Page 4 of Sinner’s Torment

But he wasn’t here.

He was in a hospital bed at First Presbyterian Hospital in downtown Manhattan, with tubes and wires keeping him alive, his body riddled with bullets put there by his own brother. By Arizona. By his own blood.

The betrayal of it sat heavily in the room.

“We need to talk about what happens next,” Mercy finally spoke, his voice rough, as if he dragged the words up from somewhere deep and painful.

No one responded.

He tried again. “We can’t just sit here with our dicks in our hands. Arizona and Dakota are still out there. They’re a threat to Montana, to this club, to everyone we love. We need a plan.”

“What plan?” Fury’s voice was flat, emotionless. Dangerous. “We don’t even know where the fuck they are. They could be anywhere. They could be planning another attack right now, and we’re sitting here playing with our dicks.”

“Shame’s working on it,” Payne said, his tone clipped and efficient. “He’ll find them.”

“Will he?” Vicious leaned forward, his hands curling into fists on the table. “Because last I checked that motherfucker played dead for the last year, instead of helping the club prevent this shit. And now, the club isn’t ours anymore, Malice is dead, and Montana’s in the fucking hospital, shot to shit. So forgive me if I’m not filled with confidence in Shame right now.”

The words landed like a slap, and I watched Shame’s fingers still on the keyboard for just a moment before resuming their frantic pace. He had heard that. And it had cut.

“That’s not fair, Vicious,” Storm remarked, his leg still bouncing. “It’s not Shame’s fault. None of us saw this coming.”

“Says the fucker who bolted when shit got too heavy,” Fury interrupted. “Tell me, Storm, when you heard what was happening, did you have to ask your wife for your balls back, or did she force them into your hands and tell you to man the fuck up?”

“Fuck you, Fury.”

“Enough.” Bane’s voice was quiet, but it cut through the rising tension like a scalpel. “I’m not patching up any more of my brothers. You two want to kill each other? Go do it somewhere else. My best friend is clinging to life, and I, for one, want to tell him when he wakes up that at least one of those motherfuckers is dead. So knock it the fuck off before I put you both in a bed next to him.”

“And I’ll help,” Vicious sneered.

The silence that followed was even heavier than before.

I cleared my throat, and every eye in the room turned to me. I wasn’t just an officer. I was the club’s therapist, the one they came to when the weight got too heavy, when the nightmares wouldn’t stop, when they needed someone to tell them they weren’t losing their minds.

Right now, they all needed my expertise more than ever.

“We’re all processing trauma,” I said, keeping my voice calm and steady. “What we all went through in Diamond Creek—watching Malice die, seeing Montana get shot, fighting for our lives—isn’t something you can just shake off. You are all grieving. You are angry. You are scared. And if your emotions go unchecked, you will turn on each other because you don’t know what else to do with all of your emotions.”

“Don’t shrink us right now, Torment,” Mercy said, but there was no heat in it. Just exhaustion.

“I’m not shrinking you. I’m stating facts.” I leaned forward, making eye contact with each of them in turn. “We’re a family. We’ve always been a family. And right now, our family is hurting. But tearing each other apart won’t bring Malice back. It won’t heal Montana. And it sure as hell won’t help us find Arizona and Dakota.”

“So what do we do?” Storm asked, and I noticed there was something almost pleading in his voice.

“We do what we always do,” Payne replied before I could answer. “We adapt. We overcome. We hunt down the motherfuckers who hurt our family, and we make them pay.”

“With what authority?” Vicious demanded. “We’re not Soulless Sinners anymore. We patched over to the Golden Skulls. We’re prospects now. We don’t have the resources, the connections, the⁠—”

“We have each other,” Mercy cut him off. “That’s all we’ve ever needed.”

“Is it?” Fury’s question hung in the air like smoke. “Because it wasn’t enough to save Malice.”

His words were a gut punch, and I watched the impact ripple around the table. Shoulders slumped. Heads dropped. The weight of that truth was almost unbearable.

“Malice knew the risks,” Bane spoke quietly. “We all did. Every time we put on these cuts, every time we ride out, we know we might not come back. That’s the life. That’s the choice.”

“Doesn’t make it easier,” Storm muttered.

“No,” Bane agreed. “It doesn’t.”