Chapter Thirty-Six
Nano
It had been two days since I turned my back on Alexandra.
Two days of sitting in this goddamn church, nursing a sore fucking leg, and refusing to speak to anyone as I connected the webcams so Morpheus could talk with Zeus, Reaper, and King.
The knife wound in my thigh throbbed with every movement. A constant, vicious reminder of what had happened in that basement. Scythe had driven the blade deep, and even though Carver had stitched it up, the pain lingered. Sharp and insistent. Like my body was punishing me for what I had done.
Good. You deserve worse.
I adjusted the camera angle, making sure the feed was clear.
The church was empty except for me and the ghosts of every decision I had ever made in the last seventy-two hours.
The heavy wooden table. The leather chairs.
The Brotherhood insignia carved into the walls.
This room had witnessed a lot of shit over the years.
But nothing quite like what I had done to Alex.
Stop thinking about her.
I couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried, my mind kept circling back to that moment in the basement.
The moment I turned my back on her. The moment I walked away and left her kneeling on the cold concrete, broken and desperate and begging me to look at her.
And I didn’t. Because Morpheus was right.
Because she needed to understand that defiance had consequences.
Because I needed to prove to the club, and to myself, that I could still be the man they needed me to be.
But all I had proven was that I was a fucking coward.
Brothers filtered into church just as the screens flickered to life and the connections started coming through. Zeus appeared first, his face filling the monitor from the Gods of Mayhem clubhouse in Athens. Then Reaper from the Golden Skulls. Then King from the Silver Shadows.
“Jesus fuck,” Zeus gasped as the screens connected. “What the fuck happened?”
Poseidon groaned as he held an ice pack to his face. “My sister happened.”
Kraken, another brother in the Gods of Mayhem, snickered. “Hurricane Alex reared her ugly head, Prez, and it wasn’t pretty.”
“Do we even want to know?” Hades, the V.P. for the Gods of Mayhem, groaned as I stared at the big screen on the wall.
“She stole seventy-five million from my club.” Morpheus sighed, shaking his head, as Reaper and King both threw their heads back and laughed.
“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer group of assholes.” Reaper chuckled.
“Fuck you, asshole.” Morpheus smirked, shaking his head.
“Is she alive?” Coeus asked, sitting up.
When no one replied, I looked up to find all eyes on me. Sighing, I muttered, “Barely.”
“What are we missing?” Zeus asked from his clubhouse in Athens, Texas.
“The Brotherhood acquired another old lady.” Cerberus chuckled as I growled. “Congratulate us!”
“Ah, fuck,” Zeus groaned, then asked, “You sure about this, Poseidon? Say the word and I will make a deal with Morpheus to get the brat home.”
Several of my brothers stiffened, and I growled as Poseidon looked my way and sneered at me. “No. Alex made her bed. It’s time my sister learned that actions have consequences.”
“She’s mine.”
“We know!” my brothers, along with Morpheus, groaned before he added, “Gonna have to excuse Nano. He’s still bitchy about the knife wound in his leg.”
Zeus laughed heartily as he asked, “She stabbed him?”
“No.” Scythe grinned, licking his blade. “I did.”
“This is all enlightening, and I’m happy for you, Nano, but I’ve got shit to take care of, so if we can hurry this meeting along,” King snarked as Cash and several of the Diamond Creek Chapter of the Silver Shadows snickered.
“What’s the hurry, old man? You got somewhere else you need to be?” Reaper challenged.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” King snapped as he sat forward, pointing at the screen. “You left fucknuts with me! Would you like to know what it’s like dealing with an injured Montana fucking Stone! He doesn’t listen to shit.”
“Put another cap in his leg. That will shut him up.” Reaper smirked.
“I fucking heard that, asshole,” the man in question sneered as his face appeared on the screen.
“HI-YA, buddy!” Reaper grinned from ear to ear. “You look like dog shit, fucknuts.”
