“N-no,” I stammer out.
He lunges forward, leaving an inch between us as he leans in my face.
“Don’t fucking lie to me, this is your one and only chance to tell me the truth.”
“Mason, I’m not fucking playing you. Tell me what happened to Myles.”
He’s fighting something, his mouth opens and closes numerous times as his stare penetrates deeper than ever.
“Mase, talk to me, please,” I plead with him and still nothing. “I’ve never lied to you. Please, tell me what happened to your brother?”
“Your fucking father had him arrested and then had him beat so bad he ended up in the hospital.”
A sharp gasp escapes me, and I close the distance between us even more. I lift my hand to rest on his cheek and I’m grateful when he doesn’t pull away.
“I had nothing to do with this, I promise you.”
I need him to believe me because it’s the truth.
His hand comes to rest on mine and then he rips mine away from him.
“See, the thing is, it doesn’t matter if I believe you or not. I wasn’t there for my brother and he paid the price and I have to live with that.”
“It’s not your fault…”
“Yes,” he grinds out. “It is.”
“Mason.”
He leans down and presses his lips to my forehead. I don’t understand.
“From now on, you deal with Cas, not me.”
“No, this isn’t right, we…”
“There is no we, no us, nothing. Don’t you see, it could never work between us and I don’t want to try. I have my priorities and you aren’t one of them.”
“I thought-”
“Don’t think, come on, you can wait for Cas inside. He wants to talk to you.”
He turns his back on me and walks back around to the front of the clubhouse. I numbly follow trying to work out what the hell just happened. He has to believe I didn’t have anything to do with the attack on his brother.
Inside, he juts his chin out pointing to the table by the fire for me to sit at. Fuck knows why but I do as he says and park my ass closest to the fireplace.
A chill is setting in and the heat is very much welcome at this point. It’s not like I can snuggle against Mason, who is currently standing at the bar with his back to me.
Fuck him. I change my mind, I’m not standing for this. He knows I don’t have anything to do with my father’s decisions. I storm across the bar and yank on his hoodie until he turns to face me.
“Don’t push me away,” I warn him.
He just stands there staring at me like I’m an inconvenience. It only spikes my building anger.
“You like me, I know you do. You know I’m not to blame for my father’s actions and fuck you for putting that on me.”
“Are you done?” he finally says.
“I don’t know, are you still going to ignore me?” I throw back at him.
“Aspen, no offence but we didn’t have anything to quit. We had great sex and now we’re parting ways. Stop being a girl about it. Do as you’re told and go and sit down and wait for Cas. He’s on his way back.”
Who the fuck does he think he’s talking to? I know he’s only saying this to push me away but he’s taking it too far. ‘Do as I’m told?’ I don’t think so. No one tells me what to do like a child.
Raising my hand, I go to slap him across the face but he’s fast, he catches my wrist and pulls me against him.
“Get over it, I have.” He shoves me away and with everyone watching our back and forth, I return to the table and pin my stare on him.
My heart is breaking and all he can do is stand there and treat me like shit. When he comes to his senses, I won’t be there. As soon as my father is dead, I’m leaving this awful place and everyone behind.
22
Mason
Cas steps into the bar and conversations quieten. He scans the room and I know he’s looking for Aspen. He finds her and then continues to look around. When he sees Harper, he starts walking towards me.
“Harps, take Aspen into the kitchen and stay in there until I call you out.”
I know Harper, she won’t like being ordered but she catches his tone and leads Aspen past me. I look away as they go and only watch her back and then Harper is closing the door on them.
“Most of you have heard what happened to Myles and tonight we take his revenge and make them pay. I want to know where the priest and the sheriff live.”
“I know, I can take some brothers out with me,” a mercy brother says.
“By sunrise, I want them, and Jacob, tied and gagged at my feet in this very bar to meet their death. Use whatever means you have to make it happen. They think they can come at us and win in a war, let’s show them how fucking wrong they were and they’re not even worth a war.”
Everyone starts to move and I throw back my drink before going to join them. Cas calls me over and I have to physically force myself not to walk out the door.
I join him at the same time Sparky does. “I want you with Sparky. I’ll text you addresses when I get them. You’re going to destroy the church and the police station. Fuck this town and everything in it.”
Now he’s talking my language.
“What about Jacob’s place?” Sparky asks him.
“Leave his place for now, just hit the church and the station.”
With our orders, we head out and Sparky leads us to a shed away from the clubhouse.
“Will they have what you need here?”
“If they don’t want me coming for them, they better do.”
Our breath creates white clouds with every exhale in the cold bitter air and I rub my hands together to keep them warm.
Sparky throws open the shed door and steps inside. I hang back in the doorway and watch him sort through drawers, boxes and look under tables.
He starts collecting the shit he needs and dumps them on the workbench.
“Cas kept you back because he wants you focused on them when they’re in our grasp.”
“I trust Cas’s judgment, it doesn’t mean I like it.”
“Think about it, you go hunting with the brothers and you pick up the sheriff, are you going to restrain yourself until you’ve dragged him back here? He beat down your brother in ways that could have killed him. Would you hold yourself in check until the time was called?”
