“Proud of it.” I folded my arms across my chest. “You pull me away for a reason?”
“Yeah. One of the women wants to talk to you.” He waggled his phone then tossed it at me. “Stone sent me a message.”
Uneasy, I caught the phone and stared at it.
Stone: Ghost would like to speak with Link. It’d be a kindness. She’s not doing too well.
“How are they doing?”
“First time you asked me that,” Rex pointed out, his head tilting to the side as he leaned back in his desk chair.
While he went by the label ‘Prez,’ it wasn’t like he was a fucking royal. The decision for him to be our leader was democratic. Well, as democratic as it could be. If he started doing bad shit, pulling stuff we didn’t agree with, we’d lynch him and set someone else, probably Storm, in charge. Which, holy fuck, was the last thing any of us needed. Especially Storm right now. Keira was fucking with his head in a way I was sure she didn’t recognize.
Still, that was neither here nor there.
Point was, Rex wasn’t royal, but the way he sat there behind his desk, leaning back into his seat, head relaxing against the rest, he looked like he was the king of all he surveyed. While that might have pissed another guy off, I appreciated it.
Rex was a strong leader, and the Sinners were a rowdy, motley crew of bastards who needed someone to keep their asses in line.
Not that we always obeyed. Me in particular.
“Link?”
I tossed him his phone back. “What?”
“You heard me. You ain’t asked after them.”
You didn’t need to ask. Whispers went around the clubhouse faster than the Clap. I heard how they were doing and knew it wasn’t going well.
Stone had almost lost Amara twice, but she’d pulled her back. Tatána wasn’t eating and had tried to slit her fucking wrists, and then Ghost? She was weak—dying weak—from some kind of infection she had that the antibiotics weren’t curing.
I tightened my mouth as I headed over to the tray of drinks and poured myself a couple of fingers of tequila. Sinking back a gulp, I let the burn cleanse me. Not that it got far. Too much of me was filthy, and what I’d seen that night?
It was gonna scar me for goddamn lifetime.
“How’s Giulia? Ain’t seen her around.”
Rex scowled. “She’s been helping the women.”
“Legit?” My estimation of her soared.
“Legit.” He grunted. “What’s going on with you, man?”
I cut him a look. “You weren’t there.”
Three words, and they said it all.
The irritation on his face lessened some, and he exhaled roughly. “No. I wasn’t.”
“Be glad you weren’t,” I stated grimly, eying the amber liquid in my glass and swirling it around so it licked the edges. “Never seen nothing like it, and hope to fuck I never see shit like it again.”
“Brother, you doing okay?”
I tipped up my chin. “I’m alive and I wasn’t caged like a dog. I’m doing fine.”
His mouth tightened. “You going to have a problem with seeing Ghost?” His scowl made a quick reappearance. “Why the fuck is she called that?”
“Gave her the nickname.” I shrugged. “Dunno why she’s still using it.”
Rex shook his head. “Only you’d give a woman a nickname like that.”
“Had to be there to get it.”
My arched brow had him rolling his eyes. “You going to see Ghost?”
“If she’s asked me to go visit, I will. Don’t know why she has, but I’ll go all the same.”
“Good.” A breath whistled between his teeth. “We need them to live, Link.”
Lips pursing at that, I took a deeper gulp of tequila because I knew what he was saying without actually saying the words.
We couldn’t lose three women, dispose of their bodies, not without something coming back on us.
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Good. We need to think about burying the other one too.” His tone darkened, and I knew he was shifting the topic to something that pissed him off. “How do you think Lancaster knows about our ties with the Five Points? If his daughter is right, then the sheriff is on our side which means our backhanders are true.”
“There are lots of backhanders that ease the way. Someone might have split.”
“Then they need ferreting out. Fucking weak links, hate them.”
I dipped my chin. “Nyx and I can do that.”
Rex scraped a hand over his chin. “Would prefer to leave him here with Giulia, but I think it needs the pair of you.”
“I agree. You know we’re effective together.”
