KICK

Walking into church wasn’t my favourite experience. I’d asked Prez to call a meeting of the brothers and oddly he had, without even bothering to ask what the hell it was all about. Of course, it might have had something to do with the fact that when we arrived back at the clubhouse, he was buried balls’ deep in Neisha, a hot little Asian bitch who could suck cock harder than a Hoover and have you decorating her pretty yellow skin with a pearl necklace in seconds.

I enter the room, glancing at my brothers seated around our table. Tank sits with arms folded across his chest. His eyes meet mine, and he nods. Beside him, Crazy—named for the crazy motherfucking look in his eyes, 24/7—chews his fingernails down to the skin. In the short time I’ve been a member of the Saints, I’ve never known Crazy to be able to sit still for a whole meeting. He’s always running his hands through his jet-black hacked-off hair, chewing on some part of his anatomy, or twitching like he’s on meth and jonesing for his next fix. He isn’t, of course. He’s just that fucking manic inside his head that he can’t contain the excess energy, and so it spills out in church, and everything fuckin’ else he does. Across from him, the blond-haired, green-eyed Killer gnaws his bottom lip.

Killer is the newest of the brothers to patch in—and by new, I mean all of a month ago. He’s probably the oddest member of all us criminals, a well-to-do rich kid from the North Shore. His trust fund is probably the equivalent of what the club makes in a year. We were all a little shocked when the dude showed up in some stiff fuckin’ designer threads and said he wanted to join. Prez outright laughed in his face. Then he told the spoiled little rich kid he’d seen one too many episodes of Sons of Anarchy, and that we weren’t into babysitting trust fund babies so they could walk on the wild side. Prez had also told him if he was serious about joining his club, or any club for that matter, he should get rid of that fucking show-pony sports bike and get himself something that at least fit the part. The next day, the cocky fucker was banging down the gates with a brand spanking new Fat Boy and packing two kg of fine-arse snow. Best fucking blow I’d ever done. Even Ivy knew the difference, and normally that girl cares for nothing but the high it gives her. Killer made it through the other hangers on, the hazing, prospecting, and then finally patched in last month.

Beside Killer sits Grim–named that because he looks like he went several rounds with the Grim Reaper and only just came out on top. The dude’s in his early thirties, with dishwater-blond long hair pulled back with an elastic. His face is all jacked-up due to a run in with a rival club member and a Zippo lighter. He keeps as clear as he possibly can from Crazy, who sparks a fucking Zippo every five seconds and goes around setting shit alight.

Raphe sits beside Grim. In fact, if Raphe didn’t have an old lady I would say there was some Brokeback Mountain shit going down between those two.

At the end of the table, One Eye leans his elbows firmly on the wood, his enormous belly protruding up and over the edge of the table. Dude might be fuckin’ ancient, and might only have half the vision of the rest of the brothers, but he’s still fuckin’ scary as shit. He’s a goddamned bear in a fight. He was built like Tank—if Tank had eaten an entire fuckin’ factory full of Krispy Kremes. Despite the patch we wear, there’s no love between One Eye and me. The Angels were a friend to no one, and yet One Eye knew my old prez well. Of course, no one here besides Tank knows of my affiliation to the Angels, but whether I’d seen him at a rally or he just had his suspicions about me, the fucker knew my face, and he knew my guilt, though he may not know exactly what part I played in bringing down my entire MC chapter.

Beside that cranky old fucker sits an even older one: Country. Country’s grey beard hits his too thin belly. It’s peppered with a tinge of ginger, proof that the ranga gene remains defiant and wilful right to the very end. Country has all but three teeth missing, forcing him to whistle when he laughs, and you never wanna stand in front of him while he’s talking, unless you’re into spittle in a big way. You can smell Country before you see him—he doesn’t go in much for that showering shit—and his tunnel vision reached a point earlier in the year where the RT-fuckin’-A took away his license. If you can’t ride, you hand in your patch; it’s the way it’s always been in every club since the beginning of MC history. Prez burned that rulebook and threw it out the fuckin’ window when he heard the news. He’s not crazy enough to let Country ride while wearing the patch, but he wouldn’t take an old man’s lifeline away from him either.

