by Jessica Ames
“I’m a little dizzy,” I admit.
I’m a lot dizzy. My head is rolling and nausea is swirling in my gut.
“Let’s take a look at you.”
He takes my arm and gently leads me into the building. As we move into the common room, I brace, expecting to see blood and Zack’s body, but as my eyes stray to where he fell, there’s no sign of the murdered prospect. There’s no blood stains and the floor is spotless. There’s no sign of what happened here only a few hours ago and if it wasn’t for the slight smell of bleach hanging in the air and tickling my nose, I wouldn’t believe this was the scene of a murder.
I shouldn’t be surprised. The club is really good at clean up. I just hope they give Zack a proper send off. The kid was stupid, but he didn’t deserve to be put down like a dog.
Whizz moves me over to a table and orders me to sit. I sink down onto the chair as he disappears to get his medical bag.
I can’t stop from glancing around the room and as I do a shiver works up my spine. This was where my nightmare began, but at least this time I was saved. Last time as I lay beneath Sin, fighting him off, I prayed to every God I could think of to be saved, but help never came. Today, Tyler rode in like my white knight on a steel horse, and I’ll never forget that. The fear in his eyes when Sin was holding me was something I’ve never seen before, but it was there, mixing with the anger. What struck me harder, what ripped my heart open, was the hurt. I know Ty believed me from the moment he found out what happened, but seeing the truth with his own eyes was worse than any bullet could do to him. Ty is president of the Sons for a reason, but what a lot of people don’t know is that he loves as hard as he fights. A brother turning on the club was bad enough—everyone felt that knife to the heart—but his own brother, his blood, the boy he grew up protecting all his life, that did something dark to a person. It will twist him up.
I rub my hands up my cold arms. Riding in just a tee, even in the British summer, leaves me feeling chilled, but it’s not the weather that has me shivering. Coming face to face with my nightmare, fighting him again, taking on my demons leaves me a trembling mess. For three years, I dreamed of what I’d do if I saw Sin again. I dreamed of all the things I’d say to him, do to him for ruining my life, for making me believe my family would turn their back on me. It didn’t play out how I imagined and I don’t feel better for it. Now, I worry what all this will do to Tyler.
Killing Sin won’t change what happened. It won’t repair the past three years, but it will shred Ty. I wish he would have listened to my pleas and walked away, not tarnished his soul with this death, but I know he would never be able to rest knowing his brother still breathed free air.
I just hope this isn’t going to destroy him, destroy us.
Whizz steps back into the room, carrying a leather bag that he heaves onto the adjacent table. He opens it up and pulls out some supplies.
“I just want to check your pupils,” he tells me.
I shrug, not caring what he does to me. All my thoughts are on Tyler and what he’s doing right now. I jiggle my leg up and down as Whizz shines a light in my eyes, wincing at the brightness.
“Any nausea?”
“Yeah.”
“Headache?”
“I got hit in the head with a gun. What do you think?”
His mouth pulls into a tight line and his eyes narrow at my words.
“Fucking Sin,” he hisses out.
Warmth floods me at his show of emotion. These men who I turned my back on have welcomed me back without question—something Sin told me would never happen. I hate myself for listening to him.
“I’m okay,” I tell him, my voice soft.
“You’re not okay. Not even a little. Your face is a mess and I’m pretty sure you have a concussion. Nothing about this is okay.”
I place a hand on Whizz’s arm.
“Whizz, really, I’m okay. It’s Rav I’m worried about.”
“He’ll be fine.”
I arch my brow at him. “You really believe that?”
He peers at me for a moment before he mutters out a, “Yeah,” but there’s no strength to his words. I can see the worry for his president.
He doesn’t elaborate and I don’t push him for details. He moves to his bag and pulls out some gauze and saline. For the next ten minutes he cleans the blood off my face then he stitches two gashes on my head and face. He hands me a bottle of Jack to numb the pain, but it doesn’t do shit. It hurts like hell, and I have to bite my swollen lip to keep from crying out. Whizz works fast, methodically and when he’s done, he pulls off his latex gloves and drops his hands to his hips.
