15. Ash
Ash
“Is it really worth killing Zeke and starting a whole goddamn war?” Matt grumbles, running a hand through his greying hair.
“It’s always worth it if it involves spilling Wraith blood,” Leon chimes in with a shit-eating grin on his face. His light brown hair curls down his forehead, making him look even younger than he already is.
My eyes catch on Griff, who is glaring at him like he is a delinquent child, hands fisted on top of the table. Leon winks back at him, not an ounce of fear in his youthful face.
I’m starting to really like the kid.
“Zeke dies,” I confirm, nodding at Kaleb next to me. His twin is out shadowing my pretty angel and will continue to do so until I sort this mess out and can do it myself. “He knows he signed his death warrant when he killed my men on our fucking soil.”
Red flashes in my vision at the reminder, my body tense and coiling, ready for a fight.
A heaviness settles in the meeting room at the back of the club, with only my closest men around me.
Club meetings involving the entire club get fucking carried away and when we need to be efficient and smart about a decision, I bring in the men I need.
Right now, that includes Griff, Leon, Matt, Kaleb, and Thomas.
“Boss,” Thomas’s voice draws my attention. “If we are going to kill the president of another club, we need to be ready for what comes next. Keep an eye on Zeke’s second. Fuck knows he will retaliate.”
Everyone nods, knowing that this will not be as easy as killing one man. It’ll be an all-out battle, one that might last for years. One that might see the deaths of my brothers. But we are already there, anyway.
Options for our plan of action circle in my head as Griff goes on about what he heard at his underground fight last night. Something about a new family pledging into the Wraiths. My mind is spinning, one picture clear as day.
The asshole with a bullet hole in his head.
The door creaks, wood sliding over rusty hinges as it opens hesitantly, and I raise an eyebrow at our intruder. My men know not to come into this room uninvited.
But then I see the blonde locks of an angel.
I see the big doe eyes and pink, pouty lips.
The fancy clothes and tall heels. She looks around, uncertainty etched into her features before her eyes land on mine.
She looks nervous, shifting her weight from side to side and wringing her fingers in front of her.
Kai steps in behind her, his neutral mask offering no explanation of why he has brought her here.
“Angel,” I exhale, conflicted by the relief I feel deep in my chest at seeing her pretty face.
“I, uh... I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just barged in here like that,” she stutters, her cheeks growing rosy. “I’ll go.”
She turns to the door, and I leap from my chair, palming the opening door shut with a crack. She turns with a gasp as I cage her body against the door with my arms, the room now dead silent as my men watch us.
I look down at the girl, and there is something different about her. Wind-drenched hair and flushed cheeks. Wild jealousy burns in my veins as I realise, she was on the back of another man’s bike.
Before she had the chance to be on mine.
Kai is my brother, yet the urge to plant my fist into my second’s face fills me to the brim.
My nostrils flare as I take a deep breath, focusing on the fact that he brought her here. To me.
“Did you have a nice ride?” I ask through my clenched jaw.
Still trapped against the door, she blinks up at me, and then I notice it. Her red, glassy eyes, mascara marks down her cheeks. I lift my thumb to wipe the smudged makeup off her perfect face, and her eyes flutter shut at the touch.
I love the way she reacts when I touch her. Like a touch-starved pet, craving her owner’s touch. She doesn’t flinch or back away the way she should. It makes me feel like less of the monster that I know I am.
“What happened, Angel?” I rasp, the beast in my chest battering my bones, begging to be released.
If someone, anyone, touched what is mine; they will die, wars be damned.
She shakes her head softly, peeling her eyes open to peer up at me. “It’s nothing. I shouldn’t have interrupted you. I’m sorry.”
My brow furrows as I watch her slowly sink into a pit of self-consciousness and doubt, defeat written all over her face. Ever since she walked in here that first night, she has free fucking reign. The fact that she did without me prompting it makes my chest feel heavy.
“You sound fucking ridiculous, Maddy,” I murmur.
Bending down slightly, I lift her into my arms, wrapping her legs around me like a child as I walk us back to my chair at the head of the table.
I lounge back into the wooden chair, settling her over one of my thighs and holding her back tight to my chest, so that she is facing my men as well.
