18. Venom
18
VENOM
“ W hose soul did you sacrifice to the devil?” I ask Sander when he plonks next to me on the floor.
Despite the humour in my voice, I’m still being rocked by my memories of the last time we were at this hospital. Lily. Close to death. Alex. Guarded by the Maddison’s. As a high school dropout, I’m not sure of the exact meaning of the word irony, but this must be the most ironic situation I’ve ever found myself in. Five and a half years later, we find ourselves almost right where we left off. Alex is tormenting the woman I love and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to stop him.
After dragging in an endless breath through my nose, I shake myself free of the ghosts of the past and concentrate on the two women who are giggling together. From the look on their faces, it’s either over shoes or embroidered dicks.
Lifting my chin in the direction of Lily and Nadia, I add, “Only Satan coulda made that happen.”
“It’s a twin thing,” Slash drawls.
“Yeah, and it’s none of your business,” Sander retorts with a laugh. His expression sobers, and he levels me with a pointed look. “I just told her the truth. Maybe you should try it occasionally?”
“Really,” I snap at him, arching an eyebrow and scowling when he inclines his head with the piousness of a newly minted priest. “After all the bullshit I’ve told to cover your arse, you think you have the fuckin’ right to judge me ?”
He sniffs. “She barely mentioned the whole Nads thing as it relates to you… that tells me you’ve kept somethin’ else from her.”
“Fuckin’ twintuition ,” I joke. “Mind-read anythin’ else? Somethin’ useful, maybe.”
Slash and Toker exchange a look, seeing straight through my attempt to deflect Sander’s attention to the telepathic connection he swears the twins share. They grin, first it’s at each other, then they turn their focus on me. At the sight of their troublemaking expressions, I growl. It’s a warning they should know to heed by now, but I hold little hope they’ll listen.
They’re too intent on shit stirring to back off.
I try a verbal caution. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Toker raises his hands in mock surrender. “Don’t tell him that you hid that fucker’s early release from her, or don’t tell him that you intercepted a bunch of love letters from the psycho prick and didn’t tell little Cherub about them?”
“I think he meant both,” Slash helpfully adds.
“Fuck. The. Pair. Of. You.”
Spying the ire that flares in Sander’s gaze as the two idiots laugh at their flawless setup, I prepare to receive it from him with both barrels. He’s been overbearingly protective of Lily since the night he forced us to drive him to Alex’s estate, even though it’s on Maddison turf, because he knew something was wrong.
While Slash argued with the butler at the main house, Sander led me straight to the smaller house a hundred metres away. Stubbornly resolved that his twin was inside the building, I’d allowed him to talk me into busting through the front door.
Inside we found Lily.
Half beaten to death.
Being violently violated by Alex.
I immediately knew that it was my fault.
My decision, that night, to tell Lily that Alex was the grandson of the boss of the Maddison clan was a catastrophic error. The choice to avoid war between the mob and the Shamrocks thew Lily into the crosshairs. Brutus’ games condemned her. Sander’s addiction provided Alex the rest of the ammunition he needed to gain her compliance.
Drugs. Lies. Sex. Blackmail. Violence. Rape.
It had all the makings of a Shakespearean tale.
Days later, lost in a haze of grief and guilt, Sander overdosed.
Hence the hypercritical condemnation I’m on the cusp of receiving.
There is no one as self-righteous as a recovering drug addict.
They’ve seen rock bottom and lived to tell the tale, and they’ll do anything they can to stop their loved ones from following in their footsteps.
“Who here is Everett Mayberry’s next of kin?” I’m saved from a very public dressing down by the tiny red-haired doctor who rushes through the doors on the OR side of the waiting room. Wearing clean, green scrubs and an air of quiet determination, she approaches Brutus while we all scramble to our feet to listen to what she has to say. “Mr. Mayberry? Everett’s father?”
“That’s me,” he replies in a stone-cold voice.
“I’m Dr. Beatrice Du Bois, the surgical registrar on call tonight.”
“How is he?”
“He’s out of surgery,” she tells him with a tight smile. “And I’m happy to inform you that your son is stable now. It was touch and go for a little while, but we have removed both bullets from his abdomen.”
Slash shoots me a look filled with rage and desire for vengeance.
I lift my top lip in a silent snarl to show I’m on the same page.
