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She looked at him, trying to read him. “What’s the story behind that, Phantom? Did you want to kill them?”
His face looked pained. He shook his head.
“Were you forced to kill them?”
He nodded in his tiny, almost imperceptible way. “Hmm.”
He could tell she wanted to ask so much more, but was holding back. That was sweet of her, she could tell this was all very painful for him, she could tell he hadn’t revisited this for a long time. She knew this was important.
Sophie raised a hand and wiped it across his cheek. He felt wetness there. Had he been crying? Fuck.
“No more Phantom, huh?” She tapped his stomach, the scars. She was telling him no more. No more killings, no more death and blood and pain.
“One more,” he replied stoically. Yes, he had one more on his list. A lowly drug runner. A new recruit. Someone he hadn’t met or worked with, from his time with them. But he’d watched and seen. One more. A young kid, really. Unfortunate. But he would not be swayed. He had to finish them all.
She huffed and pouted. It was like she was trying to convince him to give up smoking, or lay off gambling or something. A vice, a woman trying to persuade her man to give up his vices. But his wasn’t nicotine, or alcohol, or drugs. He had a taste for blood.
“If you need to, for your job, for the MC, or for self defense, or because it’s a necessity somehow, then fine, but no more killings, otherwise, and no more cuts.” Sophie expanded upon her request.
“One more,” he repeated.
She gritted her teeth. “Fine, the last one. No cuts.”
“One more.” He was adamant. “Then no more.”
Sophie swallowed as she entered the hospital doors, the whoosh of air from the air conditioner lifting her hair momentarily. Colt had text her, told her to come. So here she was.
She arrived at the hospital and followed the nurse’s instructions to meet Colt in a waiting room deep within the hospital complex. To her surprise, Lyle sat there, too. With his forehead freshly stitched up, looking like a sulking teenager.
Colt nodded a greeting to her, and she gave him a chin lift back. She almost laughed at herself, she would never have done much chin lifting to greet anyone before. She flashed Lyle a gentle smile, too, but he just scowled back.
Colt stood, but Lyle grabbed Colt’s arm. “Hey, we haven’t finished talking yet! I said, I’ll do the Armenian run-”
“Lyle, you’re fucking off the rotation. For all runs.”
“But, I can do it.” There was a clear note of desperation in his voice.
Colt shook his head. “Not if you are drinking again,” Colt said firmly. “Could you get on your bike now? Are you sober enough to do that, without risking an accident or an arrest?”
Lyle hissed out a breath and looked away.
Colt’s face dropped, disappointment leaking out of him. “Exactly. Buddy, I can’t have you lying to us, saying you can do a run when you can’t, you’d be a liability. I need you to be honest with me. You’re drinking again, I see it, I get it. Now we need to figure out what to do about it.”
“We don’t need to do anything about it! There is no ‘we’, just get off my case about it and let me get on with it-”
“Lyle, you know I can’t-”
“Fuck you!”
“You are all over the place, buddy, hot and cold with me, so fucking inconsistent, have you got my back or not? Are you in this brotherhood or not? Are you with me or not?”
“It’s not that fucking simple… you blew up the old clubhouse, killed Cleaver, packed me off to rehab-”
“You chose to stay, Lyle… you know where the door is, you wanna get on with it, you go. Go fuck off and find what you are looking for at the bottom of the bottles you seem to love so dearly.” Colt shook his arm out of Lyle’s grasp.
Lyle stood up, his face betraying a thousand emotions as he swayed a little, then stomped off, muttering under his breath.
Colt sighed and turned to Sophie. “Sorry you had to see that.”
