Chapter 32

Briar

“Someone want to fucking explain what happened last night?”

I don’t bother looking up from the table to know that Lynch’s icy glare is on me.

“It was my fault.” My head snaps up in Pete’s direction. “I should’ve been here.”

“You’re not responsible for what happens when you take a fucking night off,” Lynch spits, and I feel his eyes on me again. “What was so goddamned important for you to not pay attention when one of the guys comes to you for direction?”

He doesn’t do well with excuses, but spilling the truth with the entire MC sitting around the table during church isn’t something I’m fucking brave enough to do, so I open my mouth and lie to my president for the millionth time since Molly came home from school.

“The ride back from Detroit fucking killed me. I took a pain pill and passed out. I wasn’t thinking when Chains texted about the gate.”

“I’m not concerned about the fucking gate. If you had taken care of that bastard like you told me you were going to, that girl getting hurt last night never would’ve happened.”

What the actual fuck is he talking about? He knew that night that I didn’t put that guy to ground. He’d punched me in the fucking face for reminding him that Molly wasn’t a little girl anymore.

“I wasn’t going to kill a guy that was lured to a room because Mol—” My jaw snaps shut when his eyes narrow further. “I dealt with the guy how I saw fit.”

“And look where it got us.” Lynch’s eyes stay on me a moment longer before roaming down the table to Chains. “Where is the guy?”

“Scattered on the farm.” Chains is referencing the ten acres of land the MC owns on the opposite side of town. Heavily wooded, the area is hard to traverse, so it’s less likely people will go wandering and find something they shouldn’t.

“How’s the girl?” Lynch asks, turning his attention to our road captain.

Hornet shrugs. “Couldn’t tell you. Ask your brother. He took her from me before I could even get her inside the clubhouse last night.”

Lynch, confused, looks around the table as if he’s just now realizing TJ isn’t with us. Before he can open his mouth, the church door swings open, and one pissed off enforcer barrels into the room.

“Sit,” Lynch snaps when TJ beelines in my direction.

My shoulders sag in relief when he actually listens and falls into his chair.

“Where is she?”

“Who?” TJ asks.

“You know who I’m talking about. Where’s the girl?”

“Not here,” he mutters.

“TJ, I swear to God if you don’t give me a straight fucking answer, I’ll string you up myself.”

TJ swallows, pulling his knife from his belt. I don’t know if he’s readying himself to use it on his older brother, or if it’s a means to calm himself.

I’m grateful to see the blade is clean, but inwardly wonder just how long it’s going to stay that way.

“TJ?” No one misses the warning in Lynch’s voice.

“She’s fine,” he finally answers. “I took her home.”

“Home?” Hornet questions. “She wasn’t even conscious when you took her from me. How do you know where she lives?”

TJ doesn’t respond right away, and I can see him working on an answer, some lie that will get everyone off his back.

“Her phone synced up to the Tahoe. Her GPS had her apartment flagged.” The lie is good enough for everyone else, but no one says a word until he’s done cutting a line across his palm. “I didn’t fucking hurt her.”

He flinches, and I don’t know if it’s from the pain he’s inflicted on himself, or if the thought of making her bleed is abhorrent to him.

“All issues are to go through Chains from now until Briar gets his head out of his ass.”

“Prez—”

He silences me with a quick slash of his hand.

“I’m all ears if you want to explain what’s more important than helping your brothers when they need you.”

Strained silence fills the room. Even confessing my love for his sister, professing to care for her for the rest of her life wouldn’t be enough to keep him from ripping my throat out in front of everyone. With the sneer on TJ’s face, I imagine he’ll be right there beside him, lending a helping hand.

When I don’t spill my guts, he continues. “I want the clubhouse on lockdown until further notice. Our members, prospects, and the regular whores are the only ones allowed through the gate. I don’t know what the fallout is going to be, but we have one girl beat to fuck and probably heading to the police as soon as she’s able, and a guy someone is going to miss eventually. We can only pray he didn’t tell anyone where he was going last night.”

“And if the girl talks?” Hornet asks, the only one of us brave enough to voice the question even though we’re all thinking it.

