Shaking my head, I throw myself on one of the couches. Gears heads over with a beer already in his hand. Taking it, I stare at it for a moment, then close my eyes. I’m physically tired and utterly fatigued of this charade. I’d agreed to this farce of pretending I was Stormy’s spouse as a way of getting updates on his condition. I just hadn’t expected it to go on so long. He’s clinging onto life despite everything.
Over the past week I’ve spent hours sitting by the side of a man in a coma pretending I care. The additional lie, that we were estranged, only takes my less than sympathetic approach so far. I’d be thought less than human to have no compassion for the man I was supposed to have once promised to love until death.
A dip in the couch and a familiar scent tells me it’s Road who’s sat beside me. Leaning in close, he asks, “How are you holding up?” Carefully he places App in my lap, and automatically I begin to stroke the spaniel’s fur. It has a calming effect.
With my free hand, I take Road’s and squeeze his fingers. With him, I don’t need to pretend. He doesn’t make me feel any less strong if I give into human weakness.
“I’m exhausted,” I reply, equally quietly. I may not like the man lying in the hospital bed, but it’s hard to watch a man more dead than alive and feel no sympathy, nor wonder why he’s fighting so hard to stay alive. It would be easier for him to give up and breathe his last breath.
Placing his hand over the back of my head, Road pulls me into him. Resting my cheek against the chest of the man I actually love, I breathe in deeply. With the rest of my brothers I can joke that this is just one more mission, and I’ll approach it with the dedication and emotional detachment such a task deserves. With Road, I can allow him to see this isn’t a normal anything.
At first, I’d half expected I was there to ensure that Stormy wasn’t pretending, acting an Oscar-winning role to give himself a chance to heal so he could make good and escape while we weren’t looking. But as time has passed, it’s obvious he isn’t faking.
“He coded last night,” I tell Road, still with my voice lowered. Fuck, but that had been hard watching the doctors and nurses rushing around trying to save him, keeping air flowing into his lungs before, at last, the defibrillator paddles had shocked him back into the land of the living. It had taken a while. Too fucking long. For a moment, I’d thought we’d lost him. Even so, the doctor expressed concern that yet another bleed on the brain might have caused cerebral damage. Once he’s again stabilised, they’ll run more tests on him.
I need him alive, able to speak and think normally. How else would I question him? That’s the only reason I was rooting for him to survive—he needs to provide answers about who had beaten him so badly. Was it simply he’d finally upset the wrong person, or was it something more? Was it just him who was the target, or was someone gunning for the club?
“You want another beer before church?”
I shake my head and pull myself away from my man, feeling stronger now. He always has a calming influence on me. “I’m fine.”
Road tilts my head toward him, examining my face carefully, and slowly that gorgeous smile of his appears. “Yes, you are.”
He’s been my rock since the moment Stormy first crashed into the building, listening to me rant about the loss of my opportunity to punish Stormy for the risks he brought down on the club. Simply being there when sitting with Stormy had drained the life out of me, but never once has he complained I’d been spending more time with another man than with him. Road’s got one hundred percent faith in me. It’s not that he’s not got it in him to be jealous, he just trusts me completely. His stance makes it easier, and I know I’d be the same if our roles were reversed. Not for the first time I thank the stars that aligned to bring him to me.
Now he’s standing, holding out his hand. “Come on.” He jerks his head to indicate the clubroom’s emptying.
Once I’d have waved off his help, but Road’s taught me I can use his strength, as I can give mine to him. So I take his hand and allow him to pull me to my feet.
“App.” I tap my leg. The spaniel jumps off the couch and comes to my side. Our little trio proceeds to the lower floor to take our places in church—a meeting where we’ll likely just go around in circles again.
Everyone’s here, including Grinch, Mystic and Goofy, so all chairs are occupied today. Stormy’s seat was removed the day he disappeared. Not only because he’d left, but because before he’d walked out, he’d been busted back down to prospect. If he survives and returns, he’ll have to earn the right to sit around the table once again. That’s if I don’t kill him first, and believe me, that’s an option depending on what he has to say for himself.
