Authors: Lana Grayson
“But why wouldn’t The Coup protect you? And why is Temple shooting at you if they’re loyal to your father?”
Because I was a fool. I was an asshole who thought only of his club, who didn’t stop to see the truth. For thirty-eight years, I lived my life to be a man like my father, to make him proud, and serve our club just as he did when he helped to form the chapter.
Then I realized his blood was a curse, and his existence was a crime waiting to be brought to justice.
“You’re out of questions,” I said.
I pushed her away. Martini stumbled back, but she didn’t let the scowl darken her features for long. A moment passed, and the pinkish tease colored her cheeks once more. She nodded, tucking her hands in her pockets.
“Thank you,” she said. “I think I understand.”
“You really don’t.”
“No. I get it.” Her voice shadowed with softness. “You’re going to let one mistake bleed you dry. Define who you are for the rest of your life.”
“I can’t bury my sins.”
“You already have,” Martini said. “You think you failed Anathema. But you haven’t.”
“Enough.”
“You think you failed Rose.”
“You got three seconds to shut your mouth.”
“You didn’t fail me, Brew,” she said. “You saved me even if you won’t admit it.”
She took a breath, gesturing toward the bathroom. “I’m gonna wash this day off me. Let’s hope this hotel has a lot of hot water and soap.”
I said nothing. Strained every muscle in my body to stop my cock from hardening as I imagined her under the steaming water. She shut the door behind her, but she didn’t lock it.
She trusted me too damned much.
I rubbed my face as the water patted against the tub. I wasn’t a good man, but even I wouldn’t fuck a girl three hours after I pointed a gun at her temple. Four hours after I led her to a murder scene. Ten hours after I nearly killed her on my bike.
The adrenaline raged, but Martini tempted a devil. A night with me might have buried either my cock or a sharpened blade too deep in her to rescue either of us.
I swore. I brought her to the hotel to keep her safe, not threaten her more. But she wasn’t safe here. Not from me. Not from her club. Not from Temple.
What the fuck were they doing so far from home? And what would they do to Martini if they found her?
I had to make sure she stayed whole. I hated doing it, but I needed reconnaissance on Temple. There was only one person I trusted to help me.
The phone weighed heavy in my hand. I dialed from memory.
My brother answered after the fifth ring.
I hardly recognized his voice. Whatever demons he injected in his veins didn’t just steal his sanity—it took his excitement. Once, Keep might have been the first to hop his bike, piss off the strippers at Sorceress, and fuck three of them before he made it home. Now, he sounded as dead and flat as the bruises that stained his arms.
The bruises came from the drugs I scored from Temple. I had to buy and deliver to earn their trust, but handing them off to my recovering addict brother would land me in Hell. I hated myself, but it worked. Keep stayed off my ass long enough for me to arrange the meetings, talk to the men, and convince The Coup I was loyal before I tried to destroy it from the inside out.
“Keep,” I said after my brother forgot to answer.
The confusion didn’t clear easy. “Huh?”
“Keep. It’s me.”
“Thorne?”
I gritted my teeth. “Tristian, it’s fucking
me
.”
If he recognized his given name, it took him a hell of a long time to answer. Only Rose and Mom ever called him Tristian. His real name was strong enough to sober him up, but thirty-five years of memories, crimes, and heartache hurt more than a cold shower and cup of coffee.
“Brew?”
“Yeah.”
Keep chuckled. First a stoned snort, then the amused grunt of awareness. I swore at him before he lost it all together.
“Christ, man. Are you high?”
“Nice to talk to you too.” Keep groaned. The squeal of bedsprings squeaked over the phone.
I checked the clock. “It’s fucking noon. What the hell are you doing in bed?”
“Jesus Christ. You call me for the first time in three months, and all you do is bitch.”
“Someone should. You using?”
“You really want an answer?” The chip of a bottlecap rolled into a sink. At least it wasn’t a needle. “Christ, Brew. Why are you calling? You’re supposed to be playing dead.”
“You’re supposed to be sober.”
“Yeah, well, since when do us Darnells do what is expected of them?”
“You okay?”
Keep snorted. “You ain’t calling to ask me that.”