“You’re going to have a fuck ton of bruising, but hopefully those two wounds won’t scar too badly. You can sleep, but I’ll be in every hour to make sure you’re okay.” He hands me a couple of pills. “For the pain.”
Sleep isn’t going to happen. I’m wired and on edge waiting for news from Ty.
“I want to get back to the hospital.”
“You need to take care of you.”
“My daughter—”
“Will be fine.”
I want to argue further, but I’m so tired I doubt I would be any use to Lil right now anyway.
“Zack…” I murmur, my gaze straying to where he was gunned down. “What happened to him?”
Whizz scrubs a hand over his clean jaw and sighs. “Go and get some rest.”
“Whizz.”
“It’s club business, darlin’.”
He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to. “Club business” says everything. He’s not going to say a word about it.
I push up from the chair, wobbling slightly. Whizz reaches out to steady me.
“You okay there?”
“Yeah, just finding my feet,” I say on a smile that is forced.
Whizz considers me for a moment, then says, “It’s good to have you back, Sash. Club wasn’t the same with you gone.”
Warmth spreads through me at his words. “It’s good to be back.”
Whizz helps me upstairs and leaves me in Tyler’s room. It’s weird being back here. This morning, everything was so perfect. Now, everything feels tainted. Ty’s tee I borrowed is covered in blood, so I pull it over my head and find a clean one in his drawers. This time when I see the knives, my stomach twists. I can’t even think about what he’s doing to Sin right now without feeling nausea. I don’t care about him. I hope he rots in hell, but I do care about Ty and how this will stain him afterwards. Killing his brother isn’t something he can just forget about once it’s done. It will be like a knife to the heart for him. I wish he had come back with me and let the brothers deal with Sin, but I grew up in this world. I know that isn’t how it works. For once, I wish I was an innocent to all this. I wish I didn’t know what my man is doing.
I climb into the bed we shared this morning, the sheets still smelling of Tyler and snuggle down. I’m exhausted, my body bone weary. I reach over to his side of the bed, wishing he was here with me, wishing I could take this burden from him.
I doze for a while, but Whizz wakes me an hour later to check my eyes again. He does this over the next several hours, and in the end, I give up on sleeping.
I’m staring up at the ceiling, my mind blank of thoughts when I hear the door go again and I groan. It can’t have been an hour already. I shift my gaze towards the door, intending to give Whizz a piece of my mind, but it’s not Whizz standing in the doorway. It’s a blood-soaked Tyler.
I sit up fast, pushing the covers down my body and swallow back bile as I take in the blood coating his face and hands, over his tee. His kutte looks clean, though.
I try to muffle my gasp as I climb out of bed and move towards him slowly. He doesn’t say a word, just watches me like a rabid animal, waiting to pounce. His eyes are wilder than I’ve ever seen. It’s like Ty has disappeared and Ravage, the man that people fear, is in his place.
I approach him cautiously, not sure where his head is at.
“Tyler?”
His eyes raise to mine and he mutters, “It’s done.”
My stomach twists at his words.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I watch as his body tenses, stopping me from moving any closer. His hand reaches out, but something flickers in his eyes and he drops it before making contact.
Then he growls out, “He’ll never fucking touch you again.”
31
Ravage
I feel numb as I stand in front of Sash. I knew there was darkness in me, a darkness that was so vile it could never be redeemed, but I had no idea how far down the hole I was willing to go until today.
I stare down at the blood coating my hands, blood that belongs to my brother and feel nausea climb up my throat. I need to get clean, but I can’t make my legs move.
Sasha takes my head in her hands, lifting my chin. It takes everything I have not to flinch back from her touch.
“We need to… wash you.” Her voice cracks with emotion.
