16. Venom
16
VENOM
S ix Harleys are speeding into the compound when I burst out the main exit to the clubhouse, but it’s not the return of Slash, Toker, and the enforcers that Cub needs me to deal with.
It’s Brutus.
Of course.
Even with a tortured son and a beaten daughter to think about, he can’t find the sense to give any of us a moment of rest from his theatrics.
“What set him off?”
“Dunno. He just lost it,” Isaiah explains. Cub nods his agreement with our prospect’s pronouncement. “Took a call after the cops left, then started cursin’ and kickin’ the crap out of everything and everyone in sight. Wouldn’t listen to sense, so I sent Cub to get you.”
I don’t get a chance to ask for further details because our president wheels around and bellows at Slash as he’s dismounting his bike. Brutus stalks toward my best friend, hands out, and shoves him hard in the chest. Slash takes a step backward to catch his balance, then pulls his helmet free with an angry motion. When he tosses it to his little brother, Hunter catches the helmet with ease. He shakes his head when Brutus pushes Slash a second time. Grim speculation tightening his eyes, he nudges Wyatt with his elbow, then Nate and then leads the youngest Mayberry brothers inside so they’re out of their father’s explosion zone.
“Tell me you caught the fuckers. Tell me they’re in the bunker.” Brutus pounces on Slash and tries to wrestle him into a headlock. “The double-crossin’ pricks deserve a bullet. Fuckin’ disrespectin’ me on my turf.”
No one answers him, instead they all look to me for guidance. With narrowed eyes, I wordlessly tell them to leave this situation to me. The enforcers accept my silent order without an argument, speedily putting space between themselves and Brutus’ temper tantrum.
Once they’re standing behind me, I jerk my thumb towards the roof of our biggest workshop to direct our remaining prospects, Isaiah and Rider, to start guard duties up there. Semiautomatic weapons slung across their bodies, they run for the metal stairs that scale the side of the building and lead to the top, where we have a sentry post set up. Complete with a sniper’s nest that Toker built for himself, it’s the most important security point in the compound. The two of them wouldn’t usually be allowed up there until they had their top rockers.
Today’s their lucky day.
Toker can babysit for me, teach them how to alert us if a threat approaches, while I deal with our president. Not that I believe we’re at imminent risk. Now that Joseph Kingsley and his officers of the law have left, the most dangerous thing facing us is currently doing his best to push our SAA around.
Tired of the spectacle, I stick two fingers in my mouth and blow out an ear-splitting whistle. “Pull yourself together.”
The choice to make the demand singular is deliberate—it’s targeted directly at Brutus.
I’ve known the man my entire life. His antics are as see-through as a freshly cleaned windowpane to me. He’s trying to deflect our attention from the visit by the cops and the phone call that followed by acting like a child.
Why? I imagine that’s the question on everyone’s mind.
On my order, Brutus stops tussling with Slash. When our SAA focuses on me, our prez uses it as an opening to knock Slash onto his arse. Sneak tactic completed; he twists around to face me. The ghost of a grin graces his lips when he advances. A crazy glint in his gaze highlights the cold calculation he’s desperate to conceal. Arms folded over my chest, cocky but placid smirk on my face, I stand my ground. My lips curl into a judgemental sneer when his barrel chest hits my forearms, and the toe of his boots slam down on top of mine. All around us, the yard has fallen silent. Unlike last night and again this morning when he burred up in front of our brothers, the club hasn’t separated into two groups.
This time, with the exception of Joker, they’re all standing behind me.
Eyebrows raised, I wait for him to speak.
Brutus doesn’t disappoint. “Since when do you order me the fuck around?”
“Since you lost your shit,” I reply with a one-shouldered shrug. “Ain’t it the VP’s job to step up when the prez falls over?”
“Not in this club,” he mumbles, backing out of my space when he sees I’m not going to meet his rage with my own. “Not if I can help it.”
“Touch me again,” Slash tells him as he approaches us. “And you won’t have the excuse of fallin’ over, ’cause I’ll knock you the fuck down.”