Prez is at the head of the table. I go to sit by the side of the VP, leaving Road to take his place in the middle of the ranks. I nod at Rascal, our treasurer, sitting opposite and raise my chin at Preacher seated at Prez’s right hand. At the far end of the table sits Pip, who’s role is only advisory now, and as such, he lacks voting rights.
Snatcher bangs the gavel and we all sit forward. “Stormy?” He poses his question to me.
I rub my temples and sigh, then give them the update I’d just given Road. It takes a moment for the news to sink in.
“Brain damage?” Honor’s eyes have gone wide.
I raise my chin. “Possible, according to the doctor. Maybe even probable.”
“It might make him pleasanter to be around.” Duty nudges his friend.
“He could do with a fuckin’ personality transplant,” Grinch offers.
“He wasn’t always that way,” Mystic puts in, casting his eye around the table. “Sure, he was always a grumpy ass, had no patience if anything wasn’t done right, but he was a team player, until he went nomad.”
Prez nods as though that’s given him his cue. “I know there’s not a lot of love left for Stormy. Christ knows, he brought enough trouble down on our heads. All but lost us the fuckin’ charter.” He pauses but doesn’t add the thought that’s uppermost in all our thoughts. He still might. Shaking his head, he continues, “Then he compounded that by running away.” He waits a beat for that to sink in. “But he was, is, a member. Patched or prospect, he’s one of ours.”
The VP starts to voice what Snatcher had avoided. “Are we going to discuss what hiding him now means to us? What fuckin’ loyalty do we have to him? Didn’t he lose all respect by running? We’re running a risk hiding his presence from Drummer.”
“He’s still part of the club,” Snatcher confirms. “We never voted him out. It was in the cards, but he wasn’t declared out bad.”
“Technicalities,” Cowboy says. “We all knew he was out. There’s no way back in.”
“But not officially,” Prez states firmly. “Drummer suggested we give him three months before declaring anything which makes him still club.” I’m opening my mouth to give him my thoughts which are along the same lines as Cowboy’s, but he holds up his hand. “I think we’re in danger of missing shit by being blinded by the events that happened a couple of months back.”
Watching him, I think Snatcher’s grown back into the role he’d held for years before Pip took over the club. Maybe he learned from working with him, or maybe it’s no longer having the mafia on his back, an enemy that once proved too great for him. But he has a new authority about him that makes me consider what he said.
“What’s on your mind, Prez?” I ask.
“Forget it’s Stormy,” Snatcher demands, his dark eyes scanning all the faces looking his way. “Focus on it being a member who’s been beaten so bad he’s still at risk of losing his life. Consider a man so desperate to return to the club, that he broke the laws of physics in doing so. It shouldn’t have been medically possible for his ass to ride in the state he was in, so what the fuck drives a man in that condition to come back?”
There’s a moment of silence as we all readjust our thinking.
“He came back,” Honor repeats, now looking thoughtful. “He was hurt, and yet he returne
d to us.”
Us. The people who were prepared to give him a beating. I frown slightly. Snatcher’s right to point out the desperation of Stormy’s actions. He must have had a good reason.
“Could he have meant to return shortly after he left? Could he have been held somewhere and by someone against his will?” Duty ponders aloud. “We found fuck-all trace of him. Maybe that’s why?”
“No,” my rebuttal comes fast. “I’ve questioned the doctors carefully. There’s some evidence of dehydration, and some of his injuries predate his crash, but a few days at most, not months. Though he’s pale now, he still has the signs of a healthy tan. He doesn’t look like a man who’s been held prisoner since the time he left. He’s been somewhere else in the meantime.”
Prez glances around the table. “We agreed to hide his identity until we knew whether he was going to live. We still don’t know what we’re dealing with, but that decision could have ramifications for the club, so it needs to be discussed. What I can’t overlook is Stormy cheated death to come back to us, and the question is... why? Did he have a message for us? Was he sending us a warning?”