No one is worth bringing the club down, and he wouldn’t blink an eye to silence her if it looked like she was going to bring trouble on us.

“She isn’t going to the fucking police,” TJ assures us with an edge to his voice that begs anyone to disagree.

“How can you be so sure?” Lynch asks.

“I’ll kill her myself if I think she’s even considering it.”

That shuts everyone up about the subject.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Lynch says before turning his attention to Boston. “How did it go in Baltimore?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know that the guys over there are going to be able to move their eight kilos.”

“I was afraid of that.” Lynch’s eyes find mine again. “We may have to shift some of the product to Detroit. Parker assured me he could move more.”

“Speaking of that overeager bastard,” Boston interrupts. “He’s been feeling us out. I can tell he wants to join us here. I don’t think he’s satisfied with the oversight he’s been allowed in Detroit.”

“He’d rather be at the clubhouse than running shit in Michigan?” Ronan speaks up for the first time since we convened.

“I can’t tell if he wants a challenge or a break. The kid is actually pretty hard to read,” Boston answers, looking at Lynch rather than Ronan.

Lynch leans forward, steepling his fingers against his lips as he thinks. “I need him there.”

“You said you would never hold someone back just because they were an asset where they were,” Smalls reminds him, shocking everyone at the table since the man hardly ever speaks. “The kid actually emailed a fucking resume.”

Uneasy chuckles fill the room. It’s funny that anyone would do such a thing, but the tension still lingers from what happened last night.

Lynch nods before looking back at Boston. “Offer him another five percent.”

I know better than to speak up even though he just gave Parker an additional ten percent of the Detroit cut two days ago.

“If he still wants to join us, tell him he has to find and train his replacement before we’ll even consider it. Anything else?”

Lynch looks around the table, excusing everyone when no one speaks up. I stick close, just like I’ve done since he took over the gavel, even though every molecule in my body is urging me to make my way out with the rest of the guys.

“Want to tell me what’s really going on?”

“Huh?” Playing dumb has never been my style, and as much as I want to tell him everything, I know it’ll only damage our friendship more. Only in a perfect world would declaring my love for Molly end in a bro-hug and a simple threat to treat her right.

Our world is nowhere near perfect. Most days we’re just lucky to be alive, and as Lynch glares at me from the head of the table, I wonder just how many more days I’ve got left.

“TJ tells me Molly quit her job.”

Here we fucking go.

“What’s going on with her and the vet?” he asks when I don’t respond to his non-question like he expects me to.

“I think that’s over.”

“Did he hurt her?”

My blood boils, jaw clenching several times before I answer. “No.”

“I think I’m going to get Zoe to help her find a boyfriend,” he says almost absently, and I’m grateful that he’s pulled his eyes from me to look down at his phone. “I need to get her away from the clubhouse. The last fucking thing I need right now is her ending up with some fucking biker. Ronan told me that the new prospect behind the bar has been chomping at the fucking bit to get to her.”

“I’ll take care of it,” I assure him as I stand so abruptly the chair scrapes on the concrete floor.

“You’ll leave him alone. We can’t go around killing every fucking guy whose dick thinks about taking her for a ride.”

My nails dig into the already scarred tabletop.

“I need her out of this fucking place. Maybe someplace overseas,” he says absently as he continues to look at something on his phone.

“Where we can’t protect her?” I seethe. “She’s safest here.”

Now his eyes lift to mine. “Really? You’re so fucking distracted with something, you can’t even be bothered to think when a simple request comes across your phone, but you want me to think she’s protected?”

My lip twitches with the need to tell him she’s more protected than anyone else at this clubhouse, especially when she’s with me.

“We couldn’t even protect that fucking girl last night.” He stands, pounding his fist on the fucking table so hard his phone jumps from the vibration. “A woman got hurt here! I won’t fucking allow it to happen to my sister!”

“Molly is safe,” I vow, not even bothering to pull my eyes from him. Shit will come to blows right here and right fucking now before he sends her away. “And she isn’t fucking going anywhere.”

His eyes narrow with my challenge, but I make it out of the room and out the front door of the clubhouse without getting shot in the back. As I climb on my bike, I wonder if I’ll even be welcome if I return.