys in this room, and if those two cunts in the chairs thought this wasn’t the end of the road for them, they were insane. Or dreaming. Maybe both.
“It’s going to get violent, V. Do you understand this is club justice? This is the shit we don’t want-”
“The little women to see? I’m not going to do anything. I just didn’t want Has-Been coming in without our backup.”
Fuck me.
Harley turned to look at Micro, who, in turn, looked at Reacher, and that guy? He cursed, rubbing his hand over his pierced brow, before he turned to murmur something to Stitch.
And this whole time? Has-Been stood tall, strong, among his family. His brothers. The men who had his fucking back, and were proving it yet again for him.
He was glaring right at the two cunts in the chairs, and I felt so proud of him, because only I’d seen the mess he’d been in before he walked in here, but they had no idea. To them he just looked ready to fucking destroy them.
“She can stay, but stay back, love. It’s going to get messy. No shame if you decide to wait outside with your little dog.”
“She’s got a little dog?”
“Let me see.”
“Can we please focus?”
“Besides, she’s mine,” I said loudly enough for them to hear, and silence fell once more as they all turned to look at V.
“He’s got himself an old lady at last?” Dodger asked, pushing his way past Micro to stare at her, and fuck me that wasn’t what I meant, but his eyes on her? Not fucking happening.
“Can we focus on what’s happening here, dipshit?” I snapped, stepping between them to put the attention back where it belonged. On Has-Been, and his fucking revenge.
V
It was sweet really, how they all tried to keep the little woman away from seeing anything troubling, but I’d been through enough shit to be prepared for the evil men can do, and let’s be honest, the bikers were the good guys in this scenario.
Had I not seen the state that Has-Been had been in before I came in here, I might have felt differently, but his struggle to cope had made it very clear.
They’d committed real evil against him, and for that, they deserved to suffer.
I was aware I was about to watch torture and murder, but I could always leave if it bothered me.
I just wasn’t so sure it would, because I wasn’t the same woman I’d been before.
I’d hardened and become almost unrecognisable, even to myself.
“How do you want to do this?” I heard the older guy murmur to Has-Been. Older, taller, and generally with the kind of presence that said he was in charge. Plus everyone had deferred to him for his decision about me, so I figured he was the real power here.
Has-Been squared his shoulders and dragged a hand over his short hair.
“Kinda been planning it for so long that I have a million things I wanted to do. Hard to know where to start.”
The older guy chuckled. “Not sure they’ll survive a million, but we can try, son.”
Something occurred to me, and I don’t know why I butted in, but hey, that’s me.
“Did they do something they should be confessing to?”
All eyes fell on me, and the weight of their stares was actually intimidating as hell, but I wasn’t one to back down, was I?
“What’s your point?” A guy with long blonde hair and a beard asked.
He had a VP patch on too, so another man in power.
Oh. The big guy’s patch said President. And so did the big beefy guy.
Hell. I had no idea what the dynamic here was.
Wasn’t there some old adage about too many cooks?
That’s like this, right? Too many Presidents?
“If they committed acts they should be publicly admitting to, shouldn’t they be encouraged to do so on, like… I don’t know… a video or something?”
Has-Been dragged his hand over his hair again, tugging at the short strands as he took a deep breath.
“I mean, she has a point. It wasn’t just me, and fuck… it probably still happens now. There could be hundreds of… of victims. Maybe… maybe they owe it to all of them.”
Another guy joined them, and I wished I knew more about them, aside from what their patches said.
“I could record their confession on my phone, then release it after.” His name patch said Ice, and I could see it; a coldness about him, but was it just about the situation at hand?
“What if there are others?” I asked suddenly and all those eyes fell on me again, so I felt the need to elaborate, “I mean, others who do this and get away with it. Like them.” I still hadn’t been told what ‘it’ was, but at this point you’d have to be a fucking idiot to not get it.
“There was a third, but he died of cancer,” Ice said, glancing up at the taller blonde man who was at the centre of this whole drama.
“She means others in their particular circle of predators, besides him,” he said dully, glancing over his shoulder at them.
“We need them to name names then,” the President called Reacher said.
“Let’s get this going. I can help Ice make sure the release of the videos is clean, and can’t be traced back to us, but think about how we finish them, because if they’re confessing, maybe they should be uh… taking their own way out…”
“You mean no golden gun, man? I was so hoping to watch you stroking it off again,” Ice said, grinning at him, and suddenly looking anything but cold.
“Yeah, they’re not eating my golden one, man. I don’t want their filth on it.”
Has-Been cleared his throat.
“Okay, let’s do this. They took enough of my life back then. They’re not taking my whole fucking night too. Ungag them.”
Oh god. It was beginning. Rocket reappeared beside me, having stepped out of the way for all the discussions that had ended up involving me, when I’d meant to be quiet and watchful.
“Good thoughts, V. Still okay if you wait outside.” I shook my head, leaning closer to him as Nixie reached over to nip at his cut.
“She’s due for some of that milk stuff soon,” he said quietly, as we watched the men being ungagged, and they immediately started speaking over each other.
“Whatever this is about, we can resolve it.”
“I have money. We both have money. That’s what your kind is after.”
Money. Oh hell. I turned to Rocket.
“Money, huh? Maybe that should be passed on too, don’t you think?” He snorted, eyeing me warily for a moment.
“Remind me never to fuck with you, woman. Hey, Reacher.”
He moved forward to talk with the men again, and I glanced around us, wishing there was a chair I could sit in with Nixie while this went down.
Maybe that was a good thing though. I’d probably look like some twisted Bond villain, sitting in a chair, stroking a furry critter, while evil happened all around me.
Or maybe the evil happened long ago, and this was the moment where good would finally triumph over it.