Chapter Twenty-Seven
Montana
New York City...
“You motherfucking bastard!” she shouted as she followed hot on my heels into the boardroom. “You cannot just leave him there. He is your best friend, Montana. You have to do something!”
I grumbled as I took my seat at the head of the table in the boardroom.
The mahogany gleamed under the harsh fluorescent lights, mocking me.
I fucking hated this shit, this charade, this gilded cage of lies.
But to save Bane, I would do whatever needed to be done.
Even if it meant lying straight to the bitch’s face, a woman whose sharp intellect I both admired and feared.
Her unwavering gaze could dissect a lie faster than I could construct it.
However, this wasn’t just a lie to protect Bane; it was a lie to protect myself.
If Meredith discovered the truth—the reckless gamble we’d taken, the desperate measures we’d employed—my life, everything I’d built, would crumble.
I lifted my cup; the warmth did little to soothe the icy dread coiling in my gut. Bane’s fate hung in the balance, a weight pressing down on me, suffocating me. He was my family, bound to me by a loyalty forged in fire, unbreakable.
The truth, however, was a bitter pill: I was failing.
I was failing Bane. I was failing myself, and I was already beginning to feel the sickening sting of regret. The lie forming on my lips felt like a poisonous serpent coiled around my throat, ready to strike. “I am doing something,” I said, my words tasting like betrayal.
“No, you are sitting on your ass as usual.”
Placing my cup on the table, I groaned. “Look, Mere, I don’t know what more you want me to do.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but I no longer have a seat at the table.
I don’t have the clout I used to have. I’ve talked with Morpheus, and he’s assured me that Bane will be perfectly fine until the matter is settled. ”
“What matter?”
“That’s club business.”
She slammed her hand down on the table and sneered, “You rat bastard! You are going to hang him out to dry!”
“I never said that. All I’m saying is, I’m not taking point on this one.”
“Then who is?”
I leaned back in my chair and grinned. “Guess.”
Falling into a chair, she stared at me and gasped. “No.”
“Yep.” I nodded. “So you can bitch all you want, but my hands are tied. It’s his show now.”
“When did this happen?”
I sneered. “The moment he walked into my motherfucking club.” Which was technically the truth. The second that fucker showed up, my life had never been the same. Because of him, I’d been dragged into a mess not of my making, albeit my dad was the catalyst.
But that wasn’t my fault.
Not my fucking fault I drew the short straw in the parent department. In fact, his was no better; we were both nothing more than twisted reflections of our own dysfunctional upbringing.
Now, did I make mistakes? Sure as shit did, and I owned those.
.. well, most of them. But this whole fucked-up bloodline mess?
I had nothing to do with the initial spark.
Except... that wasn’t entirely true, was it?
There was a flicker, a tiny ember of knowing, a seed of resentment towards my father that I’d carefully ignored, buried under layers of defiance and self-pity.
Had I, in my own rebellious way, unknowingly invited this chaos?
The thought coiled in my gut, cold and bitter.
I told myself I was innocent as the driven snow, a victim.
But the truth felt slicker, more dangerous.
He’d pushed me, forced my hand, but I’d reacted.
.. hadn’t I? I’d seized on the opportunity, used the turmoil to my advantage, however small.
And now, faced with the fallout—the looming threat of losing everything—I was considering choices that would make even him blanch.
Choices that would violate every shred of my twisted moral compass, choices that would stain my hands even dirtier than they already were.
I wanted to run, to erase it all, to go back to before I ever met him, before the club, before the mess.
But I couldn’t. I was trapped, not just by him, but by my own cowardly ambition, my refusal to face the truth.
This wasn’t about being innocent anymore.
This was about survival, about choosing the lesser of two evils, even if that evil meant betraying everything I thought I stood for.
And the worst part? I knew deep down that I’d choose it anyway.
Looking directly at her, I admitted, “I made some poor decisions. Trusted people I shouldn’t have, and now it’s come back to bite me in the ass.
I have only one active chapter left, and technically it’s not even my chapter.
The rest sided with Happy before that fucker died and have since fucked off.
I’m sorry, Mere. I really am. I am trying to hold on to what I have left as best I can, but with this war hanging over our heads, my options are sorely limited. ”
“Patch over?”
I nodded. “It’s being considered. Gotta say, I’m not thrilled about it, but it’s an option. Either that or we disband altogether. I’ve got a few brothers in this club who won’t do well on the outside.”
“Malice.”
I nodded again. “Yeah. The man is a world-renowned board-certified child therapist, but he refuses to practice anymore. I don’t see him integrating back into civilian life easily.
” Shaking my head, I added, “No. Malice needs a club, and so do Payne and Rage, though they are more level-headed. Fury and Vicious are already at home in California. Storm is refusing to come back until the dust settles, Pippen is married to Sypher, and as for the rest of the brothers, they’ve been spending more and more time at their day jobs.
I’m the only one here on a daily basis, trying to hold down the fort, but even I know it’s a losing battle.
I’m not as young as I once was, Mere. Tess is due soon, and with York getting ready to start pre-school, my plate is full. ”
She grinned. “You sound old.”
“I feel old.” I smirked. “And just remember, you are not that much younger than me.”
Sighing, she nodded. She knew I was right. None of us were as young as we once had been. While we had age and wisdom on our side, that didn’t mean shit when our lives were hanging in the balance.
I sat back in my chair as she processed this new information.
The silence amplified the frantic drumming of my own heart.
There was a lot of shit going on behind the scenes she didn’t know about—mainly the last twenty-something fucking years she missed while gallivanting free, doing her own thing.
