Page 147 of Tempting Fate

“Deal.” The seriousness drops from her expression, and Nadia grins as she hands me my loofah. She runs a hand down her body while she quips, “Now, you wash up… I need to get out of these wet clothes before I end up with chafing.”

30

VENOM

Three days later

The sun is low on the horizon as the mourners leave the gravesites of the three men we’ve just buried. I don’t follow them. Responsibility hangs heavily over my head. Brutus didn’t turn up to see off his brothers, and from the questions asked of me, I’m assuming he hasn’t been seen since I left. Part of me is disappointed that he hasn’t unveiled his new smile yet. The other side is angry that he’s still breathing.

In his absence, I’m in charge.

Which feels like an impossibility since I’m barely functioning enough to drag myself through the day, let alone my forty-odd brothers and their families, plus the other clubs and our allies. Hundreds of people have shown up to offer their respects, yet every word, every action, feels hollow.

It feels impossible to see a way past the shit that’s brewing around the Shamrocks… and inside the club. Every time I turn a corner, I hit another obstacle. Trust is a scarce commodity. Honesty has gone AWOL. Anger is the order of the day. Desire for vengeance fuels us, yet we have nowhere to direct it. My brotherhood is failing in front of me, and I don’t have any idea what my first move should be to save it.

Do I take the meagre proof we have to church?

Do I take out Brutus and let the chips fall where they may?

Do I go straight to the top and eradicate Kristoff Maddison from the earth?

Every question raises more questions. A problem solved seems to create a new problem. Issue after issue stands between me and success. Peace feels like a long-forgotten dream.

Then there’s Lily…

She hasn’t looked at me all day.

It shouldn’t hurt. The breakup was my decision. My ensuing deal with Brutus just provided secondary justification. But tell that to the organ in my chest that continues to flip-flop with increasingly futile death throes.

“Where have you been stayin’?” Slash approaches me for the first time since we crossed paths on the freeway into Perth two days ago. He was headed to Sydney. I was hot-footing it back in time for the funerals with the Blackards SMC, a long-standing ally of ours, for company. Once he’d found an off-ramp and turn around, we rode into the city, side by side, then gone our separate ways when he turned toward his suburb, and I’d continued on into the hills with the Blackards.

“With my dad at the farm.”

“How is he?”

I run my fingers through the top of my hair. “Much the same. Dyin’ of lung cancer when he wishes he was fit enough to stop his life’s work—this fuckin’ club—from fallin’ apart.”

Unable to take my eyes off Lily as she’s helped into the Shamrocks van by Nadia, I miss the shift in Slash’s demeanour. The second the vehicle carrying the woman I deserted pulls away from the kerb, he locks his arm around my neck. Using the tight headlock for leverage, he pulls me behind the Mayberry family’s mausoleum and tosses me face down in the dirt.

When I roll onto my back, I discover I’m surrounded by familiar faces.

Slash. Sander. Cub. Wyatt. Nate. Hunter. Isaiah.

A few feet away, my dad watches this play out. Next to him, Toker sits in a wheelchair. There’s a dispassionate, almost lost expression on his face. Even if he could, he wouldn’t come to my aid. Known more for his laughter than his seriousness, it eats at my conscience to see how much Toker’s been changed by the events of the past month or so.

I let him down, too.

Just add it to my never-ending list of failures.

“That was unnecessary.” Angelis steps out of the shadows. With Duke on his six and Cassius taking up the same position on the opposite side, he looks like the avenging messenger angel he’s named for. He slaps Slash upside the head, then holds out a hand to me. “When I told my son to do whatever it takes to get you in front of us, I didn’t think he’d take it quite so literally.”

I allow him to pull me back to my feet, even though I know he’s hardly had time to heal from being driven off the road when the club was ambushed. Proud as any man in the Shamrocks, it would be an insult to refuse his assistance. The insinuation he’s incapable would end with a bullet somewhere in my body.

“Slash has always taken things to the extreme,” I quip. Wiping my face clean of dirt, I hit my best friend with a nasty smirk. “Guess intelligence isn’t always compatible with brawn.”

My insult is unwarranted. The big man is smarter than most people, infinitely more intelligent than me, but I need to lash out. It helps assuage my guilt. Gives me a reason to lean into my baser instincts. Allows me a reprieve from the demons hunting me.

“I’m gonna fuckin’ cave his face in.”

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