Chapter 7 #2
“Rory was helping Mule fix her busted front door. Hunter showed up to be an asshole and we got in a fight.”
“Is Donovan okay?” Diesel asked carefully.
“She was until she tried to break us up,” I sighed, feeling like a piece of shit all over again.
“She got hurt?”
“I didn’t realize I’d punched her. Could have fucking killed her, man,” I said with a wince.
“She copped a full hit to the face?” he asked with alarm. “It’s only a little over two weeks since her punishment. She’s barely healed.”
“I need to get back to her tonight. She scared me a little. Her balance is fucked and she was throwing up. I’ve never seen her like that. I mean, even Marco freaked out and helped her,” I said with a sigh.
“They’re getting too close to her.”
“I know. They haven’t done anything to her, and they seem to genuinely give a shit.
I don’t know if it's good to have them on our side or not.” I swallowed, holding up my phone.
“That video was taken the night Hunter saw me driving the truck. This is why he tried to kill me. He thought I was in on it.”
“So you’re forgiving them?” Jonah asked with confusion.
“No. I don’t know what to think right now. How has it only been three days since Slash was killed?” I asked no one in particular.
“You look beat. Go home, everything else can wait until tomorrow,” Jonah stated, and Diesel nodded.
“I think we could all do with an early night tonight. You crashing at Donovan’s?”
“Yeah. You want to come for a bit? I can ask Holloway if you can crash there too, if you want? They have loads of bedrooms. Might be a good idea to keep the buddy system in place,” I suggested, making him wince.
“Josie doesn’t like us much.”
“We’re not exactly the type of guys a mother gets excited about when her daughter brings us home,” I joked, sending Caden a text. It was possible he was asleep since it was almost nine, but it was worth a shot.
Skeeter: You cool if D comes and crashes tonight? I want to check on Aurora but don’t particularly want to leave him alone. He’s been staying with me.
It took a minute, but he replied.
Caden: Yeah, that’s fine. Rory’s asleep at the moment, Ty’s with her.
Skeeter: We’ll be there soon.
“Holloway’s fine with you staying,” I told Diesel, pocketing my phone. “You ready to leave?”
“Josie will freak out if we show up like this,” he said with a grimace, and I chuckled.
“She’ll be fine. She likes me now.”
“Doubtful.”
We said goodbye to the others, who were all sticking around for a beer, before we drove to Rory’s and parked out front in the driveway.
I used the code to get in, finding Josie in the kitchen talking to Caden and Lukas. Jensen must have been upstairs with Rory and Tyler.
“You look like shit,” Lukas observed as he ran his eyes over us, and Josie gasped when she looked over.
“What happened?” she demanded.
“My ex best friend runs a rival crew. We ran into each other,” I said honestly, pointing to Diesel. “One of our guys talked badly about his dead girlfriend, so he beat him up.”
“Sit down, both of you,” she fussed, already grabbing a medical bag out from one of the cupboards.
“We’ll clean up before bed. We—” she didn’t let me finish.
“You’ll sit down right now, Skeeter Maddox. If you’re a part of this family, then you’ll let me look,” she scolded, giving Diesel a dirty look when he snickered. “You too. Sit.”
We both sat at the counter, and as much as her fussing pissed me off, it also made me realize that we’d grown on her if she was worried.
Caden seemed happy about us letting her fuss too.
Once she’d cleaned the marks on my face and started on Diesel, Lukas moved to sit on the stool beside mine.
“What’s going to happen to Slash’s house and his belongings? Is it owned by the crew?” he asked curiously.
“Slash’s assets were his own and he had a will made up around the time he bought the house.
I have no idea who he left things to since the crew was all he had.
He might have left it all to the Psychos, he might have donated it to charity, or he might have left it all for one of the members that he was closer with.
It wasn’t something we really talked about since we thought we had a lot more time,” I replied, accepting a cold beer from Caden as he leaned against the counter opposite us.
“I’m surprised he had one, to be honest,” Caden admitted.