“Everett had serious internal bleeding when he was brought in, but we’ve contained it.” The young doctor continues. “He was very lucky that the bullets missed his major organs. His spleen was the most damaged, so we removed it. Internally, he should heal well. He’s young and obviously fit.”
At this, she pauses, the corners of her lips droop, and dread fills the room. The dark atmosphere ratchets up a notch as we brace for the upcoming bad news. Lily comes barrelling across the room to me. She buries her face in the crook of my neck, and I clasp my hands at the small of her back to press her body to mine.
“As long as he’s alive—anythin’ else is manageable,” I murmur. “It’ll be okay, sweet thing.”
Turning my attention back to the doctor, I’m surprised to find that Slash has taken it upon himself to approach her to coax out the details she seems reticent to tell us.
“It’s all right, doll. We can handle whatever you’ve gotta say.”
Dr. Du Bois slants a look at him, and her cheeks turn pink. She tucks a stray lock of auburn hair behind her ear, then awkwardly clears her throat. “ Ah, your friend, Everett… has quite a few external injuries that will likely require intensive rehab and may leave him with some long-term debilitations.”
“What kind of injuries are we talkin’ about here?” Slash asks.
I peer at Brutus, unsure why he’s silent, only to find that he’s staring at the section of wall above the doctor’s head with a blank expression that chills me to the bone. He’s unperturbed by the knowledge his son is potentially disabled. Indifferent. Eyes devoid of worry or desire for retribution. Posture loose, he acts like he’s having the day’s weather forecast explained to him.
Joker and Bear stand with him, their seemingly permanent attachment at the hip continuing since Sander’s unceremonious arrival at the compound a few hours ago. The three men aren’t usually all that close—not with Bear being a patch over from another club and Joker’s status as a stepson rather than as a true third-generation legacy patch—yet something’s shifted recently. They’re more comfortable with each other. Chatting away from the rest of us.
Three peas in a distorted pod.
“It seems he was stabbed repeatedly in the right knee to the point where his tendons were completely severed, and his patella required a new ACL to be regrafted to save his mobility. The femur and tibia of his left leg were shattered. We inserted a steel rod to give the bones something to heal around. Three fingers on his right hand were amputated to the second joint, and both his wrists were slashed—in some places to the bone. There was extensive damage which we have done our best to rectify.” Another pause. Another deep breath that doesn’t bode well. “I imagine he will need further surgeries to aid his rehabilitation process, however, it’s hard to offer a more positive prognosis until the healing process is further along.”
“No,” Lily hisses. I squeeze her to me, silently comforting her as the news that Fret’s expert artisan skills and his ability to play guitar are likely lost to him. “Not his hands. Anything but his hands.”
The words to ease her pain elude me. Knowing Fret, he’s going to wish he was dead if he can no longer do what he loves. These injuries, for him, are akin to me breaking my back and being unable to ride again. I’d lose my VP patch, eventually my cut, and shortly after that, my will to live.
I’m a biker. Will be to the day I die.
Fret is— was? —an artisan with a prodigal talent for woodwork. Creating his own one-of-a-kind pieces has been his life since the day my dad showed him how to use a coping saw and a chisel. His guitar is much the same. Music is his voice. It helps the quiet solitary man connect with others when the right words won’t come.
“So that’s it, doll?” Slash asks when it becomes clear the doctor is letting Brutus’ menacing silence get to her.
“I prefer to be called Dr. Du Bois or even Bebe,” the doctor snaps at him.
She’s a tiny thing, maybe five foot tall, pretty in that peaches and cream way that works well with red hair, yet she shows little fear when Slash fails to hide his amusement at her reaction and leans over her to say, “I disagree… reckon doll suits you to a T .”
A scandalised sound rumbles in her throat, then she pushes past Slash to engage directly with a still-silent Brutus. I glare at the back of my best friend’s head, mystified by his behaviour in the midst of all this. Of all the times, and with his clumsy repertoire and heart-breaking history, he chooses now to flirt.
Time and a place, brother.
Time and a place.
“Your son also suffered various burns over his torso and back—some from cigarettes, others from what we believe is a blowtorch or welding rod.”
Finally, my president’s eyes turn black, and he reacts to the doctor’s description of the torture Fret endured. Charlie calls quits on their cold war to rush over to him. She tries to comfort him by cupping his face in her hands, but he shakes her off, and she silently retreats back to her original position next to Crystal. With a face like thunder, Slash abandons whatever game he was playing with the doctor and comes to stand next to me.
