30. Venom
30
VENOM
Three days later
T he sun is low on the horizon as the mourners leave the gravesites of the three men we’ve just buried. I don’t follow them. Responsibility hangs heavily over my head. Brutus didn’t turn up to see off his brothers, and from the questions asked of me, I’m assuming he hasn’t been seen since I left. Part of me is disappointed that he hasn’t unveiled his new smile yet. The other side is angry that he’s still breathing.
In his absence, I’m in charge.
Which feels like an impossibility since I’m barely functioning enough to drag myself through the day, let alone my forty-odd brothers and their families, plus the other clubs and our allies. Hundreds of people have shown up to offer their respects, yet every word, every action, feels hollow.
It feels impossible to see a way past the shit that’s brewing around the Shamrocks… and inside the club. Every time I turn a corner, I hit another obstacle. Trust is a scarce commodity. Honesty has gone AWOL. Anger is the order of the day. Desire for vengeance fuels us, yet we have nowhere to direct it. My brotherhood is failing in front of me, and I don’t have any idea what my first move should be to save it.
Do I take the meagre proof we have to church?
Do I take out Brutus and let the chips fall where they may?
Do I go straight to the top and eradicate Kristoff Maddison from the earth?
Every question raises more questions. A problem solved seems to create a new problem. Issue after issue stands between me and success. Peace feels like a long-forgotten dream.
Then there’s Lily…
She hasn’t looked at me all day.
It shouldn’t hurt. The breakup was my decision. My ensuing deal with Brutus just provided secondary justification. But tell that to the organ in my chest that continues to flip-flop with increasingly futile death throes.
“Where have you been stayin’?” Slash approaches me for the first time since we crossed paths on the freeway into Perth two days ago. He was headed to Sydney. I was hot-footing it back in time for the funerals with the Blackards SMC, a long-standing ally of ours, for company. Once he’d found an off-ramp and turn around, we rode into the city, side by side, then gone our separate ways when he turned toward his suburb, and I’d continued on into the hills with the Blackards.
“With my dad at the farm.”
“How is he?”
I run my fingers through the top of my hair. “Much the same. Dyin’ of lung cancer when he wishes he was fit enough to stop his life’s work—this fuckin’ club—from fallin’ apart.”
Unable to take my eyes off Lily as she’s helped into the Shamrocks van by Nadia, I miss the shift in Slash’s demeanour. The second the vehicle carrying the woman I deserted pulls away from the kerb, he locks his arm around my neck. Using the tight headlock for leverage, he pulls me behind the Mayberry family’s mausoleum and tosses me face down in the dirt.
When I roll onto my back, I discover I’m surrounded by familiar faces.
Slash. Sander. Cub. Wyatt. Nate. Hunter. Isaiah.
A few feet away, my dad watches this play out. Next to him, Toker sits in a wheelchair. There’s a dispassionate, almost lost expression on his face. Even if he could, he wouldn’t come to my aid. Known more for his laughter than his seriousness, it eats at my conscience to see how much Toker’s been changed by the events of the past month or so.
I let him down, too.
Just add it to my never-ending list of failures.
“That was unnecessary.” Angelis steps out of the shadows. With Duke on his six and Cassius taking up the same position on the opposite side, he looks like the avenging messenger angel he’s named for. He slaps Slash upside the head, then holds out a hand to me. “When I told my son to do whatever it takes to get you in front of us, I didn’t think he’d take it quite so literally.”
I allow him to pull me back to my feet, even though I know he’s hardly had time to heal from being driven off the road when the club was ambushed. Proud as any man in the Shamrocks, it would be an insult to refuse his assistance. The insinuation he’s incapable would end with a bullet somewhere in my body.
“Slash has always taken things to the extreme,” I quip. Wiping my face clean of dirt, I hit my best friend with a nasty smirk. “Guess intelligence isn’t always compatible with brawn.”
My insult is unwarranted. The big man is smarter than most people, infinitely more intelligent than me, but I need to lash out. It helps assuage my guilt. Gives me a reason to lean into my baser instincts. Allows me a reprieve from the demons hunting me.
“I’m gonna fuckin’ cave his face in.”
When my best friend gives me the reaction I sought, I rock back on my heels and observe the interplay between the men I call my brothers to determine exactly how bad things have become in my absence. They don’t disappoint. Cub attempts to restrain Slash. Despite his own injuries, Hunter helps him. Isaiah stays out of the fray, observing closely, ready to fix things once everyone is calm enough for him to step in with reason and logic. Wyatt and Nate edge closer to me, loyal as ever, ready to have my back if needed. The three older men simply shake their heads while my father and Toker continue to act as silent bystanders.
Sander ignores the rest of them to advance on me.
His fist glances off my cheekbone. “You fuckin’ left her. Alone. To deal with everythin’.”
As much as it kills me to act like I don’t care, I refuse to allow Lily’s twin to break me. I sniff with contempt. Shrug. Cock my head to the side as I tell him, “It’s better this way.”
“Better. It’s better? ” he growls. With two hands, he shoves me in the chest. I take a step back. He pushes me again. Another backward step. “It must be better for you ‘cause it’s not better for Cherub. She’s fuckin’ hurtin’, and you’re off gallivantin’ all over the east coast. I trusted you to look after her.”
