WITHOUT SHAME: Babylon MC Book 4

by James, Victoria L.

  Thud.

  Thud.

  Thud.

  Eric never flinched. There was no reaction or curiosity on his face, not even in his eyes. He held my gaze the entire way, his calm a frustration to my boiling fury. The closer I got, the harder I fought to breathe through my nose. My teeth clenched together, my cheeks feeling the tension as I worked the muscles in my jaw and marched closer. Closer. Closer. I began to move faster. Just a little at first, the need to end this pushing me forward until my arms swung, and I charged towards the man in front of me like I wanted to strike a dagger through his heart.

  I ran, feet pounding, my cut swaying behind me as I used every ounce of power I had to crash into him, spin the fucker around by his shirt, use all my muscles to push him back and slam him into the brick structure of the pawnshop.

  He was a ragdoll in my hands, and I had the power to pull him back and slam him into the building again, my head swaying forward until I was so close to his face, his now-ragged breaths bled into mine.

  My forearm pushed up against his windpipe, pressing on him to pin him in place as I shook with him in my grip, all my rage pouring out of my sweat-soaked skin. Our eyes were only an inch apart, and I stared into his seeing a reflection of me staring back. His were wide with surprise, yet he somehow didn’t look surprised at all when I pressed into him, turning his face redder by the second.

  The silence, the unspoken words took over until I couldn’t hold anything back.

  “Did you know?” I growled through gritted teeth, my arm shaking violently against his throat. “Did. You. Know?”

  Eric was grinding his jaw, staring at me like he wanted to kill me as much as I wanted to kill him. But he remained silent, his eyes then flickering around the yard to the other men who had gathered behind us.

  “Is it you?” I spat, pulling back to give him a second to breathe before I slammed him back in place. Fuck, I was desperate to hit him. To deliver a strike so punishing, he wouldn’t even know how to lie. The only thing that would pour free from him would be all the truths he’d kept hidden from me.

  “Not… here,” he croaked, bringing his attention back to me. His eyes were popping, the red lines in them getting wilder as I stole his oxygen… just like he’d stolen any chance I’d ever had at a normal life.

  “Fuck!” I hissed, pressing harder. “You knew. You fucking knew.”

  “D-drew…” he gasped.

  I got closer to his face, mine all contorted, twisting, and twitching as I struggled to hold back the betrayal I felt.

  “You knew we had a rat,” I whispered furiously, so only he could hear.

  His eyes searched mine, and he licked his bottom lip before his blue-greens rolled back in his head, and he brought his hands up to try and pull my arm away.

  “Not… here…” he croaked one last time, his voice low and furious, but unwilling to fight.

  I couldn’t stop looking at him. He was a stranger, but someone I knew couldn’t, and wouldn’t hurt me. Harry had trusted him. Harry had kept in touch and communicated with him over the years, making sure he was in the loop of all that was happening. Harry wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t the unsure man I was. Harry was capable of making better decisions, better judgments, and… shit, I wished he were here.

  “They’re watching,” Dad whimpered roughly.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I looked at the crowd of men behind me, all of them standing firmly with their legs parted, some with their arms over their chests, others with theirs hanging down by their sides, fists tensed and ready if I needed them.

  I met their eyes. All of them. Jedd. Slater. Kenny. Deeks. Moose—and all the other men who had been a part of the club’s history for as long as I could remember. Every single one of them was looking at me in confusion, but ready to go to war.

  How could it be any of them?

  I swallowed the lump in my throat, feeling the dry ball of uncertainty go down like a dusty rock. When I turned to look back at Eric, his mouth had parted, and he was struggling to breathe.

  All at once, I let him go, and he sank down the wall with no grace at all, crumbling to his knees, falling to one side to rest on his shaky arm.

  My chest bounced so damn hard, and I met Ayda’s eyes, just for a second, needing her to ground me again, but not wanting her to come close.