I turn my back on the shed and Sparky rifling through wires and dig out my smokes.
“Cas knows each and every one of us, he’s seen you grow from a baby to the man you are today, you think he doesn’t know you’re impulsive and just as hungry for the violence as your grandpa is? You think he doesn’t take into account that you’re feeling Myles’ attack more than us because he’s your twin? He sees it all and he makes decisions that work out best for us.”
“Like I said, I don’t doubt his judgement.”
“When the time comes, the sheriff will belong to you and Myles, no doubt about that.”
“And in the meantime, I still get to blow this town sky high.”
I turn around and step over the threshold. I spend the next hour at Sparky’s beck and call, but mainly watching him putting together his explosives.
“We have six hours till sunrise. Are you nearly ready?” I ask, growing impatient.
“Patience, Mason. You know, back in the day, Cas and me would do this and set them in place. When detonated, we’d watch the flames lick the sky and whatever we had blown up, we’d watch it disappear.”
“What’s your point, Sparks? We need to get going.”
“My point is instant gratification isn’t all what it’s cracked up to be. We’re Lost Souls and no matter if it takes us a week or a month or even a fucking year, we always get what we want.”
Somewhere in the back of my mind I know this, I was raised by enough Lost Souls to see no one ever went without. Yet, it still doesn’t stop the reckless streak pumping through me, needing to unleash the monster.
* * *
The clubhouse is full of brothers when we return from blowing the shit out of the church and the police station, but it’s too quiet. Grumps and dad are sat with Cas and they all stand when we walk in. I move around brothers and then I’m faced with the Sheriff and the priest on their knees, their hands tied behind their backs.
I can’t help myself; I swing my fist into the cop’s jaw and the impact drives him to fall on his ass.
I go to raise my boot to smash it into his head, but Grumps calls out and stops me.
“Where’s Jacob?” I ask, looking around not finding him.
“They haven’t got him yet, they got the priest first and then the sheriff joined us an hour ago,” Dad tells me.
“Your town’s burning, asshole, and it was me who will walk over the ashes.”
He grunts around his gag, but I don’t care to make out what he’s trying to say.
“Where’s Aspen?”
“Still with Harper,” Cas says and puts a cigarette to his mouth. He doesn’t light it. I’ve noticed he’s doing this a lot more than usual.
I walk back outside and call mom. She must be bouncing between Victoria and Myles’ rooms, and I hope she’s with Myles. I need an update.
“Hey, mom. How you doing?” I ask when she answers.
“Not great, Mase. I have two children in the hospital, please stay safe. I can’t handle all of my children in here.”
Her sadness hits me hard down the line and I vow I won’t put extra pressure on her.
“How’s he doing?”
“He’s the same, they’re keeping him sedated so his body can heal. They say he should make a full recovery, I don’t see how looking at him, but I’ve been praying they’re right.”
“You don’t pray, mom.”
“I do when it comes to you kids, and your dad, even for your grumps. I don’t think the big man hears me all too often but it brings me peace to try.”
I don’t argue with her and let her have time with God if that’s what she needs to get through this.
“I’m so sorry, mom. I should have been there with him.”
Her sigh rings loud down the phone and I sigh in return.
“It wasn’t your fault. I promise you that. I heard what dad said to you and he was out of line. He’s so focused on the club, he sometimes forgets we’re all human. You’re allowed to spend time with a girl, Mason. Myles should never have gone out on his own, that’s one thing your grandfather did teach you both. With all the trouble the club is going through, this kind of attack was bound to happen. It just happened to my son. I have faith in you, your dad, my dad, to make it right for him.”
“We have two of them, we’re just waiting on finding Jacob. He can’t hide for long, though.”
“Sounds good to me. Stay with the club and watch your back. I love you.”
“I love you too, mom.”
She ends the call and I put my phone away. Before going back inside, I light a cigarette and inhale deeply, wishing it was a joint. All these years we’ve partied, drunk too much, got too high and fucked too many girls, but shit is serious now. It took watching Victoria nearly being burned alive to take our patch seriously, and it’s taken my brother nearly dying to take every single thing seriously. I won’t be making the same mistakes a second time.
I thought I could have a good thing going with Aspen but she’s not good for me. Scrubbing my hand over my face, I take another hit on the cigarette and blow a long stream of smoke into the air.
I can’t think about her now. The only thing keeping here is the two cunts inside who are going to die very fucking soon.
* * *
Myles
* * *
I can hear hushed voices talking, they sound so far away but so close at the same time. My entire body is heavy as fuck and when I try to open my eyes, I see nothing but darkness. I’m tired as hell but I don’t want to sleep. Foggily, I’m aware I should be on full alert. The Sheriff’s dirty ass smirk fills my mind and morphs to the fat fuck officer who finished me off. Perhaps I don’t care, it’s kind of warm wherever I am. The cop’s face morphs into Mason and he’s sat on a tree branch. I recognise it. It’s the biggest tree we could find behind the clubhouse. We found it when Grumps took us to the club and told us to go play.