When all he receives is a blank stare from Brutus, Slash hits me with a what-the-fuck-should-I-do look. I purse my lips, silently giving him permission to act as he pleases, which Slash grabs with both hands. Swiping at the mud and gravel stuck to his jeans, my best friend adds. “Not sure why you didn’t give me time to speak before layin’ into me, but while it’s true we didn’t catch them, we did confirm that it was the Bishops, not the Maddison’s in the van… of course, we can’t get close enough to take them out just yet. They’re locked down as well.”
At the mention of our rival MC, Brutus’ attention flits between the doors to the clubhouse, the brothers standing with me, and the open gates behind us before he snidely declares in a too-loud voice, “So what you mean is that you actually learnt fuck all… guess I should head off to do my own lookin’. Useless bunch’a pricks.”
“Not done,” Slash interjects. Fingers digging into Brutus’ cut to keep him in place when he tries to duck around him, our SAA finishes his rundown. “We chased them through the back streets and halfway across the city until they doubled back to their clubhouse. Almost had ’em, once we worked out where they were headed, except a bunch of cop cruisers pulled outta the side street on the straight to the Bishops’ gates and cut us off. Lights and sirens, the whole works. Gave the Bishops time to let their contingent in, lock down their yard, and start shootin’ at us.”
“They protected the Bishops?” Angelis asks as he exits the main clubhouse with his phone in his hand. He slings an arm over his oldest son’s shoulder. “And then watched them open fire in public without callin’ for backup?”
“Yep.” Slash grimaces under the weight of his dad’s scrutiny. “But that wasn’t the weirdest thing… once their yard was locked up tight, the cruisers turned off their lights and sped off. They didn’t come at us or engage with the Bishops, even though they were still shootin’.”
“Fuck.” I scrub my hands down the shaved side of my skull. Exchanging a look of disbelief with Angelis, I state in a tight tone, “He’s got some balls on him.”
“Yeah,” Angelis agrees. He beckons Gabriel forward. “Obviously, Joseph Kingsley is embedded with the Bishops deeper than we first thought.”
“Definitely,” Gabriel offers decisively. “It’s one thing to use his power to raid our compound. It’s downright dodgy how he flaunts his connection to the Maddison clan. Even the way he openly intimidates Cherub is pushing the point. But it’s a whole ’nother kettle of fish to use his position to facilitate a violent abduction and openly deploy the state’s police force to protect his co-conspirators—another MC.”
“Seems like a whole heap’a bullshit to me,” Brutus offers. He knocks Slash’s steadying hand away and rails on me. “ You set him up to feed us this bullshit—you’re tryna send us on a wild-goose chase to take the heat off yourself.”
“You can’t be serious?” I bare my teeth in a feral growl. “You’ve lost your fuckin’ mind.”
“I’m deadly serious, you pompous little prick.”
“Why don’t you go and have a lie down?” Angelis intervenes before I can take my bunched up fists and use them to decorate Brutus’ face with my real feelings. “I’ll get someone to wake you when it’s clear to head to the hospital—’ He holds his phone up for Brutus to see. “—Crystal said Fret has been taken straight into surgery, and it’ll be a few hours before we know anything more. You’ve got plenty of time.”
“Ain’t sleepin’ while that motherfucker still wears the VP patch.”
I motion him forward with both hands. “You want it, come and get it.”
“Either call a vote or piss off inside,” Angelis barks. When Brutus scoffs, he adds. “You try to make one more unilateral decision without bringin’ the options to church, I’ll call a vote on the presidency.”
At their Secretary/Treasurer’s blunt ultimatum, the rest of the Shamrocks lapse into stunned silence. I can feel the tension ramping up as everyone waits for Brutus’ reaction to Angelis’ challenge. Focus locked on my president, ready for him to lash out, I watch closely as he grinds his teeth and shoots a narrow-eyed look past me to the brothers he’s supposed to lead.