  Subconsciously understanding what I needed, she nodded, holding her ground between The Hounds, Eric, and me, an unsuspecting wall no one would try to move. She was pissed too, with eyes of suspicion bouncing from the men she loved and back to me, a subtle glance shooting to Eric.

  I followed her gaze, looking back down at my father and watching as his eyes rose to mine.

  He knew I wasn’t playing around now. My men knew it, too.

  “Is it you?” I asked him as calmly as I could manage, given the audience around us.

  “No.” His answer was cold, but I knew a lie when I saw one, and that wasn’t a lie. “Would it have been easier for you if it was me?”

  My nostrils twitched, my teeth grinding as I stared at him.

  “Drew?” Jedd asked, stepping forward. My head snapped in his direction, and I found myself looking around all my brothers once more. My face creased up with quiet hurt as I stared each one in the eye, unable to imagine any of them could be the man to stick that blunt knife in my back—in their brothers’ backs.

  Swallowing again, my body felt limp, my head barely staying attached to my neck, as it seemed to sway loosely as I looked back at Jedd.

  “Go inside,” I told him quietly.

  He frowned. He was the VP. He expected answers. “It looks like you need us.”

  “I don’t need nobody anymore,” I whispered, my eyes turning cold on him.

  He took another step but then froze, something in him recognizing he needed to give me the space I demanded. Jedd looked down at Eric, then at Ayda, before his gaze returned to me.

  With a nod of acceptance, he stared straight into my eyes. “We’ll be inside. You know where we are if you do decide you need us.”

  All I could do was watch as Jedd gathered the rest of them and ushered their confused-as-fuck faces back inside The Hut. Slater looked hurt and pissed when he glanced over his shoulder at me. Deeks just let his shoulders sag and his head drop. Kenny didn’t want to move. He wanted to stay. Was that loyalty he was showing or was it a need to know if he’d been found out? Whatever it was, they all eventually went back inside, leaving me to turn back to Eric.

  Crouching down, I rested a limp arm between my parted legs and looked straight into his eyes.

  “How long have you known?”

  Eric stretched out his mouth, cracked his neck from side to side, and drew in a breath before he allowed himself to look up at me. “A while.”

  “Answers. I want answers. Specifics. No more riddles and half-ass truths.”

  “About a year.”

  “What?” I hissed, my voice breaking as my eyes widened and I stared at him in disbelief.

  Eric glanced up at Ayda.

  Ayda met his glance head on, her eyebrows lifting in a challenge. She wasn’t planning on going anywhere.

  With a sigh, Eric ran a hand through his hair and fell to the ground until he was on his ass, legs bent in front of him, his arms wrapped around his knees and his back pressed against the brick wall. His head fell back, and he looked up at the sky.

  “Harry suspected something while you were still serving time. He had no proof, but the men would go riding out, and suddenly The Emps would be close by. No matter where they went, no matter how late the decision to ride, they’d bump into them at every turn. Cortez took pleasure in reeling the boys in and setting them free, telling them how he was going to fuck you up when you got out. Telling them how he knew men on the inside who’d enjoyed nothing more than breaking your ribs and busting you open.” He let his head fall back down, and he looked straight through me, the memories flooding back to him. “Harry warned the men not to mention any of it to you when you got out
. He told them it was all talk. Just a show for Cortez to put on for his men that would piss our MC off.”

  I frowned as I watched him. “Harry knew…” It was the only thought repeating over and over in my mind.

  “He suspected. Big difference. He started calling me, asking me questions about the men, if I knew if they had any connections with people outside of Babylon. I knew every man’s history. Harry knew that. When I asked him what was going on, he said he had a feeling something was off. He just didn’t know what. So he started watching everyone here, making notes, keeping diaries. Didn’t you notice how Harry seemed to be everywhere when you got out? How he seemed to know everything that was happening, even before you did? How he wanted you to stop fucking around, step up, and be the leader he knew you could be?”

  He was right. Harry had been everywhere, and he’d never been harder on me than he had since my release from Huntsville.

  “He knew you had to be at your best to handle this,” Eric added quietly.