Prez might be a hard-arsed bastard at times, but he’s a man worth following. A man whose respect has to be earned, but once you have it, you strive to make sure you never lose it. At least that’s the way I guess most of the brothers see our prez. For me, I know I don’t deserve it. I know if he ever found out about the Angels he’d put me to ground faster than I could blink.

Our two prospects, Diesel and Squeals, stand at the back of the room, arms folded, faces stoic. They wear cuts with their name tags on them and rockers on the back that label them with a gigantic target for slinging shit toward. Prospecting is no fuckin’ picnic, and a lot of guys don’t make it through their hazing. Diesel may make it. He’s young, tougher than a pack of pit bulls, and has a good head on his shoulders, but I can’t see Squeals making it past the first six months. Some people are cut out for the life, and others die trying. 

Prez clears his throat and says, “Well, are you gonna tell us why the hell you called us into church, Kick, or are we just supposed to play Guess fuckin’ Who while you stare like a fuckin’ retard at us?”

“Alright, Prez, keep your fuckin’ hair on,” I say and let out a deep breath, figuring the best way to say this shit is to just blurt it the fuck out.

“Tank and I tracked the Dentist to a warehouse yesterday. The plan was to capture the sick fuck and bring him in so Raphe could have a turn at him, but you guys know that didn’t happen. He was torturing a woman—” I shake my head, because I don’t know how old Indie is, but she couldn’t be more than twenty. “A girl. The sick fuck was ripping her teeth out, knocking her out with drugs and waking her up with pain. I lost it and shot him in the back of the head.”

I look at Raphe whose jaw is clenched tight. A muscle twitches in his face. I don’t know whether that anger is still directed at me, or if he’s imagining what could have happened to his old lady when she’d visited Dr Calder’s clinic. After all, if she’d never attended that appointment–and woken up from the gas while he was busy stuffing his fingers inside her fuckin’ pussy when he was supposed to be extracting a tooth–we’d never have found Indie.

“I know you know that she’s stowed away in my room, and Prez has given you all a direct order to shoot her on sight if she so much as tries to leave it. She’s messed up pretty bad: broken ribs, bruises, her face is banged up, so is her body, and she’s completely fuckin’ broken.”

“Wow, she sounds like a real catch there, Kick,” Crazy teases. “I bags the next go when you’re done with her.”

“Fuck you, man.”

“Jesus Christ. Will you two toddlers cut it out? I didn’t call you all here to bicker like children. I called because according to Kick’s cryptic shit, we have bigger fuckin’ problems than the bitch in his room.”

“The Dentist wasn’t the only one. There was a cop and a priest too. They videoed their sessions. There was a camera set up in the room. A camera that Tank and I forgot to get before we left.”

“Come a-fuckin’-gain, Kid?”

“We went back, just now, but the room has been gutted. Everything was stripped clean,” Tank says.

“You left fuckin evidence behind?” Prez shouts. “Are you crazy? Are you fuckin’ brain-dead, you little shit?”

“We were distracted with the body,” I say.

 “And the bitch,” Tank supplies helpfully.

“So you’re telling me some bitch you don’t even know is the reason there’s a video tape out there with your faces on it, and it’s possibly in the hands of a fuckin’ crooked cop? I oughtta strip both your patches for this.”

“We need to find them both,” I say, thinking about the bruises marring Indie’s body. There’s so much I want to know. How many days did she stay in that room? What did they do to her? Are any of them the same breed of monster I am? Did they force her to come while she begged them to stop? There’s so much left unanswered and the key to unravelling all of this is currently lying naked in my bed, covered only in a sheet and black bruises.

“I’ll fuckin say.” This is from Grim, who leans forward in his seat to stare me down across the table.

“I got an idea. Why don’t we bring the bitch in here and have a little conversation with her, find out what she knows?” One Eye asks.

