Hyde's Absolution: Sydney Storm MC

by Nina Levine

  My body tensed, and a murderous urge came over me. I fought hard to contain it. If Charlie hadn’t been in the house, I doubt I would have been able to control it.

  I reached for Charlie and pulled her behind me. No fucking way was I allowing her near him again. “What the fuck are you doing in my house?”

  He kept coming towards me. “Hello, Aiden.”

  “Stop fucking walking,” I barked. “Turn the fuck around and go out the way you came in.” I balled my fists by my side.

  “That’s no way to greet me after all these years, son.”

  I clenched my jaw. All I wanted to do was take the last few steps to where he stood and take to him with my fists. I wanted to kill the motherfucker, but not while my daughter was in the house. “I’m not your fucking son, Gibson.”

  He finally came to a stop, not far from where I stood. “You never did understand how I felt about you, did you?”

  I’d thought I had. I’d thought he was the best man I could find to be a substitute father when mine had never been there for me. When his son, Brad, had asked me to go away with them on a camping trip when we were twelve, I’d thought all my fucking Christmases had come at once. Not once in my life had I experienced anything like that weekend. And that had just been the beginning. By the time I began working for Gibson, we’d spent five years bonding, and yeah, I’d thought of him like a father. But a few years later, he’d fucking annihilated me worse than my own father ever had. Because giving love and then killing it the way Gibson had was far worse than never giving it in the first place.

  “I understand you perfectly, Gibson. You’re a twisted motherfucker who uses every person he comes across. You take what’s not yours to take and—”

  His nostrils flared in anger. He never did like being told truths about himself. “You were a son to me, Aiden. And after Brad died, you were the only son I had.”

  Rage fuelled me to the point of insanity. How dare he say that shit to me. After everything he’d taken from me…. I wanted to rip those fucking words from the air and shove them down his throat, and then I wanted to slit that fucking throat so he could never spew lies like that again.

  My chest pumped furiously while I tried to suck air in. Everything he said only made this harder while my anger ratcheted up. “Why the fuck did you threaten to kill me, then?” I roared. “Fathers don’t fucking kill their children.”

  “I had to make you leave, so I could keep you safe from the shit going on with the cops. You would have gone to prison, Aiden.”

  I jabbed my finger at him. “No! You would have gone to prison!”

  He nodded. “Yes, but you would have too. I didn’t want that for you. I knew you wouldn’t leave unless I gave you good reason to, so I threatened your girls. It was all I had.”

  “Fuck that,” I spat. “I don’t fucking believe you!” The fury rolled through me, building in my shoulders and demanding an escape through my fists. I inhaled sharply and tried to keep every emotion I felt trapped inside. No fucking way could I allow it to escape while Charlie stood behind me.

  “Why do you think you’re still breathing? Why do you think our girls are—”

  I took a step toward him, unable to hold myself back. The air stilled, and a violent calm came over me. The kind of calm that descended whenever I was about to kill. It was the side of me that craved brutality—the side he’d instilled in me when I was a teenager. Back when he taught me how to hunt and kill. “What did you just call them?” I asked, my voice deathly demanding.

  Before he could answer, Tee jumped in, fear splashed all over her. “Stop it! You need to leave, Shane!”

  My attention was completely on Gibson, but there was an urgency to Tenille’s voice that fractured my focus. She sounded off. Glancing her way, I found her eyes wide and pleading silently with him.

  “Tenille, you can’t control this,” he warned, confusing the hell out of me.

  “Control what?” I barked. “What’s going on, Tee?”

  Everything about her screamed panic as her gaze shifted swiftly between Gibson and me. Ignoring me, she begged him, “Please!”

  I finally lost my shit then. I couldn’t control it any longer. Picking up the first thing I found on the kitchen counter—a glass—I threw it at the wall. “Somebody better start fucking talking, or else that glass is gonna be a head against the fucking wall!”

  I barely heard the gasps that came from Tenille and Charlie. My target was Gibson. All I saw and heard was him.