Whatever he sees makes him take another step backward. “Look... my little Cherub has been hurt. Fret was shot. Found out Venom gave my boy drugs for years, and my club has been overrun by cops. Think I’m entitled to a few minutes of rage and a little scepticism.”
“Really?” I quirk my lips into a grin to disguise my disgust as I sweep my arm around to gesture at the destruction his temper tantrum wrought. “You’re callin’ this a few minutes of rage and a little scepticism?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Fuckin’ bullshit... but keep lyin’ to yourself and us.” My grin widens as Brutus’ frown deepens. “’Cause the only person you’re foolin’ right now is yourself. Same goes for your refusal to accept that you were led up shit creek by the Maddisons about me givin’ Sander anythin’ stronger than weed—ya know, the same plant we grow and harvest ourselves. Pretty sure you’ve shared a joint or two over the years with him as well.”
Brutus blinks. For a second, it seems as if confusion fills the harsh lines of his face, then he shakes himself free of it. He snickers without mirth. “You wanna talk about fools, VP? I know you’re full of shit. You can fool them—” He pointedly flicks his gaze toward the Shamrocks behind me. “—into thinkin’ I’m the problem, but we both know it’s you.”
“Like I said, the only one tryna fool anyone around here is you.” For the second time, I offer him a shark-like grin that’s filled with contempt. “’Course, you might see things differently once you’ve had your nap , old man.”
When Brutus offers no further argument, I dismiss him with a mocking wave, then I pointedly give him my back to huddle with Slash, Angelis, and Gabriel. My attention is splintered between the three men as they try to puzzle out how and why the Maddison clan and the police have teamed up with the only enemy MC we have in these parts, and the malevolence I can feel coming from Brutus behind me. Once I hear the main doors to the clubhouse slam shut, my shoulders slump, and I allow myself to draw in a steadying breath.
The rest of the Shamrocks talk amongst themselves.
“This has to be about more than little Cherub,” Gabriel declares. “What do you think, Angelis?”
The older blond man glances away.
Slash shrugs at his father’s reaction.
Gabriel’s eyebrows draw together.
Christopher “Angelis” Hudson is as close as anyone can get to Brutus—which isn’t saying much since he’s pushed everyone away over the years. While Toker’s dad has toed the line when it comes to club orders, there’s been an obvious disconnect between them that’s turned into a void in their personal lives. Getting Angelis’ take is important, yet it seems as if he’s going to clam up like my father did yesterday. Flooded with uncertainty, I remain silent while I battle to control the dread that’s turned my gut to stone.
So many secrets.
So little time.
Countless ways Lily can get hurt while I unravel everything.
“What if?” Senses prickling, I pause to look around to see if anyone is standing close enough to overhear me. Happy that we’re out of earshot, I ask, “What if the Shamrocks had a rat, and they were workin’ with the Bishops, who we know are workin’ with Joseph Kingsley?”
“No—”
I hold up a hand to halt Angelis’ objection.
“Hear me out… it could’ve been a coincidence that church was changed from Mondays to the exact Thursday afternoon Lily was kidnapped, but it becomes too farfetched to write off as happenstance when that decision is stacked with the bomb threat and the raid led by Joseph as well as the deliberate hindering of Cub while he was searchin’ for ways to track Lily.”
Gabriel hisses. “How was Cub able to track her?”
“I’ll get to that in a minute.”
“You sure fuckin’ will... if you have the tech to track Cherub, then it needs to be spread club-wide, so we don’t end up in another Fret situation.”
“We were slowly rollin’ it out, but we had to stop ’cause we noticed some strange shit a few months ago?—”
Angelis jabs me in the left pec with his pointer finger. “Around the time you were nommed for your VP patch?”
“Around then, yeah.”
“Is Hades still at Cass’ house?” he asks. I cock my head to the side, curious as to his query about the location of my father and Brutus’ twin brother. It’s an odd question in the context of our discussion. Angelis sees my perusal and adds. “Some old fuckery we thought was long forgotten could be about to rear its head. I’ll get Duke to meet us at Cass’... us second-generation patches might needa put our heads together for a bit to work out exactly what’s goin’ on.”
