Page 65 of Out for Blood

“He say anything else?” Hawk asked.

“He just called for a woman to come and talk to him, not a lawyer, but the way she looks, I could swear I’ve seen her around your clubhouse.”

“What’s she look like?”

“Tall, skinny, wears leather midriff tops with a big peacock tattoo on her leg.”

I looked over at Hawk. We both knew who it was.

“Thank you.”

“Am I going to be finding her body on the side of the road anytime soon?” Brogan asked.

“No.”

“You won’t find it,” Hawk added. I shot him a look to tell him to keep it to himself.

“Jesus,” Brogan muttered. “Go on. I don’t wanna hear anything to do with the Ghost Rebels in the next week, you hear me?”

I nodded and we rode out from the police parking lot and toward the clubhouse. I had a fresh mind for vengeance against someone who had been with us for years, and yet chose to betray us. She was as good as dead. No amount of excuses she could spew at us would fix this. Usually, I’d feel pretty bad about delivering an excommunication or death sentence, especially to a woman, but for her, I felt nothing. She’d led to my woman being captured.

She was dead to me.

We rode into the compound, and I noticed the black 1972 SS Chevelle parked next to the bikes.

No fucking way. He was back?

Hawk let out a whistle. We both knew if he was back, then so was his wife and after she learned about what was going down with us and the club, she’d be on the warpath.

“Fuck me,” Hawk let out a breath. “This ain’t gonna go well.”

“Shut it, Casey,” I said. “They don’t know nothin’ yet. We've been keeping them in the dark.”

He nodded. “I doubt very much that Sheridan’s bruised face is going to be keeping them in the dark.”

He was right though. Neal had fucked her face up again, and she now had a large nasty bruise on her jaw as well as a deep bruise over her eye. She was still stunning as fuck, but it killed me to see her in pain, especially when she tried to apply her makeup to make it less noticeable. We stepped inside the clubhouse, everyone looking our way, our chaplain Butch was getting caught up on the events that had been taking place. I tried to show him an inch of a smile, but I couldn’t force it onto my face.

“Church,” he said. “Now.”

He was the only man that was ever allowed to speak to me that way. He had been my dad’s VP after my mother ran off with his predecessor, and now, after a nasty fall from his bike a few years ago, he was our chaplain. Still very much a part of our club.

The boys all filed into the room and I sat down at the head of the table. He stood at the end, as he always did, and looked down on us all.

“Why the fuck was I not called home?”

“You needed the break, so did your old lady,” I said, simply.

“And Eagle?” he asked. I knew they’d been buddies, so I could only assume he was battling with a torrent of emotions about his betrayal.

“Buried.”

“Marked?”

I shook my head.

“Good.”

He slunk down onto a free chair, and almost as if it were happening before my eyes, I saw him age.

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