“Raze iswhat?” I check I’ve heard him right, because even in the darkest moments of the past month, when we’ve suspected it, I never imagined it could be true.
“His body washed up on the beach. Wrath found him.”
Alicia starts sobbing behind me, and Freya quickly moves to comfort her. All I can do is remain static.
“Wrath needs us all at the club.” Ruckus looks between Greaser and me, and when I look down at Alicia, she nods her head. “Go, we’ll be fine,” she assures me.
“Lock all the doors. No one goes anywhere alone,” I tell her, still not believing any of this is true, as I kiss her goodbye and follow Ruckus out the door.
We’ve been here hours, and not a single brother is talking; all of us sit around the table staring at the chair Raze should be in, and wondering what the fuck happened.
“Quinn says she’ll be here in a minute.” Ruck steps back in the room, sliding his cell into his cut and taking his seat on the left of Raze’s empty one.
“She found out the cause of death?” I swallow, unsure if I want to hear it. To everyone here, Raze seemed invincible.
“I assume that's what she’s coming here for,” Ruck answers with a shrug.
“Someone should be with Peyton,” Rocco suggests. I don’t know when he got back here from his visit to Montana, but he’s looking pretty beat.
“She and Eden are together at the beach house.” Wrath doesn’t move his eyes from the centre of the table; he’s breathinglike a bull, his pupils are dilated, and he looks like he could blow at any time.
“Maybe you shou–”
‘I can’t…not right now,” He cuts Dev off.
“Wrath, I know it’s not something you wanna do but…” Ruckus has tears in his eyes as he nods his head toward Raze’s chair. “You're our VP; Raze would expect you to lead us now.”
“That ain’t happening. That's Raze’s chair, Raze’s fuckin’ gavel, and this is Raze’s fuckin’ charter!” Wrath suddenly gets up, throwing his chair and laying punch after punch into the wall. He growls out his anger, and we let him unleash because he fuckin’ needs to.
“Wrath.” Ruck eventually wraps him up in his arms, dragging him away from the wall, and he looks no better for his outburst as his knuckles drip blood all over the floor.
“I know you're hurting, I know you're mad. We all are, but you have to pull it together. For your girl.” Ruckus tries talking some sense into him.
“I need to know who killed him. I need to fuckin’ know, Ruck…” Wrath shakes his head.
“And we’ll figure it out, but we can’t do that if the man Raze called here to be his second, ain’t gonna step up.” Ruck picks up the gavel and places it in Wrath’s hand. “Without our rules, and without leadership, we’re all just a bunch of outlaws,” he whispers, and Wrath closes his eyes, nodding his head and clutching the gavel in his hand. We watch him slowly move to take Raze’s seat, and every head around the table nods its approval.
“If I’m moving seats, so are you.” He looks up at Ruckus. “Raze chose me to be his second, and I’m choosing you.” Wrath's eyes lower from Ruckus’s, urging him to take the chair that used to be his. “Dev, you’re gonna be my Sgt.”
“Sure thing, brother.” Dev nods and moves to the seat beside me that Ruckus used to occupy.
“If anyone around this table don’t want me in this seat, speak now.” There's a deadness in Wrath's eyes as he talks to us. No one raises their hand, no one says a word; we all stay silent until the door knocks and Quinn steps inside.
“You okay?” Sasquatch asks, his deep voice full of concern, and when she nods at him sadly, it’s hard to believe that just a few hours ago, this woman was helping Alicia deliver her baby.
“What you got for us?” Wrath rushes her to the point, and the usually loud and cheerful woman we’ve come to know wipes the tears from her eyes before she speaks.
“It was a gunshot wound to the back of the head.”
“You know what kind?” Ruck asks.
“No, but I thought I could leave that to you guys.” She pulls a plastic wallet from her bag and places it in the centre of the table. I immediately lean forward to check it out.
“Won’t you get in trouble for tampering with evidence?” Sasquatch checks.
“I don’t care if I do. I trust you boys over the police to find who did this. I can tweak things a little when I write my report.”
“How long had he been out there?” I ask curiously.