“With the club?”
“No.” Angelis elaborates after receiving a loaded scowl from Gabriel. “It’s mainly family stuff. Woman stuff. Stuff I thought was laid to rest thirty-odd years ago, but it could blow back on the club if it gets out.”
This time I’m the one giving meaningful looks.
To Slash.
My best friend is as confused as I am.
Thirty-odd years ago would mean this “old fuckery” could be about us.
We’re the third generation.
We began popping out just over thirty-two years ago.
Slash’s deceased brother is the oldest of us. He was eight when he died but would otherwise have been closing in on thirty-two now. Toker is next in age at thirty-one. Slash and I have just turned thirty. Gabriel’s sons, Apollo and Isaiah, are twenty-six and twenty-four respectively. Then there’s an eighteen-month gap to Sander and Lily, with Fret as their Irish twin since he was born in the same calendar year as them. After their births, there’s a two-and-a-half-year break until Hunter came along, followed by Wyatt and Nate, who were born in quick succession over the next fourteen months.
Now, from the stories we were fed as kids, our parents have always been the same close-knit bunch we grew up idolising. They had a friendship we were driven to emulate. Because, to hear them tell it, they practically lived in each other’s pockets, before and after settling down to raise their children, a cohesive unit that looked out for each other. Angelis’ comment about “family stuff; woman stuff” doesn’t make sense unless they’ve been lying to us since we were born.
My gut drops at the thought.
I’m ninety-nine percent sure that we’ve been fed shit our entire lives.
Are Brutus’ antics the result of some ridiculous grudge?
It seems far-fetched, but it would explain his growing animosity toward me and Slash.
Gabriel rips me out of my reverie with a typical lawyer inquiry. “I’m sure you have more than a couple of coincidences leading you to feel like Brutus is a rat?”
“I didn’t say it was Brutus.”
He waves away my protest with a dismissive flick of his wrist. “Who else could it be? Rescheduling church and ordering Cub about—only the president can do that.”
“All right… have it your way,” I concede. “I think Brutus is up to somethin’… ’cause he’s at the epicentre of everythin’ that’s gone down. The Bishops snatched Fret from right under our noses—the only way he could’ve got outta the gates was with his father’s okay. Brutus set up the meetin’ with the Maddison’s, but we were never told the details, and there was no vote on it. Then when his son was shot literally in our driveway, Brutus did nothin’. He just stood there. I ordered an ambulance be called. I made the decision for Slash and Toker, and the enforcers to make chase. Me and Lily worked to keep Fret alive while Brutus just watched us.”
Glaring at Angelis, who appears on the cusp of storming off, I ask, “When Joseph rocked up at the gates without a warrant, who made the call to let him inside?”
“Brutus.” The word hangs heavy between us. After taking a few seconds, whereby Angelis stares at the ground and scuffs his boot through the gravel, he finally adds. “He took a call about five minutes before they arrived, disappeared out the front, and screamed at anyone who tried to accompany him to leave him alone. Next thing, Joseph was inside the clubhouse.” Slash’s father clears his throat twice, then drops his attention to the ground. “Brutus was nowhere to be seen while we were all cable tied and lined up against the wall in the bar by the cops. Joseph went strollin’ toward your bedroom with nary a question or a glance our way.”
“How did Gabriel know we needed him?”
“Cub swiped my phone outta my pocket and opened up a call to Gabriel so he could hear the commotion.”
“If he hadn’t done that,” Gabriel offers. “Both you and little Cherub would probably be locked up now.”
“Most likely only me if she’d kept her mouth shut.”
At the reminder of the confession Lily blurted out to Joseph, I jam my hands in the longer hair at the top of my head and tug. My woman’s loose lipped confession that she shot Alex is taking on an even darker tone the more we deconstruct the situation.
Did she save me from being arrested by making herself a target?