“They’re gonna pay for this,” he snarls. “With blood. Flesh. Bone. Fucking sinew. I’m gonna carve ’em up, same as they hurt our boy, then I’m gonna make ’em hurt a thousand times worse… and once they can’t take no more pain, I’m gonna leave their breathin’ but broken bodies at the farm so the critters can eat them alive.”
“Fuckin’ oath.”
“Count me in,” Toker adds.
With a sob, Sander slumps against the wall, then he slides down it until his backside reaches the floor. The two youngest Mayberry boys crouch on either side of him, their heads together. In hushed tones, they speak to each other, pulling together, doing whatever it takes to get through this as a family. Against my neck, Lily’s lips move. I can’t hear what she’s saying, but I know she’s praying. Once she’s done, her spine stiffens, and she moves away from me. Her tear-stained face makes my heart lurch. The pain in her eyes turns my gut to stone.
“I’m sorry, metukà shelì . The club, I, we?—”
“It’s not your fault or the Shamrocks.” Lily presses her lips to mine, then joins her brothers.
Her best friend follows her.
After a small hesitation, Nadia drops to her knees next to Sander and pulls his head to her chest. My woman hugs her youngest brother, while Wyatt just stares at his father with malice. I step close enough to grasp his shoulder and squeeze.
“Not the place for finger pointin’ or fireworks right now,” I murmur. He nods, standing in a rush to tuck himself under my arm. I yank him closer, squeeze the teenager tight, trying to offer him the comfort his father isn’t. Mouth in line with his ear, I mutter, “You got somethin’ to tell me?”
Wyatt whispers, “Yeah… too much.”
“Come find me at the compound.”
“When Dad’s not around, I will.”
Curiosity piqued, I hold Wyatt out from me and hit him with a searching look. He gives me nothing in return except a slight head shake. After letting him go, I regroup with Slash and Toker, then Hunter after he comes to stand with us. We’re sentries. Blocking the family from view. Allowing the Mayberry kids the chance to let down their guard in relative privacy once the doctor delivers the knockout blow that we can all tell is coming.
“I hate to be the bearer of more bad news,” Bebe ventures gently. She stands as tall as she can, staring down Brutus as she continues. “However, there’s a long road ahead, as your son will need to learn to walk again. His spine is unaffected, which is good. It’s just the type of extensive tendon and nerve damage he’s sustained will limit his mobility for months… maybe permanently.”
None of us have time to react to her pronouncement because the doors to the corridor are opened, and the second last person any of us want to see strides inside.
Joseph Kingsley doesn’t seem to care, but he’s just entered a powder keg.
Couldn’t have happened to a bigger fool.
Brutus isn’t reacting the way any of us would expect. The Mayberry siblings are liable to explode with outrage over his cool acceptance of their brother’s injuries at any minute. Charlie is one piece of bad news away from collapsing. I’m vibrating with rage while grappling with the uselessness that’s riding me hard. Slash and Toker aren’t far behind me.
All this angst needs an outlet.
We can’t touch the Bishops of Bloodshed until the chapters I called in while we bided our time in the chapel arrive. But we can teach Alex’s father a quick, painful lesson if he steps out of line.
As I’m searching the waiting room for ways to block the exits, Brutus turns on Joseph. “What the fuck are you doin’ here? This has nothin’ to do with you.”
“Your son was tortured, Mr Mayberry,” Bebe tells him. “It was my duty to notify the police so they could speak to you, and then Everett when he’s brought out of sedation.”
The moment Joseph grins at Brutus, I know shit’s about to kick off.
I fully expect my president to leave in handcuffs.
Potentially followed by Slash and me.
Possibly Toker.
What I’m not expecting is for Hunter to retrieve his pistol from his shoulder holster, then press the muzzle to the back of Joseph’s head.
“Hunt,” Slash cautions. He flicks a look of pure anxiety between his younger brother and the good doctor who has just found herself caught in an armed standoff. “Put it away.”
“Nah, I don’t think I will,” our resident genius replies evenly. “I’ve had enough of this fucker over the past couple days. He needs to trot his corrupt arse out of this room, all the way down to the parking lot, then drive his expensive car home to his soulless mansion without saying another word… otherwise, I’m gonna send him out the back door in a body bag.”
“Step down,” Brutus orders with a flick of his hand. He doesn’t even meet Hunter’s eyes, just dismisses him like he’s a bothersome flea. “Don’t need your heroics, ’cause this cunt’s leavin’ with me. Right. Now. We needa have a little chat. Alone .”