Pip raises his hand. “Playing Devil’s advocate, why not tell Drummer he’s here, and draw a line under that? Stormy dies, well, that’s the end of it. He lives, and his future is ours to decide. Either out bad, or you do as agreed, a beatdown,” he pauses for the scoffs and some mirthless chuckles to die down as if one more punch wouldn’t matter to Stormy, “and then he prospects for six months.”
“Pip’s raised good points.” Snatcher gives the man his due. “But this is our fuckin’ club. We tell Drummer, the likely result is that the other chapters will be all over us. Dealing with them would distract us. What if Stormy’s return was a warning? If we take our eye off the ball, we might miss something coming.” He pauses and takes a deep breath. “I ask again, what brought Stormy back? With luck, he’ll wake up and tell us, but if he doesn’t, we need to find out ourselves. I don’t want to be distracted running in circles just to prove loyalty to Drummer.”
“Whoa!” Road raises both his hands. “I’m Utah, I think I’ve fuckin’ proven that, but I can’t have you cast Drummer as the bogeyman. He’d bend over backwards to help this chapter, unless he feels he’s being slighted. Keeping secrets is the quickest way to get on his wrong side. You already know that.”
“Not doubting your loyalty, Brother,” Prez says fast. “Just saying Drummer gave us three months. I think we still have time. If someone tried to kill Stormy, what happens if it becomes common knowledge he’s still alive? Especially if they’re coming for the club, and not just the man himself. Can you honestly say you trust every man in every chapter to keep that titbit to themselves?”
Damn it. I’d been so wrapped up in resenting Stormy, I hadn’t thought of that. It’s quite possible that knowing they’ve failed Stormy, and by extension us, could be in danger if they want to take him and finish the job. What do I know of the members in the other chapters? These Utah men I know will have my back, but there’s at least fifty more I know nothing about except they’ve earned the right to wear a Satan’s Devils patch. Prez is right. How do we know we can trust them?
“If he’s got a warning for the club, I agree we need to hear it.” Thor’s jaw is set. “Or, if he can’t tell us, then we need to discover what it fuckin’ is.”
“Where’s he been?” Knowing Thor’s right, I now try to engage my head. “Why did he leave? We’d given up on him, but he did return. What was he doing, and who did he cross?”
“Good questions, Swift,” Pip comments, but not condescendingly. “Though again, if I was representing the Devil, I’d query whether it could be that he knew he was already a dead man and returned to the only family he had.”
Does he have no one else? That’s more than sad. Even I have my parents, though they’re in another country. I drum my fingers against the table. Although others assure me he wasn’t always such an ass, I have only known him in his recent reincarnation. “What do we know about Stormy? I was only patched in two years ago and didn’t get to know the man. He was already a nomad when I joined.” All I saw of him was a man I instantly didn’t like.
Pip waggles his fingers. When Prez jerks his chin toward him, he begins. “I can answer that quite simply. No, he was not always an ass, or not a complete one. He doesn’t have family and totally bought into that aspect of the club. It fulfilled a need inside him. I won’t disagree that he could be hard, and unyielding at times, but there was never any doubt that we could trust him.”
“He was a good brother,” Honor observes. “He took a break for personal reasons. When he came back, it was as a changed man. From that point on, he was on a very short fuse.”
“You could fuckin’ say that,” Grinch says with feeling. He jerks his head toward the men sitting at his side. “Mystic, Goofy and I got the brunt of that.”
“I thought he just needed time,” Prez states, looking weary. “When it didn’t get better, I agreed with Pip that sending him out as a nomad was better for our mental health. To say he’d become fuckin’ difficult to deal with is an understatement.”
There are nods of agreement with that, and a heartfelt, “Amen, Brother,” from Grinch.
Pip clears his throat, indicating he’s more to add. “When Stormy joined the club, I obviously investigated his background and history. It was up to him how much he generally shared.”
There’s an unspoken rule that we don’t go digging in member’s personal business—not once they’re past the prospecting stage. Someone like myself, being brought to the table after him, wouldn’t be privy to the reasons Stormy had for joining, and he, himself, had deigned not to share them.