He snorted. “One’s the jackhammer and the other’s the scalpel.”
Snickering, I muttered, “You talk out of your ass.”
“But I do it so finely.” He smirked at me. “Get in touch with Declan. See if you can deal with things alone. If not, drag Nyx into it.” He rubbed his eyes. “We need a council meeting. Shit’s been up in the air over the last few days, need to get things back on an even keel. We can discuss where we need you to go then.”
“When?”
“Day after tomorrow? It’s late now, and Storm’s already fucking drunk. Won’t get any sense out of the prick.”
“Didn’t you hear?”
“Hear what?” Rex was still scowling.
“He went to Keira’s place.” My lips twisted in a smile. “She changed the locks.”
Brows lifting and mouth parting, Rex couldn’t have looked more shocked if he tried. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. I heard this from her. Got to assume that’s why he’s tanked at…” Looked at my watch. “Six PM.”
“He said shit to me. The fucker’s derailing. Things were much calmer when Keira and he were together. Can’t you do something to get them back together again?”
I snorted. “Do I look like fucking Cupid?”
“Maybe. Glitter comes out of your ass sometimes.”
“I never shove glitter up there.”
“Only butt plugs. I know.” He covered his face with his hand. “Why does any conversation with you always revolve around the ass?”
“In my defense, you’re the one who brought it up this time,” I said wryly, earning myself a chuckle from my brother.
“You turned me. You made me asscentric.”
“Best way to be,” I retorted, after taking another slurp of the tequila in my hand. “But to get shit back on track, Keira’s pissed with Storm, and only Storm is going to change that.”
“Dumbfuck. Some bitches you just don’t mess around with.”
“Seems he’s figured that out too goddamn late.” I pursed my lips, genuinely irritated by the situation.
In the run up to Keira leaving, I’d been telling him to get his head out of his ass. He’d been partying hard, getting home late. You couldn’t do that shit when you had a kid and an Old Lady at home—not unless you wanted to be like our parents, and they hadn’t exactly been role models.
Rex grumbled under his breath. “I heard Kendra stirred some shit between them.”
I arched a brow. “Hadn’t heard that. Keira didn’t say anything to me about her, but I know a sweetbutt told her some things it’d have been kinder if she never knew.”
“Overheard Tink and Jingles discussing it. Whatever it was, even they thought she went too far.”
“Fucking Kendra,” I sneered. “Never did like that bitch.”
“Can’t disagree with you. They’re all cats. I mean, Giulia and Keira are. But I fucking hate it when they turn bitchy on one another. We got enough shit going down without infighting from the bitches.”
“If Keira had been a bit more like Giulia, she’d probably have had less trouble.”
Rex snickered. “No one handles the clubwhores quite like Giulia.”
“True.” I smiled. When Giulia had arrived two months ago, she’d caused a lot of shit by headbutting Kendra, breaking noses her
e and there, getting in a lot of the snatches’ faces. She hadn’t rolled over and let them kick her while she was down. Nope. She’d faced them, dealt with them, and now they were all wary as hell around her. “Keira’s not like that. You know that. She’s a homemaker, not a trouble starter.”
“Why the fuck he wifed her, I don’t know.” Rex sighed. “I mean, I get it. She’s beautiful. But—”
“He was a selfish prick. Wanting it all and hurting her in the process. And I’m the king of selfish. If I say someone’s goddamn selfish, that means they’re cunts.”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Rex countered with a laugh. “I’ll talk to Storm. See if I can help clear shit up with him.”
“Only way you’ll do that is if you change Keira’s locks back,” I pointed out, before I slammed the rest of my tequila down.
“Well, I ain’t going to do that, but maybe I can get the dick to wake the fuck up, see he’s only wrecking shit for himself and that little girl of his.”
“Douche,” I muttered, semi-amused when Rex nodded his agreement. Then, sucking in a breath and drawing courage, I muttered, “I’ll go see the women now.”