I glare at him across the top of my clenched fists. “She’s not up to talkin’.”

“Go get her,” Prez growls.

“Prez—”

“Either you go get the bitch or I will, and trust me, she’d probably like that a lot less. We need to find out exactly what we’re up against with this cop. I want to know everything about these two fuckers. I wanna know who they are, what they were doing with her, and what they fuckin’ ate for breakfast that morning. You find out what she knows, and you find out fast. Or I’ll find a way to make her talk.”

I leave the room, cursing Tank for making me bring this to the club. Down the hall, I run into Ivy who averts her gaze and attempts to walk right past me. I spin around, grabbing her arm and yanking her into me.

She glares up at my face, attempting to wrench herself free. “Ow. Let go of me.”

“You don’t even say hello to me anymore?”

“Hello,” she snaps in a tone I’ve never heard her take before.

“What the fuck, Ivy?”

“Let me go, Daniel.”

“Daniel?” I question. She’s never called me that before either. “You fuckin’ high, bitch?”

“No, I’m stone-cold sober, and finally seeing things clearly.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” I let go of her arm and grasp her chin between my thumb and forefinger. “What are you playing at, babe?”

“I’m not playing at anything. In fact, I’m not your plaything at all anymore.”

My mouth twists into a crooked smile, and I can tell by the way her breath catches that we both know what she’s saying is not true. “That so?”

“Yeah, that’s so.” She licks her lips, and I can’t help myself. I back her into the wall and slam my mouth down on hers. I’m met with no resistance. How could she resist when I’m giving her everything she needs? The submission, the dominance, the animal need to fuck, the pain that stokes all her greatest and worst fantasies. I can give her all these things like no one else can, and she knows it, she craves it. It’s written all over her face.

I shove my hands beneath her skirt, spreading her legs apart and grinning when I find her completely bare. I delve between her smooth, lush lips. Bitch is wet, but then I can’t remember a time when she wasn’t. I sink three fingers into her at once, without any preparation, and her breath leaves her in a rush.

“Then how come you’re soaking wet for me, darlin’?”

I rub my fingers against the sweet spot inside her, the one that forces her legs to shudder and threaten to give out beneath her. She fists her hands in my shirt as I nip her earlobe and kiss my way down her throat, and then I slide my hands free and suck my fingers clean, tasting her juices, savouring her flavour on my tongue. Ivy’s pupils are huge, her eyes glazed with the need to fuck. I dig my hands into her hip and spin her around. Grasping the nape of her neck I shove her up against the wall, her cheek pressed to the peeling wallpaper, her arse tilted at an angle that’s perfect for entry. She’s wearing one of those tight Lycra skirts that clings to every inch of her perfect body and I slide it up and over her cheeks, revealing smooth white flesh. I bring my hand down upon her arse, relishing the sound of the slap, the red handprint it leaves behind.

“You’ve been a very naughty girl, Ivy. Are you ready for me to punish you?”

“Yes, oh god yes.”

“Yes, what?” I snap, squeezing the nape of her neck hard enough to feel the bony protrusions of her vertebrae.

“Yes, Daddy. Punish me. Please?”

I smile and let go of her neck, snagging a fistful of her hair instead and yanking it back until her spine creates a perfect arch of submission. With my free hand, I release my cock and position the head at the glistening entrance to her beautiful, pink cunt.

I drive into her, savouring the resistance her swollen, slick pussy gives me when I shove inside to the hilt. She’s tight, too tight. Her cunt has a death grip on my dick. She squeezes me, and I almost come undone. That earns her a slap to the arse. “You trying to switch rolls, baby?”

“No,” she moans.

I slide my hand over her hip, down her abdomen, and I part her lips, gaining access to her swollen clit. I circle it once and then pinch hard, much harder than I normally would. Ivy cries out; it’s a sound half of pain, and half of pleasure. I thrust upward, letting go of her hair and wrenching her arms behind her back, jerking her whole body with the brutality with which I take her. Within seconds her legs are trembling again, and I feel the first wave of orgasm clenching her muscles around me.