“That’s the problem,” I tell him. Sander pulls up short when he moves to shove me a third time. Shock in his gaze, he stares at me. “I didn’t look after her. She got hurt on my watch.”
“Zeke…” Dad calls my name. “It wasn’t?—”
“If you tell me it wasn’t my fault one more time, I’m gonna punch a hole in your oxygen tank.” The wry chuckle he gives in response to my exaggerated threat tells me he’s aware I’m at the end of my rope. Edging past Sander, I address Angelis. “Look, you’re obviously the appointed spokesman here… why don’t you say what it is you needa say so we can all go our separate ways?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Hunter interjects. He rubs his hands together, presses a palm to his right shoulder, then rolls the joint like it’s annoying him. “Good old Venom. Always gotta be in control. The first to run into danger. The last to leave. It must be killin’ you to have had absolutely no say over the shit that went down with Alex?”
“I’m not here to be analysed.”
He grins. “But analysin’ is what I’m here for.”
“Angelis—”
“We know what you did to Brutus,” Slash’s father informs me. “Just don’t know why.”
“He pissed me off.”
“Bullshit.” Cass snorts. “My brother is an expert at pushin’ people to their breakin’ point. He threatened you with somethin’… somethin’ you’re running from. Somethin’ you’re trying to protect. Somethin’ bigger than the club.”
“Has to have been little Cherub,” Hunter remarks with a sharp nod. “She’s the only thing that’d make him snap like that.”
I glare at the little smartarse. “Didn’t snap. Knew exactly what I was doin’.”
“I notice you don’t deny it involves Cherub.”
The expectant looks from my brothers pin me to the spot. Aware that I need to give them some answers if I’m to find a way through this, I settle on an abbreviated version of the truth. “He knows Alex is dead.” Sander makes a choking sound that ends when I frown at him. Eyes on the ground, he scuffs the toe of his shoe in the dirt and swings from side to side. “Threatened to pin it on Lily if we took the president’s patch from him.”
“Why would we take his patch?” Cass grumbles. “He didn’t mean to lead us into an ambush.”
“The ambush was his fault,” I inform Brutus’ older brother. “It was payback for tryin’ to renegotiate the deal he’d made with Joseph Kingsley and the Maddison Clan to distribute their drugs and sell the women they traffic.”
“Again, I call bullshit,” Cass snaps. “Brutus would never sell pussy.”
“Why not?” Toker demands. “He bartered little Cherub to the Kingsleys… any man who’ll do that to his own daughter ain’t gonna blink at a little sex traffickin’.” When Cass opens his mouth to object, Toker silences him with an impatient flick of his unbroken arm. We all give him our complete attention when he launches into his explanation, “I heard things—saw things—when I was being held by Bear... not that anyone has bothered to ask. This deal has been brewin’ for years, well before Alex even knew Cherub existed. The Bishops have been tryin’ to patch us over since they found out about it. They’re broke, needa reap the rewards of the new deal and our current interests to stop from goin’ under.”
There is annoyance in Hunter’s voice when he interjects, “So, that’s why they had Bear infiltrate us three years ago—they needed an inside eye.”
“I think so,” Toker agrees. “Can’t confirm that’s the complete picture ’cause Brutus has somethin’ else going on separate to all this. Alls I know is after dippin’ his toe into it, having his faction run a little drugs behind our backs, he only got serious about taking it on full time a few months before Alex was released.”
At his mention of Lily’s ex, my gut tightens and twists.
Lily’s cousin looks at his dad. Duke is watching him with a mixture of pride and worry. Toker quirks his lips in a tight grimace of acknowledgement, then continues. “Brutus ain’t heartless… second he found out what Alex had done to Cherub, he tried to pull outta the deal.”
“That doesn’t answer…”
“Shut up, Hunt,” Slash and I admonish the younger man at the same time.
With a snicker, Hunter motions for Toker to continue speaking.
“Joseph knew his son was a loose unit, so he agreed that he was gonna be dealt with. That was enough to satisfy Brutus… the deal was back on. Only the way I heard it; it couldn’t go down until Brutus had somethin’ on you. Somethin’ big enough to force you to vote with him when he brought the drug and skin trades to church. He knew you had the numbers to defeat him.” Toker puffs up his cheeks and shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “I was a bit in and out of it for the last day or so. Blood loss and too many boots to the head will do that eventually... What I figure is Alex managed to get the Bishops to double-cross Joseph and his grandfather. That’s how he got a lock on the location of the safe house. Seems the ambush was Alex’s way of takin’ out Brutus to force his father to partner with the Bishops.”
“Jesus. Fuckin’. Christ.” Hunter punctuates his curse with a long, low whistle. “That’s some convoluted web Brutus has himself tangled up inside. Now, the big question is why .”
At once, our phones beep.
Cub is the first to read his message. He scoffs, “Seems Brutus has chosen our absence to make his big comeback at the compound. Some of the families have tried to get inside for the wake, but the gates are locked, and the prospects are under orders not to open them ’til he’s spoken to Venom.”
