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“How long is Doc gonna take?” Murphy grumbles, glancing at the door. “Get your pants off and let’s clean that up.”
“Why you tryin’ to get me naked, bro?”
“For fuck’s sake.” Teller rolls his eyes. “I think he’s trying to save you from getting an infection.”
“You two have no sense of humor.”
Murphy flips me off. “Watching one of your best friends almost get stabbed in the chest tends to kill a sense of humor.”
“He didn’t almost stab me.”
“You’ve seen your leg, right?” Teller asks.
“Let’s take a look.” I stand and unbutton my pants.
“Should I grab that mint lube?” Murphy jokes.
“Only if you’re planning to blow me.”
Someone else knocks and Murphy answers, opening the door wider to allow the doctor in.
Teller pushes himself out of his chair and stops in front of me. “I’ll go assess the mood out there.”
“Thanks.”
Murphy raises his eyebrows at me, silently asking if I want him to stay or go. “Go ahead. When I’m done here, we’re all sitting down at the table.”
“We’ll pass that around,” Teller promises.
“It’s been a while, Z,” the doc says. He sets his bag on the table. “Let me wash up. I’ll be right back.”
While the doc isn’t one of my favorite people, he’s actually good at what he does. He’s in the bathroom for a while, vigorously scrubbing up. When he returns, he pulls several pristine white towels out of his bag along with an unopened sleeve of tools.
“You’re lucky this wasn’t deeper.”
“So, it’s not as bad as it looks?”
“Nah, you can lose up to a pint of blood without any severe effects.”
“I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”
After cleaning up the cut, he declares it’s worse than he thought and says he needs to stitch it up.
“I don’t care what it looks like, doc. Just make sure my leg doesn’t fall off.” Fucking Murphy with his stupid jokes.
When the doc finishes, he pulls out two amber prescription bottles. “Painkiller. Please don’t drink alcohol while taking these.”
“Yeah, okay.” I motion for him to hand over the bottle. “What else?”
“Antibiotics.” He smirks at me. “To keep your leg from falling off.”
I snatch the bottles out of his hand. “See Hustler on your way out. He’ll get you paid.”
“Call me if it shows any signs of infection or you have any questions.”
“I will. Thanks, doc.”
After he leaves, I grab my cell phone and stretch out on the bed.
Lilly answers on the first ring.
“Z! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, but I’m going to be here the rest of the night.”
She sighs. “I figured as much.”
“Are you all right?”
She coughs, making me wish I was there to check her over, assess whatever damage Shadow did. “Yes.”
“Tell me what happened. From the beginning. Just don’t use any names.”
Her soft laughter comes through the phone, then abruptly stops. Probably about the time she realized I wasn’t joking.
By the time, she finishes, I’m burning with rage.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Z
Freshly stitched, bandaged, dressed in clean pants, and buzzing from a painkiller-antibiotic cocktail, I make my way down to the chapel.
The main room’s brightly lit, but mostly empty.
Except for a few faces I wasn’t expecting to see tonight.
Murphy lifts his chin when he sees me. “Why didn’t you call us? I would’ve come—”
“I’m fine.”
Teller nods to Rock, Wrath, and Dex. “Look who showed up.”
My throat tightens. “What are you doing here? It’s the middle of the fuckin’ night.”
Wrath grins. “Rock and I had a bet going, which one of you’d get stabbed first, and I won.”
“Dick.” I hold out my hand and he pulls me in, gently—well, gentle for Wrath—slapping my back.
“You really thought Z would get stabbed before Teller?” Murphy scratches his beard. “My money definitely woulda been on Teller. I’ve been itching to stab him for years.”
“I think nailing his sister hurts more,” Dex says.
Teller ignores them and glares at Rock. “Really?”
Rock shrugs. “You love runnin’ that mouth of yours.”
After we’re finished busting on each other, Rock squeezes my shoulder. “You all right?”
“I’ll live.”
“Lilly okay?”
“I just talked to her. She’s fine.”
“I’m so sorry, brother. I never…” He shakes his head. “This should never happen in our clubhouses.”