I pull almost completely out as her cunt milks my cock, but I won’t fall over the edge. I won’t give her that satisfaction. Releasing her arms, I wrap mine around her waist, pulling her close to me, and guiding my cock back inside her slick pussy. I snake my hand up her throat, shoving it back at an angle that allows me to see her face. “Let’s get something straight here, baby doll. I can have you any time, any way I want to, and there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it. You submit to me, not the other way around.”

She tries to nod against my firm grasp, the bones in her throat straining against my calloused fingers, and closes her eyes as the tears roll down her face. Her cunt tightens around me, and suddenly the position I have her in isn’t close enough, I don’t have enough leverage. I don’t have enough power.

I let go of her throat, grab hold of her hips and smash into her body, impaling her on the end of my dick before sliding all the way out of her. She whimpers with the loss of my heat, but I spin her around and shove her back until she has nowhere else to go, and then I plunge right back into her. Ivy wraps her long legs around my hips. I slam her up against the wall in time with my thrusts. Her hands slip under my cut, under my shirt, and rake my flesh, drawing blood. I quicken the pace, moving past long deep thrusts and just pushing in as far as I can get, until I’m hitting the end of her.

She’s not even trying to contain her cries now; we’ve gone way beyond that. The two of us are nothing more than animals, scratching, and thrusting, grunting, clawing and using one another. Every second of it is perfection. It’s the reason we work so fucking well together, because in this moment I own her, and in the most rudimentary way Ivy owns me too, or at least she owns my body, because I never have, and I never will again give my heart to another woman but Lauren.

Lauren. I hate her so fucking much.

I hate her for loving me, despite my sick, twisted mind. I hate her for stealing my heart, for making me betray my club, but most of all I hate her for dying.

I thrust harder, punishing her, striving to make her hurt and bleed, and feel the pain she put me through from the second we met. I want to wound her. I want her heart to be the one rending open, not mine. With a growl, I let go. I fuck her mindlessly, brutally. I thrust into her body and switch off my mind, allowing my cock to do what it was built for. My orgasm rips through me. Hot cum jets out of my body and into hers, and for a brief second the bliss is so complete that I let go of the anger, but when I open my eyes and look into a pair of wounded grey-green ones instead of chocolate-brown, all the emotion, the pain, the betrayal is back, worse than ever.

“You called me Lauren,” she whispers as tears slide unchecked down her cheeks.

Ordinarily, I’d watch her tears fall with a morbid sort of fascination. I’d want to know exactly what was in her head, why she fell apart every time I took her body to the brink and pushed her over the edge, but today those tears are mine. They’re caused by me, and for perhaps the first time ever I’m not okay with that.

What the fuck is happening to me? Since when do I give a shit about making Ivy cry?

I lift her from the end of my cock and set her down on her feet. “What did she do to you, Daniel?” she asks, and her throat is thick with the struggle of holding back her tears.

“She died,” I whisper, and then my eyes widen when I realise that this is more information than I have ever given her. Ivy clasps a hand over her mouth, holding back her sobs. She reaches up to touch my face. There’s pity in her eyes. I feel hatred, and rage, and yes, even betrayal that she would try to pull this shit from me. We don’t talk about Lauren. I can’t talk about Lauren. Not with her.

“I’m so sorry, Daniel,” she says through her tears, taking my face between her hands.

“Don’t,” I snap and shove her away, stalking off to my room, pushing the key into the lock and turning it hard, booting it with my foot when it won’t open. I can feel Ivy behind me, but I slip inside and slam the door. I press my forehead into the cool painted wood and just breathe.

Instantly, the acrid stench of vomit turns my stomach, and I spin around to find Indie sprawled across the comforter, covered in the shit. The bottle of Morphine is open, and what few pills she didn’t swallow and chuck up decorate the sheet beside her head.

Fucking hell. Tank was right; from one crazy-arsed bitch to another.