“How’s she?”
Now he really laughed. “Pissed. You haven’t returned our little sister’s calls. She’s freaking out. Thinks something happened to you.”
Rose always was the smart one in the family. “She okay though?”
“Yeah, sure. Little 4.0 suck-up. Dean’s list or some shit.”
It was the first good news I had in months. “Is he treating her okay?”
“Fucking Thorne? Christ. Won’t let her out of his sight, but I don’t think she minds. Finally got her cast off, but something fucked with her neck from the accident. Goes to physical therapy every once in a while, I guess.”
“She’s
hurt
?”
“Just says it bothers her.”
My stomach detonated. I swallowed the bile and collapsed on the chair.
“Fuck. What do the doctors say?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean
you don’t fucking know
.”
Keep groaned. “Look man, I let Thorne deal with that shit.”
“Well, what are you doing to help her?” I took a breath as my fist started to tremble. “What about her gigs?”
“I don’t go. I watch the videos.”
“
Videos
?”
“That’s more than you fucking do.”
Keep was just lucky he had most of the country between him and my temper. “You don’t go watch her play?”
My brother’s silence answered the question. Which one of us was the real traitor?
“You’re an asshole.”
“Oh, fuck me,” he said. “You wouldn’t be there either. Not after...”
“After
what
.”
His voice hollowed. “Brew...I fucking love Rose. I’d take a bullet for her too, don’t think I wouldn’t. But I...I can’t...”
“You can’t
what
.”
Keep pitched whatever he was drinking into the sink. The glass broke. “I can’t fucking look at her. Every time I see her, I just imagine...I can’t stop thinking...”
“For Christ’s sake.”
“I don’t want to imagine Dad doing that to her.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure she didn’t want to go through it.”
“Shit.”
“Why don’t you man the fuck up? Get over yourself so you can take care of her like I fucking told you to do!”
“This conversation have a point?” Keep had a temper like Dad’s. Like mine. And rotten sin like ours had limits to civility. “Gotta tell you, man. I’ve missed you like hell, but you call me up and start bitching me out, I have no problem pretending you’re six feet under.”
“I need a favor.”
“There it is.”
I ignored him. “I got a problem. I hope your head is on straight enough to go to Church.”
“One of us still has the cut. Drop the attitude. What the hell do you want?”
“What have you heard about Temple?”
The silence on the other end hung like I coiled the rope around my neck. Keep’s voice rasped with an incoherent laugh.
“First you betray Anathema—and I don’t care if it was to organize a hit on The Coup, or for the drug money, or to get our fucking douche-bag of a father out of jail. You almost got
killed
for betraying Anathema. I gotta pretend like the fucking
president
shot you in the head and then went home to rut my little fucking sister. And you’re gonna call me up after three months of thinking you probably died in a gutter somewhere and ask me about
Temple
?”
“It’s complicated.”
“It ain’t complicated. It’s Temple. You traded your cut for easy money from an organization that acts more like a cartel than motorcycle club. Now you’re askin’ me to spill on what we’re hearing?”
“Yeah. Something like that.”
“Christ. Maybe Thorne should have put that bullet in your head.”
“Someone knows I’m alive, Keep. You been running your mouth?”
“Fuck you.”
“Three of Temple’s men tried to kill me yesterday,” I said. “I walked into another massacre today, different clubs. Same calling card.”
“Where are you?”
“North of Pittsburgh.”
“
Pittsburgh
?”
“Erie. By the lake.”
“Holy
fuck,
” he said. “Look, we’ve got enough problems here. We’re trying to keep the club together. Jerking off Temple is all Knight’s game now. He took over The Coup, but that blood is still bad. We’re not getting out of this without a war.”
“Knight say anything?”
“Nothing. He’s trying to make peace, but he’s still working with Temple and trying to expand.” Keep paused. “Makes sense. No wonder Temple’s sticking their dicks into the great lakes.”
“Temple wants to shove drugs into Canada.”
“Ain’t no better way. Who runs shit over there?”
I snorted. “No one now. I got mixed up with a group called Kingdom. They ran the drugs through the northeast.”
“I take it they’re dead.”