Kai settles into his seat, eyes connecting with his twins for a second before landing back on me.
Maddy melts into my chest as my arm bands tight around her, my mind trying to pick up the meeting from where I left off. For her own safety, I’ll be vaguer. She doesn’t need to be dragged into this shit when she is already sad, for some unknown reason that she won’t tell me.
She gasps and I realise my hold on her has tightened to a painful level, so I try to relax my stiff muscles.
The men eye her before looking back at me.
It’s Matt who speaks first, eyes softening as they flick to the small girl in my lap. “What we need to know is why...” I give him a pointed look, and he thinks over his words. “... he wants to bait us into this war. And why now?”
That is exactly what I’d love to know. Zeke has had reason to start this war for nearly seventeen years. I’ve waited for it for so long. Ever since that godforsaken night in the building right next door.
My dad loved Zeke as a son, well as close as the man could feel love. I think it was less affection and more recognition. Zeke was obedient, brutal, and had the same appetite for violence. I know for a fact that my dad wanted Zeke as his second. A blind, ruthless, loyal dog.
Dad always thought I was weak. Weak... And ruled by emotions, is what he’d say to me.
He’d come home drunk and fucking furious, going on about how he’d never hand the club over to me, and that I was too much like my mother.
He’d scream that he was embarrassed I came from him, and that my whore mother probably cheated on him, as that’s the only reason I turned out the way I did.
So, I shot him. Square in the head. With his own gun. In that moment, looking at the end of a barrel held by his fifteen-year-old son, he looked weak. And when blood splattered through the kitchen in the apartment where I still live, he looked pathetic.
The thoughts cause a shiver to rack through me, my mind refusing to relive what happened afterwards. My hand flexes against my angel's stomach, needing her as close to me as possible right now. The one person who doesn’t, for some ungodly reason, see me as that monster.
I know I am one, but just this once, I’ll drink in this feeling.
“I think we all know why,” I grit out. “What I don’t know is why now. He’s never had the manpower to even think about testing us.”
Everyone knows what happened all those years ago, even those who joined afterwards. But Matt, Griff, Kai, and Kaleb were around when it happened.
The night their club president was murdered.
By rights, they should have executed me in front of everyone.
Yet, that very night, they swore me in as their leader.
Helped me hold it and trained me in everything my dad ran until I was old enough to do it on my own.
I still don’t know why they did it, but I owe them.
I owe it to them to fix this, so none of them follow the fate my other brothers had.
“I say we tie cinder blocks to his feet and see how well he swims in the harbour. I’m sure the sharks will make sure there is nothing left of him,” Leon grins, sitting tall like his idea will cure all our problems.
A small gasp sounds from Maddy, her body stiffening in my hold.
“Leon,” I warn, watching as the kid smiles sheepishly at her.
Her head slowly turns up to me, eyebrows drawn and eyes wide.
Shit. She looks so damn innocent in this moment.
So appalled by the fact that we are sitting here discussing someone's imminent death. It makes me smile so wide my cheeks ache. I forgot that murder is a far-off concept to some. That it doesn’t stain their hands and their minds.
Seeing it in its pure glory is like a drug.
I brush my knuckles down her cheek, murmuring, “It’s okay, Angel. It’s nothing he doesn’t deserve.”
Her throat works as her eyes flick between mine, body frozen still. Irritation flares as I grip her tighter. Why is she still looking at me like that? Does she not believe me?
My men stare back at her when she turns her face, looking at every one of them. I know she sees a complete lack of remorse or guilt on their faces. Bloodlust and revenge are there in its place. When she looks back at me, her throat works as she fidgets on my lap.
“I... I think I should go. I’m late... for a work... thing,” she stumbles over her poor excuses, words falling over themselves.
The room goes deathly silent as the men watch me, waiting. My arms tighten around her slender frame as a cruel laugh slips out of me. So up and down, my angel is. Coming to the den of the Devils and then acting so timid and naive.
My breath dusts her ear, and she jumps as I lean forward, shifting her on my lap. “You are not going anywhere, Angel,” I growl, my frustration leaking into my voice. “Not after what you just heard.”
A frightened whimper falls out of her mouth, teeth biting into her bottom lip to stifle the sound.