From the angle I’m standing, I can’t see Joseph’s face any longer. He might be amused. He might be shit scared. Doesn’t matter because I can see Brutus’ expression, and what I’m witnessing makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. His gaze is unworried. His lips quirk every so often, almost like he’s trying to bite back a smile. Brutus might be verbally scornful of the father of the man who abused his daughter and had his son kidnapped and tortured, yet the rage that he should be feeling over Lily and Fret’s suffering is missing.
In truth, he seems mildly bemused, a little annoyed, and a whole lot put out by Hunter stepping up to the minister for police. Almost like he’s not worried about Joseph being here. Like he knows he can talk him into pretending he was never notified about Fret’s torture.
In any other circumstances, it’d take four of us to pry Brutus off Alex’s father.
This afternoon, though, he’s acting as if the cops are more tolerable than his MC brothers.
My gut twists, all my suspicions fall into line, one after the other, like dominos.
Any doubt I’d harboured, the hope that I could find something to salvage my relationship with my godfather, evaporates.
Brutus is the rat.
I already figured he was colluding with the Maddison’s, but now it’s clear that he’s also working with the Bishops and, it appears, Joseph Kingsley.
Betraying his daughter, his son, and his club in one fell swoop.
“Hunt,” Slash tries to get his brother’s attention again.
“Stand the fuck down,” Brutus bellows.
When Hunter doesn’t heed his president’s command, I pat his shoulder. “Holster your weapon, kiddo.” The acidic look Hunter gives me could melt me on the spot. He’s enraged, beyond pissed off that I’m not stepping up to challenge Brutus. I try to talk him down a second time. “It’s not the place.”
There’s a keen gleam of calculation in Hunter’s icy-blue gaze when he glances between me and Brutus. In his expression, I see the same conclusion being drawn as the one I’ve come to. Our president is bent. Corrupt. Selling out the club. Deceiving his kids. Deceiving us all.
Barely nineteen years old, and Christian “Hunter” Hudson is already putting me to shame with his nous. Considering his blatant defiance, it’s clear he’s been on to Brutus for a lot longer than I have been.
Teeth bared, insolence on his face, Hunter winks at me. “Sure thing, prez .”
Returning his attention to Brutus, the little shit makes a show of sighting up his actual president and clicking his tongue like an improvised trigger before he lowers the pistol. Hunter doesn’t return the weapon to its holster, instead, he holds it with the muzzle toward the floor and cocks his hip to the side as Brutus advances on him.
“Me and you gonna have words,” Brutus tells his youngest fully patched member. Without waiting for a reaction, he shoulders past Hunter, knocking him into me. He then takes hold of Joseph’s upper arm. “Let’s go. We’ve got a couple things to discuss.”
Once they’ve left the waiting room, Joker and Bear in tow, I check on the doctor, needing to see how much finessing she’s going to require to let this slide. Sometime during the showdown, she slipped behind Slash. Clutching one of his long arms, Bebe peeks at us from around rib height on my six-foot-eight best friend. She’s almost completely composed, a slight tic under her right eye gives away the tiny crack in her composure.
“You all right there, doll?” Slash asks before I can.
After a slight hesitation, she steps away from him and waves her fingers like touching him burns her.
Ignoring his question, the tiny doctor slams her hands on her hips and addresses me. “After all that, I guess talking to the police is off the cards.”
“You’d be correct.” Relief fills me when she nods. “The cops aren’t welcome in our business.”
“Okay,” she murmurs, almost to herself. Regaining her composure after a beat, Bebe pulls on her professional fa?ade and launches into a matter-of-fact evaluation. “So... Everett will be sedated for at least three days. This is mainly to kick-start his healing, but also to alleviate some of the swelling we figure was caused by some nasty blows to the head. Because I’ve already made a police report, security will be posted on his door as a matter of procedure, but I guess you’ll want one of your people to watch over him, too?”
“Correct again.”
“Right… well … give me about ten minutes to finalise his paperwork. They’ll take him straight to the intensive care ward and, once he’s settled, I’ll call for one of you to sit with him.”
“I know you said he’s sedated, but can he have visitors?” Lily asks.
“No. I’m sorry. Not tonight. Hopefully, by tomorrow afternoon.” Bebe flushes pink, shaking her head with apology. “Now, I’m going to need a number to call once the coast is clear.”