  “Bradley would have loved our girls,” Gibson said.

  Bradley was his son who had died just before Charlie was born. I had no fucking idea what he had to do with any of this.

  My fists clenched repeatedly. “Stop fucking calling them that. They aren’t yours.”

  Tenille sniffed, and I realised she had tears falling down her cheeks. What the fuck was going on?

  An evil smile lit his face. “That’s where you’d be wrong, son. They are mine.”

  Tenille gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. Her eyes met mine, and what I saw there punched me in the gut.

  She took a step away from me, but I snapped my fingers around her wrist, preventing her from going any further. “What did you do, Tee?”

  Tears still streaming, she looked at Charlie before looking back at me. “It was a mistake. It meant nothing t—”

  “What the fuck did you do?” I roared. The room closed in on me, and I struggled for breath again. I knew that when she uttered her next words, my life would never be the same, but I fucking needed to know.

  “Charlie is yours,” she managed to get out in between sobs. “Not Brad’s.”

  Everything spun out of control as those words fell from her lips. I’d thought my life had been ripped apart fourteen years ago. That had nothing on this. I existed for my child. She’d kept me going all these years. If I didn’t have her, I fucking had nothing.

  “Bradley is her father,” Gibson said, continuing to tilt my world on its axis.

  Charlie gasped again. I turned to her, but it was like time slowed, preventing me from catching her before she ran from the room. If my world hadn’t been crumbling around me, and if I was thinking straight, I would have gone after her, but I wasn’t. My thoughts weren’t even thoughts. The only thing filling my head was a fucking train wreck of memories and questions. And after years of locking it up tight, my heart trampled my mind, taking over with too many fucking emotions.

  Gibson’s declaration that his son was my daughter’s real father sliced right through me, taking all the air from my lungs. I was disoriented as fuck as disbelief and confusion replaced my rage. I stared at Tenille. “You slept with Brad?”

  She nodded through her tears. “Yes, but it was over before Charlie was born. I promise.”

  She promised? As if that made all the difference. “You think I care when it fucking started and when it ended?” I slammed my hand down on the kitchen counter, my anger building again. “All I fucking care about is whether Charlie is mine!”

  She flinched. “Aiden, she’s yours. I know it!”

  My mind connected dots. “That’s where you went yesterday? To see Gibson?”

  The guilt that flashed in her eyes confirmed it, but she didn’t answer me. “She looks like you!”

  I towered over her. “Get the fuck out of my sight,” I snarled. “I can’t look at you right now.”

  If I had to look at her for a minute fucking longer, I would do serious damage to her. Everything inside screamed for me to get her the fuck out of the room. She’d taken every good thing I’d ever given her and trashed it to pieces. Everything I thought I knew, I didn’t. I knew fucking nothing. And it turned out, I could trust fucking no one.

  Gripping my shirt, she begged, “Aiden, ple—”

  “Now, Tenille!” I roared. “I can’t guarantee your safety if you don’t leave.”

  She played the smart move and exited the kitchen without another word, which left me alone with the man I’d dreamt of killing
for over a decade. I wouldn’t do it in my house while Charlie was here, but he sure as fuck wouldn’t leave without me delivering a fuckload of pain to him.

  My fist connected with his face before he saw it coming. He fell, hitting his head on the chair near him. My boot thudded loudly as I took a step to yank him back up. Holding him by the shirt, I punched him again, sending him flying backwards into the wall. He slumped to the ground, still trying to get his bearings.

  I stood over him. “You are going to fucking bleed,” I spat at him. “For every-fucking-thing you’ve ever done to me and my family!”

  He kicked his leg out, trying to fight me so he could stand, but I didn’t allow the pain his kicks caused to break my determination. I punched him over and over until the skin on his face couldn’t be seen through the blood covering it. He kicked and punched at me, too, leaving my face with cuts and bruises. I moved like a machine, though. One he would never beat again.

