Never Have an Outlaw's Baby (Deadly Pistols MC #3)(39)

“Prez –“

“Shut up and listen for a second, brother. You think you're the only one who misses Piece?” He paused, just long enough for the anger to burn hot in my eyes, trying to ignite the gray ice in his. “Fuck, Joker, you miss him most. Fuck yeah, you do. But goddamn if the rest of us don't. You were both hell on wheels. Both of you made this club stronger. Shit, both of you were there when my old man bit it. Your votes gave me the gavel, helped keep this club in one piece when it'd been rocked to its f*ckin' core.”

What the f*ck was he saying? Trying to pretend he understood? Trying to tell me he could even f*ckin' fathom one tenth of the deep, hellish loss ripping me to shreds every goddamned day I opened my eyes?

No, no, hell no.

“He was my brother!” I roared, standing up, halfway to hallucinating Freddy sitting next to him, smiling on that damned beat up sofa. “By blood, by patch...maybe by f*ckin' soul. They took him, Dust. Tore his f*ckin' head off, ripped his eyes out. I walked in and saw my grandpa on the floor. His poor heart snapped like a twig when he saw those holes where Piece's eyes used to be. I gotta watch him flinch a little every f*ckin' time I see him, and he looks me in the eye, knowing he's still seeing Freddy when he looks at me.”

Big goddamned mistake, spewing the poison like this.

It flashed before my eyes, a hundred times more intense than most days.

Even now, it was all a sadistic blur.

My hands on grandpa's chest, pumping furiously, fighting the molten tears in my eyes.

Freddy's f*ckin' severed head sitting on the bed, taunting both of us, worse than seeing my own dead face looking back at me.

Summer walking in, freezing up on the spot, horror in her eyes. Didn't take me two f*ckin' seconds to tell her to leave.

And Summer...f*ck.

Fucking goddamn it to hell! That's what this was all about, wasn't it?

I couldn't lose anyone else. I couldn't lose her again.

Fucking couldn't! I'd pushed her away because I had to, get her the f*ck away forever.

“Joker,” Dust said, sitting up straight in his seat, his pipe in one hand. “Look at me.”

Took forever to finally do it. I f*cking hated how well he knew me, knew every man in this club, like the father most of us never had.

“Time to be straight. It ain't just Freddy or the war with the Deads eating you like a case of f*ckin' termites.”

“No!” I growled, still denying it, even when it caused my damned heart to beat a million miles an hour.

“Yeah, f*ck yeah. I know about the girl,” he said. My head jerked up, and I looked at him like hot death given a human face. “Skin told me the other day. So did Lion. Said she worked you over good, got you madder than a f*ckin' hornet, so pissed off you covered the bitch in mud.”

Goddamned Skin. Fucking Lion.

I'd put our Treasurer into a coma for ratting me out, and that scruffy motherf*cker, Lion, back in one.

“Honestly, makes me wanna crack your jaw for f*ckin' with a lady like that,” Dust snarled, holding the flame on his skull-tipped lighter to his pipe. “Especially when she's the only one who's been able to get shit outta you for three years, only one besides that damned dog.”

“She's nobody,” I said coldly.

Yeah, another lie.

“Bullshit,” Dust said, taking a long pull on his pipe. “She's somebody you f*cked and didn't wanna walk away from, or somebody who f*cked you over. Maybe both. Point is, she's pulled your pin like a damned grenade, and that's dangerous as a knife to the throat when this club's about to swing its nuts harder than we did in a generation.”

“So, what, Prez?” I growled, shaking my head. “What the f*ck are you telling me to do?”

“Ain't telling you shit, brother. You're a grown man. That's for you to figure out. You can put two and two together. You know what you've gotta do already. That's not coming from me. It can't, and it won't.” He held the pipe, tipped his face up, and blew a strong string of thick smoke toward the ceiling, where it hung like a thunderhead.

“Straighten your shit out,” he growled. “Clear your head as much as you can before we ride into Georgia, guns blazing. Do whatever the f*ck it takes so that when we return to Knoxville with bags of bloody Deads colors in our saddlebags, you can live with the brothers. Live with yourself. Live with us again, Joker, without acting like you're three goddamned seconds away from ramming your blade into some poor bastard's throat.”

Sage advice. Wise, ruthless, and completely f*ckin' infuriating.

“We done here yet?” I said, standing up.

“Yeah. Don't let the door hit you in the ass,” Dust growled, clearly disappointed.

I headed out, and went straight for my room. Last thing I wanted was rejoining the brothers drinking and laughing at the bar.

A couple girlie voices cut through their chatter. Somebody's old lady must've shown up. Or maybe a couple bubbly sluts for the single guys, bitches who'd just as soon as ride a brother's cock for a jolt to their * and a hopeless stab at being a club wife.

One big, happy ass biker family.

Turned my stomach.

I couldn't relate. I couldn't f*ckin' have it.

The last three years, I'd drank and f*cked and joined in the big roasts with all my boys. But I didn't f*ckin' smile. Didn't feel it when the men I'd sworn my life to sat around me, didn't even feel it when I was buried in some bitch to my balls, hate f*cking her in between swigs of booze.