I didn’t wait for him to reply, just headed on out and down the hall to the front door. Passing JoJo on her knees slurping down Steel, I shook my head. “Idiot.” I was surrounded by them.
He peered through slitted eyes and focused on me long enough to flip me the bird.
Shrugging, I walked on, hoping to fuck Stone wouldn’t leave the bunkhouse where she was looking after the women and head to the compound, because she’d catch him in the goddamn corridor. That would hurt her like crazy, which was exactly why the fuckwit had done it.
I truly was surrounded by idiots, and today had only confirmed it.
When I was the only one who was making sense?
The day after tomorrow, we wouldn’t be having a council meeting, it’d be Armageddon for real.
Shaking my head at just how big of a moron Steel was, I headed out into the early evening. The compound wasn’t unattractive, it was just boring. Purpose built, it was easy to see a bunch of guys from the sixties had designed it—guys who’d just returned from ‘Nam with a hatred for the government burning in their souls.
There was none of the flower power shit here. It was heavily utilitarian. Before Bear had retired and passed on the gavel to Rex, his only brat, the place had been painted a steel gray. I wasn’t sure which sweetbutt had sucked Rex off and asked him to repaint it a more flattering cream, but it gave off fewer prison vibes now, that was for damned sure.
Reaching for my cell, I smiled when I saw it was Lily.
Lily: I freaked you out, didn’t I?
Surprised by the show of vulnerability, I froze in my tracks.
Me: Beautiful girl like you? Went to college? Didn’t get laid? You shocked me. Not much freaks me out.
Well, that was bullshit. I’d found my limit, and that had been discovered in Luke Lancaster’s fucking lair.
Lily: I made arrangements with my friend. I’ll send you a link to her place. Thursday? Morning/night?
Me: Thursday. Morning AND night.
Lily: Oh. Okay. x
I snickered at the ‘x’ as I had earlier.
Me: x
I shoved my phone back in my pocket, ignoring the next buzz because I had to suck it up and suck it in. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing the women. This was for Ghost’s sake. It was why Stone had texted Rex to get me to haul ass—I’d ignored her texts for the past few days.
It wasn’t their fault that the second I saw them, I was transported back to that place. That time. And I figured by Tatána’s and Amara’s reactions, they associated me with that moment too. Ghost? Not so much. She smiled at me, weakly, and without all the shit on her face and body, without the scent of death lingering in the air, I saw she was a beautiful woman.
As were the others.
Luke had fucking taste, that was for sure.
But they were all brutally thin.
They were all pasty and sickly-looking.
And they had more wires and lines coming off them than I knew what to do with.
The bunkhouses were for visiting chapters and other MCs to sleep in. That meant they were like mini apartments, complete with bathroom, kitchen, and bedroom. This was one of the bigger ones and it had two bedrooms.
The bunkhouse had been turned into a mini field hospital, and I shook my head at the sight of it as I found Stone, leaning back against the kitchen counter watching me take it in. Giulia was there too, but she was seated at the kitchen table, her eyes heavily shadowed.
I bypassed Tatána who was in a nest of blankets on the sofa, her wrists bandaged up, and who immediately flinched at the sight of me. Because I pretty much felt the same way, I did the kindest thing and ignored her, then headed for the kitchen.
“You got everything you need?”
Stone pulled a face. “We’re out of the woods now. We just have to build their strength up.”
My brows rose at that. Rex—the fucker. He’d been speaking like they were dying. Shit, not that I was complaining, but he’d definitely guilt-tripped me into visiting.
Stone yawned, breaking into my internal grousing, and I saw that her work had taken its toll on her. She looked like she needed a good sleep and, though I’d say this to no one, even more, looked like she needed Steel to hug the shit out of her.
Preferably in a bed.
Where they’d sleep together.
Fuck, maybe I was Cupid?
Grunting at the thought, I muttered, “When are you going back to the city?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
“They going to be okay without you?”
“Giulia knows what to do now. It’s not ideal,” she murmured, pulling a face. “But it’s the best I can do.”