  He fought unconsciousness, his eyes rolling back in his head. I gripped his shirt and shook him. “Don’t you fucking pass out yet, motherfucker. We’ve got a long fucking way to go still.” I wouldn’t be done with him anytime soon.

  He looked at me through thin slits as his lip curled into a sneer. “You kill me, your club will have to live with the consequences,” he managed to get out while coughing blood.

  “You think I give a fuck about that at this point?” I didn’t care. Storm would find a way to deal with any shit that my actions caused.

  He opened his mouth to speak again, but I jammed my foot against his face, pushing it sideways against the wall. “Stop fucking talking!”

  My phone rang, but I ignored it. I was dealing with something that couldn’t fucking wait. However, it kept ringing over and over. It wouldn’t fucking stop.

  Yanking it from my back pocket, I barked, “I’m in the middle of something! What the fuck do you want?”

  “Hyde.” It was King. He sounded less than impressed, but I ignored that.

  “What?” I snapped, staring down at Gibson.

  “You care to alter that?” Still unimpressed.

  “Fuck, King, I’m dealing with Gibson.”

  Silence for a beat. “Where are you?”

  “My place.”

  “Your kid there?”

  Fuck.

  I dropped my head. “Yeah.”

  “I’m sending Nitro. Don’t fucking kill that motherfucker before he gets there.”

  He was right, but I wasn’t sure I could stop myself. “Make it fucking quick.”

  I looked down at Gibson after King made the call. He was barely breathing, but he wasn’t dead. Not yet. He would be, though. By the time this day ended, he’d take his last breath. I’d fucking make sure of it.

  Chapter 33

  Hyde

  “He’s all yours,” Nitro said once we had Gibson in the old warehouse we used for these kinds of things.

  Gibson had regained consciousness. He stared up at me from the cold cement floor where we’d dumped him. He didn’t speak, though. I doubted he could, even if he tried. I’d beaten him so badly that his face was unrecognisable, swollen to the point where his eyes and mouth could hardly open.

  “How you wanna do this?” Nitro asked.

  I jerked my chin. “String him up.” I needed to work the anger out of my system with my fists.

  Nitro nodded and helped me hoist Gibson up. There was therapy in the rope work involved in this endeavour. I derived great satisfaction from it, and when we stood back to survey him hanging there, ready for me, my skin hummed with anticipation.

  King came through the doorway at the end of the warehouse and walked our way. It was just the three of us there. King had called again after we’d left my place, to say he’d meet us if he could escape the feds.

  “You ducked Ryland?” Nitro asked.

  King nodded, his eyes focused on me. “Yeah.”

  “What?” I asked him. It seemed like he had something to say.

  Regret flashed across his face. That didn’t happen often with King. “I was calling you earlier to pass on some information from Bronze.”

  My gut tightened. “Sully?”

  “Yeah.” He paused for a beat. “Sorry, brother, but they found him riddled with bullets.”

  “Fuck!” I roared, turning my face to Gibson who hung by his two arms, his head down. “You did this, didn’t you?”

  He tried to lift his head, only managing to raise it a fraction. But his nod couldn’t be missed.

  I took the few strides needed to get to him. Squeezing my fingers around his face, I dug them in until he responded with a cry of pain. “You’ll regret that.”

  He spat at me and mumbled something I couldn’t understand. It provoked the beast inside me that I’d somehow kept leashed through all of this. If he thought he’d seen the worst from me already, he had no idea what was coming for him.

  I gave his face one last hard squeeze and then punched him in the gut. The world drifted away after that while I took out every ounce of rage, resentment, hatred, and pain on him.

  I finally embraced every dark thought I’d ever had. And every unhinged desire for revenge that had stirred deep in my soul. I’d lived with these parts of myself for far too long. They’d wound themselves around my heart, trying to choke any last pieces of good left inside. They’d flowed through my veins, trying to poison me. I’d battled them daily. I’d fought the fuck against this side of me, but not anymore. This shit ended with Gibson. I’d beat him black and fucking blue until I released this toxic shit from my body.

