BOOTH

I could feel the tug on my foot. My eyes were still welded shut from sleep, and to tell the truth, I wanted to stay right here. Today was not going to be a good day. Burying Dundee was going to be hard. There was no reason the young man had to die, but he did, and he did by doing my bidding—as if I weren’t already buried neck deep in guilt and dead comrades.

Slowly, I opened my eyes and tried to focus on the person pulling at my big toe. I could already deduce that the culprit had small cold hands.

“Vinnie, I is hungry.” The loud whisper-yell came from my right side. I tried like hell to hide my smile, but I loved that Shiloh was the only one to call me Vinnie, and she had since she could talk. My name was the third word in her vocabulary. Unfortunately, her first word was ‘fuck’ with Dadda following a close second.

“Go tell Stella, Squirt. I’m sure she has something yummy planned for us this morning.” God, that name. What I wouldn’t give to have that name come from my lips while she went down on her knees and took my cock deep in her throat, my hands buried deep in her soft, blonde hair, her pretty hazel eyes staring back up at me just as she took my come and swallowed every—

“Vinnie, she ain’t here again,” Shiloh interrupted my wicked daydream of Stella on her— Wait! She wasn’t here? Again? What does Shiloh mean not here again? I sat up, careful not to dislodge the sheet from below my waist. Yeah, morning wood was not a good idea this morning. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and it didn’t take me long to wake up. Being in the sandbox as long as I was, I got used to waking up and getting ready in mere minutes. And it was something that had never left me. Or any of my brothers.

“Okay, Squirt. You go wait for me in the kitchen. Let me get dressed, and Vinnie will see where Stella is,” I suggested, anxious to find out what was going on with the wayward Stella.

“You betcha, big boss man,” Shiloh said in a singsong voice as she rushed out of my room with Bullet and Trigger right behind her. Ever the watchdogs. I chuckled at the three-year-old, then got up and walked into my en suite. I made quick work of showering and shaving. My shoulder-length hair and fringe, which was the same length as the rest of my hair, would be fine left damp. By the time the funeral began, it would look like it normally did—straight with a middle part and a slight wave to it. Nothing too girlie. I didn’t put it up often like Darth did. The man rocked a man bun, according to the ladies of the club. But one day, I’d overheard Stella tell Teach she liked my hair down. So, of course, that was how I wore it.

Splashing some cologne on my neck and jaw area, I took one last look at myself. Yeah, I must have gotten enough sleep last night. The bags from the last few weeks had left my eyes. Drinking that quarter bottle of Patron had helped to send me off to sleep, and not waking with a hangover was a gift of mine. Made my brothers were pissed off, but who gave a fuck. Chuckling again, I quickly dressed in my usual attire of black utility pants, a white T-shirt, and cut with my feet encased in my worn, black combat boots. Looking down at them, I could see exactly where my brother Carson’s blood had splattered on them that day in the desert. Long worn off by now—to the naked eye—but I knew where it had been, what it had looked like, and how it had dripped down to the sole.

Fuck. I remembered everything. It was why I kept them and wore them every day. I didn’t deserve to forget or to be forgiven. And today, I had to wear the blood of another dead brother.

Sighing, I walked out of my room in search of the club’s missing cook.

***

“Darth, will you please stop feeding the child chocolate for breakfast, and go sit down. Pancakes will be ready any minute now.” Charlotte’s sweet voice scolded the big prick with her imitation of Deck’s growly voice, as Shiloh liked to call it.

“Come on, Charlotte. It’s good for her,” Darth replied, taking a piece of chocolate from the block on the table and feeding it to Squirt. Her little mouth opened like a baby bird, and then she closed her lips over the morsel and gobbled it as fast as she could.

“Keep it up, brother, and I will make you come with us to Charlie’s next antenatal visit. Pregnant women everywhere. Some even looking for a baby daddy,” Deck threatened as he wrapped his fiancée in his arms. After kissing her soundly, he reached over and stole a piece of chocolate for himself, popped it into his mouth, and then gave his woman another kiss. Damn, they were always kissing.

“Excuse me for breaking up this love fest, but where is Stella?” I asked, interrupting them. If I didn’t, Deck might have just started dry humping Charlotte right there in front of us.

Looking around the disaster before me, I could tell Charlotte was not as efficient in the kitchen as Stella. I could swear every single bowl, pot, and utensil was out on the bench or sink. Flour was everywhere, covering everything, including Charlotte and Shiloh. No wonder the squirt had come to me this morning. Charlotte was fantastic in many areas, but her kitchen skills were limited. Stella, however, could do a sit-down three-course meal for every member of the club and not break a sweat. Her skills were amazing. So giving her a pay increase was well worth the money. But by the look on Charlotte’s face right then, my thoughts were changing direction from Stella’s cooking skills to Stella’s absence.

Charlotte’s face suddenly went red as she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and the chewing commenced. Yeah, you have yourself a tell, Miss Dancing Girl. There wasn’t much that escaped me. Being a lieutenant in the army, I’d learnt to read people easily. It had served me well then and still did to this day as the president of the Wounded Souls.

“Oh, my, I think I need to be sick.” She feigned dry retching, pulled out of Deck’s arms, and took off for hers and Deck’s rooms. Okay, what the fuck was going on? I turned my gaze to Shiloh, who was busy eating the rest of the chocolate bar as well as her pancakes, which she had smothered in … oh, shit, was that Vegemite? Damn, the kid had a really weird streak.

“Squirt? Was Stella here for tea last night?” I asked as I crouched down in front of her. Her head shook back and forth several times. I almost wanted to stop her just in case she dislodged her eyeballs or something

“Nope. Mummy came home and made me noodles. I like noodles, Vinnie,” she said matter-of-factly. It was something I was very well aware of.

I looked at both Deck and Darth. They shared a similar look to what I was sure was on my face, too. Something was going on under my nose, and the women of the club were in on it. Like yesterday’s trip to the strip club to find Charlotte, who was supposedly there to help Rainn with a dance routine. Yeah, I was calling bullshit on that one. Rainn wasn’t there at the time, but Mannix was certain she was there all day since she’d walked to work so she could leave with him on his bike. Then she had called in after we escorted Charlotte home and cancelled her dinner date with Mannix. So Rainn was doing something, too, but what? Helping Stella? Helping her lie to me? Hide from me?

“Deck, we haven’t got time right now. Dundee’s family should be here any minute, but later, I want you to lock your woman down and find out what the fuck is going on. If Stella is hiding something from us, I want to know. Got it?” Fuck, I did not need this shit right now. I had so many balls in the air that I was getting dizzy.

“Booth, mate, I am not going to ask Charlotte to break a confidence with her friend, but I will urge her to tell me if it is in Stella’s best interest. Fair enough?” Deck and I had gone toe to toe with each other many times in the twenty years since we’d met. Always over personal shit, never in battle, so I knew that giving Charlotte the respect to be a loyal friend meant a lot to him.

Instead of pulling rank and calling club business on her, I gave him a curt chin lift. It was about as good as I was going to get without slamming into his suite of rooms and demanding that Charlotte tell me herself. It was something I wouldn’t do, and I knew my brother would have had something to say about it, especially with his fists.

“Agreed, but I want some answers soon. And that’s it,” I said. Simple and to the point. My brothers knew me. I didn’t say shit for nothing. I wasn’t being a sticky-nose, and I wasn’t after gossip. Something was going on with my honey, and I would find out. But first, I had to bury my friend.