I want to reassure her, but my words stick in my throat. I don’t want my filth touching her. I told her he would never touch her again and that includes his blood I’m soaked in.
I let her lead me into the bathroom. I blink as I catch my reflection in the mirror, the blood coating me a reminder of what I’ve done. I can’t meet her eyes as she strips me like I’m a child and my thoughts empty as I stand there, dick swinging in the breeze as she turns on the water.
I’m empty. I wish I could feel anger that my brother put me in this position, but right now I’m not capable of feeling anything.
I know it had to be done, but taking his life wasn’t easy. My skin crawls with dirt and I feel the weight of my actions pushing down on my shoulders.
Sasha guides me under the spray and removes her own clothes before stepping into the cubicle with me. Her eyes dart to my face as she squeezes some shower gel onto her hand and starts to wash me with a gentleness I don’t deserve.
I can’t bear it. I don’t want her to see me like this.
I grab her wrists, halting her.
“Stop.”
“Ty…”
“Enough!” I growl.
Hurt flashes in her eyes, but I ignore it, ignore that I’m the cause of it.
“Get out.”
“Don’t do this.”
“Get the fuck out.”
Her eyes flare, but she climbs out of the shower, grabbing a towel from the rail. I watch as she wraps it around herself before snatching her clothes off the floor and heading into the bedroom.
Once she’s gone, I’m able to breathe freely for the first time since I delivered the final blow to my brother.
I want to scream at her to come back, but then I see the rose-tinted water and the truth of the man I am.
She’s been through hell, too, but I can’t bear to have her looking at me with so much love. Not when I don’t deserve it from her.
I scrub at my hands, at my face, trying to clean myself, but no amount of washing is going to clean this sin from me.
I killed my brother.
There’s a special place in hell reserved for me, just as there is for him. Sin’s not innocent in this. He brought us to this place and I hate him for that. I hate that he forced my hand. My brother had to die, he had to pay for his crimes, but I wish I hadn’t been the one who had to do it.
I wash quickly and methodically, scrubbing the blood from my face, from my hands, from every inch of me. I scrub my skin until it’s raw, but I can still feel his blood on me, I can still hear his voice begging me, see the tears that coated his cheeks. The look in his eyes as I delivered the final blow will haunt me for the rest of my days.
As the water starts to go cold, I force myself out from under the spray. I don’t have any clean clothes in the bathroom, so I wrap a towel around my waist and step into the bedroom. I expect Sasha to be gone, but she’s sitting on the edge of the bed, her wet hair hanging in loose strands around her battered face.
When she raises soft eyes to me, I feel my heart shatter into a thousand pieces.
“Don’t push me away.”
It’s a plea, but I ignore it. If I go to her, I’ll lose my composure and I can’t let that happen. I won’t let my anger, my frustration, my despair spill out on her. I want to lose myself in her, but I’ll never take her in anger. I’ll never use her body for an escape.
“I’ve got shit to do.”
My words come out terser than I intend and I hate myself for making her pull her walls back up with me after I spent so long breaking them down, but I can’t stay with her tonight. I can’t lie next to her and pretend everything is okay, that I don’t have a hole left behind in my heart from my brother’s demise. My body is at war. I fucking hate him. I would send him to hell every day for what he did, to keep her safe. Yet it goes against everything that’s ingrained in me. I’m supposed to protect him. It’s hard not to remember the little kid who climbed into my bed when Johns came knocking. He looked at me like I was his hero. Today, I lost that. The only thing I’d seen in his eyes was fear.
I quickly pull on a pair of boxers, followed by a pair of clean jeans. I find a shirt in the drawer and shrug into it, all the while feeling her eyes on me. My head is a fucked-up mess, a jumble of thoughts I can’t sort through and right now, I just need time to think. I can’t do that with Sasha in my space. I’m too on edge, knowing I can fall off that ledge at any time.
“I’ll be back later,” I mutter, then step out of the room, pulling the door shut behind me. I half expect her to come after me, but she doesn’t.
