One sip.

Then another.

Three quarters of a bottle of bourbon and my arm is still fucking hurting. I stare over at Charlie, who is sitting with Scarlett and Amalie, drinking and laughing. She looks so fucking beautiful, and my dick twitches just imagining how god damned much better she’d look beneath me. The things I’d do to put that girl beneath me.

But I can’t.

Because I’m too close to finally fucking finding the man who stole my brother’s life and took my soul with him.

“When are we goin’ to ask her if she knows anyone we can use?” I mutter, looking over to Malakai.

“When she’s less fuckin’ traumatized. Big night, big day, let her breathe.”

“We got two men who have given us fuck-all, except they knew about the hit and found her number. Not goin’ to be hard for others to find her. Anyone can be found with the right person lookin’. Even the well-hidden ones. Trust me on that. We gotta move soon, or we’re goin’ to end up with a very dead girl and a fuck load of danger for the club.”

Malakai’s eyes flash with rage. “I fuckin’ know that, Dakoda. But I also know that girl needs five fuckin’ minutes to process. First light, I’ll talk to her, ask the question, get the ball rollin’. You need to back down. She had your back tonight, ‘bout time you started havin’ hers.”

“Not my fuckin’ job to have her back,” I seethe.

“Anyone tell you you’re bein’ a fuckin’ dick lately?” Maverick asks, glaring at me. “Know you’re not usually like this, Koda. Whatever it is that this case is stirrin’ up, you need to lock it down before shit starts gettin’ out of hand. That girl has done a fuckin’ lot for us. We’re not goin’ to risk her life without first makin’ sure we’ve got all our bases covered.”

I grit my teeth, but I know they’re right. I know it, but I fucking hate it. I don’t want to see Charlie end up in danger, fuck, I’m not that much of an asshole, but I also don’t want to see that piece of shit that she has as a father walk once again without suffering slowly for what he’s done to other people. Monsters like that deserve to die in the most painful way.

And I’m going to make sure that happens.

One way or another.

“You got something against her father we don’t know about?” Malakai asks me.

Hate lying to him, more than anyone in the world. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be where I am now. I wouldn’t have the club. I wouldn’t have family. I wouldn’t have been able to pick myself up off the ground and recover after I lost Braxton. For that, I’ll be forever grateful to him for giving me a chance.

And I know when he finds out, he’ll lose his shit.

But if I tell him, if he knows how close this is to me, he’ll put me back. He’ll make sure I have no involvement, with Charlie or otherwise. Protecting Charlie was my opening, and they knew I was the perfect man for the job. What they didn’t know, however, is that I wanted to do it for a reason. My reasons, regardless, don’t mean I’d let anything happen to that girl.

She doesn’t deserve the life she lived.

She certainly doesn’t deserve to have to call that pig her father.

“No,” I say, holding Malakai’s eyes. “But this one touches home for me, understand? Men like that are the reason my brother is dead.”

Not him exactly. I’ll never say him exactly.

“And because of that, it means more to me than it does to you, to see him taken down. Not to mention—” I glance at Charlie, whose eyes flicker over to mine, and she gives me a small smile before turning back to Scarlett “—he used a child to do his dirty work, and in the process, he ruined her life.”

I glance back at Malakai, and he’s staring at me, compassion in his eyes. Don’t talk about Braxton, never have, probably never will. It’s a subject that’s very fucking sore for me. But Malakai knows I lost him, and he knows it forever changed me.

“Understand, brother,” he says, voice firm. “Understand. Just keep your head about you.”

I nod. “Yeah, I will.”

When I have Benjamin Masters’ head in my hands, I’ll have my head about me. I’ll sleep easy, knowing my brother didn’t die for nothing. I’ll make sure, with his blood still dripping from my fingers, that he never hurts another human being.

“Got the look in your eyes again,” Mason says, and I jerk, looking over to him, scowling. “That look that is so fuckin’ empty it’s scary. I thought I could look in the mirror and see pure emptiness, but you, you’ve got emptiness and a bitter hate that runs so deep your bones are filled with it.”

His words hit me right in the gut, but I don’t say anything, I just nod.

“Be careful with that,” he mutters, voice gruff. “Eat you alive.”

Too late for that.

Far too fucking late.

It already has.