“This should be fun,” I joke when twelve pairs of eyes turn to me for answers. “Nothin’ like being held over the barrel by the same prick who wants to kill you. At least he’ll be smilin’ through it all.”
Sander shakes his head. “What does that mean?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Cub murmurs when Angelis motions everyone to huddle closer.
“We should go together,” he announces once Toker and my dad have been pushed into the middle of our circle. “As a show of force. Make him aware we’re not gonna let him hijack our club without a fight.”
After scrubbing a hand over my face, I shrug. “That’s up to you, but I’m not ready to go head-to-head with him, not while Lily’s freedom is at risk. Until I’ve worked out how to nullify his threat, I’m playin’ by his rules. That’s not to say I don’t welcome your support at my back… now and when shit kicks off... also need to know no one plans on steppin’ up to him without the rest of us.”
One by one, the men meet my eyes and offer me a sharp, “Aye.”
It all goes smooth.
Until I reach Cassius.
He shakes his head. “I can’t. Brutus knows… things . I have a wife and a son to protect. They mean more to me than the Shamrocks. Always have. I won’t back him, but I can’t be seen to back you either.”
“I understand,” I tell him.
It’s a complete lie, designed to give him the out he’s seeking.
There’s an air of disbelief surrounding us as Cass turns his back on his club and strides over to his bike. We watch him leave. His Harley is a distant rumble before Hunter breaks the silence.
“I did not see that comin’.”
The little genius’ understated quip hangs around our heads like a noxious gas. The bomb Cass just dropped is so far out of left field, it’s almost swung back on itself. Until a few seconds ago, Cassius Mayberry, the Black Shamrocks Chaplain, was a confirmed bachelor.
Now, he suddenly has a family we didn’t know about.
“Text Brutus,” I say to Cub when it becomes clear no one has anything more to add. “Tell him I’ll be there shortly.”
“On it.”
As we all drift toward our bikes, Slash falls into step beside me. “When are you gonna tell Cherub what Brutus is threatenin’ to do?”
“I’m not.”
Slapping a hand to my chest, he moves in front of me and forces me to stop walking. “You’re kiddin’, right? You have to tell her.”
“No.” I shake my head, then knock his hand away. Pointing a finger in his face, I state, “It changes nothin’ between us.”
“It changes everythin’… just talk to her. Explain where your head was at and how Brutus took advantage of you.”
“For fuck’s sake.” My temper flares. “You and I both know I was done before Brutus levelled his bullshit at me. All he did was make me see it was the right choice.”
“Venom,” he ventures in a tight voice. Pleading snakes around his next words, pulling them tight, making them run into each other. “She needs you.”
The buckles on my bike boots clang as I stomp across the cemetery. The sound matches the clanking in my head as Slash’s plea bounces around in my skull. Breathing hard through my nose because I know if I open my mouth, I’ll scream. I flex my fingers and roll my shoulders to work out the turmoil that’s coiled within me like a spring-loaded bomb on the cusp of detonating.
If he pushes, my control will break.
“Zeke.” Slash catches up with me and clamps a hand down on my shoulder. “Just listen.”
I explode.
Knocking my best friend to the ground, I straddle his waist and pummel his face with both my fists. His skin splits beneath my knuckles like an overripe tomato. Blood sprays over my chin when I break his nose. The bar through his eyebrow gets caught on one of my rings and rips free.
Despite his size advantage, he doesn’t swing back at me.
That would be too easy.
Instead of defending himself, Slash curls his arms over his face and lets me have at him.
“She doesn’t need me!” I shout. “She can’t . Not when I’m the reason she lost the baby. Not when it’s my fault she got hurt. Not when it will happen again if Brutus gets his way. I’m fuckin’ useless. No good for her. Never have been. So, don’t come after me, bullshittin’ through your teeth about how she needs me. Lily’s better off now?—”
My arms are seized from behind, and I’m pulled off Slash and slung to the ground. When Cub drops to his knees to check out Slash’s injuries, Hunter boots me in the kidney. Sander adds his own input, stomping me between the shoulder blades. With a feral growl, I roll onto my back to avoid Sander’s second kick, grabbing his ankle and pulling him to the dirt next to me.
As soon as he hits the deck, I push back to my feet and storm off.
I rip my helmet from my handlebars and pitch it as far as I can. It bounces along the road until a car hits it. Wheels screech. Brake lights illuminate. The second car runs up the arse of the first. The sound of crunching metal sets my teeth on edge.
“Fuck.” Hands ripping at my hair, I bend in half and howl. “I fuckin’ hate this.”
When I look up, I see the old-timers bearing down on me. Jumping straight into action, I flee on my Harley. As I pass by without slowing, I stare ahead. It’s wrong. Disrespectful as fuck. Even so, the last thing I want is to explain myself to them when my head hasn’t yet come to grips with everything that’s happening.
Deceptively placid, Angelis is bad enough to deal with, considering his calm way of extracting the truth from an unwilling man.
But it’s my dad’s disappointment I really want to avoid.
He’s dying.
We should be celebrating his life and making the most of the time we have left together, yet all I’m doing is making his exit messier than it needs to be.