Mason holds his hand out and I go to him. I’m sitting beside him when he laughs. He points to something off in the distance, but I can’t work out what he wants me to look at.
Tightness surrounds my hand and when I look down, Mason is gripping onto me and pulling the flick knife Grumps bought him for Christmas. He drags the blade across my palm and a thin red line appears. He copies the action across his own palm and slams our hands together.
He doesn’t let go and then he’s pulling me against him. I’m not afraid I’ll fall from the branch. My brother has me, he would never let me fall.
“Always my brother.”
I lean back to look at him and Aspen is looking back at me. I search for Mason but he’s nowhere to be found.
“What’s wrong, Myles. Aren’t you happy?”
Happy?
“Why would I be happy? Where did Mason go?”
My head snaps from right to left, searching for him but he’s nowhere to be found.
She collects my hand in hers and rests it on her stomach. Raising her chin, her teeth are all on show through her smile and she says, “Because you’re going to be a daddy.”
Am I fuck.
“Where’s Mason?”
“He’s gone now, you’re alone, Myles. It’s how it should be.”
An almighty pain shoots through my chest, from the bottom of my stomach up to my heart, and I can’t see through the pain.
It’s like I’m falling backwards and no matter how hard I try, I can’t look behind me to see where I’m going to land. I could have been falling for a second or a day, but when I land it’s on a heap of arms and legs. I scramble up to my feet, but only make it to my hands and knees and Mason is lying on the dirty black floor, dead. Slapping his cheek, his eyes roll into the back of his head and I grow so cold, my tears turn to ice as soon as they fall.
“Why the tears, Myles?”
I blink and I’m sitting at our kitchen table at home in Willows Peak. Mom is cooking breakfast, dad and grumps are cleaning their guns at the end of the table and Victoria is texting away on her phone.
Mason isn’t anywhere. He’s gone. I’m here, there and fucking everywhere on my own.
Mason
I’m pissed. If Grumps isn’t on the phone, calling me for updates, it’s dad, and all I can tell them is I’m waiting. If they hadn’t of gone back to the hospital, they’d know this shit themselves. Cas still won’t let me help track down Jacob and I’m losing the will to follow orders.
I sit the closest to the Sheriff and the priest, keeping my eyes on them at all times. There’s no chance of them getting away. Myles will have his revenge with the Sheriff, even if we have to hold him for a month until Myles has his strength back.
Cas is on and off his phone, brothers calling in updates but it’s never anything I want to hear. Aspen is still in the kitchen with Harper, Zach went in a couple of hours ago and came out ten minutes later. Cas went in half hour ago and came out fifteen minutes ago. I can’t bring myself to look at the door. I can’t afford any more distractions when it comes to her, and for my brother, I’m going to sit here and make sure the Sheriff is still here when he returns from the hospital.
A hand lands on my shoulder and Grumps looks down at me. I blink, once and then again. How long have I been sitting here? The fucker’s always been old to me, but lately, he’s looking younger, moving with more ease. He’s looking and doing well.
“Did you hear?” he asks and I shake my head, I have no idea what he’s talking about. “JJ and Dex have Jacob, they’re on their way back. It won’t be long until we have eyes on him.”
This is what I need to be hearing. The three main men and it took us fourteen hours to hunt t
hem down and haul them to our territory. We should have done this from the start and Myles wouldn’t have ended up in the hospital.
He pulls a chair from the nearest table and settles beside me. Crossing his arms over his chest, excitement pulses through the old guy. The best thing about my grandfather is he doesn’t bullshit. We could sit here for the next three hours and if he didn’t have anything to say, he wouldn’t talk just to fill the silence. He’s content to sit here and eyeball the fuckers until it’s showtime.
True to what he said, the door opens and JJ’s the first to walk through with Dex shoving Jacob fucking Peirce between them.
Reaching behind me, I drag a chair over and kick it next to the sheriff and priest. “Now who runs this town?” Cas hollers with a big ass grin on his face.
I feel a smirk tugging at the corner of my mouth, but it disappears as fast as it appears.
“Not if you keep burning it down,” Jacob retorts.
“I don’t give a fuck about the rest of town, and with you three out of the way, I’m guessing they won’t miss you all that much.”
“You know nothing.”
Dex gives him one last shove and he comes to a stop by the priest.
I rise from the chair, my legs stiff from sitting for so long and walk over to him. Grabbing him by his sharply pressed shirt collar, I drag him to the third chair and forcibly shove him down onto his ass. I grab the restraints from the floor by the priest’s feet and set to work tying this fucker up.
Once I’m done, I lean down and whisper into his ear, “Your death will be as sweet as your daughter’s pussy.”
He jolts back like he can get to me and I only laugh. “Settle down, old man. You’re going to need your energy,” Cas warns him.
“Is she here?” Jacob scowls at each of us, his eyes roaming around the bar to look for her.
“Of course she is, who do you think helped us get you all?” I tell him and sit back beside Grumps.
Their Fractured Souls: Sons Of Lost Soul MC Book Six Page 11