“I can call you if there’s a problem, and it’s not like you’re far away, Stone,” Giulia replied, and the respect in her eyes stunned me because Giulia and most of the women from the club didn’t get on well.
At first, with all the shit she’d caused with the sweetbutts, I’d figured she was one of those women who just hated other bitches. Which, in a place like the clubhouse, was a fucking nightmare just waiting to happen. But I soon realized I was wrong on that score. It took a lot to earn her respect, but when you had it? She gave her friendship too.
I liked Giulia. She was a pain in the ass, had more attitude than sense, and made the best pasta puttanesca I’d ever fucking tasted, but more than that, she was good for Nyx. I liked her for my bro. Nyx needed something to keep him sane, and while Giulia wasn’t the ideal candidate considering she was prone to violence, it fit that she and Nyx would gel well together.
“What are you staring at, bozo?” she mumbled, glowering at me and reminding me of the whole ‘more attitude than sense’ thing.
“You. You look exhausted. You both do.”
“I am. We are. It’s been a long couple of days, and it’s been fucking hard but we’re getting there. Aren’t we, Stone?”
Stone’s lips twitched, and I saw from the sparkle in her eyes that Giulia had a new friend.
God help us.
I guessed it fit, considering they were both biker brats, but there was a distinct age gap… Apparently Giulia liked hanging around old fuckers. Nyx was a lot older than Stone even, so with Giulia, he apparently liked robbing the cradle.
Fuck.
Lily was about Giulia’s age.
Shit. I was just as bad then!
Grunting at the thought, even if I was mostly amused by the notion, I twisted around and said, “Rex said Ghost wanted to talk to me?”
“Yeah.” Stone shook her head. “Only you’d call someone in their situation ‘Ghost.’”
That was like the third person who’d told me that. “What can I say? It fit. Her voice was so fucking quiet—”
“Still is. Can barely hear her most of the time,” Giulia interjected with a wince.
“I think she mus
t have damaged her voice box,” Stone inserted, tone grim.
We all shared a look, each of us knowing and wanting to shy away from exactly how she’d done that.
See, we were bikers and they were biker spawn. We knew how the real world worked. We did bad shit. Nyx routinely cut up pedos, for fuck’s sake. We weren’t innocent little lambs.
But this?
This went to a whole other level.
A level that messed with our comfort zones.
Maybe it was a weird kind of logic, maybe it was fucked up to be okay with murdering some people so long as they were shitty bastards, but that was how it rolled for us.
And I included myself in that too.
I wasn’t a good man. If I got shot up one day, stabbed to death or whatever, I deserved it. I’d go meeting my Maker well aware I’d been a shitty human being, so coming across a shittier human being?
Well…let’s just say it took all our breaths away.
Wanting to avoid this conversation, and not really wanting to talk to Ghost even though it was important to her, I got to my feet and headed to the bedrooms. When I opened the door and saw Amara curled up on her side, I grunted which had her gasping and flinching back like I was going to attack her.
“Wrong bedroom,” Stone told me dryly.
“Could have warned me.”
“Nope. She’s got to acclimatize to the fact there are men here. Men that look like mean motherfuckers, but are putzes where women are concerned.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re just full of fucking charm today, aren’t you?”
Stone smirked. “You know it.”
Shooting her the bird, I headed for the other bedroom and winced when I opened the door. Ghost was like Amara, wrapped in a cocoon of sheets and blankets, but the drips and shit around her went to a whole other level. I knew Stone had only been able to do so much to help. Shit like X-rays and scans and blood tests were beyond us, but she was training to be an ER doc for a reason. Under pressure, she worked well, and in the end, it was all that was available to these women…unless they wanted to return wherever they’d come from, and considering whoever had brought them over here had sold them to Luke fucking Lancaster, I couldn’t exactly blame them for wanting to stay under the radar.
I didn’t believe that shit about the US being the land of the free. Not anymore. But for these women? All they’d been given was a handful of chains, not liberty.
Link: SATAN’S SINNERS’ MC: TWO Page 13