Since I don’t have the spare mental capacity to deal with that worry now, I decide to air my final suspicion instead. “The Bishops clubhouse is what… twenty to twenty-five minutes from here?’
“Twenty tops,” Slash agrees, then he grumbles, “don’t do it,” under his breath when he sees where I’m looking.
“Isaiah,” I call out to the prospect who’s hanging out on the roof. “Come down here.”
With his weapon strapped across his body and one hand holding it so it doesn’t bounce too much, he climbs down the stairs then jogs over to us. The look on Gabriel’s face at the sight of his son in a Shamrocks cut almost makes me regret my choice to involve him.
The cold war between the two shows no signs of defrosting.
It’s been a year and a half since Isaiah’s hangaround period began.
Nearly four months since he was given his bottom rocker.
Yet, his father, the man who’s helped us out of more legal scrapes than I can count, refuses to forgive his son for going against his wishes, despite the fact Isaiah is only following his long-declared dream. His son is proving to be a quiet but solid force within the club. He’s got the makings of a future leader. That doesn’t seem to placate Gabriel. He’s got a bee in his bonnet about Isaiah joining us, which makes little sense. Lily’s boss is not an unreasonable man, however, we know from experience that when he digs his heels in, nothing will sway him except time.
I respect Gabriel.
Wouldn’t normally push the issue.
But Lily’s at risk and my club is crumbling, so their personal matters have to take a back seat.
“Tell these three what you told me about Brutus losing his shit after the ambulance left.”
“ Oh , okay,” Isaiah replies, narrowing his eyes as if he’s thinking hard. “He didn’t lose it when the ambulance departed. It was, maybe, ten minutes later… probably forty or so minutes after you guys left.” He jerks his chin toward Slash. “He took a call. It set him off somethin’ fierce, and we couldn’t calm him down. Sent Cub to get Venom, and seein’ Venom is what finally stopped him.”
“I came outside at the same time the enforcers returned,” I expand on Isaiah’s conjecture. “They were pullin’ in as I was gettin’ the lowdown on the Brutus situation. Before I could do anythin’, he turned on Slash and didn’t stop until I called him out.”
“That’s true,” our prospect agrees. “No matter what stopped it or started it, it was like someone had flipped a switch… nothing like his usual slow burn, then boom, he explodes over something tiny. One minute, he was overseeing the tidy up, helping us clear away any traces of the shootin’ in case the cops came, actin’ normal the entire time. Then, he stopped to take a call. He kind of stared at us, almost like he’d lost his train of thought… I was about to ask if he needed anything, but he just exploded. Started breakin’ things. Swingin’ at us when we got too close. He put a dent in the van.” Isaiah gestures to the indentation in the closest vehicle. “It was random. Didn’t make sense.”
“All right.” Angelis claps a hand down on Isaiah’s shoulder. “Thanks for that.”
“If I remember anything else, should I come to you, Venom?”
“Yeah, come to me,” I tell him. “But for now, I need you to go check inside, make sure everyone’s holdin’ up after Fret, ’specially Lily, Wyatt, and Nate?—”
“What’s happened to Fret?” Sander’s voice interjects.
My group falls silent as we swing around to find Sander standing just inside the gates. He’s dressed in his basketball tracksuit with his backpack slung over his shoulder. Carefree, except for the concern that clouds his gaze when no one immediately answers his question, he seems like he belongs to a different lifetime.
So much has happened since he flew out.
The enforcer sent to escort him to and from his basketball games is hanging back a couple feet, hand on the butt of the gun tucked in his shoulder holster, as he takes in the destruction around the front of the clubhouse.
It’s all Brutus’ doing. Dented beer kegs. The broken panel in the side of the blacked-out van. He trampled the garden beds that Charlie planted along the perimeter of the buildings. Bent the pole holding up the front portico. While I cleaned up with Lily, the brothers managed to hose away most of Fret’s blood, but the bleach and water has run off the paved driveway and flooded the gravel on either side like a moat designed to highlight the destruction Brutus has wrought.
