Chapter 22
Wraith
Every muscle in my body burns. I’m like a gas tank, running on a combination of bad fuel and empty, sucking all the crud from the bottom of the tank into my carb, blocking it up until all I can do is sputter and cough out.
What a fucking night.
What a hell of a fucked up fucking night.
Fuck.
Some asshole with a death wish decided to set fire to one of our warehouses. The particular warehouse just happened to belong to what’s going to be the new chapter of The Riders. It was going to be Viking’s warehouse, the largest one.
By the time we got there, despite riding our bikes into the ground to get to Jacksonville, the entire thing was lost. It wasn’t as if we could make an insurance claim on the contents of the building.
No adjuster or company is going to reimburse us for a shit fuck ton of weed.
That would be begging to end up in jail, obviously.
The building itself was basically worthless.
A run down, dumpy warehouse that no one really cared about or bothered with.
The perfect place to hide in plain sight.
The stench of the smoldering remains clings to me, to my leather and my denim, my hair and my skin, even after an even longer, more brutal ride home back to Helena. Tonight was the one night that I failed to enjoy the early morning, open stretch of road.
I pull up to the clubhouse alongside Steel and Edge.
Both men look exhausted, like they’ve been shoved in the wrong side of a mower and come out chewed up, regurgitated looking, fucking terrible.
Steel has exhausted lines etched deep into his forehead and around his eyes.
It’s the first time I’ve seen him look old.
His black hair is messy, tangled around his shoulders, his steel gray eyes wary and weary.
Edge doesn’t look much better. He’s a few years younger than Steel, but after a hard morning, after everything else that went down, he looks like he needs to sleep for the next decade straight.
Both men, proud men—the best men I fucking know—push off from their bikes, but their shoulders are bowed under the weight of their burdens.
“You gonna call church?” I ask as I follow them into the clubhouse.
I know neither of them want to answer me, but Edge finally turns. “Nah. Not yet. We’re still dealing with Viking. I don’t want to worry the men needlessly.”
Steel storms through the clubhouse and collapses on the black leather couch in the lounge area.
He lets out a feral sounding groan and tucks his hands behind his head.
He’s covered in soot and reeks of smoke, just like Edge, Snake, and me, the guys who went down with him.
It was just us four. If the whole damn club showed up, it would have aroused suspicion.
“Better fucking shower that shit off of you before you head home,” Edge warns.
He leans up against the wall, as though he needs it to hold his weight up and he probably does.
“You smell like you rolled in a chimney. Leah will take one whiff of you and go back to puking. She’ll be worried too.
Wouldn’t want you to have got so close.”
Steel grunts. He closes his eyes, but his lips thin out into near non-existence. “That’s not what should really worry her. We lost a lot of fucking supply tonight, but we have other warehouses. That’s the point. Don’t put all your fuckin’ eggs in one fuckin’ basket.”
“What kind of bastard says that we’re too weak a club to protect ours? Viking’s boy is a fucking asshat. He’s lucky I didn’t put a bullet into him right where he fucking stood or slammed my fist into his mouth. He would have looked better minus a few teeth.”
“It’s fucking satisfying,” I admit, from my place over at the side of the room. I don’t like Leena’s brother and if the opportunity ever arises again to punch the fucker, then I’m not gonna let it pass.
“Hitting the bastard son? You’re lucky that you didn’t piss him off that night with what you did,” Edge grinds out, but I can tell he doesn’t mean it, not with the rage boiling through him the way it is. “Tonight would have been strike three.”
Steel curses under his breath. “We’ll figure out who lit that place up.
Who dares fuck with us and what’s ours. We might be a fucking peaceful club for the most part.
Protecting our town and what’s ours by not starting useless fucking wars over turf and drugs, women and stupid shit, but if they think we’ll take this lying down, then they’ve got another thing fucking coming. ”
“Pieces of fucking shit. All of them. They’ll make a shit chapter if they can’t look after their own businesses. We’re gonna have to move some of our men to Jacksonville. Let them keep a handle on shit. Just sending people down every day ain’t enough.”
“I’m sure some of the guys wouldn’t mind moving,” I say, as quietly as I can, even though the urge to smash my fist through the block walls is as great as ever when I’m pissed the fuck off.
“Wouldn’t mind moving?” Steel echoes. “Jesus. Can you hear yourself?”