I respected what her club, the Nyght Nymphs, did, fiercely even, but that didn’t mean she knew the score.
And the fact of the matter was, Bane hadn’t been completely truthful with her from the beginning.
That secret was about to bite him in the ass, and me too, if I didn’t figure out a fucking way to get him the hell away from the Brotherhood.
But how? My gut screamed at me to tell her everything, to lay bare the years of deceit and the price we’d both paid for it.
It was the honest thing to do, the only thing that aligned with the principles I’d always tried to uphold.
Except... telling her would shatter her world, destroy the fragile trust she’d placed in Bane, and potentially unleash the fury of the Brotherhood upon us both—a fury I knew, from bitter experience, was capable of unimaginable brutality.
My loyalty to Bane, twisted and born from years of shared hardship, warred with my conscience.
He was a flawed man, yes, but he was my man, bound to me by something far stronger than simple camaraderie.
To betray him now, to hand him over to the Brotherhood, felt like self-mutilation.
But keeping silent, letting him face the consequences alone, felt like a far worse betrayal—a betrayal of the very idea of truth and justice I’d always sworn to uphold.
I was damned if I did, damned if I didn’t.
The choice was agonizing, a slow, agonizing death by indecision.
And in that moment, I knew I was already making the wrong choice, choosing the path of least resistance, the path of self-preservation, even if it meant condemning Bane to a fate worse than death.
The weight of that knowledge, the certainty of future regret, settled heavily on my shoulders, crushing me under the burden of my own cowardice.
I was doing my best, but the situation with Bane was complicated.
My hands shook, a tremor I couldn’t control even with years of training.
I didn’t trust Morpheus as far as I could fucking throw him; his oily smile and carefully chosen words reeked of manipulation.
The irony gnawed at me—I’d always prided myself on my loyalty, my unwavering commitment to my friends.
Yet here I was, forced to rely on a man I despised, a man whose past actions screamed betrayal.
To believe Bane could handle whatever Morpheus threw at him felt like a desperate act of faith, a clinging to hope that bordered on delusion.
Worse, the only way to ensure Bane’s safety, the only leverage I possessed, was information I’d sworn to protect—a secret so dark, so damaging, it violated everything I believed in.
Revealing it would shatter the trust of others, people I considered family.
The thought of betraying them, of staining my honor, twisted my gut.
But the alternative—Bane’s suffering, possibly his death—was unbearable.
My blood boiled, but it wasn’t just anger; it was self-loathing.
This wasn’t some heroic battle; this was a moral quagmire I’d stumbled into, and I was already sinking fast. I had to make a choice—a choice that felt inherently wrong, a choice that would damn me regardless of the outcome.
To protect Bane, I had to become the very thing I swore to fight against. The weight of that realization pressed down on me, heavy and suffocating, promising a future I didn’t want, a future filled with the bitter taste of regret.
“Fine,” she conceded. “But I’m holding you to that. If anything happens to Bane, I’m holding you responsible.”
I held up my hands in surrender. “I get it. And I promise I’ll do everything I can to make sure he survives. But for now, we wait.”
She nodded, knowing that was the best we could do for now.
As the meeting drew to a close, I couldn’t shake the feeling of uncertainty hanging over me.
The air hung thick with the scent of stale beer and unspoken anxieties.
With my club, the Soulless Sinners, in disarray and war with the Death Dogs looming, the future felt precarious.
I barely trusted Reaper’s judgment—his recklessness had gotten us into this mess in the first place—and the thought of my club patching over to the Golden Skulls, or worse, disbanding, was something I genuinely couldn’t stomach.
It violated everything I believed in: loyalty, brotherhood, the unwavering code we’d sworn to uphold.
But the stark reminder of our vulnerability gnawed at me.
Cubs came and went like the wind, as the old-timers always said, but this felt different.
This felt like the end. And a sickening wave of self-doubt washed over me.
Had I been the problem all along? My stubborn refusal to compromise, my blind faith in traditions? Had it all been a recipe for disaster?
Reaper whispered promises of survival, of a merger that would secure our future.
He painted a picture of strength in numbers, a united front against the underworld.
But the price... the price was a betrayal of everything I stood for.
To align with the Golden Skulls, to share territory, to accept their ways—it felt like selling my soul.
It meant abandoning the very core of what made the Soulless Sinners different—the code we’d bled for.
And yet... the alternative was annihilation.
The faces of my brothers flashed before my eyes.
To condemn them to death, to watch them fall one by one, was a fate I couldn’t bear.
So I sat there, trapped between the Devil and the deep blue sea, knowing that whatever choice I made—to accept Reaper’s offer or to stand defiant—would be a choice I’d regret for the rest of my life.
A choice that would stain my soul and damn my legacy, regardless of the outcome.
Nothing was forever, but the weight of this decision felt eternal.
I knew Reaper was doing his best, but the fate of my club, and Bane’s safety, hung in the balance.
? War was coming, and I feared the worst was yet to come.
Watching Meredith leave, I sighed, raking my hands down my face. Fuck me, this was a clusterfuck of epic proportions. Shaking my head at her retreating form, Mercy walked into the boardroom and asked, “Well?”
“She bought it.”
“Gotta say, I’m surprised. Bitch didn’t strike me as gullible.”
“Well, I did lay it on pretty thick.”
“You used Tessa and York?”
I nodded. “You would have too.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, taking his seat. “So what now?”
“We stick to the plan.”
“You think Bane can hold out?”
“He better,” I said, looking at my VP, “because if he doesn’t, we’re all dead.”
“You want me to call him?”
“No,” I said reaching for my phone. “I’ll do it. You make sure everything is ready just in case that fucker is right.”