Page 14 of Tyrant

My eyes sting. It’s from the force of the puking, not because the tone of Raiden’s voice says he’d cut out the eyes of anyone who saw me going into that place just because I don’t want any of this becoming public knowledge. We basically run this town. In the club, we can be real with each other, but outside of it? People can’t see us as anything other than what we want them to see, or we’d lose control fast.

“I’ll need some kind of scan for head trauma.” He doesn’t sound so calm and rational now, not with his voice rising with anger. His hand twitches at his side in impatience. “What the fuck do you mean you don’t have it? Get it. You have forty minutes. I’ll give you an extra ten because I have business here to take care of before I leave. I don’t want excuses. Get it done.” Raiden ends the call and swears under his breath again. “Fucking doctors. We’re getting this done.Today. You’re not putting it off, even if I have to dress you up in a fucking Halloween costume and take you to some real hospital.”

“It’s just a fucking migraine,” I say, then start dry heaving again.

“If you’d had them as a teen I wouldn’t be concerned, but to start getting them as an adult… I want you checked out.”

Raiden moves around my private room. It’s the prez’s quarters, one of the largest in the clubhouse. It belonged to my grandfather and my father. Both gone now. I never feel their ghosts haunting the place, just the weight and obligations that bear down on me. For all the extra space, the room is stark.

I never needed much. Never cared about amassing wealth. Every cent I have that didn’t go on my own small house on the edge of town, I’ve poured into my bike and the club.

Raiden grabs a fresh black t-shirt out of the dresser, adds a pair of jeans to the stack, then pauses and shakes his head. “I love you, bro, but I’m not dressing you like a baby. Get your shit together while I get you some water and let’s go.”

He would absolutely dress me, and tenderly too, if I needed it, but I appreciate his attempt to leave a shred of my pride intact.

It nearly makes me empty my stomach again, but I get into the fresh clothes and tug on my worn pair of boots.

“Here.” Raiden is back. He hands over a stick of the bubblemint gum he’s always chewing. Until I realized it was more of a nervous tic than for enjoyment, I used to want to punch him for chomping it in my ear all the time. “Your breath stinks.”

I jam it into my mouth, take one step, and bend over, dry heaving.

“Stop.” A strong hand grasps my shoulder. “Seriously. You’re in a bad way. Let me take you to the clinic and at least get you some kind of medication for this. You have this whole club to run, an entire city to worry over. Even if everything is okayinside your thick skull, I can see how that would be enough to give a guy an aneurysm.”

He helps me down the long hallway, out the door, and into the parking lot. Not the compound where we park our bikes, but into the lot where the deathtraps and cages are kept. He steers me to his old baby blue fifties truck. I want to die from the pain ripping me apart. I want to die from the embarrassment of this. I want to die thinking about what Archer is going to do to me in his goddamn basement. Normally when one of these bastards hit, I just want to sleep it off, not go on a fucking ride.

“I know you’ve stitched up knife wounds and set your own bones,” Raiden sighs as he thrusts me into the truck and pulls the seatbelt he installed over my shoulders. “You’re as tough as they come. No one would ever doubt it.” He dabs me on the end of my nose with his index finger and grins a shit eating grin that I want to plunge my fist into. Then he hands me a trash bag, “Don’t you dare puke in my truck. I like it a whole lot more than I like you.”

I lean my head against the narrow back window and take shallow breaths while he walks around to the other side.

The guilt of how badly I betrayed him kills me. This man who is so good and straightforward, so exceptionally gifted, that even though he only ever wanted to be Raiden, most of the guys call him Robber because he’s so good at making criminal funds disappear into legit channels. My guilt only ramps up when we’re about halfway to Archer’s hellhole and he turns to me, clearly troubled. I saw what Raiden’s face looked like when he went away, and it wasn’t anything like this.

“Ray?”

“It’s my mom.” A sigh winds out of him at the next red light.

I forget all about the pain in my head, which is monumental considering it’s still blinding.

“She’s sick. Came out of nowhere. That’s why I lost my shit seeing you like this.”

“Sick?” It doesn’t matter what I think about Mabel Gardiner and believe me, I couldn’t have a lower opinion. She abandoned Raiden, pretended he didn’t exist, and then she did the same to her daughter. The way Raiden looks at me, totally fucking wrecked, is the only thing that matters right now. “Pancreatic cancer. We found out a few days ago. She’s got a few months left and the only thing we can do is try to manage the pain.”

I try to exhale, but all my breath spools up in my lungs. I want to say something, but the words are trapped inside. It’s just as well. Words are useless. “I… shit,” I finally mutter. “Why are you here with me? You don’t have to be at the club. Don’t worry about your—”

“Iwantto be at the club.” His hand curls into a fist on the wheel and he stops the gas harder than necessary, grinding through the gears on the old beast as soon as the light changes. He doesn’t even notice, which is a real testament to his inner turmoil. When he got out, he bought this truck and took her straight to our garage, poured a ton of love and care into her. Probably a lot of frustration and fear too. Five years is a long time to be out of the world. “I have to be doing something other than feeling fucking helpless.”

I don’t want to ask abouther. I’ve spent so much time trying to banish her, but she’s my ghost and she’s never goingto leave me. I knew that the second I stared down at my best friend’s little sister, all grown up and heartbreakingly beautiful. She begged me to love her, she opened my eyes to the fact that I already did, and then she changed her mind and took off.

Sent me a text because she wasn’t even brave enough to call.

I’d be a cold bastard if I didn’t ask, so I force the words out. “What about Lark?”

“She’s coming back tomorrow.”

That slams into me like a truck blindsiding us at full speed. I turn my face to the window just in case Raiden’s watching.

He isn’t. I give him a sidelong glance a few minutes later. He’s focused on the road, shifting through gears and double clutching with ease and focus again.

“I’m picking her up from the airport. She had to get things straight with work, find a house sitter, get one of her friends to look in on her cat. She’s holding it together for Penny, but I can tell she’s a wreck.”

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