Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Torment
Later that night...
Montana called us back to the boardroom around eleven PM.
I’d been in my office, staring at my phone like it might spontaneously produce answers, when Mercy knocked and told me to come. The others were already gathering—Fury, Vicious, Payne, Rage, Storm, and Pippen. Everyone except Shame, who was still out working his contacts.
The clubhouse felt even emptier at night. Our footsteps echoed down the hallway, and the fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like angry insects. Montana was already seated at the head of the table when we filed in, his face drawn and pale but his eyes burning with that familiar stubborn fire.
He didn’t wait for everyone to settle.
“I’m not agreeing to the patch-over,” he said flatly.
The room went still.
Mercy stiffened in his seat beside Montana, his jaw tightening. “Montana—”
“I said no.” Montana’s voice was steel. “I’m not handing over my club to Reaper. I don’t give a fuck what the circumstances are.”
“Our circumstances,” Mercy said carefully, “are that we don’t have the numbers anymore. We don’t have the manpower to field off an attack if the Death Dogs come at us again. We’re sitting ducks, Montana. You know that.”
“Then we rebuild,” Montana shot back. “We recruit. We fortify. We do whatever the fuck we have to do, but we don’t bend the knee to that asshole.”
Fury sighed from across the table. “Montana, be reasonable—”
“Reasonable?” Montana’s laugh was bitter. “You want me to be reasonable? I’ll burn this whole fucking clubhouse down before I hand over the keys to Reaper. That’s reasonable.”
Mercy took a deep breath, visibly trying to keep his composure. “This isn’t about pride. This is about survival. The Golden Skulls have the resources, the alliances, the infrastructure we need right now. Patching over doesn’t mean we disappear. It means we survive long enough to—”
“To what?” Montana interrupted. “To become another chapter in Reaper’s empire? To lose everything my father built? Everything I’ve built?”
“It’s temporary,” Mercy insisted. “Once the Death Dogs are handled, once we’ve rebuilt our numbers—”
“Nothing’s temporary in this world,” Montana said. “You know that as well as I do. Once we patch over, we’re done. The Soulless Sinners become a footnote in someone else’s story.”
The silence that followed was heavy, oppressive.
I understood Montana’s position. I did. The club was his legacy, his identity, the thing he’d devoted his entire life to. Asking him to give it up—even temporarily—was like asking him to cut off his own arm.
But Mercy was right too. We were vulnerable. Exposed. And the Death Dogs weren’t going to wait for us to get our shit together before they struck again.
Montana looked around the table, his gaze landing on each of us in turn. “I want suggestions. Real ones. Not this patch-over bullshit. How do we rebuild? How do we fortify? How do we make sure we’re ready when those fuckers come back?”
Vicious spoke first. “We need to reach out to our allies. The Bratva, the—”
“Already done,” Montana said. “They’re providing security, but they’re not going to fight our war for us.”
“Then we recruit,” Payne offered. “Hit up the independent riders, the guys who’ve been sniffing around looking for a club.”
“That takes time,” Mercy said. “Time we don’t have.”
“Then we make time,” Montana snapped.
The door opened.
Shame walked in, casual as ever, and took a seat at the far end of the table. He didn’t apologize for being late. Didn’t explain where he’d been. Just settled into his chair and looked at Montana with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
I forgot about the patch-over.
Forgot about Montana’s stubbornness and Mercy’s logic and all the political bullshit that came with running a club.
“Did you find her?” I asked, my voice cutting through the tension.
Shame nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
Relief flooded through me, so intense it made my hands shake. “Where is she?”
“Connecticut,” Shame said. “Little town called Bethlehem. She’s with her family.”
“Then let’s go,” I said, already starting to stand. “I’ll leave tonight. I’ll—”
“Sit down, Torment.” Shame’s voice was quiet but firm. “You’ve got a bigger problem than her being a club whore and the mother of your kid.”
I froze. “What kind of problem?”
Shame leaned back in his chair, his expression unreadable.
“Her dad is a former brother from the Silver Shadows Little Rock Chapter. He was Titan’s VP before someone in the club ratted him out for murder.
He was serving twenty-five to life when evidence exonerated him of the crime.
After five years, he got out, blacked out his ink, and left.
Wanted nothing to do with the club again.
A year later, he met and married a woman named Hannah. They had four kids together.”
I sat back down slowly, my mind racing. “Okay. So her dad’s ex-MC. That’s not—”
“His club name was Hex,” Shame said.
