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I couldn’t stop the bullet or step in front of it.
All I’m left with is the knowledge that I failed her, and a promise tattooed on my heart to never let it happen again.
I jerk slightly when a hand comes down on my shoulder and squeezes. Scythe, who is my best friend as well as my brother, is staring at me, his eyes mirroring the pain rioting within my soul. He hasn’t found his woman yet, but that doesn’t mean he can’t understand my pain.
He’s watched me almost fall over the edge of madness repeatedly over the last few months. A few times he’s had to pull me back from the brink. It would have been all too easy to fall into the abyss and roll up to the RRMC clubhouse and torch it until it was nothing more than ash and tainted memories.
If only I had been given the order to do just that.
Because Lucifer isn’t done telling us what that scum of a club has been doing. I take a deep breath and unclench my fists while giving my brother and best friend a nod. After a beat he drops his hand and I take solace in knowing that I have my brothers at my back.
“There was a lot of infighting going on,” Lucifer continues explaining what we’ve known for months. Watching their little band of idiots implode on itself was amusing, but we knew it would never last. Not when they had ties to Juan Martinez, who is still underground and would need some sort of reach into seedier sides of the city. “It seems that has ended.”
Hacker perks up at this information, directing his words toward our Prez even as he reaches for his tablet, “Who is at the helm now?”
“A guy who goes by the road name of Hustle,” the disdain is clear to hear in Lucifer’s voice and we all snicker at the name. “From what we gathered about the club before, I remember him being a very low-level brother and dealer. It wouldn’t surprise me to know that Martinez ended up hand picking the new Prez to try and steer all of their focus into peddling more shit on the streets.”
I nod, thinking over the files that Hacker put together months ago on the Riding Rebels. None of them are men of any value or worth, that much was clear from the moment their pictures and information was splayed across the TVs in Church. That doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous, though. Men who have nothing to lose, are driven by greed, and have already been corrupted by the system they’ve grown up in have nothing to adhere their loyal to.
The RRMC isn’t a family, it’s a fucking free-for-all. That much was clear when we paid them a little visit to warn Anarchy to stay the fuck away from Wrenley. He was too cocky to listen and most of his ‘brothers’—and I use that term very fucking loosely—were too strung out or hypnotized by dirty pussy to really understand what going up against the DSMC would mean.
“Fucking Martinez,” Prodigal growls and we all share his sentiments. “Dante is going to be pissed to know he’s still up to his bullshit without actually popping his head out of whatever hole he’s buried himself in.”
I grunt in agreement. Dante Guidice, a man to be feared and respected, will not like this news at all. He rules the Guidice family and New Orleans. The DSMC has been working with him since it was his father at the helm of the crime family. Viola, Dante’s little sister, is best friends with our club princess, Fleur—Lucifer’s daughter and Prodigal’s sister.
It wasn’t that long ago that both women were put in danger because of Martinez and his willingness to cross any lines. Viola was kidnapped, but her men came to her rescue with us at their back because there was no way we were going to let that shit go down without getting involved.
My fists clench with rage again at the memory of how Martinez tried to fucking sell our club’s princess. I guess he didn’t try, not really; he did sell her on the dark web. What no one knew at the time was that our little club princess was involved with the three younger Guidice brothers. I never want the details about how that all went down, since Fleur is like a little sister to me, but certainly caused both the Guidice family and the DSMC to hate him even more.
The man who bought Fleur was intercepted and…dealt with before she was really in any danger. Still, it could have all gone down very differently. She could have been hidden away from us and her men. She could have been traumatized.
Thankfully, she’s very fucking happy with her men and their happiness means the ties that bind us to the Guidice crime family are even stronger and tighter. Not that we mind. We’ve had each other’s backs for years, but now we’re family in a different way.
I can feel the anger growing in Prodigal and Lucifer and I have no doubt they are remembering the same thing I am about how Martinez had the fucking balls to sell the club princess of the DSMC. He’s kept himself out of sight since Viola was taken, but that doesn’t mean his business is gone and dead.
It won’t be until he’s thrown in the bayou for the gators to take care of any evidence of his existence.
“Hustle is acting like Martinez’s perfect little puppet. With him at the top, they’ve been heavily pushing their drugs on the streets,” Lucifer’s voice is a low growl.
I would never go so far as to say the DSMC are angels considering we have no fucking problem selling guns, but one thing we don’t fuck with are drugs. It was clear when we visited the RRMC clubhouse that they didn’t share the same sentiment. People were strung the fuck out; it was almost sad to see, but it’s one thing for adults to make bad decisions. That’s on them.
But we’ve found that the scum of the city who are peddling the worst of the drugs aren’t only targeting adults. They go after kids, which is shit that we can’t ignore.
I brace for impact because I know the worst is still to come in this conversation. I swear the men around me, my brothers, tense their bodies as well. They can see the writing on the wall just as clearly as I can.
Lucifer scrubs a hand down his face, “They have started a flop house masquerading as a brothel at the edge of our territory. From what I’ve gathered, they sucked a few homeless youth and barely legal girls into their web, got them hooked, and then turned them out.”
Loot steps forward, pure fucking agony and anger radiating off him, “What the fuck?”
We’re all feeling the same emotions he is, but we also know why it’s hitting him a little harder. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Loot was living on the streets and barely surviving. But that’s when Lucifer found him. We might be the Devil’s Saints, but there are angels at our backs from time to time.
Who knows if Loot would have survived if Prez hadn’t found him when he did. Who knows what would have become of a man who is solid as a rock and one of the most loyal brothers in the club?
Loot’s eyes slide closed as he takes deep breaths, letting them out slowly. But it’s doing nothing to stop the way he’s shaking with rage.
Over the years, as we’ve done charity runs, Loot has taught us all about the vulnerability of displaced youth and the way people prey on their desperation and weakness. To know another club, even if they are piles of shit, is using that to their advantage is like a punch to the gut.
Raphael, who prospected around the same time as Loot, reaches over and grips his brother’s shoulder. The look they share is one filled with pain, devastation, and even a little fear. None of us shy away from it.