  Every blow I delivered took me one step closer to the retribution I craved.

  I fucking hungered for it.

  Dreamt of it.

  Needed it like the air I breathed.

  “Fuck!” It roared out of me as I punched him one last time before falling to my knees. My heart pounded as I drew deep breaths.

  I rested my hands on my thighs, my back hunching over as the violent high consumed me. I wasn’t done with him yet. Not by a long fucking shot.

  “He’s got a bit more life in him,” King said, moving to stand next to me.

  I looked up at Gibson. “Yeah.” His breaths were shallow, but they were still there. Standing, I pulled my knife from its sheath as I met King’s gaze. “He won’t soon.”

  King’s own bloodthirsty desires flared in his eyes. He kept them locked tight, though. If I hadn’t finished Gibson off in a way that drew blood, he would have. But he knew I needed to do this, because it was what he would have needed, too.

  Turning back to Gibson, I ran my eyes over his body, taking in every bruise and wound I’d inflicted. I tasted my revenge before I took it. It felt fucking good. However, it would never be enough, and I knew that. But it would be a start.

  I stepped close to him and pressed the tip of the blade to his chest. “You won’t ever hurt my family again, motherfucker,” I said through clenched teeth. “Charlie will be safe from you. And I don’t give a flying fuck what you say—she’s my daughter.” I pulled my arm back and then stabbed the knife into his chest with all the force I had in me. “Mine!”

  I stabbed him repeatedly.

  I couldn’t stop myself.

  Blood oozed from him.

  It covered him, soaked through his clothes and dripped to the cement floor creating a grisly red pool that only excited my thirst for his death.

  I wanted every drop of his blood down there.

  I didn’t want to stop carving him up until he ran dry.

  The blade sliced through every body part as I stabbed him to death.

  The sound of flesh ripping apart was the soundtrack I moved to.

  The sight of that gaping flesh and his blood, my reward.

  It wasn’t until Nitro stepped in and pulled me away that the vicious frenzy ended.

  I stared blankly at him as he took the knife from my hand.

  I was numb.

  Dead inside.

  I’d taken his life.

  Delive
red my revenge.

  But betrayal had carved a wound that cut deep that day. And that wasn’t something Gibson’s death could ever soothe.

  Chapter 34

  Monroe

  My heart ached when Hyde came into view. He sat alone at the clubhouse bar, staring at the drink in front of him, his shoulders slumped and his head bowed slightly.

  I had no idea what I would say to him. All I knew was that he needed me. Desperately.

  Closing the distance between us, I was glad we were alone. It was almost midnight, and there were a few club members still around, but King had cleared the bar when I arrived with Nitro. He’d looked at me with those fierce eyes of his. He hadn’t said anything. Had simply let me in and jerked his chin towards the bar. But those eyes had said so much. He hoped I could help his brother in ways he hadn’t been able to.

  I took the stool next to Hyde, sliding onto it, and placed my handbag on the counter of the bar. My nerves had gotten the best of me on the way over here. I didn’t want to screw this up. Didn’t want to let him down.

  We sat in silence for a while. Him staring at the drink on the counter, next to a full bottle of whisky. Me watching with my heart in my throat.

  Finally, he asked, “Why are you here?”

  His question slayed me in so many ways. It hurt that he even asked it, but the rational side of me understood it came from a place of such desolation.

  “Charlie called me. She told me everything.” His daughter had been a wreck on the phone. By the end of the conversation, I’d understood why. She’d also shed so much light for me on why Hyde was the way he was. And then she’d made me believe that she had to be his daughter when it became clear the reason for the call was because she wanted me to find him and make sure he was okay. She’d had the shittiest day of her life, and all she cared about at the end of it was that someone made sure her father was all right. That was something Hyde would have done, I was sure of it.

  His head dropped further and he muttered, “Fuck.” Looking sideways at me, he added, “I’m the worst fucking father, Roe. I haven’t even checked on her.”