I take what should be a few paces to the bed in one hurried stride, leaning over her and slapping her face hard. She’s completely unresponsive. Placing two fingers over her throat, I feel for a pulse. It’s faint, but her chest isn’t rising and falling with a cycle of inhalation and exhalation. Indie isn’t breathing.

Time slows—at least it feels that way. Panic fires through my chest as I stare down at her. I think I hear shrieking in the hall, but that doesn’t make sense. There’s a pounding on my door, and Tank’s voice on the other side.

“What the fuck did you do, Kick?” he demands, and my eyes roll to the door shaking on its hinges, and back again to Indie’s inert body.

What did I do?

What haven’t I done?

What have I ever done that’s been good for anyone?

“Open this fuckin’ door, or I’m gonna bust it open.”

I move on autopilot and unlock the deadbolt. Tank grabs my shoulders and shakes me, hard. “Ivy’s out there in the hall shrieking like a fuckin’ banshee. You just ripped the heart right out of her fuckin’ chest. What the hell did you do to her? What did you say?”

I don’t have an answer for him. It wasn’t me telling Ivy that Lauren was dead; she wouldn’t be catatonic over that. No, it wasn’t Lauren’s death that upset her, it’s that she saw the end as plainly as I did. She saw that this is it for us. She saw too far inside, and it’s a chance I won’t ever give her again.

Tank shakes me again, expecting an answer, but I have nothing for him. I have nothing for anyone. I see the moment when he looks beyond me to the bed, to Indie. Tank releases me and hurries to her side. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, did you do this?”

He has every right to ask, because more than anyone, Tank knows me. He knows the depths of my tarnished soul, and he knows how deep my betrayal runs. After all, how can you really trust a brother who betrays their club? Several times? Tank scoops her from the bed, carefully placing her on the floor. He wipes the traces of vomit off her mouth and starts performing CPR.

He’s too rough. Her ribs are bruised, or broken; he’s going to kill her.

All at once I snap to. The world ceases to move as if it’s in slow motion and my heart begins pounding, beating out a furious rhythm against my organs.

Sinking to my knees beside her, I shove Tank out of the way and take over, yelling for him to call an ambulance, then I push past the taste of vomit on her lips and breathe air into her inert lungs, willing her to accept it, to take it and live, though her actions proved to me she’d rather take the out the pills offered than stay here with me.

I’m an arsehole, it’s all I’ve ever been. A biker brat born into the arms of a junkie bitch who only cared about where her next fix was coming from, and a father who’d wished he hadn’t forgotten the fucking condom. I’ve always been trash. I’ve always been nothing. I don’t blame her for choosing to check out, but like I said: I am an arsehole. And she might fight against it, she might want it more than anything she’s felt before in her life, but I’m not letting her take that way out.

In the hall, over the shrill cry of another of Ivy’s mental breakdowns, I hear the rush of booted feet over worn carpet.

“What the fuck happened here?” Prez demands, appearing in the doorway. I glance at him, briefly, and then wonder why Tank is studying my face and not calling a fucking ambulance.

“Call a goddamn ambulance,” I roar, but he just continues to stare at me.

“No ambulance. Someone better fuckin’ start talking.”

“She’s gonna die if we don’t get her help.”

“Tank, call the Butcher,” Prez demands. “I need inside her head. I need this bitch alive long enough to tell us what she knows, but no fuckin’ hospitals. We clear?”

I shake my head in disgust but continue to pump away at her chest, continue to push air into her lungs, breathing for her. It feels like an infinity, but when she finally regains consciousness, coughing, and spluttering, I shift behind her and support her head on my bent knees. She vomits. I turn her head to the side and let the green bile land all over the rug. I’m covered in it. She’s covered in it. My rug is covered in it.

“Jesus Christ,” Prez mutters.

Tank pockets his phone. “Butcher will be here in ten minutes.”