“Who’s goin’ with him?” I pose my question to Slash.
He’s the SAA which means security is his domain in Brutus’ absence.
“Me,” he replies without hesitation.
I swear Bebe mutters, “God help me” under her breath before she huffs. She passes Slash her pen and a small notepad. He scribbles down his number. Her movements are jerky when she accepts it back from him.
“Why you?” Toker whines. “None of us wanna be stuck in the compound either.”
“He got hurt on my watch,” Slash tells him. “That means I’m takin’ first shift.”
A strange silence grips the room in the wake of his frank assessment. It’s a paralysing mixture of not knowing what to do next and not wanting to leave Fret that I decide to put an end to quickly. The Mayberry kids won’t have the luxury of fully falling apart until we have them secured inside the compound. Once we have them safe, they can work through their feelings. Until then, and especially with Brutus’ bullshit like to touch them soon, it’s up to me to keep them in one piece—both literally and figuratively.
“Need you to talk some sense into Hunt,” Slash murmurs tersely as Bebe slips out of the waiting room. He pauses to watch her leave, then returns his attention to me. In his gaze, I see my own frustrations over our president reflected. “Know you have your suspicions. I have mine too. Won’t stand by and let you drag my little brother into this mess. Won’t let him be Brutus’ next target.”
“Already planned on talkin’ to him.”
“Call me if he won’t listen to you.”
“Will do.”
Sensing the tension and simmering rage in my best friend over what he sees as my overstep, I bite my tongue to refrain from telling him that I plan on doing more than ordering Hunter to quit antagonising Brutus. Slash might shy away from the truth about his mother’s real identity, but I know our alliance with the Trinity will be the deciding factor if we end up in a war with the Maddison clan. Because of that I want to discuss with the youngest Hudson genius exactly what he thinks is going down between our president and our enemies. Then I’m going to get him to go over everything Cub’s uncovered to see if he can map out his best guess as to Alex’s next moves.
A pair of fresh eyes as talented as Hunter’s are just what I need before I take anything more to Angelis and the other second-generation patches.
“Right,” I say with as much authority as I can muster when everyone looks to me for guidance. “Slash, since you’re stayin’ here, I’ll leave it up to you to organise which brothers you wanna post on the entrances to start with. Text me with a list of your upcomin’ rotations, and I’ll make sure our brothers are here when you need them.” With a wave of my arm, I gesture to everyone else. “The rest of you are leavin’ with us. Between me, Hunter, and Toker, we’ll safely escort you to the van. Hunter can drive you back to the compound, and any brothers not on sentry duty tonight will meet us there.”
Slash nods his agreement with my arrangements but refuses to meet my gaze, then pulls his phone out to focus on the job I gave him. His unusual reaction bothers me, but I let it slide. Everyone’s feeling the same anxiety I am. The shit has hit the fan for the Shamrocks MC with more likely to come. We need to get past it as fast as we can, put the Shamrocks on the downhill run back to normalcy, so I can put a stop to whatever Brutus is up to, once and for all.
Blanking my best friend in return, I motion for my patched brothers to lead the way out of the waiting room. Once Toker shouts that the corridor is clear, I follow Charlie, Crystal, Nadia, then Lily and her brothers out into the open hallway. As we head for the elevators, my woman drops off the back of the group to link hands with me.
“What is Dad thinking? Leaving with Joseph and only taking Joker and Bear for backup.”
I slow our strides so I can talk to her alone. “I don’t know what he’s thinkin’, but I need you to run your mind through the last few months with him—maybe even the last few years since he left Inadale to move back to Perth. Something’s not right, and I needa get out the front of it before it blows up in our faces.”
As quickly as shock enters her expression at my bold request, it’s replaced with a benign kind of acceptance. “I can do that.”
Although Lily tried to hide her reaction, the speed with which she composed herself is a testament to how strange Brutus is acting. Their relationship is fraught, and he’s levelled some betrayals on her head that she’s struggled to move past, yet Lily is a daddy’s girl at her core. For her to easily accept that something’s not right with her father proves she feels it too.
Brutus has gone rogue.
“I want to speak to Fret first,” she replies, leaning into me as we approach the elevator doors that Hunter is holding open for us. “I have some ideas, but I can’t promise that they’ll be useful.”
I offer her a curt nod, unable to formulate a comforting response.
Because what’s left to say?
Neither of us are in the position to make promises to each other.