It shouldn’t. But if I think about it, this kind of trouble’s been brewing down here for years. Sway’s always run his club a little rougher than we run ours. Looser.
Now he’s got a bullet in the head and I’ve been sliced open by a brother.
Obviously, something needs to change.
“This was bound to happen,” Murphy says, echoing my thoughts. “Remember the first time we brought Hope down here and some hang-around tried to grab her?”
Rock’s jaw tightens. “Yeah.”
“You pounded the shit out of him, and that was the end of it,” I remind Murphy. “The fucker didn’t pull a fucking knife on you. And Shadow did more than grab Lilly’s ass.”
Murphy rolls his eyes. “That’s what I’m trying to say. I’m not surprised it’s escalated to this point.”
Wrath’s silent but watching me with an intent expression.
I blow out a breath, not really in the mood for him to mock me right now. “What?”
“How do you plan to handle it, Prez?” he asks with absolutely no hint of sarcasm to the question.
“You know what has to happen. I can’t let this slide or I might as well call Priest now and tell him I’m heading home.”
Rock nods. “You’ve definitely been tangled into a knot here, but I have faith you’ll straighten it out.”
“Thanks, Rock.”
Rooster steps out of the office and nods at us. “Everyone’s waiting in the chapel, Prez.”
Rock shoots a smile my way, like he’s proud to hear someone else referring to me as Prez.
Steer steps out of the chapel and closes the door behind him. He shakes hands with Rock, Wrath, and Dex while thanking them for coming down.
At least that’s a good sign.
When I first started hanging around the club, Sway was a member upstate. A few years later, after some deaths and incarcerations, Rock, Wrath, and I not-so-gently helped the old president retire. Sway made the wise choice to break ties. With the blessing of National and a few other brothers, he founded the downstate charter.
That’s the nice, neat version, the full version’s a little bloodier. Basically, we’re brothers, but there’s always an ounce of animosity between our two charters that runs deep. Old wounds that healed but still ache under certain conditions.
Key members of my club showing up could either be interpreted as support or an
invasion.
Thankfully, everyone seems to welcome the upstate members tonight.
Rooster and I are eventually left alone outside the chapel.
“How’s Shadow?” I hope to fuck the prick didn’t die while the doc was fixing me up. I want to be the one to end that motherfucker.
“Alive.” He cocks his head. “I’m behind you, Z. No games. No angles. What went down was wrong and I have your back.”
I hold out my hand and he shakes it quickly. “Appreciate that, Rooster. You’ve been a true brother since I’ve been down here.” I glance toward the hallway. “And I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t walked up on them tonight.”
“Guess it’s a good thing I was coming out to look for another girl for my three-way.”
Laughing, I shake my head. “You could’ve kept that to yourself. Makes it less heroic now.”
The playful smile slides off his face. “I’m nobody’s hero, brother.”
I’m pretty sure Lilly disagrees, but I nod and thank him again before going inside.
The somber tone of the room washes over me as I step over the threshold.
I take my place at the head of the table and look around the room. There’s no need to bang the gavel or even raise my voice. I have everyone’s attention.
“I’ve spent more than twenty years wearing our skull and crown on my back. This club is a brotherhood. Our brotherhood. Our family. We always have each other’s backs. That’s how this works. Otherwise, we might as well be any other band of assholes wearing leather and riding a hog.”
“Amen, brother,” someone says. Murmurs of agreement fill the room, but I don’t stop to acknowledge the comment.
“The Lost Kings’ patch means everything to me. My brothers and this club mean everything to me. Doesn’t matter if it’s Upstate, Downstate, Mississippi, Washington, we’re all brothers bound by a common thread. It might not always feel that way. Priest coming down here and imposing his will prickles against everything we are. Some days our trust in the brotherhood can be tested.”
Now the guys are looking at each other. As if I’m about to scold them.
“Our common desire to live outside of the rules of regular society doesn’t mean we’re savages without honor. The code we live by might be skewed by society’s standards, but it’s our guiding compass.”
