Page 47 of Tempting Fate

Degrading me.

Invading me.

Ruining me…

8

VENOM

Islam my empty shot glass down on the wooden table in front of me. Toker and Slash follow suit. Isaiah is on bar duty tonight with our youngest prospect since Fret is entertaining us with his guitar, so he grabs the bottle of twenty-five-year-old Chivas and runs over to us to refill our glasses before we can growl at him to hurry the fuck up.

Once we’ve thrown back the next round in one go, Slash shakes his head and holds his hand over both our glasses. Arms folded behind my neck, I lean back in my seat and glare at the ceiling, trying to stop myself from biting his head off for being a good friend.

“Maybe you should call it a night?” he advises at a level that only I can hear.

Bouncing my leg, the heel of my boot knocking on the concrete floor in a haphazard beat that telegraphs how close I am to snapping, I mentally work my way down the list of things I’d like to spit at him to put him into a bad mood that matches my own. It’s wrong. It’s not the mature way of handling the tidal wave of emotions trying to knock me on my arse, but it’s all I have. Still, as magnanimously as I can manage, I shed the nastier reminders of past hurts that only a best friend would know and settle on a reasonably benign retort. “Maybe you should get fucked?”

Toker chuckles. I lower my chin to hit him with a ‘shut the fuck up’ look. He lifts his hands, palms up, as if he’s surrendering. A feral growl that rumbles from my chest is my way of telling him that I see straight through his feigned submission.

He’s being ridden as hard by his demons as I am by mine.

And the stubborn fucker is looking to oblige them with a fight.

If Lily wasn’t asleep in the same building, I’d happily indulge him.

“What?” he asks in a mocking voice when I scowl at him harder. When my right foot continues to bounce and my stare remains levelled at his face, Lily’s cousin scratches the back of his head and shrugs. “Come on, Venom… you can’t blame a brother for trying. A quick grapple around the bar would help us both burn off some steam.”

“Either of you start a fight, and I’ll end it with a bullet in ya… head or arse. Doesn’t really matter to me right now.” Fret’s hand clamps down on my shoulder from behind. I jerk out of his grip, spinning in my seat, ready to give him a mouthful. He narrows his eyes at me, hitting me with a familiar look of annoyance that I’ve seen on his big sister’s face more than once, before offering in a tight voice, “Anna’s screamin’ in her sleep… Dad’s barred the door to keep Charlie out.”

“Fuck.” I’m on my feet in the next heartbeat. Under my breath, I mutter through my anger at the man I call prez, “Gonna shoot that prick before daylight comes… can fuckin’ feel it comin’.”

Everyone in the bar scuttles out of my way as I storm toward the hallway that leads to the ten single man bedrooms situated at the back of the compound. Made of grey cinder block that’s been painted a dozen or so times in the Shamrocks’ fifty-odd year history, the clubhouse is a rabbit warren. With extensions added when the MC expanded past the original six founding members as new prospects were patched in, the OGs sons joined, and then my generation aged up, the walls are rich with history, dripping with memories, stained by bloodshed, and form the rib cage of the MC.

At the heart of it all, protected by the thick walls of our perimeter fence, is family.

Brothers by blood. Brothers by patch. Brothers by choice.

Fathers. Mothers. Husbands. Old ladies. Uncles. Sons.

Only two daughters in all that time…

Scarlett Cherub. Brutus’ dead wife and daughter of our second road captain.

And my Lily, our little Cherub, Brutus and Scarlett’s firstborn.

They are the only two women from the bloodline of the founding six.

“Let me through,” I demand when I’m forced to a halt at the entrance to the sleeping quarters.

“No. No. No. No. No.”

Lily’s shrieks reach me, tightening my chest, ramping up my guilt over leaving her. After she threw her disgust at me for keeping Alex’s release a secret, I knew I had to respect her request for space. She’s not the kind of woman who chucks a fit without a reason, so even though I knew it could backfire if she got caught up in her head, I capitulated.

It was a mistake.

I deserve her anger.

She doesn’t deserve my continual fuck ups.

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