Edge actually chuckles. “If my morning wasn’t soundly fucking ruined by some prick burning down our best warehouse and having to deal with Viking’s asshole son, I’d bug you about being pussy whipped. It only took her three days. I’ll have to give her a medal and congratulate her.”
“Says the man who can’t take a shit without his old lady’s say so.”
Steel arches up off the couch. He gives me a punishing stare that makes me want to squirm on the spot. “That old lady just happens to be my daughter and we are definitely not gonna bring her into it.”
“Sorry.” I barely control a shit-eating grin, not fucking sorry at all.
Edge groans and rolls his eyes. “You know, you’re a little shithead, Wraith. Seriously. That should be your club name. Shithead.”
I let that wicked grin break fully over my face. “I actually prefer Fuckmouth. I like the ring to that. I’m sure my new wife wouldn’t complain.”
Edge feigns a shudder. “You disgust me.”
“We have bigger things to talk about,” Steel grunts, bringing us all back to the ugliness of our present reality.
The warehouse. One pissed off soon-to-be chapter, if they even agree to become one.
The threat of an all-out war hangs over us, but I feel like Steel is getting used to the damn idea.
What would a war look like between The Riders and my wife’s family though?
She’d be caught in the middle, Leena, the sweet, pure, gentle woman who told me that she’s never actually been loved before.
Or wanted. That she’s never had a real home.
I want to give her mine. I want to give her fucking everything.
It doesn’t even make sense to me that I could feel that way.
That I’d want to claim her. That I’d be so fucking crazy for her that when I think about her, it hurts to even breathe.
That I’d protect her with my life because she’s mine, and I don’t need years to know it. I knew it the second I fucking saw her.
Because she was made for me.
“That’s talk for this evening or tomorrow,” Steel reminds us again. “This shit with Viking and the warehouse. It’s bad enough we just averted the disaster with his daughter and Gage. Now this. We’ll discuss it tonight. Nothing about this is right.”
“You think they’re trying to sabotage their own deal?” Edge raises a brow. The look on his face is absolutely murderous.
Steel shrugs. “Don’t know. He seemed happy enough to be in the agreement.
Gave his own daughters to it. Don’t know why he’d bring us down when he’s now a part of it.
He could have gone to war before, if he wanted to.
I think this is something else. Someone.
Some other club who has a beef with us expanding.
That kind of shit never comes without growing pains. ”
“The warehouse or the shit with Gage?”
“I don’t know,” Steel admits. “But I’m fucking gonna find out.”
“It’s hard to think at ten in the morning after being up all damn night dealing with shit like this,” Edge forces out. “I’m happy to go home and shower this fucking day off of me.”
“Let your old lady take care of you,” I tack on.
Steel and Edge shoot me murderous glares.
This is more like it. More like them wanting to hate me, but for some reason, never being able to.
More like me getting under their skin and them being good enough fuckers to take the ribbing day in and day out and use it as some sort of comic fucking relief.
Steel slams to his feet. “Viking is an asshole. I can do with a few hours’ sleep not thinking about him.”
“Shower here,” Edge advises him. “Harley’s even worried about Leah. You should take her to see a doctor. Get her some pills for that shit. She shouldn’t be walking around sick as a dog all the time.”
“You think I haven’t tried that?” Steel looms over Edge, menacingly, but Edge just rolls his eyes like he’s bored with Steel’s tantrums. “She refused to go.”
“I see. So she’s as stubborn as you. That’s why you both make a good match.”
“Remind me again why I don’t kill you?”
I turn around and leave to the bickering of men who sound like they themselves are married old ladies. I like it. It’s good to hear them back to normal after the terrible morning, and shit last few days they and the rest of the club, have had to endure.
Outside, I gun my bike to life and roar out of the compound. Exhausted and dirty, sick inside at the thought of what might happen between our club and Viking’s forces and what that means for Leena, I just want to get home.
I want to pet Abby until she’s slobbering all over my hands.
I want to pick her up and bury my nose in her fur and breathe in her doggy scent.
And then I’ll do the same for Leena. I’ll bury my nose in her hair and inhale the sweet flowers that cling to those mahogany strands.
I want to haul her into the shower with me and fuck her until we’re both raw and moaning, until her skin is as wet from our combined juices as it is from the water.