One thing I never did, not once, was give in. No way in hell I’d start now. They could do whatever they wanted, but I figured since they wanted me to meet them in the bar of the clubhouse, they wouldn’t be draining my body of blood just yet.
I was wrong right off the bat. “To the hole,” Cruz ordered.
The hole? What the hell was that?
Not saying a word, I followed the brothers, head held high as I walked through the courtyard, past a huge building, the garage and then into the large field that had a corn silo.
Cruz opened the door, and everyone filed in one-by-one. The smell of dirt and mold was the first to hit my nostrils. Then the dampness fell on my skin. We were going underground.
Seeing the steps in front of me, I was right. This was a place these men absolutely one hundred percent were in charge. I should've been scared, but I’d spent four years practicing for this moment. Come what may.
Following down the stairs, light shone from the bottom of them. All the brothers were standing around the corners of the room. It was fairly large in size. There were toolboxes on several of the walls, and in the center sat a chair.
“Sit,” Cruz ordered, crossing his arms over his chest and standing in front of me as I followed his order.
The tension in the room was thick, and if my younger self were sitting in this chair, I would’ve pissed myself. No doubt about that.
Me, though, I kept my peripheral vision on alert, but my sole focus was looking up full-on with Cruz. He had a right to be pissed. He also had a right to want to murder me.
Cruz started, “Four and a half years ago you took off to become a Marine, but with you, you took a secret. One that you didn’t tell the club before you left. Not only that, you had to get inside Ravage’s computer systems to find that and whatever else you found. Then you sent your father in with an envelope saying that Crow was my son. You were already long gone by then, but let me guarantee you this—shit didn’t just go away. It stayed with us all over the years.”
He said nothing for a moment, and neither did I; not knowing if he wanted me to speak or not. Everything that came from his lips was spot on. There was no refuting it.
“On top of that, since you were a child you've disliked my club. Your mouth got away from you on more than one occasion. We want answers. We want to know why you did what you did. We are not leaving here until we get everything.”
“Yes, sir,” I answered, this time knowing by his chin dipping down just a touch that it was my turn to speak.
“There is not a single thing that I can say that changes anything that has been done. But you all deserve answers. Being a kid, I only saw the bad stuff when it came to the Ravage MC. The main thing was my mom and how she’d cry at night. Then when I did come here, I was the outsider looking in, never really part of anything, but I didn’t put the effort in to change that either. When I came back from school, I hadn’t fully grown yet. I thought I had and wanted a life with Emery.”
Jacks growled, but I kept my focus on Cruz, my hands on my thighs and boots to the ground.
“In trying to figure out my way with her, the anger from before came. I was losing her for good this time. I wanted to hurt the club, but what it came down to was finding out about Crow and Cruz. When I first came across the information, I thought I was being set up. Someone planted the information. Only the more I dug into it, the more facts I ran across, making shit far too real. By the time I confirmed everything, I was in a dark place. My headspace wasn’t healthy, and frankly I didn’t know what to do with the details. I didn’t tell my father or any of you because I didn’t know how. But I also knew you needed the information. I went to the Marines and delivered the envelope to my father for you. There wasn’t much to find. When I started I did so maliciously, but the more it settled in that Crow was your son, the more it ate at me in a different way. I knew this wasn’t the time or place for me, and I needed space to sort myself out. I joined the Marines to have that space, but I didn’t want to leave you with a kid, grown or not, flapping in the wind. I did what I did so you had the information. I didn’t spread that shit far and wide, and I didn’t continue looking into anything on anyone.”
Cruz clicked his tongue. “You seemed to have forgot that to get the evidence, such as the DNA samples, you had to hack into a lot of shit for it.”
“Yes I did. I wanted it confirmed before I gave the information to you,” I responded.
“And what are we supposed to do with all of this? You wanted to hurt the club? Do we just let it go and wash it away?” Cruz asked.
“No, sir. I did wrong, and I suffer those consequences.”
Jacks spoke, “He’s either high as a fuckin’ kite or the stupidest motherfucker we’ve had in here.”
I didn’t respond. Training. Only answer the questions asked. Give no more, no less.
“I’d vote dumb.” Nox chuckled. He wasn’t totally wrong either.
“Every man here will settle the score with you,” Cruz announced. “You will not fight back. If you do, it starts all over again and will only be worse. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered, wondering for the first time what my father was thinking about all of this.
Cruz nodded behind me, and I felt the chair move out from under my ass. Quick reflexes had me standing tall. Cruz was a big man and not just in size, in his rank as well. His word was everything, and I had a feeling his payback would be the worst.
“Pops,” Cruz called as he stepped back, and Pops came up in front of me. The man had graying hair and wrinkles around his eyes. He’d once been the president of the club, but about four years ago he was shot at a party I attended. He was the father of this group, and everyone respected him.
“Saw potential in you, boy, from early on.” His words hit me harder than I thought possible. Never had I thought he’d seen anything positive in me. “Always smart, too fuckin’ smart. But you didn’t live up to the potential which was disappointin’. Maybe this’ll knock some sense into ya.”
The right hook came hard and fast. My first instinct was to lean back out of the way, but I stood firm while he connected with my jaw. For an old guy, he had a fierce punch.
My neck arched, lip cut open, but I turned back to Pops and faced him. “Sorry I didn’t meet the potential you saw in me. I didn’t see it in myself.”
Pops slapped me on the shoulder and stepped back.
“GT,” Cruz called as I swiped my lip with the back of my hand; not that it did any good.
Face to face, the man stared me down, that angry tic in his temple going to town. “You never deserved my Emery. Never. You fucked with her head and hurt her. You brought other girls around to make her feel bad about herself. You never treated her right. No man treats my baby girl that way.”
Before he finished the last word, his fist connected with my gut, just as his other hit me in the face, having me go down to one knee. It took me a few to shake it off, then I stood tall. “You’re right. She deserves better and got better than I could have given her.”
GT shook his head and stepped back.
“Buzz,” Cruz announced. When I breathed out, blood went to the ground.
“You, little fucker, were too fuckin’ good at tech. You broke my code. No one fuckin’ breaks my code and pokes around in shit they don’t need to know. No one.”