Shit. I shouldn’t have let it get this far. Stryker’s jaw tightens, and he wrings his hands together, the knuckles all busted up. I lift my chin and after a beat, he gets up and walks toward the door. He doesn’t look at Chains as he passes.
Nashville stops talking and watches as Stryker keeps going, having said nothing to anyone. He frowns at me, but I hold a hand up, letting him know it’s okay.
“How much more are we going to get out of him?” I ask.
“Have you seen him?” he tilts his head at Chains. “Stryker got everything out of him. Storm was using him to get intel, he was probably promising him something in return he was never going to give.”
“Some things never change, he was always a fucking snake, always out for what he could get for himself. Fucking waste,” I look up at Chains.
“What do you want to do?” Nashville asks, looking through the door where Stryker disappeared.
“The only thing I can. Wake him up.”
Razer brings a bucket of dirty water and throws it at Chains. He wakes up and thrashes but only long enough to remember how he is being kept upright and he cries out, some garbled shit coming through his broken teeth.
Everything about him is defeated. Deep down inside, I feel that too. No one ever wants to do this to someone they’ve called a brother for years. It’s the only way to deal with traitors. I’ve learned a hard lesson with Storm. Its ironic Chains is the one paying for that mistake.
He has one good eye that he manages to open as Razer steps up and hands me a gun. This is the side of myself that is inevitable given the life I grew up in. As he stares at me, a drop of moisture squeezing from his eye. I have to harden my heart and forget everything going on.
This is who I am and nothing I do is going to change that. I point the gun at his head and fire. There is no point dragging it out, monologuing over why he did what he did and what it means to betray his family. Stryker will have made him see that.
His head jerks and then drops forward. My eyes squeeze shut for the briefest of moments, then I turn and hand the gun to Razer.
“Stryker stays out of this.”
Nashville nods and turns to Chains. Him and Razer now have the job of getting him off those hooks and over to the pigs.
The night sky seems much brighter all the way out here, stars scattered across the inky blackness lighting the way as I head back to my bike.
This whole mess is fucked, and I hate what I had to do but it’s done and it’s time to move on.
One problem down, two more to go.
Why do I get the feeling none of this is going to go away as easily as we hope?
I spend the rest of the night at the clubhouse, trying to sleep but thinking about shit from the past. How close Storm was to my dad all those years ago. My father never made it to officer status at the club, but he was well liked, loyal, if somewhat stupid at times. Accidentally shooting himself while cleaning a gun was the way he was always going to die.
Him and Storm were often together, he would have been pissed at what his old friend did, getting thrown out of the MC. Never thought I’d wish the old bastard was still around so I could get some advice on the fucking bastard threatening the club.
At least now I know what we’re up against, and how damn serious they are. Me and half of my officers could have been wiped out in one night. They’ve gone to ground since their plan fell through, and they must know Chains is off the map too by now.
At least their way inside the club is taken care of. Now we need to find them.
Back at the house a couple of days later, Jesse says he has work to catch up on so I need to stay with Oscar. He looks a little pale with dark circles under his eyes, but when I ask about it he waves me off. He reminds me Oscar isn’t sleeping great, his nightmares seem to be getting worse.
This is all I need. How the hell do I get help for my son when no one is supposed to know he is here. Sheridan hasn’t picked up the last few times I’ve called her. It’s been a while since she checked on Oscar.
She’s an okay mom to our son, her showing up for me to look after him while she took a break wasn’t totally out of character. I’ve never had reason to doubt her when it came to him, but she had problems in the past with drugs and bad choices.
Making sure Oscar is okay, I text Speedway to come inside.
“Hey, what’s up?” he asks as he comes into the kitchen, he looks through the arch at Oscar and waves at him.
“You heard from Sheridan?”
“Not for a while, why?”
“She hasn’t been checking in.”