  “He should have told me,” I muttered quietly.

  “And if he had, what would you have done?”

  “Killed the fucker betraying us.”

  “And if we got that fucker wrong? If we’d got the wrong man? One of your brothers would be dead.”

  “Plenty of my brothers are already dead thanks to this bastard.” I snarled.

  “Which is why Harry didn’t want any more bloodshed within these walls. Not until he knew for damn certain who was responsible.”

  “And did he? Did he know?” I dared myself to ask.

  Eric’s shoulders fell, his body sagging as he stared right at me. I knew then, in that very moment, that he cared. That he gave a shit. There was concern shining back at me. Disappointment, too.

  “Eric,” I urged him, leaning forward and lowering my voice. “Tell me.”

  “When Harry told me he had cancer and that he was dying, he gave me no choices, Drew. That fool, the one we’d all taken for granted, told me that I had to come back to Babylon. He told me no more running. He told me you’d need me here, even if you thought you didn’t. I wasn’t so sure myself. I left for a reason, and I intended to stay away. For you, for the club, for everyone involved. But when a dying man’s last wish is for you to man the fuck up and return to your son so he knows there’s someone here who can protect him from himself, you honor that wish. No matter what that means for you and the rest of your sorry life.”

  “Eric,” I breathed, my fists balling, making my knuckles pop with the strain.

  “If I tell you who we suspect, I need you to promise me… promise me… we handle this my way.”

  I narrowed my eyes and looked at him like he was fucking crazy. “Unless your way is stringing the fucker up from the highest pole I can find and having the whole of Babylon watch him bleed out, then go fuck yourself.”

  Ayda shuffled for a moment behind us and came closer. Still giving us our space, but close enough to be a part of the conversation. “I’m with Drew on this one, but for the sake of propriety and covering all our angles, what is your way, Eric?”

  My head snapped to Ayda, taking her in.

  “You won’t like it,” Eric warned.

  With a sigh, I turned back to him, and I closed my eyes. “You want me to stay quiet. To act like I don’t know shit.”

  When I opened my eyes again, Eric’s face was somber. “You can’t chase a rat, son. They go into places you can’t reach, scamper away into sewers. They hide away and drive you crazy, letting you listen to their scurrying, their games, and thriving off the fact that you know they’re there, but you still can’t get within six feet of them. You want to catch a rat in your own home, you lure that motherfucker to you.”

  “I told you not to call me son.”

  “And I’m telling you right now, you’re my son, and I’m here to protect you whether you like it or not, so you better start fucking believing it.”

  I wanted to argue. I wanted to argue so badly. This was my castle. He’d given up his throne, and he had no right telling me how to rule, but there was something about Eric Tucker. Something that twisted me up but also calmed me at once. He was the alpha, the leader, without wanting to be it anymore. Did that make me the fucking beta now? I didn’t know. All I knew with any certainty was that there was a tiny part of me, and a tiny part it really was, that wanted him standing by my side, giving me some guidance when I lost my way.

  And I didn’t know what the hell to do with any of that.

  “You have a plan?” I asked him coolly.

  He nodded slowly. “Do you trust me?”

  I glanced up at Ayda again, asking her silently if I was goddamn crazy for even thinking of saying yes, but knowing that, deep down, I wanted to.

  Ayda’s glance moved to Eric and back to me. It was clear she was just as resistant as I was, but surprisingly, she nodded once in agreement anyway.

  There was a chance I was going to live to regret this, but leading meant working on gut instinct, and whether it was the mutual DNA or just the fact that I was high on rage, I wanted to trust him. With one last look at Eric, I released all the air in my lungs and held out my hand for him to shake.

  “I trust you.”

  I wasn’t meant to see the subtle shock in his eyes before he covered it up, but I saw it, as well as the emotion it carried. Reaching forward, Eric took my hand and gripped it tight, his fingers pressing against mine. It was the closest thing to a hug we’d had in years.

