Rough Ride (Chaos #5)(60)

His eyes were swelling shut, his mouth dripping blood, the flesh on his cheeks opened up.

His condition meant he was listing. On his knees because he was forced there, keeping his position probably because he didn’t have the strength to get up.

This wasn’t about the beating he’d taken from his ex-brothers.

It was that he’d taken the slice of each brother’s blade carved deep through his back.

This was Tack’s idea, and Hound and every brother that stood with him supported it.

It was about obliterating their mark on his back that claimed him brother.

In the rare event a man renounced the Club, he blacked out the Chaos tattoo inked on his back.

If a man played traitor to the brotherhood, by the brothers’ hands that tat would be scorched off.

This man in front of them had not renounced the Club.

He had not simply played traitor to it.

He’d betrayed it in a way none of them would have expected.

A way none of them could allow to go unavenged.

He’d stabbed a brother in the back, figuratively.

But that brother was gone all the same, because the man right there on his knees had ordered the hit.

Therefore he’d taken their blades for two reasons.

An eye for Chaos was not for an eye.

It was for your pound of flesh.

Stab Chaos in the back, that’s returned.

And then some.

The man kneeling before Hound and all the brothers of the Chaos MC now had a mangled face and a back that was nothing but opened pulp of bloody flesh.

And very soon he would be what he’d made Black.

Gone.

Hound shifted on his feet, impatient, when their new president, Tack, pushed, “That’s all you got to say?”

“Suck my dick,” the man on his knees replied.

He was known as Crank.

He’d been their president. Their leader. The man who had sworn to honor his brothers. Respect them above all else.

Protect them, even if it meant giving his life to do it.

And for his own greed and pride, not one fucking thing to do with the brotherhood, he’d brought Black low.

Hound’s eyes shifted to Tack as he moved closer to Crank.

“You were Chaos, we were you,” Tack said quietly.

It took some effort, but Crank hocked up a loogie and spat it at Tack’s boots. It didn’t hit its mark but it said what he wanted to say.

Hound shifted impatiently again, feeling his jaw tighten.

“You were Black, he was you,” Tack continued, speaking low.

Hound felt that in his throat and swallowed hard to wash it away.

“Fuck you,” Crank whispered.

“You ordered your own death by ordering his,” Tack told him something he had to know, but even if they hadn’t made that clear in the proceedings, he knew it before.

What he did could not stand.

Not even out there in the other world, the world not owned and run by Chaos.

But in their world, retribution for what he did was not swift and it had only one end.

“Motherfucker,” Crank hissed. “You killed Black, and you fucking know it.”

Hound growled, his eyes cutting to Tack to see his jaw go hard, which meant his brother took that in.

All the boys started to get restless.

“Order the fire!” Hound bellowed.

“You’ve been gagging for the gavel since you were a recruit,” Crank bit off to Tack. “It was you that put Black where he is.”

“We are not what you made us,” Tack replied.

“We’re outlaws,” Crank shot back.

“We are not what you made us,” Tack returned.

Crank swung his torso back and asked sarcastically, “Yeah, right, so I’m gonna walk away from this?”

“No. You. Are. Not,” Tack stated deliberately, his face changing from pensive to hostile. “Because we’re,” he leaned in toward Crank, “outlaws. But we’re also,” he leaned farther forward, “brothers.” He leaned back and took a step away, ordering, “Get to your feet.”

“You take out a man down on his knees, it’s as pussy as you’re gonna make my Club, so I’ll make that statement for you since you’ll be taking me out on my knees.”

“Face your death on your feet,” Tack urged.

“Blow me,” Crank clipped.

Tack took a moment to study him.

Then he muttered, “Your call.”

After that, he walked back, taking his place in the line.

The men went from restless to wired.

Tack felt it and didn’t waste any more time. He couldn’t. If someone jumped the gun, this would not be what Tack needed it to be, what the brothers needed it to be.

For Tack, it wasn’t about one man taking the right to vengeance from the others.

For Tack, it was about one man shouldering the burden of the end of a human being, even if that being was a man as lowdown dirty, useless and an absolute waste of space as Crank.

They would do it as one.

They would do it as a band of brothers.

That was who Kane “Tack” Allen was.

That was where he was guiding Chaos.

“Brother Crank,” Tack called out. “You’ve been found guilty of a crime against the brotherhood, the worst of its kind, the betrayal of a brother. Your patch has been stripped. You’ll rot without the mark of Chaos on your back. Your final sentence is execution. You’ve had your chance to speak. You’ve got five seconds to take your feet before you meet your maker.”