The front yard is a quagmire of ruin and regret that smells like a hospital.
“Stand down,” I tell Bear. “The crisis has been averted.”
He inclines his head, understanding my shorthand way of telling him that this is a Brutus-sized disaster. With a sigh, he ushers Sander inside the spike-topped fence surrounding the compound, and that’s when the woman who must’ve picked them up from the airport comes into view.
Nadia.
The petite, blonde woman frowns at the brothers assembled in the front yard and the mess. The Shamrock who was sent to protect her during her shift at the hospital scans the scene too. When the brothers in the yard glare at her, Nadia links her arm through Bear’s and half hides herself behind her old man. Her escort moves away, carefully skirting her like the cloud of confusion hanging over her is transmittable. I don’t know what she’s thinking in the face of a reception like this, but I doubt it’s crossed her mind that her long-kept secret has been revealed in her absence.
I should’ve warned her.
Unfortunately, finessing the fallout from Lily and the rest of the Shamrocks learning about Nadia’s past mistakes wasn’t high on my list of priorities. It probably should’ve been. Because she’s here. The brothers are mad at her—dealing hard drugs is against our constitution. Lily is still working through her feelings of betrayal. Bear is about to discover that his old lady wasn’t always the pure as driven snow geriatric’s nurse that she is today.
Sander’s likely to pitch a fit when he realises his sister has been hurt again and his ex-girlfriend, who occasionally slips into the not-so-ex category, has been dragged into the mess.
And Brutus is liable to make things worse. He’ll no doubt target Sander, the weakest of his kids, to draw attention from himself. Use his son’s addiction and his flimsy grip on sobriety as an excuse for his behaviour. Find a way to make his shifty actions behind our backs seem reasonable—the reaction of a father under stress.
It’s a bullshit strategy, but it’s one I’ve watched him employ for years.
Brutus fucks up, his kids become the fall guys.
The Mayberry siblings’ mother was a goddess. Warm. Loving. Always there with a cuddle and a smile. Brutus, not so much. He’s tough. Borderline cruel and only getting worse with age. Full of impossible to meet expectations. Quick to judge his children when they fail to reach his unattainable standards. As the eldest son and the only one to show the same level of talent Brutus once displayed with a basketball, Sander cops the brunt of his father’s criticism and misery.
Our prez will come after his eldest boy.
Lily will get involved to protect her twin.
Sparks are going to fly shortly.
Fuck.
As the brothers on the gates close them, Sander drops his bag at my feet then shoves me in the shoulder. He plays it off like a joke, but I know better. His expression is grim, a scowl, the fine lines fanning from the edge of his eyes as he battles his demons.
He swallows deep. “Okay, I know you’re King Shit now with the veep patch and I’m not one of you, but I deserve to know if anythin’ has happened to my brother.”
“Of course?—”
“What are you doin’ here?” Brutus must’ve had an eye on the CCTV cameras because he’s making his way outside to confront his son, yet no one has entered the main building to retrieve him. When he poses his next question, it’s bereft of any sign of welcome or concern for his son’s well-being. “Did you miss your game? Don’t tell me you fucked up, and they dropped you.”
And it begins...
Brutus can always be trusted to have his parental priorities upside down.
I’m pretty sure he’s half the reason Lily’s twin brother turned to drugs in the first place. The death of your mother is liable to break any kid. When you’re left in the care of an overbearing father as bad as Brutus… well, let’s just say I’ve never been unsympathetic to Sander’s circumstances.
Which is another reason why I lied to Lily in the aftermath of it all.
“ Uh , no, I played,” Sander replies to his father.
Brutus grumbles under his breath.
It sounds like he’s gargling nails.
“Good to see you’re all riveted to the screen in awe of my winning prowess,” Sander jokes. His attempt to break the tension falls flat since none of us are in the right frame of mind to laugh. Expression sobering, he continues. “This mornin’, I booked flights for straight after my game because I received a very cryptic message from Fret tellin’ me I was needed at home. That was before Bear went all G.I. Joe on my arse after one of you spoke to him durin’ my game.”