“He has a brother who he would’ve rather set on fire than leave any belongings to. Trust me, he wanted to cover his ass,” I said dryly, both guys looking at me.
“He has a brother? Younger or older?” Lukas questioned with surprise.
“Older. They don’t have a relationship.”
“Do they live here?”
“Stoneleigh.”
“Why don’t they have a relationship?”
“His brother killed their parents and little sister when they were kids. He runs the Shadow Kings crew.”
“He’s going to come back and haunt your ass for blabbing his private shit,” Diesel muttered, looking highly uncomfortable to have Josie putting ointment on his face.
“Wait, Slash’s brother is Rage Evans?” Caden sputtered.
“Yeah. See why he kept it a secret? I wouldn’t want to be connected to that prick either,” I said grimly, sipping my beer.
“Will he go to the funeral?”
“Fucking hope not or more people will die. The last thing we need right now is the Kings coming to town on top of everything else.”
“You boys all need to stay out of trouble,” Josie said firmly, taking a step back from Diesel to inspect his face.
“Trouble seems to find us,” Diesel said with a straight face, a small smile tugging at Josie’s lips.
“I bet. I don’t want you two keeping Rory and the boys awake too late tonight. They have school in the morning. I don’t know what happened to her friend though. What was her name? Mule? She was supposed to spend the night but didn’t come back with Rory. What parent names their child Mule, anyway?”
“They don’t. Her name is Ashlynn. She gets in fights and is known for using her feet,” I explained, not really being able to say she fights in our illegal cage fights.
“Kicks like a mule,” Diesel added as if she didn’t understand.
“Oh. Well, you really should call her by her proper name. It’s pretty,” Josie said with a frown.
“She prefers Mule. Thanks for playing doctor,” I replied as I stood to stretch, my muscles screaming at me.
“You’re welcome. You’ll be here next Thursday, yes?” she asked, making me glance at her with confusion.
“Why?”
“Thanksgiving. I imagine it’s a tough time right now for you all. Diesel, you’re welcome too. Unless you have plans,” she said quickly, and I knew this wasn’t something she’d been planning since Caden looked just as surprised as us.
“We don’t have plans,” I said slowly, but Diesel cringed.
“I usually spend it at home. It was always Sasha’s thing and I haven’t really felt very thankful since losing her. Thank you for the invitation though.”
“If you change your mind, you know where we will be. I always cook for Thanksgiving and I make way too much,” she laughed. “If any of your other friends need somewhere to go, they can come too.”
“I’ll let them know,” I confirmed, not sure how to feel about it.
Sure, some of us caught up for a beer on Thanksgiving, but it had been a long time since we’d had a big meal and get-together. There also weren’t many of the guys that I’d trust in this house.
“Good. I need to head to bed, I have a meeting tomorrow and have to leave early. I’ll be checking that you all get to school, Caden,” she said as she kissed his cheek. “Get a good sleep.”
“We will,” he grumbled, waiting for her to leave before grabbing a beer of his own and glancing at Diesel. “So, who’d you beat up?”
“Matteo,” Diesel grunted, the guys nodding like it made perfect sense.
It kind of did, the guy had been an asshole for months.
“Did Rory ice her face?” I asked, and Lukas gave me a dirty look.
“Yes. How the fuck did you accidentally punch her?”
“I blackout when I fight sometimes. I didn’t know I hit her,” I hissed. “Don’t look at me like that, I didn’t mean to.”
“She’s napped most of the evening. Ty and Jensen didn’t have to fight her much to get her to go to bed.”
“Good. I’ll have to kick one of the guys out of her bed.”
“Good luck,” Lukas grunted, glancing towards the doorway to the stairs and doing a double-take. “Baby, you should be in bed.”
I looked over to find Rory walking in, one of the guys’ shirts hanging off her frame and nothing else.
I moved towards her without having to think about it, wrapping my arms around her and dropping a kiss to her head.
“Hey, baby girl.”