I breathe a sigh of relief and glance at Indie. She’s alive; trembling, but listless, and she’s already falling asleep again. I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do with her, but I know the Butcher is going to charge me through the nose because she’s wearing the contents of her stomach like a fucking wedding gown. In the hall, Ivy is still shrieking. Tank shoots me a glare. It’s full of the promise to inflict a lot of pain on me later, and then in three angry strides, he’s gone from the room.

I don’t know what the fuck his deal is; perhaps the geriatric giant has a fuckin’ heart after all. Either way, I can’t be Ivy’s keeper anymore. It’s not doing either one of us any bit of good. Ivy never belonged to me; maybe she did in her mind, but it wasn’t like that for me. And the more I try to show her that, that I’m sick, that I’m fucked in the head and full of this dark desire to hurt people, the deeper she falls. It’s time that changed.

I stare down at the girl in my arms and wonder whether history isn’t just on fuckin’ repeat. Not just with Ivy, but Indie, too. Losing Lauren destroyed me, and yet here I am in the same goddamned situation: protecting another stupid bitch from my club and myself.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Ivy screams between sobs. “Don’t touch me.”

The sounds of her losing her shit and lashing out at Tank filters in through the open door. He grunts, no doubt warding off each of her blows about as patiently as a bear with a thorn in its foot, and then lets out an almighty roar, “Stop. Fuckin’. Struggling. Bitch!”

The shrieking goes silent, the door beside mine opens, then slams, and the room and the hallway are swallowed by silence. I glance at Prez, who’d been close enough to the door to watch the entire scene. He shakes his head and turns his attention back to me.

“You wanna get her in the shower? I can get one of the girls to clean this shit up.”

“I don’t wanna move her until the Butcher gets here.”

“What the fuck happened, kid?”

“It’s my fault. I drugged her before I left; I thought she’d be out of it for hours. I didn’t put the pills away.”

“You know for someone who’s as determined to die as she is, you’re awfully fixated on keepin’ her breathin’.”

I smile, but it’s full of remorse. Prez steps further into the room and closes the door behind him, taking a seat in the armchair opposite the bed.

“You and I have never really talked about the past.”

“No, we haven’t.”

“You came to the club, and Tank stood for you. He said if it didn’t work out he’d hand over his patch and yours, and we’d never see either of you again.”

“Is this the part where you take my cut and kick me out?”

 “No, this is the part where you tell me what you’ve been hiding all this time, and why the hell some bitch you found in a warehouse is suddenly your top priority.” Prez gives an amused laugh. “And then I decide whether or not to take your cut and boot you and this hot mess out on your arses.”

“Let’s just say there was a girl—”

“Isn’t there always?”

“Yeah. Guess so.” I shake my head and lean back against the side of the bed, careful not to disturb Indie, who’s still sleeping peacefully on the rug, surrounded by her vomit. I place my fingers over the pulse in her neck and leave it there, focusing on the slow but steady beat. “It ended badly.”

“Let me guess—with a bullet between her eyes?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

“What club did you belong to?”

“I didn’t—”

Prez holds up a hand and the denial I have always at the ready falls away from my lips. “Don’t fucking bullshit me now, kid. I know an MC brat when I see one, and you had club runnin’ in your veins since you was a boy. I knew it the second I first saw you.”

I stare at my prez, the man I pledged loyalty to, the man I agreed to die for if push came to shove. I meant that pledge when I took it. If I had to take it again today, I’d still mean it. I take a deep, slow inhalation and let my answer rush out with my breath, as if that could somehow lessen the betrayal I’m about to admit to. “Angels. Hells Angels.”

“Sydney chapter?”

I nod.

Prez whistles low, quietly. It forces my head to snap up and glare at him. “Then you know there’s still a pretty price on your head from the other chapters.”

“I know it,” I agree, still uncertain about my next move. In the time that’s passed since I showed up on Tank’s doorstep begging him to kill me, I haven’t told a single living soul that I gunned down my entire club.

He grins. “You’re just full of surprises aren’t ya, kid?”

I shrug.