He digs into the pocket of his tracksuit pants, pulling out a bright-green USB. He waves it at me, his eyebrows rising toward his hairline when he gets a good look at the bruises left on my face by the boot of one of Joseph’s rent-a-cops. “Plus, I had this pushed under the door of my hotel room when I was playin’. The shit on it has me thinkin’ that it might be time to publicly come clean about my little problem, pun intended.”
“Charlie just called again. Crystal managed to get us a private waiting room,” Lily announces from the doorway to the clubhouse. She spies her brother and darts over to him as fast as she can with sore ribs and a bunch of bruises all over her. Sander flinches when he sees her battered face, a ghost of the expression he wore the night we found Alex raping her flits across his features.
“What happened to Fret,” Sander asks again.
All colour drains from his cheeks when Lily quietly tells him, “Fret was abducted, tortured, and shot. He’s in surgery now.”
Sander is stricken by this news.
Apparently, her self-appointed guard, Cub, is hot on her heels. He trots over to his best friend and pulls him in for a hug that ends with a slap on the back. Spying the USB, Cub asks him, “Is that the package you texted me about?”
“Yeah. It’s full of old photos of us partyin’… plus videos of me, and you, and Fret partakin’ in a little pick-me-up.”
“What?” Lily’s question is sharp. She glares at Cub. “You were using too?”
“ Uh, Anna, lil sis.” Sander hauls his sister close and enfolds her in a hug. I give him a small, tight smile when our eyes meet over the top of her head. “Think the least of our problems right now is who was usin’ what when we were kids.” When his sister scoffs, he rolls his eyes. “Is anyone gonna tell me what happened to her face? Because we know she’ll dance around the truth for days.”
“Alex.” My tone is terse as I elaborate. “He had Hugh St. James abduct her yesterday.”
“What? No fuckin’ way.”
“Let’s load up and head to the hospital,” Brutus shouts over his son. He ignores the way Sander reels back at my explanation of the cause of his twin’s injuries, instead directing his attention to me and Slash. My president flicks his fingers like we’re beneath him as he says, “You two lead the way. I’m gonna be with my kids in the van. The rest of the brothers will follow us.”
Sander holds his twin out from his body so he can properly look her over. “Tell me that motherfucker is finally dead?”
“Nope.” I pop the last syllable. “We thought we’d been sanctioned to introduce him to the reaper… turns out Daddy Dearest had other plans.”
“Like what?”
“Like allowing Alex to poison the club with lies about me and?—”
“Nadia?” Sander’s question is posed as a forgone conclusion. “She was in the photos as well.”
“Yeah,” I tell him reluctantly. “Lily knows. So does the club.”
“Fuck. I’m gonna have to warn her.”
“Why?”
He shrugs, shooting a look toward his ex-girlfriend. “I feel responsible.”
“Think you’ve got that backwards,” Lily snipes.
“ Nah. There’s more to that story than anyone knows,” Sander tells her.
Stepping away from me, he loops an arm around his sister and pulls her into his side. When he presses a kiss to my sweet thing’s forehead, my eyes lock with hers. I regard her with an unblinking gaze, uncertain how to react to her after her revelation that our relationship feels “irreparable” to her, irritated that I haven’t been able to sit her down and explain the full truth.
After a drawn-out moment, Lily breaks our stare-down.
She offers me the ghost of a smile.
Her brother catches the interaction and rolls his eyes. “Seriously? You two had a fallin’ out over my shit?”
Lily pulls away from him, and with a deliberate and slow action, she glances at Nadia, then back at her twin. “No. We had a falling out over Zeke’s lies. You just happen to be involved in most of them.”
“Bloody hell,” Sander quips. “Mountain out of a molehill, Cherub… mountain meet molehill.”
