Chapter 21 #2
When we’re alone, I glare at my brother through the rearview. “This is fucking dumb. What the hell are you up to?”
“Why do I need to be up to something? Maybe I just need a vacation. Nothing like a minimum security prison to clear the mind.”
“Bail will be high, and if I turn over this product, your association to the club could get you a trafficking charge. Real jailtime. You understand?”
His face goes somber. “I know the stakes, Linc. Relax. Take your win.”
I’m not one to question club politics. But this seems like a really fucked-up moment for Axe to let his second-in-command fall on his sword. Unless?—
“You want to get booked. Why?”
“Maybe I got business in lockup. What’s it to you?” He breaks into a smile. It’s not the friendly sort, his teeth still stained red with blood. “You gonna miss me?”
I quirk a brow. Not much business Jack could have behind bars that he couldn’t do from out here.
Which means he’s trying to get to someone.
“Hope you know what you’re doing. And I hope you’re ready for the ass kicking you’re about to get.
That bloody nose has got nothing on what Allen is gonna do to you. ”
“I know what’s coming.” He slumps back against the seat and exhales.
“I need a favour. Watch out for Grace while I’m gone, yeah?
She needs someone looking out for her, you know?
And her and Axe don’t get on all that well.
But since you and I are—well, you know what we are—she’s kind of your family too. Like a sister.”
I nearly choke, reeling around to face him. “She sure as hell is not my fucking sister.”
He scrutinizes me, eyes narrowed. “What’s the issue?”
“The issue is that I’ve seen your sister naked. Very naked. So I’d rather not call her family.”
Anger flares in his eyes, though it’s quickly followed by what looks like annoyance. “Bit of a tired joke, don’t you think? Knock it off, unless you want another slap.”
I grin. “What makes you think I’m joking?”
His glare turns almost violent. Despite our history, the blood we have in common, if it came to it, Jack would kill me. It eases my discomfort a little knowing he’d hesitate, but in the end, it’s his club, his real family, before everything else. Including me. Especially me.
“You better be fuckin’ joking. Otherwise you better take these cuffs off so I can properly beat the shit out of you.”
Movement outside the passenger window catches my attention. Miller. He props himself up against the brick wall outside Kuppajoe, my sandwich in tow, his phone pressed to his ear. I give him a nod, and he rolls his eyes and mouths Sergeant.
“What the hell do you care who Grace is sleeping with?” I ask, once again twisting to face my brother. “The way I hear it, you’ve been pretty vocal about not wanting her back in South Bay. She got your message, brother, loud and clear.”
His anger dissipates slightly, his expression turning a little haunted, and he opens his mouth as if to say something, but then promptly closes it.
“What?” I goad him. “Out with it.”
He sets his jaw in response. Right. No one talks.
I’m about to turn back around, when he says, “You ever think about it? What he did to her?”
My gut sinks. Our father. The man whose DNA binds us. He hurt Grace. Enough to leave marks, to bruise. She was a girl, and he threw her around almost as bad as he threw her mother, Jack’s mother, around.
I nod. “Sometimes, yeah.”
“Well, I think about it all the time.” He lets out a long breath, dropping his gaze. “We should have killed him that night. Before everything got fucked up. Letting him live after what he did to her, marking her up like that. It was a mistake. We should have put him in the ground that first night.”
“Yeah.” I rough a hand down my face. “Yeah, we should have.”
“It’s our fault. Him coming back, doing what he did. None of that shit would have happened if I’d just fucking killed him when I had the chance.”
A lot of shit would be different if he had. At least for the club. I would have ended up here somehow regardless. Every iteration of this life, every path, every timeline, they all still would have led here. Me taking a life. Serving justice.
“I owe you,” he grits out. “You protected her. You saw what he did, and you stopped it. I’ll always owe you.”
I knew it the moment I saw her that night.
The way she struggled to get over my fence, how she limped across my yard to that damn treehouse.
Could see the bruises, even in the dark.
I told Jack. It wasn’t my business. Club politics.
But Grace was a young girl. Still a teenager.
I couldn’t let that slide. It’s what started all this.
“I’m not keeping score.” I sigh. “Not with you.”
He leans back, nose still bloody, jaw still tight with emotion. “It’s weird.”
“What is?”
“You and Grace.”
Movement outside again, then Miller is wandering towards the car. I turn back towards the street, surveying my brother through my rearview. “Yeah. I know.”
“You treating her well?”
“No,” I admit.
He grunts. “Hope she kicks your ass for that.”
“Your sister’s got a hell of a punch.”
He huffs a low laugh. “She’s a scrapper. My mom was like that too. Tough as nails.”
“She shouldn’t have to be. If you weren’t being such an asshole, maybe she wouldn’t feel the need to come to me for help when she should be turning to you, to the club.”
His body goes rigid, his eyes sharp. “Help? What do you mean by that?”
Miller pulls open the car door, and I clamp my mouth shut. My partner’s timing is impeccable today.
He tosses me my paper-wrapped sub. “Sergeant is tickled pink. Ready to play hero?”
“Always,” I say dryly as I put the car in gear.
I ignore the lurch in my gut as I lock eyes with my brother.
I’ve always wondered if I could do it, stomach it.
Take him down like I want to do to his prez.
We’re on opposite sides. It should be easy.
But with every turn I take towards the station, the knowledge that it’s not that simple grows.
Because the two of us, much as I sometimes wish we weren’t, are family.
Allen meets us in the PD parking lot and grins at Jack as he slaps me on the shoulder. “Good work, Decker. I knew you’d eventually come through for me.”
I pull the coke out of my pocket and dangle it in front of his face.
His expression turns menacing. “Gold star. Interrogation room, cameras off.” With a nod, I tug Jack up the stairs. When we’re halfway up, Allen says, “You’re in with me this time, Decker.”
I’m not a good man. And yeah, I’ll have to atone for that one day. But I’ve always tried to be a good cop. Shit I do for Axe aside, when I put on this uniform, I try my damndest to protect South Bay, to put on a face that my old man, the man who raised me, would be proud of.
All that goes out the window the second I step into that interrogation room and handcuff Jack to the table. Today it’ll be my fists laying out Allen’s justice.
Guess I’m about to test out how much of this I can stomach.