“Fuck off, asshole,” Montana groaned. “What the hell is going on? Where the fuck is my granddaughter? And where the fuck—hey! Give me that back!”
The screen went black for a few seconds before Mercy, the former V.P.
of the Soulless Sinners, appeared on the screen.
“Sorry about that. Montana forgot to take his happy pills today. Reaper, letting you know the doc here is releasing Montana in the morning. Bane and Tessa have made arrangements to have him and Malice flown back to New York as soon as possible. We have a funeral to prepare for.”
“Understood,” Reaper said solemnly. “You guys need anything, you call me. Got it?”
Mercy nodded before disconnecting the call. The silence that followed was deafening before King spoke next. “Speaking of funerals. Nano, we are having Ghost’s funeral this coming Friday. We would like you to come.”
The words hit me like a physical blow.
Ghost.
Travis.
My brother.
The only family I had left in this world, and he was dead. Killed in the Death Dogs’ attack on Diamond Creek. Shot to hell alongside Indigo and Eros while the Federation was still trying to keep their alliance hidden.
I had known. Of course I had known. Morpheus had told me the second he got confirmation.
But there wasn’t time to process it. Hadn’t been time to mourn.
Everything had been moving too fast. The attack, the aftermath, the missing money, the hunt for the thief, Alex’s capture, the basement, the confession, and now it was real.
Travis was dead. My older brother. The one who had tried to protect our mother from her shitty boyfriends. The one who had taken a beating from Carl and then disappeared without saying goodbye. The one I had spent years resenting for leaving me behind.
He was gone, and I was alone.
A true bastard.
“We will all be there, King,” Morpheus said when I refused to speak.
I didn’t respond. Couldn’t. My throat was too tight. My chest was too heavy. The weight of it pressed down on me like a physical thing, crushing the air from my lungs.
Travis was dead, and I hadn’t even had time to say goodbye.
As the meeting continued, I refused to think about my brother, choosing to stare off into nothing as my mind turned to the woman upstairs in my room.
Alexandra.
I warned Morpheus that his course of action would break her, and I was right. My woman was broken. Completely, utterly broken. The fight inside her had vanished, leaving only a shell of the woman she used to be. Nothing I said or did seemed to penetrate the wall she’d erected.
I replayed everything in my mind. From the moment I laid eyes on her to the second I turned my back on her, trying to think of something, anything I could do or say to get the stubborn woman I fell in love with back.
But even I knew that once something was broken, it could never be put back together the same way.
Carver told me I needed to give her time.
But I knew time wasn’t on my side. Something had to give, and soon, before I lost her forever.
The presidents were still talking, coordinating logistics, discussing Arizona’s location in Rapid City, debating whether to send a joint team or let the Brotherhood handle it alone.
Morpheus was in his element, calm and strategic, laying out the plan as if he was discussing the weather.
But I wasn’t listening. All I could think about was Alex.
Upstairs. Alone. Staring at nothing the way I was staring at nothing now.
You did this to her.
The thought was a knife twisting in my gut, sharper than anything Scythe had done to my leg.
You broke her. You turned your back on her when she needed you most. You chose the club over her.
No, that wasn’t true. I hadn’t chosen the club.
I’d chosen survival. I’d chosen to prove to Morpheus that I could still be trusted.
That I wasn’t compromised. That I could still be the brother they needed.
But in doing so, I’d destroyed the one person who ever made me feel like I was more than just a monster.
Fuck.
“Nano.”
Morpheus’ voice cut through the fog in my head. I looked up to find him staring at me, his expression unreadable.
“You good, brother?” he asked quietly.
I nodded, even though it was a lie. “Yeah. I’m good.”
He didn’t believe me. I could see it in his eyes. But he didn’t push. Just turned back to the screen and continued the conversation, and I sat there, staring at the monitors, feeling the weight of everything I had lost pressing down on me like a fucking avalanche.
Travis was dead.
Alex was broken.
And I was alone.