When Lily tries to launch into a defence of her reaction, I reach over and pinch her mouth shut between my index finger and thumb. The stitches in her top lip pull, but the split doesn’t bleed.
My woman scowls as I say, “I’ll make it up to you, sweet thing. As long as you keep these pretty, pink lips closed around the cops, I promise I can weather whatever punishment you see fit to dish out when this is over.”
When her eyes glimmer with ill-concealed fury and a tinge of amusement that she doesn’t want me to see, I remove my hand.
Her anger is always preferable to silence.
“You might regret that offer.”
“You’re worth it.”
“I don’t know if you mean that.”
“I mean every word, metukà shelì .”
Lilianna Mayberry has been my reason to breathe since the day she was born.
She’s had my heart for just as long.
Lily’s cheeks fill with colour and her gaze brightens the longer I stare at her.
“Hurry the fuck up!” Brutus shouts. The light that had entered Lily’s expression dims in an instant when he points at his oldest children. “Move or I’ll leave without your sorry arses.”
The Mayberry twins exchange a grimace. I snort. They both glance at me, biting back grins when I cross my eyes at them. When it looks like their father’s about to scream at them again, they link hands, then stride over to the van where their younger brothers wait.
“Don’t overthink this. Don’t let him goad you into making’ things worse,” Slash advises as we jog over to our Harleys. “My dad’s on it, so is Gabriel. They’ll rally the other old-timers for a vote, and Brutus’ll be hangin’ in the bunker, ready to dance underneath my sharpest tools if it turns out he’s the rat. We do this the right way, not the Venom way.”
“I’m not gonna fly off the handle.”
“Good.”
Despite my assurance to Slash, and my rational agreement with his analysis, I’d be lying if I wasn’t worried about the repercussions if Brutus needs to be taken out. The leadership jobs in the mother chapter have bounced around the founding families for two generations, with my recent promotion heralding the start of the third generation ageing into our roles.
Right now, though, I don’t know who’d take Brutus’ patch.
Sure, there’s Toker, but he’s made it clear that he won’t step up into any role other than road captain, and he’ll only do that once his father can’t ride any longer. Fret’s only had his half rocker for a few months. There’s no way the brothers will accept his leadership—even on the off chance he wanted it—which I highly doubt he will. Joker and Bear are technically legacies, but they haven’t cultivated a relationship with enough of the brothers to be voted in as president.
Without an heir to take his place, who will succeed Brutus if he’s deposed?
Me?
Considering how badly some of the old-timers behaved when I was nominated as VP, I doubt that would happen.
Would Slash step up?
As much as I love him, I’ve never seen him as a leader.
He’s always followed.
Always seemed content to obey, rather than command.
“What if this is the beginnin’ of the end?” I ask Slash as he tightens his chin strap. “What if sendin’ Brutus and anyone he’s turned rat to the reaper splits the Shamrocks?”
“We’ve survived bigger betrayals and greater tragedies.” He shrugs, even as the mention of his past causes his pain to visibly stalk him. Having witnessed it first hand, I feel the same twinge in my heart I always get when I think about how he’s suffered in his three decades on earth. “The Shamrocks can’t function with a traitor in charge… I’d rather deal with some infightin’ over who takes the president’s patch than allow our history to be destroyed by one selfish, rat-fucked, arsehole.”
“That mean you think I’m right about him?”
My best friend replies without taking a second to consider my question. “The way he’s been actin’, the shit he’s been shovellin’, I think it’s more likely than not.”
In an instant, the world tilts. I shake my head and swallow deep, all in an attempt to keep my desire to kill Brutus now from taking control of me. My trigger finger burns with anticipation. My heart breaks at the implications. My sense of justice demands to be quenched.
It’s fucking hard.
Next to impossible.
Having Slash, the calm, rational, and cautious member of our trio, admit that I’m probably right without offering half a dozen viable reasons why I might not be, means Brutus is as good as dead. Now, I’ve got to find enough proof to show the rest of the Shamrocks that our president needs to be put down.
For the club’s good.
For Lily’s safety.