Chapter 15 Axel
Axel
Vin’s idea of an “emergency meeting” was as subtle as a pipe bomb.
Six missed calls, then a text that just said “Clubhouse. Now. Bring your fuckin’ A-game.
” I was two beers deep at the Rusty Chain’s sticky-ass bar before I even noticed, but the moment I did, the adrenaline kicked through my veins like a relay baton.
The Royal Bastards’ Lexington chapter didn’t do subtle.
The place was already at full riot by the time I limped up the back stairs.
Canon, Shivs, and Moab were hunched around the kidney-shaped table.
Red was perched on a milk crate by the window, legs crossed, flame-orange hair pulled back in a brutal ponytail.
I walked in last, which would have been the height of disrespect for a full patch, but as a Prospect, I just got a few Snickers and a sarcastic “Good morning, sunshine” from Moab.
My left eye was swollen half shut, and the tape job on my ribs peeked out from under my cut like a sad attempt at a sports bra.
Red’s gaze hit the bruises and she shook her head, a feral smile curling up.
“Somebody tell the preacher’s little helper to stop using his face as a brake pedal,” she said.
“Maybe he likes it rough,” Canon growled, voice like gravel in a blender. He was the only man I’d ever seen do a shot of hot sauce on a dare, then go back for seconds.
Moab snorted and tapped the table. “Meeting’s called, you gorillas. Let’s get this circus started.”
Vin didn’t bother standing. He just slammed his palm flat, hard enough to rattle a bottle off the edge.
“All right, listen the fuck up.” He had a voice like rebar dragged over concrete, and when he got loud, it came from deep in the chest. “We got problems with the church crowd again. This time it’s personal. ”
He fixed his gaze on me. I made a show of popping open a fresh Pbr and waiting for the room to chill out, but every set of eyes in the place was on me, waiting to see if I’d flinch or fold. I did neither.
“Maple?” I said, not even a question.
Vin nodded, then cut his hand through the air. “Motherfucker’s been sniffing around, using his flock to dig at our business. Yesterday, he called us out by name.”
Red interrupted with a theatrical cough.
“Church gossip says it’s more than just a holy war, Vin.
My people inside say they’re running something out the back of the sanctuary.
Money, pills, maybe bodies.” She tapped ash into an empty shot glass.
“And they’re getting protection from someone higher up than the cops. ”
Moab spat tobacco juice into the communal spittoon—a Dunkin Donuts coffee can, because fuck corporate sponsorship. “You hear that, Axel?” He looked at me like I was a defective grenade he wasn’t sure would go off. “Your girl’s daddy is making us look like amateurs.”
I sipped my beer, then leaned back until my chair nearly tipped over. “That preacher’s all smoke. He talks big, but it’s just for show.” A pause. “But I’ll check it out, if that’s the job.”
Vin’s eyebrows did their best to reach orbit. “You volunteering?”
I shrugged. “I owe him a black eye.”
Red grinned. “Ooooh, he’s got a personal grudge. How cute.”
Shiv just shook his head. “Fuckin’ Romeo.”
“Pipe down,” Vin growled, silencing the room. He looked at me with that military stare, the one that’d make a lesser man break eye contact. “You’re not walking in alone. I want you to take Shivs and DJ. They’ll keep your nuts from getting pinched in the collection plate.”
Shivs clapped once, loud and sharp. “Hell yeah, boss. When do we roll?”
“Tonight. Church is hosting a food drive, lotta bodies moving in and out. Recon only, unless they escalate.”
“Always escalate,” Shivs muttered, but nobody contradicted.
Vin turned to Red. “Keep working your angle. Find out who’s protecting Maple. Money men, politicians, sheriffs—doesn’t matter, just give me a name.”
Red saluted with her middle finger. “Already on it, Prez.”
The room shifted gears. Moab lit a smoke and started picking at his broken finger.
Canon dug into a can of Vienna sausages with a butterfly knife.
Moab poured himself a three-finger whiskey.
I sat there, icepack on my face, watching it all like a strange family dinner. Vin caught my eye one more time.
“You gonna keep seeing his daughter? Pussy worth it?”
I shrugged. “I plan on it.”
He smirked. “If that becomes a problem, you let me know before you try to solve it yourself.”
“I got no problems, Vin,” I said. “Only solutions.”
He barked a short laugh. “That’s what worries me.”
***
Clubhouse meetings never ended so much as they slowly decayed.
Vin headed out first, probably to squeeze an informant or punch a mailbox, and Moab shuffled off to the bathroom, moaning about taking a piss too much.
Canon and Shivs started arguing over the best gas station in Kentucky for blowjobs, which meant I was left to clean up.
I didn’t mind. There was something ritualistic about putting the empty bottles in neat rows, mopping up the spilled beer, and lighting a stick of incense to cover the stench of ash and testosterone.
Red waited until the room was mostly empty, then sidled up to the table, elbows on the sticky wood. “You’re really going to do this?” she said, voice low. “Go after a church, in this town?”
“I’m not going after the church,” I said. “Just the asshole running it.”
She flicked her lighter, thumb rolling the wheel slow. “You know they’re going to crucify you if this goes sideways.”
I grinned. “Story of my life.”
Her mouth twitched, like she wanted to say something else, but she just shook her head and wandered out to the bar, where the night crowd was starting to filter in.
I stayed behind, counting the cracks in the wood, feeling the old ache in my ribs.