  All at once, I tugged on his hand, yanking him closer. He fell forward clumsily, catching himself with his free hand and looking up at me in surprise.

  “But you lie to me, withhold any information ever again from me, or you start to think this is your club, not mine, and I will bust you up so fucking bad, you’ll wish it was you I’d chosen to execute in front of the whole of Babylon.” I leaned in closer. Our heads only inches apart. “Do you fucking understand me?”

  A slow, sadistic smile curled the edges of his mouth, and if I wasn’t mistaken, I thought I saw pride shining back at me.

  “I’ll put the bullet in my own head for you,” he answered quietly.

  “Don’t take away all my fun.”

  Eric huffed a humorless laugh and shook his head, pushing himself up onto his now-bloody knees that peeked through the tears in his jeans. I let go of his hand, watching as he rested both of his on his thighs.

  “Okay, kids. Time for some truths. We have a rat problem, and I’m trusting both of you to listen to me when I tell you how this is going to go. We act as normal as possible. Anything suspicious, and the rat will figure it out. They’ll go to The Mayor. The Navs. Whoever they’re working with on Sutton’s side of the law…”

  “Sutton’s definitely clear?” I asked, feeling sick at the thought. He’d been there for every part of this fucked up journey since my release from prison, yet I’d never suspected him. Not until now.

  “He’s squeaky clean,” Eric assured me.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I know that man would lay down his life for you in a heartbeat. He’s just never said the words out loud to you yet.”

  “Thank fuck,” I sighed. “Now give me a name.”

  Eric looked between Ayda and me, the pause he was creating more dramatic than he intended it to be.

  Just give me the name.

  Give me the name.

  The name.

  Say it.

  “Owen Sinclair,” Eric breathed.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  AYDA

  Drew, Eric, and I had retreated to Drew’s office knowing that if we stayed outside much longer, we’d be discovered. I was on the couch in Drew’s office, my legs tucked up under me as I watched him stalk from one side of the room to the other in agitation, while Eric leaned against the shelves that held a lot of the club history. My eyes tracked Drew’s pacing, one thought pounding through my mind with every step he took.

  Owen Sinclair is the rat.

  Step. Owen.
/>   Step. Sinclair.

  Step. Is.

  Step. The.

  Step. Rat.

  The more the words pounded themselves into my head, the angrier I became. There was a wild rage that boiled in the center of my chest and demanded that action be taken. It berated me for agreeing to keep quiet and follow Eric’s lead. Rats ran, that was for damn sure, but stick them on an island and surround them with water and you could drown them easily enough.

  I wanted to drown Owen Sinclair.

  I wanted to see him suffer.

  If Harry had known about it for a year, how far back did Owen’s betrayals go? How much information had he given our enemies? Who was he feeding all of this to?

  Thinking back, I could see him in almost every prevalent memory I had of The Hut. Thanksgiving. Nights in the bar, laughing and listening to stories from the past. When I was being comforted by Deeks. When we talked about anything of consequence. How often had Drew barely noticed Owen’s presence? He was in church with them every time they were sequestered. He was one of the few who had access to the books and accounts for the club and all their businesses, too.

  The more I thought about it all, the more I wanted to find him and put a bullet in his forehead, and for me, that was a foreign thought and inclination to have. Except, it wasn’t. I’d always been willing to kill for Tate, even when our parents had been alive. Mom had always said that was my maternal nature, and maybe this situation was no different. These men were my family, and it was all being threatened… for what?

  Well, wasn’t that the question of the hour?

  I watched as Drew spun again, agitation worn clearly on his face. Eric just held his silence and observed in the same way I was.

  “What now?” I asked softly.

  Eric rubbed his hands together, twisting his dry palms over and over again as he watched Drew. “Not to make a point of using fancy ass words, but it’s imperative we keep this between us.”

  “Lying to my men isn’t as easy for me as it is you.” Drew paced. “They are my brothers, not by blood, but by the blood we’ve shared together. If they knew I was keeping this from them, they’d feel as betrayed as I feel right now.”