“I’d say so.”
“Temple?”
“It’s gotta be. Making a move.” I grimaced. “But if they realize I’m alive…if they think I double-crossed them?”
“We’re all fucked.”
“You watch over Rose. Temple’s gonna piss with her too. Tell Thorne she might be a target. Fuck, get him to sit down with Knight. Figure this shit out before Cherrywood ends up a goddamned crater.”
“What a fucking mess you made.”
I exhaled. “Yeah.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“I got my own trouble here.” I glanced toward the bathroom door. “Gotta take care of this.”
Keep was quiet. “Dad’s got a hearing coming up.”
He didn’t have to tell me. I counted the hours until the perversion of justice presented me with an opportunity. “You go visit Rose. Make sure she’s okay.”
“Want me to take her a message?”
“No. I’ll call when I learn more. Get yourself clean. You’re gonna need a clear head.”
I didn’t let him answer. The phone tossed on the bed next to me. I rubbed my face. A shower sounded good, but I’d never scrape off all the grit.
The TV was one of those smart ones, the kind a guy used to surfed the internet if he didn’t have a bike to tune, a drink to drown in, or the willpower to deny what he wanted most.
I grabbed the remote and went to YouTube. Rose’s channel filled with all different types of music. More videos than the last time I dared to look. I picked the most recent one.
I didn’t know the difference between cool or warm jazz. I really didn’t care about minors or majors, and I recognized the songs she sang only because she used to cover them at the clubhouse. But she sang like an angel, and every second I listened killed me.
For the first time since she was a kid and I was in jail, I wasn’t able to listen to her perform live. At one point in my life, only a locked cell and barred windows would keep me from her.
Now?
It was my own cowardice. My own mistakes. My fault the only place safe enough for her to sing was a strip club controlled by Anathema under the protection of the man too dangerous and rough for someone as delicate as her.
But she sang songs for Thorne and winked at him from the stage. She fell in love with the very same monsters she once tried to escape.
That was my fault too. She needed Thorne. He was the only one keeping her safe from the shit I caused, the enemies I made, and the horrors she endured.
“So…that’s Rose.”
I hadn’t heard the shower stop. Martini spoke behind me, tying the plush cotton robe tight over her body.
“She’s very pretty.”
I swore. The remote bounced from my hand and onto the floor. I lunged for it, but my bad shoulder pitched a fit and the pain nearly crippled me. Worst thing for me was to collapse on the floor in dickless agony while Martini watched me get all sentimental over Rose singing her Guns N’ Roses cover.
Martini scooped up the remote. I said nothing as she turned up the volume. “She’s very talented.”
“She’s
gifted
.”
I corrected her before I remembered it wasn’t my place to feel pride for anything Rose accomplished. Her gifts were all because she made them happen—the songs, the college, just staying alive and positive when the world tried to destroy her.
The Rose in the video was so different from the one I left. She smiled and meant it. Her voice matured, and she dropped the timid nerves when she stood before the audience. Three months wasn’t a long time to heal, but she was doing better at it than me.
“She can play anything.” Why was I even talking? “I bought her first guitar when she was five. And flute at six. Drum set at ten. She taught it all to herself. She’s always been that way.”
“Oh.” Martini squinted at the TV. Her relieved laugh lit up the room. “Oh! She’s your
sister.
”
I didn’t answer.
“Wow.” Now Martini nodded. “She must be your baby sister. She’s like…my age.”
Great. That made me feel a lot better coming from the beautiful woman nearly fifteen years younger than me wrapped only in a flimsy hotel towel.
“She’s twenty-one,” I said. “About eighteen years between us.”
Martini handed me the remote. “She looks exactly like you.”
“She should.” I turned the television off. “I’m getting a shower.”
She pointed to the screen. “I didn’t mean to interrupt—”
She didn’t interrupt. Memories did. Regret did. My intentions did.
“It’s fine.”
Martini sighed and collapsed on the bed. She grabbed the remote but was careful to switch it to something besides the source of my endless guilt.
I had one chance to fix things and prevent someone else from getting hurt.
I double-checked the flimsy lock on the door. Martini needed more than a deadbolt to keep her safe.