She sank into me, and as much as I wanted to be annoyed when Diesel appeared beside me to check on her, I couldn’t. Having his support for our relationship was a godsend and made things within the crew so much easier.
“Hey. You okay?” he asked with worry.
“You saw the other guy, right? I made a mess of him,” she joked without pulling away from me, making me scoff.
“Very funny. None of this damage was from you, and you know it.”
“How was your meeting?” she asked, and I sighed.
“Repetitive. Matteo talked shit about Sasha and got his ass beat, so that was at least amusing.”
“He did what?” she bit out, pulling back from me to look at Diesel, noticing his damage.
“You should see the other guy,” he deadpanned, making her laugh lightly at throwing her own joke back at her.
“Are you still dizzy?” I murmured as I gently thumbed the bruise on her temple.
“Not really. If I stand up too fast it hits me a little, but it’s mostly gone now,” she smiled, my hands dropping to her ass.
“Good. You should get back in bed, I’ll be up soon,” I promised, her nose scrunching.
“The bed’s kind of full.”
“They can make room. Gilbert can crash with Lukas,” I stated, making Lukas glare at me.
“He needs time with Rory, asshole. Just because we’re figuring something out between us, doesn’t mean we get less time with Rory. Why can’t you crash with Diesel or something?”
“You guys don’t have to share beds. There’s a million spare bedrooms,” Caden reminded us, moving over to us to kiss Rory. “Go back to bed. I’ll set Skeet up in his own room.”
“Excuse me?” I scoffed, and he raised an eyebrow.
“You’re excused. It’s time you realized you can’t hog her all the time. You can have your own bedroom here permanently so on nights you sneak in and there’s no room for you, you can crash in there instead.”
I fumed as he stared me down, making Diesel snicker. “You guys are like a real family. Look at you fighting and—”
“Shut up,” I warned, giving Rory a kiss before taking a breath. “I’ll see you in the morning. I love you.”
That seemed to fry her brain for a moment as she just blinked at me, then she leaned in to hug me tightly.
“I love you too.”
I’d never get tired of hearing those words come from her mouth. They were terrifying, but so goddamn perfect.
Diesel looked indecisive as we went to walk up the stairs with Caden, but then he quickly reached for Rory to push her hair back from the bruise to look at it properly himself. He could see that she was fine, but I didn’t blame him for wanting to make sure.
“I’m okay,” she promised quietly, giving him a hug that he didn’t pull back from.
I was pretty sure she knew he was in his own head and needed the comfort himself.
He didn’t say anything as he hugged her back, patting her on the back for a moment before letting go and motioning to the stairs for us to go to bed.
Caden led us to our own bedrooms, while Lukas made sure Rory got back to her room, and once I was in the ridiculously big bed alone, the silence became unbearable.
I’d been working myself into the ground or surrounding myself with people since Slash’s death, and now it was so quiet I could hear my own damn heartbeat. I was so fucking angry, but the grief hit like a tsunami and washed it away, making room for the devastation below the surface.
My best friend, the guy I’d called my brother for almost my entire life, was gone. No warning, no time to prepare, nothing.
“Fuck,” I cursed quietly as I sat up and put my head in my hands, fighting tears. I didn’t cry, Savage had made sure to raise me as a machine, not a man, but tears finally fell after a second as I took the time to finally grieve.
In this life, death was always on the horizon. Those of us in our twenties knew we were probably already halfway through our lifespan. Not many made it to their sixties.
Hell, a lot barely made it to thirty, so Slash’s death was always a high possibility, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t a shock.
I never thought I’d take over the Psychos, I assumed I’d stand beside Slash while he did it until we died in a blaze of glory together closer to forty. We still had so many things we’d wanted to do together for the crew, changing the way the world looked at us.
Now, it was all on me to keep pushing to complete what he wanted.
I wasn’t sure how long I allowed myself to cry, but I made a promise to myself that I’d put my mask back in place in the morning and make sure to prepare to give Slash the best send-off I could, and to ensure the Soldiers paid for their sins in blood.