Page 42 of Reckless Vengeance

“Personal. I handled it. I know Aurora pissed a lot of you off just by breathing, and I’m trying really hard to keep her safe while also leading this crew. The Devils have been making that difficult since they keep following her. I’m sorry if my attention strays sometimes, I’m trying to find a balance.”

“Fuck balance. You need to be all in,” Matteo answered, and this time the others started grumbling at him to shut up.

“I’ve organized almost everything for the funeral for Friday,” I said, moving on like he hadn’t spoken. “We’ve paid for it out of the Psychos’ account. He’ll be buried near Sasha.”

Matteo scoffed but the others nodded their agreement.

We discussed the rest of the week’s business plans, and by the time we were done, Diesel had thankfully cooled off from his fight, and the others all seemed a little more calmer about me running the crew.

One of the guys, Jonah, approached me when the meeting was over, a grim look on his face.

“One of the junkies from Rawson got pretty chatty today. Apparently, Rage is on the warpath.”

“He’s making moves?” I asked, needing him to clarify.

“He got his hands on Razor. It’s not pretty.”

“Is Razor still walking?”

“Unfortunately. Soldiers have gone underground it seems. They’re waiting out the storm that is Rage. We might have the Kings as our problem next. No word from them?”

“No. It makes me wonder if that’s a good thing or not,” I grumbled, checking my phone. There were no messages or missed calls from Rory or the guys, so I hoped that meant she was okay.

“I think we take it as a win,” Jonah replied, patting Diesel on the shoulder. “Hey. The prick was out of line. No one should talk ill of the dead.”

Jonah was twenty-nine and had been locked up when Sasha had been assaulted. He hadn’t really liked her, but he was against hurting women. I was kind of relieved that he wasn’t around at the time because he would have refused to participate and gotten himself killed over it.

“Thanks, man,” Diesel mumbled, flexing his split knuckles.

“Maybe you should clean up,” I suggested, realizing just how busted his hands were.

“Says you. You look worse than me. What happened?” he asked, and since Jonah was one of the guys that didn’t seem to give a shit about Rory, I shrugged and replied.

“Rory was helping Mule fix her busted front door. Hunter showed up to be an asshole and we got in a fight.”

“Is Donovan okay?” Diesel asked carefully.

“She was until she tried to break us up,” I sighed, feeling like a piece of shit all over again.

“She got hurt?”

“I didn’t realize I’d punched her. Could have fucking killed her, man,” I said with a wince.

“She copped a full hit to the face?” he asked with alarm. “It’s only a little over two weeks since her punishment. She’s barely healed.”

“I need to get back to her tonight. She scared me a little. Her balance is fucked and she was throwing up. I’ve never seen her like that. I mean, even Marco freaked out and helped her,” I said with a sigh.

“They’re getting too close to her.”

“I know. They haven’t done anything to her, and they seem to genuinely give a shit. I don’t know if it's good to have them on our side or not.” I swallowed, holding up my phone. “That video was taken the night Hunter saw me driving the truck. This is why he tried to kill me. He thought I was in on it.”

“So you’re forgiving them?” Jonah asked with confusion.

“No. I don’t know what to think right now. How has it only been three days since Slash was killed?” I asked no one in particular.

“You look beat. Go home, everything else can wait until tomorrow,” Jonah stated, and Diesel nodded.

“I think we could all do with an early night tonight. You crashing at Donovan’s?”