Creed
Growling, Bax slammed his hand onto the clubhouse table. It was one of the few things that survived. “We have to do something, Creed! He’s not giving us any choice!” The men around us howled in agreement, looking like wild animals caught in cages. If I agreed with them, they would all break free. And the result would be a civil war.
I glanced down at him from my standing position, crossing my arms over my chest. “I know all of you are angry, as we should be. But we have to be angry at the fuckers that did this, and not the Boss.” Even as the words came out of my mouth, they felt hollow.
Loyalty is all that matters. If I turn against Kelly, it could mean my life and Josh’s. So, loyalty it is. I just hoped my loyalty would save me from whatever fallout was coming.
“We need to stick together in this; if we make this work, the cartels will set us up for the rest of our lives.” The men grumbled in response, but the killing rage that infected them seemed to be dissipating. They craved the money and the stability even more than they wanted Kelly’s head, and I would just have to use that to my advantage. “Just reacting without a plan won’t work; we need to figure out how to get back at the bastards that did this.”
I managed to redirect their rage, making all of them angry again, but this time at the right people. It turned my gut to have to defend Kelly. All of us knew he was wrong to put our people in danger like we were expendable. But I didn’t have a choice.
None of us had a choice. Kelly had seen to that.
Just as I got the men to walk away, Ivy walked into the door looking dazed. I winced; she was the last person in the world I wanted to see. But here she was, looking like a scared rabbit, her eyes fluttering all over the damn room. She didn’t see me, but I certainly saw her, my eyes drawn to that body like a goddamn magnet. Ivy was like gravity to me, and I knew there was something deeply wrong with how much I wanted her.
But Ivy didn’t come looking for me; she immediately went to Pearl, helping Patrick patch her up. Then, much to my surprise, she continued to help, walking around to every single one of the injured men. She was like some sort of angel, and each of her patients blinked up at her like she was too bright for their eyes.
I wanted to go over to her, shake her, scream in her face. How could Ivy be so blind? She didn’t belong here, among us bikers. She didn’t belong with the gang. She was too weak; this life would chew her up and spit her back out, leaving her even more broken and bleeding than she was right now.
Glossy curls fell down to her shoulders, her coffee eyes glittering with determination. She had never looked so beautiful. I could feel myself harden at the sight of her. There was a kind of steel in her that I’d never seen before. Her shoulders were squared against the blood and the wreckage.
After she was done nursing everyone she could help, Ivy sat down next to Pearl again.
I wanted to go over to her, to say something, anything, that would make her leave forever. But I couldn’t think of anything to say that she would take seriously. I couldn’t think of a single damn thing that would scare her off. I’d tried everything that had worked in the past, but every time I turned around, she was there again, haunting me.
I’d just made my mind up to go talk to her when Kelly walked in the room.
I could feel the undercurrent of hostility at Kelly’s appearance, a stupid smile on his face. Everyone seemed to be growling under their breath as he paraded into his beaten and broken home, his lips stretched in a smile that looked insane. “Good afternoon, everyone!” he announced, holding his hands out like some sort of announcer at a carnival. “I have great news. The cartel has promised us a brand new house, just as long as we make their deliveries for them starting Tuesday. The whole thing is already bought and paid for; all we need to do is hold up our end of the bargain.” He rubbed his hands together, his eyes a little too wide. “The lovely Christine has promised!”
A ragged, half-hearted cheer went up through the crowd. My eyes flicked back to where Ivy and Pearl still sat. They both looked like statues in the corner, their eyes hard and their mouths pressed together in eerily similar ways. Pearl whispered something to Ivy and she sneered, not taking her eyes from Kelly’s face.
I turned back to the front, determined to keep my eyes and my mind off of Ivy. “Alright, boys; let’s figure out who is going where,” I yelled, bringing in the attention of most of the gang. The boys gathered around, making it easier not to glance back at Ivy.
“We’ll need seventeen drop-offs in two days; we’ll set out and inform the network of our plans. Does everyone know their assignments?” The group collectively nodded, most of them looking a little less unsure and a little more determined. Ice filled my chest as I watched them all nod along to my instructions like trained animals. We shouldn’t be doing this. “If any of the small timers have a problem with the new products they’ll be pushing on the street, rough them up, but not too much. We have a lot riding on this and can’t lose any of our street guys if we can help it.”
The men all nodded, looking resigned and sober. I turned away from them before they could see the helplessness in my eyes. I was caught between this rock and that hard place, I wasn’t sure I was making the right choice. But what else could I do? I walked over to Ivy, my feet practically dragging me over to the corner where she sat.
“Ivy,” I said, gruffly, my voice rough and nearly unrecognizable with tension. She looked up, her eyes searching and finding me as if drawn by gravity. I winced at the emotions in her gaze, turning away before I could identify any of them. “Despite what I said this morning, I need you to take Josh home. I want him away from all this now. He needs to rest.”
Something had hardened in her face when I turned back to her. The rush of emotions in her eyes stopped, leaving nothing but a stoic kind of distance. As though she had somehow turned from a weakling to something made of steel in the last few seconds. Shaking my head, I walked away, not wanting to think too hard about Ivy’s sudden strength.
“Best for who, I wonder?” Ivy answered, quietly, her voice shaking just a little. I turned back, surprised, my eyes finding hers. “This is insanity, Creed. You are risking your son, the lives of your men, and your own life and for what?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ivy,” I whispered, my voice deadly quiet. She needed to shut her mouth before she drew the attention of someone more loyal to Kelly than I was. Talk like this would get her killed, especially since she was an outsider.
Perhaps realizing the danger, she lowered her voice, but she didn’t back down. Her shoulders squared, Ivy leaned into me rather than wincing back like I expected. “You’re so focused on your loyalty to Kelly that you can’t see past your own idiocy. You can’t see the forest for the trees. And if you don’t think about what you’re doing, Josh is going to be the one who pays the price for you.”
Ivy glanced away, her hard expression turning to a brilliant smile. “Are you ready to go home, Josh?” she asked, her voice suddenly back to normal.
Josh had dark circles under his eyes and he looked a little like he might pass out where he was standing. “Yeah.” He yawned hugely. “We watched seven movies!”
Ivy held out her hand, and I watched in dull surprise as Josh reached out to take it without hesitation. “Seven? Wow, were they scary?” she asked, leading Josh out of the clubhouse, their fingers tightly knit together.
“Not as scary as this,” Josh said, his eyes a little too wide as he looked around the warehouse. “This is…”
“Don’t worry, kiddo,” Ivy answered, a little too loudly and a little too cheerfully. “Your dad is going to fix it. Just you watch.”
But I had no idea how to fix it. Feeling defeated, I turned back to the men. It was time to start the transition, and I would be needed to help keep the street kids in line.