The name hit like a physical blow.
Hex.
I’d heard stories about Hex. Every brother in the MC world had heard stories about Hex. The man was a fucking legend—old school, hard as nails, the kind of guy who didn’t flinch when staring down a gun barrel. The kind of guy who commanded respect just by walking into a room.
Montana leaned forward, his expression shifting from anger to something closer to shock. “Hex? Are we talking about the same Hex who stood toe-to-toe with George Stone and never backed down?”
“That’s the one,” Shame confirmed.
“Fuck,” Montana breathed. “I remember him. It was the only time I ever saw my old man back off from anyone.”
Mercy’s face had gone pale. “If we’re talking about the same man, then Torment’s got a bigger problem than just tracking down a runaway club whore.”
“What problem?” I demanded, my patience wearing thin. “So her dad’s a badass. So what? He’s out of the life. He’s not going to—”
“Federation rules,” Mercy interrupted, his voice clinical and precise. “Excommunicated brothers and their families are forbidden from joining all active clubs. If Brandy is the daughter of Hex, you can’t claim her or the child.”
The words didn’t make sense at first.
I stared at Mercy, waiting for the punchline, waiting for him to clarify or take it back or explain that I’d misunderstood.
But he just looked at me with that same calm, detached expression.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I said slowly.
“Federation law,” Mercy repeated. “It’s been on the books for decades.
Any brother who’s been excommunicated—whether by choice or by force—is blacklisted.
And that blacklist extends to their immediate family.
Wives, children, siblings. They can’t join an active club.
They can’t be claimed as old ladies. They can’t be brought into club business in any official capacity. ”
“That’s bullshit,” I said, my voice rising. “That’s—”
“That’s the law,” Mercy said. “And it’s non-negotiable.”
I looked around the table, searching for someone to contradict him. To tell me this was a mistake, a misunderstanding, something that could be worked around.
But no one spoke.
Fury looked uncomfortable. Vicious was staring at the table. Payne and Rage exchanged glances but said nothing. Storm opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, then closed it again.
“I don’t give a fuck about Federation law,” I said, my voice shaking with barely controlled rage. “She’s carrying my kid. That makes her mine. That makes the baby mine. I don’t care what some dusty old rulebook says.”
“It’s not just a rulebook,” Mercy said quietly. “It’s the foundation of how the MC world operates. If we ignore Federation law, we lose our standing with every other club. We lose our alliances, our protections, our legitimacy. We become outlaws in a world that’s already lawless.”
“Then we become outlaws,” I snapped. “I don’t care.”
“You should care,” Montana said, his voice heavy. “Because if we go rogue on this, we’re not just risking ourselves. We’re risking every brother in this club. Every alliance we’ve built. Everything.”
I stared at him, disbelief and fury warring inside me. “You’re telling me I can’t claim my own kid because of some bullshit rule about her father?”
“I’m telling you,” Montana said slowly, “that this is more complicated than you think.”
“It’s not complicated,” I said through gritted teeth. “She’s pregnant. I’m the father. End of story.”
“It’s not the end,” Mercy said. “It’s just the beginning. Because if Hex finds out you’ve been fucking his daughter and got her pregnant, he’s going to come for you. And if he finds out we’re trying to claim her under club protection despite Federation law, he’s going to come for all of us.”
“Let him come,” I said.
“You don’t understand,” Montana said, and there was something in his voice I’d never heard before. Respect. Maybe even fear. “Hex isn’t just some ex-brother. He’s a fucking force of nature. My old man—George motherfucking Stone—backed down from Hex. Do you understand what that means?”
I understood.
I just didn’t care.
“I’m not leaving her out there alone,” I said. “I’m not abandoning my kid because some old man might get pissed off.”
Montana stared at me for a long moment, then reached for his phone.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Calling King,” Montana said. “If anyone knows the truth about Hex, it’s him.”
He dialed, put the phone on speaker, and set it on the table.
It rang once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then King’s voice came through, rough and wary. “What?”
“King, it’s Montana. I need to ask you something.”
“Make it quick. I’m in the middle of something.”
Montana leaned forward, his eyes locked on the phone. “What do you know about a former brother named Hex?”
Silence.
Not the kind of silence that meant King was thinking or considering his answer.
The kind of silence that meant the question had hit a nerve.
The kind of silence that meant we’d just stepped into something far more dangerous than any of us had realized.
The seconds stretched out, each one heavier than the last.
Finally, King spoke.
“Where the fuck did you hear that name?”