I sounded like a fucking broken record, but it was the truth. Women were poison. They’d poison the Club, poison my Brothers, leave us all broken in the dirt, and I wasn’t sure I could get back up again.
“She stays. It’s time you got over this. It’s been thirty five years, man. You have to let it go. Serendipity isn’t Laura,” Solomon said softly and I whirled on him, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him into the wall. Judas made no move to stop me, but his eyes were full of disappointment and pity. Fuck him. I didn’t need his pity and I no longer gave a damn about disappointing him. Still, I dropped Solomon and he landed on his feet like a cat.
Judas stepped closer, putting his hand on my shoulder. I flinched away and he sighed. “Sol is right. The girl is staying until after the baby is born. You just need to stay out of her way. If you so much as raise your voice at her, you’ll answer to me. Do you understand?” I growled again and nodded. But Judas wasn’t done. “It wasn’t Laura’s fault she died, G. We killed the bastards who took her life, but she never would have left if they didn’t take the choice from her. It wasn’t her fault, anymore than it is Serendipity’s fault some fucker knocked her up and kept her locked in a basement for months.”
I jerked at his words. Someone had kept her in a basement? “Who?” I kept my voice as impassive as I could so no one knew the emotions rolling around in my gut.
Judas shook his head, darkness clouding in his eyes. My own darkness rose to meet it. If misery loved company, then my darkness enjoyed bathing in blood with someone else.
I had no doubt about what I was. I was damaged. Broken. Tainted by evil.
Solomon growled. The pretty boy was dangerous when he wanted to be. Hell, we all were. “She wouldn’t say, thinks we can’t help. She doesn’t know, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t want to tell her that there was nothing walking this earth that could take us on and survive.”
Solomon was cocky. There were several things not walking this earth that could crush us like bugs under their boot heels. First and foremost was the cause of this salvation and damnation. Luc. Lucifer. Even thinking about the Devil sent chills down my arms, and I looked around like he might appear because I thought about him too hard.
“Find out. I need to kill something.”
I turned and strode out of the room, down the hall to the tiny storage room at the back where I slept. It was the size of a closet, but I prefered the close confines. The only decoration I had in there were guns taped to the undersides of different pieces of furniture. Judas said they were a security blanket. I said they were smart. Had to agree to disagree on that one.
I walked into my room, kicking the door shut with my foot. I slipped off my cut and hung it over the only chair in the room. I slipped off my holsters and put them there too, checking the safety was on first. The glorified janitors closet had an ensuite, basically a waterproof room because it was small and I was huge, so I didn’t fit inside conventional shower stalls.
I peeled off my clothes which were stuck to my body after my long ride and then the sweat of my rage. The rage was still burning through my blood about the woman, and I grasped the feeling. I would take any feeling at all right now.
I turned on the hot water to max, and let the water heat up until it burned me. I let it sear my flesh, absolving me of my sins, but nothing would wash the blood from my hands. When the room got too steamy and I was worried I’d pass out, I switched the cold all the way on until it rained down on my skin in punishingly icy rivulets. Hopefully, it would cool the rage that was heating my blood.
I thought about the woman. She looked tiny in Cain’s arms, but she really wasn’t. She was average height, her body waif-like, like she’d been starved. It made the swell of her stomach even more conspicuous. Her wide, weird colored eyes popped into my head, her pretty pink lips parted in shock at my anger. The image of her on her knees in front of me, that look on her face, as I slid my cock between those pretty lips formed uninvited in my head. My dick responded immediately, hardening even though I wanted to twist the fucker off for its betrayal.
Instead, I wrapped my hand around its length, the only untattooed part of me, and squeezed hard. I imagined fucking her with all the brutality in my soul until she was a tangled, unrecognizable mess. I tugged at my cock angrily. This wasn’t a release. It was a punishment.
Because women were the fucking downfall of man. Eve was the downfall of Adam. Laura was the downfall of me. I wouldn’t let this woman, this Serendipity, be the downfall of my Brothers.
I pumped hard, the pain making my balls tight, until I blew hot streams of cum on the shower wall. I stared at my dick like the traitor it was.
I climbed out of the shower, dressed again in clean jeans and a t-shirt. I pulled on my boots, and laid down on top of my blankets to stare at the ceiling. I willed my body to sleep, but I knew it was useless. I didn’t sleep much anymore, and despite my exhaustion, I was still too riled up. I reached beneath the bed and pulled out a bottle of Jack. I tipped the bottle to my lips and gulped it down.
I couldn’t will myself into unconsciousness, but I could drink until I passed out. I needed the release of sweet oblivion before I did something I’d regret.
I must have blacked out a bit, because I woke to a blood curdling scream. I was up, with a gun in my hand before my eyes had even opened. I had the reflexes of someone constantly at war. I was out the door and up the stairs before my brain even caught up with my instincts.
My heart was pounding in my ears as I kicked down the door in front of me. My gun was raised, and I searched the room for intruders.
But there was just the woman, whimpering and crying like she was being tortured. She was twisted in her bedsheets, the fabric pinning her arms to her sides. I could see her struggling, tasted her animalistic fear in the air, but she was still asleep. I wanted to turn and leave.
No one in the Club was being attacked. This shit wasn’t my problem. I watched her struggle, a pained whine leaving her pretty lips like someone was jabbing her with red hot pokers. I grunted a frustrated sound, and walked over to the bed. I pulled at the sheets, but she must have been tossing something ferocious because they were a hard rope. I slipped my knife from my boot and cut at the fabric.
Of course, that was the point those slow ass fuckers finally arrived. When I was standing over the bitch with a knife.
“What the fuck?” Cain roared, and was across the room, leveling an uppercut at my face. I took it.
Solomon and Judas weren’t far behind him, and I noticed a few of the other members were behind them. Fuck. I let Cain get one more good hit in, but then I grabbed his wrist.
“She was having a night terror. Got herself caught up. Take better care of your Property, Brother,” I spat at him, and shouldered past him. Judas stepped aside to let me through, his eye like a laser. As alway, Judas saw too much.
I growled at the members of Damnation MC, all in varying states of undress. This is why I slept clothed. I stomped down the stairs and into the bar. I walked around the back and pulled out another bottle of Jack and downed half of it in one go. I wouldn’t die from alcohol poisoning, no matter how hard I tried. And fuck knows, I’d tried.
The burning liquor began to thrum through my veins, blurring my vision and setting off a ringing in my ears. Huh, that was new. Maybe I was actually killing brain cells. Good. Maybe I’d kill the fucking weak ass man who still wanted to save damsels in distress. I thought he was dead, but apparently I hadn’t worked hard enough yet. I took another deep swig, hoping this would be the day where I tipped the balance of blood versus liquor in my veins toward the direction of death.