I head down to my office. I can’t face the brothers, not yet. Dragging open my top drawer, I take out the bottle of Scotch I keep there and swig straight from it, relishing the burn as it hits my throat. I knock back half the bottle before I come back up for air, then I tip my head back against the headrest of the chair and stare at the ceiling.
It feels wrong to mourn a piece of shit rapist, but that’s not who I’m grieving for. It’s the little boy I raised and protected over the years. It’s the kid who looked to me to make things right. It’s the kid I always took care of.
I wanted desperately to see that kid in the eyes of the monster kneeling at my feet, but he was long gone, until the very end, when he whispered my name.
Fuck.
Sin was a new kind of animal, one who saw nothing wrong with taking what he shouldn’t. He had his own demons, ones that could never be exorcised. There was no coming back from what he did. There was no amount of talking it out that would fix it, no amount of forgiveness that could put it right. What he did was unforgivable. He ruined Sasha’s life. Mine too. He took my daughter from me, he made Sasha feel she had to raise that kid alone. If it wasn’t for her getting sick I might never have known my child. That gores me. I want to be a good dad. Better than mine ever was, but I have so much dark in me I’m not sure that’s possible. They’d probably be better off without me in their lives, but I’m a selfish bastard. I can’t give them up.
He also took the woman I love from me. No one ever understood me or loved me the way Sasha did. Losing that nearly destroyed me. Sin watched me suffer through that loss, commiserated with me, told me to get over the bitch. All the while he knew he was the reason she was gone.
The lies, the betrayal is what guts me the most. I didn’t deserve that from him. I sacrificed so much for Sin over the years. I gave up pieces of myself to keep him safe. How could he grow to hate me so much?
Memories of his last moments flash through my mind, the blood, his pleading. I take another drink, trying to block it out, but no amount of booze is going to fix this.
I killed my brother.
And there’s no coming back from that.
32
Sasha
I wait for Tyler to come back to the room, but after a few hours, it’s obvious he’s not going to. I’ve chewed my nails down to the beds, my stomach churning as I stare at the door, willing it to open, willing him to step through it. He doesn’
t.
I can’t stand it any longer. I push to my feet, tugging up my borrowed joggers. I’m not going to let him push me away. I refuse to let him destroy what we’ve been building together since I came back. I love him, and he needs me, but he’s hurting, which is why he’s being this way. Ty might act tough, but he’s not completely unfeeling. He saved me, and now it’s time to do the same for him. Now it’s time for me to be the one who bears the weight of his demons.
Barefooted, I wander down the corridors and make my way towards the executive officers’ offices. I expect to find Ty holed up down here, but when I knock on the door, I get no response. I wait half a second before I push the handle down and peer around the frame.
Empty.
He’s not here.
Anxiety pierces me. Would he have taken off? Where the fuck would he have gone?
I head for the common room and as soon as I push inside, I see red. Ty is here, sitting at the bar, a half-empty bottle of Scotch in front of him and some skanky redhead has her mucky paws all over him. He’s not paying her any attention, his eyes unfocused across the room, staring into space, but he’s also not pushing her away, which pisses me the hell off. He’s mine, and I’ll fight any bitch who tries to claim otherwise.
I barely notice the other brothers sitting around the room. My attention is locked on my man.
I start towards him, but a hand is suddenly wrapped around my bicep like a vice. I flinch instinctively, old habits hard to break, until I realise the hand belongs to Nox. He doesn’t let me go, but he does loosen his hold slightly.
“Go back upstairs, Sash.”
If he thinks he can tell me what to do, he’s crazy.
“He’s mine,” I hiss.
His expression hardens at my words.
“Rav’s in a bad way.”
I won’t be taken for a ride. He wants loyalty from me? Well, I expect that shit in return.
I roll to my toes and get in his face, my anger flaring. “He needs me, not some fucking club bitch. I can take anything he throws at me.”