“You gonna tell me how your whole club wound up dead inside a little farm house in the country? ’Cause I know the Angels and the Banditos have been waging war on one another for several years, but from the look on your face, I’m guessing club rivalry had nothing to do with it.”

“No, it didn’t. But they made a good scape goat.” I don’t bother telling him that I wasn’t the only one to survive. Or that the shit that went down with the Banditos was done and dusted long before I gunned down my club. Word was the cops had tried to cover everything up to save the big bad Bs and the Angels from an all-out war, and I wasn’t about to correct anyone on that front. I’d done enough damage to Ethan and his Ana. And though I knew in my gut that the president of the Savage Saints was a good man—as good a man as any criminal can be—that was a chapter of my life I wanted to remain closed. I’d made my peace with it, and one day, if I ever crossed paths with Ethan again, how that meeting would go would depend on him. If he wanted me dead, I wouldn’t stop him. It was what I deserved. It was my debt to pay for what I had done to them.

“I’ll bet,” Prez says, locking his hands together and cracking his knuckles. “You know how much that pretty head of yours is worth?”

“Nope.”

“Fifty large. Word was that they knew someone had survived, and that the Angels were on their way to that hospital to conduct a little investigation of their own.”

“I thought as much. I checked myself out early and went to Tank, hoping to check out entirely.”

“And he saved your life?”

“Still can’t get a straight answer out of him as to why the hell he’d do something like that.”

“The Angels didn’t take their change of presidency well. Tank knew that. Why do you think he turned nomad? He knew the club was on a different path, and it wasn’t the one he wanted to be on. Way I see it, you did him a favour, and he brought you to me.”

“What are you gonna do, Prez?”

“What else you got to tell me, kid?”

“Nothing.”

He chuckles. “I believe that about as much as I believe that you’re trying to rescue that girl there out of the goodness of your heart.”

I glance down at Indie. I’m covered in her vomit, sitting here, chatting with my prez as though she were my drunken girlfriend who lost her guts before submitting to an alcoholic coma. I don’t know what it is about her that makes me so fiercely protective and yet so completely fucking at a loss when it comes to what to do with her. It would be so easy just to wrap my hands around her slim throat and squeeze, but I don’t want to, and judging by the way Prez is staring at me, he knows this as well as I do.

Prez nods toward Indie. He gives me another of his wry smiles, and I kinda wanna shoot him the nut-sack for being such a cocky fuck, ’cause I’m sure I’m not gonna like what he’s about to say. “That’s a lot to take on, kid.”

“So is a brother who shot down his prior club members.”

“But here we are.”

“You gonna turn me into the Angels? Collect a big wad of cash?”

“You got some issues with trust, huh?” Prez frowns. “Guess I’m not surprised. I knew your old man, and that fucker was meaner than a hornet without a nest.”

“And how do you know who my old man is?”

“Because you look exactly like him. Didn’t think I’d ever figure out who the hell you reminded me of; if I didn’t know you were an Angel—”

“I was never an Angel, but I make a perfect Saint.”

He laughs; this time it’s not the carefully controlled chuckle from before, it’s an all-out belly laugh.

“Yeah, you do,” he says when he recovers. “But if you fuck up like this again, I’m gonna have your balls in a vice for all eternity. You got that, Newbie?”

I smile at the use of his nickname for me. “Yeah, I got it.”

“You stay with her until she wakes up, and then you find out what she knows. I need that tape, and then I need those two fuckers taken out.”

“One question. Who gets to be the one delivering the bullet?”

“You do, kid. Get me my tape, and they’re all yours.”

He opens the door and walks through it, and I spend the next few minutes wondering what the hell just happened. I just admitted to killing not one, but several of my former club brothers, an offense normally punishable by death, and my prez didn’t even bat an eyelid. Either he has way more faith in me than he should, or he’s dumber than I thought he was. Because if it’s the only means I have of self-preservation, for Indie or myself, then I’ll betray this club too.

The strange part is I’m just prolonging the inevitable. Neither one of us are particularly fond of living, it seems, though it looks like we’re both stuck here for a while longer.