“I don’t think Jackson wants me to leave.”
Grace looked around the room and grinned.
“It will be okay, I promise. You can bring your guard dogs, and I even have one of my own.” She gestured to a young man, who rushed over.
“What do you need, Grace?”
“Karlyn and I are going to Trudy’s,” she announced, standing up as she reached for my hand.
I was hesitant, but when I looked at Nav, he nodded.
“Gather up whoever you need to,” Grace ordered as we headed for the door, with Eros and Indigo, along with Johnny, Romeo, Zero, and Ace following closely behind.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Reaper
Diamondback Clubhouse, Lawton, Oklahoma...
“This is my fucking clubhouse, Montana.” Kansas sneered at his older brother. “You don’t have a fucking say here.”
I smirked. “But I do.” Leaning back in my chair, I looked at Kansas, the younger version of Montana, and felt a familiar knot of resentment tighten in my gut. He was so like Montana, all righteous anger and impulsive decisions. And like Montana, he was about to push me too far. I shook my head and groaned, the sound a mixture of genuine weariness and calculated intimidation. “You fucking Stones are going to be the death of me. I fucking know it.” But was he? Or was this whole damn Federation, this tangled mess of loyalty and brutality, going to be my real killer? The thought pricked at me, a fleeting whisper of doubt I immediately shoved down. “But just to be clear here, Kansas, as head of the Biker Federation, my word is final.” My gaze hardened, forcing him to meet my eyes. “You go against me, you go against the Federation.” I knew the weight of that statement pressed down, a familiar, suffocating burden. “Unless you are intending for the Diamondbacks to go rogue, which would put you in the same league with the Death Dogs and Satan’s Angels. Is that what you are telling me?” My question hung heavy, designed to force his hand, to make him choose between his club and his fractured sense of morality. “Because you standing up for him in court looked bad. Real bad.”
Several Diamondback brothers snarled and growled, their unified dissent a small, sharp vindication. They were not in agreement with their prez. Good. Let them see their leader falter.
“Kansas,” Montana sighed, his voice laced with a weariness that mirrored my own yet felt somehow cleaner. How he had become the moral compass I’d never know. “Listen to me. No matter how you play this, it’s bad.” He was right, and that was the infuriating part. “You have a child rapist as your VP.” The words hung in the air, a stain on their brotherhood. “As soon as the biker world learns what Pence did, they will come for your club. Say what you want about bikers, but the majority of them don’t play when it comes to kids, and you fucking know that. Think reasonably here. He can’t stay.”
“I KNOW!” Kansas roared, his voice cracking with a raw desperation that was almost painful to witness. He was caught, and I knew exactly how it felt to be stuck between a rock and a hard place, especially when that rock was your own damn principles. “But what will you have me do? Put a fucking bullet in my best friend’s head?” His plea, laced with genuine horror, was a punch to the gut.
He truly loved this man, this monster.
And I had to shatter that.
“That’s one way.” Malice chuckled, the sound a rasp that grated on my nerves. Sandman huffed, the sound a quiet judgment.
“Told you this would come to bite the club in the ass,” Shadow grumbled, sitting next to his brother Ghost. “Told you all that the sins of this club would eventually come to light. Bad timing it was Pence first.”
“Bad timing.” Montana rounded on my brother, his eyes blazing. “It’s fucking sick. You should have killed him the second you learned the truth!”
“Was still wearing the Golden Patch,” Shadow retorted, his voice strained. “I did that, and Kansas would have provocation for war.” My brother’s unspoken words hung in the room, a chasm of regret and responsibility. Shadow had made his choice, a choice I knew he’d wrestled with for years.
And now, Kansas was being forced to make a similar, impossible decision.
I watched him, his loyalty brought to the forefront, and a cold, hard truth settled over me. This was the price of leadership. This was the cost of the patch. And I was about to extract it. The thought twisted in my gut. I knew what needed to be done, the pragmatic, brutal necessity of it. But the flicker of empathy for Kansas, for his agonizing predicament, was a weakness I couldn’t afford to indulge. I had to be the monster they needed me to be, even if it meant becoming one myself.
“Kill him.” All eyes turned to the large, stoic Whisper, who stood leaning against the back wall. “This club has a dark past. A stain we can’t get rid of. Will only make it worse if we let Pence live. We need to draw a line in the sand to let the biker world know we mean business.”
“Whisper’s right, Prez.” Trigger sighed, his gaze flickering toward Kansas with a plea he couldn’t voice. “You know my history; lost my own sister to leukemia. There was nothing I could do to save her, but this is something I can do. What if it were Hellraiser?” the man choked out, shaking his head. “You know damn well I love that little girl. I’d tear apart the motherfucker with my own hands. I hate this as much as you, but Pence is a hill I refuse to die on. He needs to die.” Trigger’s internal struggle was etched on his face, the conflict between his empathy and the harsh realities of their world tearing him apart.
“My sister is almost the same age as Alice,” Monk spoke next, his eyes dark as he glared at Kansas. “If it were her, the fucker would already be dead.” Monk’s words, usually so direct,now carried an undercurrent of self-recrimination, a silent accusation that Kansas’ hesitation was a betrayal of their shared code.
“I hunted down and killed a man’s family before killing him just because he was solely responsible for killing my wife and unborn son,” Blackjack added solemnly. “I’d do no less for any child.” Blackjack’s stoic delivery masked a deep well of unresolved grief, a constant reminder of a past he was forced to confront with every plea for vengeance.
“We all would, Prez,” Widow, the other Diamondback enforcer, stated firmly. “The question is, would you?”
There it was.
The challenge.