Snatcher’s watching Pip carefully. “I think you know more than anyone, Pip. All I know is the headline. Stormy was a SEAL, and he lost the right to call himself that when he was dishonourably discharged.”
That’s news to me. My eyes go to the man seated opposite Snatcher, and I’m not the only one to have a creased brow.
Pip shrugs. “I was recommended to Stormy, but the recommendation went both ways. It’s no secret he already came with his handle attached. The man was known for his temper, but only when justified. Let’s just say, he exposed weaknesses in his commanding officer, weaknesses which couldn’t entirely be covered up. He couldn’t be allowed to escape punishment, but a full court martial would have exposed too much. He was kicked out but didn’t serve time in the brig.”
I wince, understanding how proud SEALs are of being able to claim an alliance to that elite body, even when they no longer served. It must have killed Stormy to be unable to claim a connection anymore. But I do have a question. “Was he right to do what he did to get kicked out?”
Pip raises and lowers his chin. “Yes. The lieutenant commander he served with was removed from active duty. But he kept his designation, even received a shoreside promotion after a while.”
“Enough to send any man off the rails,” Goofy observes.
Pip grins. “When he first came here, he was more miserable than angry. He thought his life was completely fucked, but instead, he found a place he could fit in. Here, with us, he settled. Until, as you say, he took time out. The changes weren’t immediately obvious when he first returned. He’d always been something of an asshole, but it got worse.” He looks down at his hands, his cheeks reddening slightly. “I suppose I ought to admit the reason he gave me for wanting some personal time was a heap of shit. He said it was because his mom was dying—his mom who’d walked out when he was six and with whom he’d had no contact with since. I was suspicious, but hey, I wasn’t going to pry. He’d been a good brother. If he needed time out, he could take it.”
“And you let him get away without an explanation?” Snatcher bangs the table angrily. “And you didn’t think to tell me, your VP at that time?”
While embarrassed he’s had to admit his failing, Pip doesn’t look contrite. “He was wound up, distraught about something. It could have been w
oman troubles for all I knew. No, I didn’t call him out. I mistakenly thought he’d sort it and then come back. He kept in touch, that’s all I could ask.”
“Jesus.” Prez breathes the word out. His eyes flare at his former prez.
What’s done is done. Sure, I think Pip was wrong, but what’s the point going through all that now? “And when he came back, worse than before, that was when you decided to let him go nomad,” I state.
Again, Pip’s shoulders rise and lower. “Stormy’s got fuckin’ skills. It was either lose them or send him out where he wasn’t going to upset the balance of the club. Yeah, it was my decision. I thought eventually he’d work it out of his system.”
“But he never did,” Snatcher observes, still sounding angry. “In fact, out on his own, he grew worse. His lack of trust in us, his brothers, led to him acting rogue and nearly losing us our charter.” His knuckles wrap the table edge, and he leans forward. “I want to know every fuckin’ thing about Stormy. Pip, do you know details of how he showed this commanding officer up?”
Pip pauses for a moment before shaking his head. For a moment I wonder whether he’s holding back anything, but this is Pip, the ex-prez, so I accept his words at face value when he informs us. “Only the bare details. He disobeyed an order. An order that shouldn’t have been made. Stormy was under a non-disclosure agreement. I couldn’t get further than that. Well, to be honest, I didn’t bother.”
My brow furrows. That’s not like Pip. Normally if he hits a roadblock, it’s like a red rag to a bull. I wonder what he’s not saying. I notice Snatcher’s not totally buying it either, if I go by his expression.
“Well,” Duty nods at Honor, “start digging, Prez.”
“Do that,” Snatcher snaps. “I want to know everything about Stormy down to the brand of fucking underwear he prefers. We need to know where he went four years back, where he went two months ago, and every fuckin’ step he’s since taken.”
“We’ve already tried,” I point out. “We’ve busted our butts trying to track him down, but he disappeared into thin air.”
Stormy's Thunder: Satan's Devils MC Utah Page 5