The prospect patch on my cut scratched against my collarbone, a constant reminder that I was still on the bottom rung, still one bad day from washing out.
But that’s the thing about being at the bottom, you could see the whole system of power above you, clear as day.
And right at the top, bigger and nastier than any bastard in this room, was the Reverend Archie Maple.
I finished my beer, knuckles whitening on the bottle neck, already running the plan through my head. If the church was running product, I’d find it. If they were moving bodies, I’d see where they stacked them. If the preacher wanted a holy war, I’d give him one.
But first, I had to get through another night of pretending I wasn’t bleeding inside. Piece of cake.
***
I sat on the edge of the bed, a mattress so thin it might’ve been a yoga mat in another life, and flicked open my old Kershaw blade.
The movement was hypnotic—blade in, blade out, thumb just missing the catch every other time.
It was the first gift I’d ever gotten from anyone who wanted to keep me alive.
I wiped it clean with the hem of my shirt, even though the last thing it had tasted was a pepperoni stick from the 7-Eleven down the street.
The burner phone on my nightstand vibrated so hard it nearly skittered off the surface.
I expected Vin or maybe Moab with a last-minute change to the mission, but the number was blocked.
The only people who called blocked were telemarketers or ghosts from the past, and I didn’t owe any money to the former.
I thumbed it open, and just for a second, the world stopped spinning.
“Axel?” Her voice was raw, like she’d been running or crying or maybe both.
I didn’t answer right away. There was a game we played, Darla and I, where the first to speak lost. I lost, every time.
“Yeah,” I said, and it sounded like someone else’s voice. “I’m here. What’s up, princess?”
A soft, nervous laugh. “Don’t call me that.”
“Would you prefer ‘Reverend’s little angel’?”
This time, her silence was colder. I closed the blade and stared at my reflection in the cracked mirror across from the bed.
The swelling on my cheek had settled into a respectable purple, and my lower lip looked like a chewed-up cherry.
I couldn’t tell if the black eye made me look tough or just tired.
“Axel, my dad—he’s lost his mind.” Her voice was sharp now, all the breathy fear gone. “He called you out, by name. He said God told him to cleanse the town of sinners. You. The club. All of you.”
“Nice to be famous,” I said, but my stomach dropped anyway. “How many people heard?”
“All of them,” she whispered. “He made sure.”
I lay back, phone balanced against my ear, feeling the familiar click of adrenaline cutting through the fog. “What about you? Where are you now?”
“In my room. Locked door. Dad’s at the church, probably plotting a lynch mob.”
“Anyone watching you?”
She hesitated. “Bart is. I think he’s outside my window. I saw him in the reflection.”
“Fuck,” I breathed. “Okay, new plan. You need to get rid of your phone. Burn it. We’ll set up a system.”
She was quiet a second. “A system?”
“Code phrases,” I said. “If you’re in trouble, you text me ‘midnight sandwich,’ or some shit like that. If it’s safe to meet, you send ‘blue candle.’ Anything else and I’ll assume you’re compromised.”
She laughed again, and this time it was real. “Midnight sandwich? Where the hell did you get that?”
“Guy’s gotta eat,” I said. “Humor me.”
“Okay.”
I could almost see her sitting on the edge of her bed, same as me, knees curled up, phone pressed to her ear like it was a lifeline.
I remembered the last time I saw her, hair up, skin still tasting of sun and sweet sweat, whispering secrets into my chest as if the world was ending and she needed to confess before it was too late.
“I should go,” she said, but she didn’t hang up.
“You should,” I agreed.
Neither of us moved.
“I miss you,” she finally said, so low I almost didn’t catch it.
My heart stuttered. Not the way it’s supposed to, but the way an engine does when it’s half frozen and somebody’s forcing the ignition. I swallowed hard, tracing the edge of the phone with my thumb.
“You’re not making this easier,” I said.
“You don’t make things easy,” she replied, and that was fair.
The radiator hissed, filling the silence with its own dying animal noises.
“They’re going to hurt you,” she said, voice back to a trembling whisper. “My father—he’s not what he seems, Axel. He’ll burn the whole town down to get at you. At us.”
“I know,” I said. “Let him try.”
“Why don’t you just leave?” she asked, and I heard the plea behind it.
“Because then he wins. And I’m tired of running.” I sat up, grinding my knuckles against my knees, like maybe if I hit myself hard enough, I’d stop feeling things. “I want you. That’s not a safe thing to want, but there it is.”
There was nothing but breathing on the line for a while.
“I want you too,” she said, “but I can’t be the reason you get killed.”
I grinned, split lip aching as it tore open again. “Your daddy’s men can beat me bloody every day, princess. I’m not backing down.”
She let out a sound that was half sob, half laugh. “You’re insane.”
“Wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”
This time, she hung up first. I sat there, listening to the absence of her voice, staring at the knife and the empty space beside me on the bed.
Maybe Vin was right, maybe I was a liability. But there was something about forbidden fruit that made me hungrier, and I knew—absolutely fucking knew—that I’d walk into the church naked and unarmed if it meant getting another hour with her.
I tossed the burner onto the mattress, rolled onto my back, and watched the ceiling cracks make constellations in the dark. They looked like fault lines to me, as if the whole building was just waiting to split open and swallow me down. I smiled anyway, blood running salty in my mouth.
Tomorrow, I’d be the one making the first move.