Page 60 of Zen's Crash

“No. He tried to, but Crow and the prospects pulled him off me. They’ve got him locked up in your club’s jail.”

I hear a familiar voice say, “You guys have your own jail? Damn, that’s some crazy shit.”

It’s the cousin I never knew I had—MadHitter, though now I know his real name is Terrance Harris. I turn on him and ask, “Why do you have a different last name from me? If our fathers were twins, it doesn’t make any sense that my surname is Roderick and yours is Harris.”

He looks me over, his expression filled with something approaching pure blind hatred. “You can’t be this stupid. Clearly, when their parents split, each of them took one of thetwins. Every time there was a choice to be made, me and my old man got the short end of the fuckin’ stick.”

I frown, trying to figure out what he’s talking about. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

“When their parents divorced, they split the twins. Our maternal grandmother took my dad. She was a horrible shrew who fucked him up for life. After her share of the marital estate ran out, she slowly slid into addiction, allowing a long string of abusive men to move in. He had a rough life growing up. He married a woman who didn’t understand why he was so sour on life. She gave up on me and said I was a bad seed who took after my father. She sent me to live with him when she went and married a cop. I’m sure you can imagine what that was like.”

“That’d be when you were caught torturing one of the neighbor’s dogs,” Zen mutters.

“I’m sorry you and your father went through that, but what does that have to do with my dad and me?” I ask.

Although his hands are chained together in front of him, he takes a threatening step forward. “Your dad got to go with his father’s family. He grew up being doted on, while my old man lived in squalor. He got a college education and became a professor. He married a beautiful woman who didn’t abandon him, and they had a fucking perfect daughter that everyone adored.”

His hands come up and the chains rattle when he slams both fists into his chest. “Everyone knows you’re not supposed to split up twins. If only they had both gone with their father, the entire trajectory of our lives would have been different.”

Zen’s bored voice rises above my cousin’s: “Well, boo fucking hoo. You had a miserable life growing up. Lots of people do, but they don’t stalk and try to kill their relatives whose only crime is having a decent family life.”

Terrance’s expression closes down immediately. “You don’t know what it was like growing up with my dad. No matter whether it was nature or nurture, I’m fucked up now.”

Zen tells a couple of club brothers standing nearby, “Take him to Siege. Don’t put him with his father unless the club officers tell you to.”

The one I recognize as Tex—because of his slow southern drawl—points out, “Y’all know our club president’s gonna want you to be there.”

Rage speaks up. “We’ll be along shortly, but remember, I still have to stitch up that wound on Zen’s shoulder.”

“Will do,” Tex mumbles as he jerks Terrance forward, another brother wrangling him from the other side.

Rage follows them, sparing a glance over his shoulder to Zen. Zen tells me, “I guess I should get this over with. I’ll come to you as soon as I’m finished, okay?”

I gaze up into his bloodstained face and say, “I want to go with you, I want to ask my own questions, and hear what they have to say with my own ears.”

He freezes for a moment, and I can tell he’s thinking it over. I’ll bet that women aren’t often involved in their club business. But in this case, their club business is my business as well.

Finally, he nods. “Stay right with me. If what goes down is too much for you, just excuse yourself. Ain’t no brother in this club would fault you for leaving under the circumstances. You got anything you want me to know before going into this?”

I can feel my bottom lip trembling, but I push out the words anyway. “I think Terrance is the one who killed my father. Going by his build, he’s closer in size and height to the killer than his father.”

“Alright, I’ll make sure to focus on that. Let’s get back there before Siege starts getting antsy.”

I wrap my arm around his waist and walk with him because I don’t know how bad his wound is or how much blood he’s lost, and I don’t want to chance him being unsteady on his feet.

When we get to Siege’s office, Terrance is sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, surrounded by brothers. Rage has an open med kit by another empty chair. We go over, and Zen drops silently down in the chair.

Siege asks Zen, “You sure you want your woman involved in this?”

Zen gives him a succinct nod. “She has a right to be. It’s her life we’re talking about tonight.”

Rigs drags another chair over for me.

I whisper, “Thank you.”

Rage gets to work on Zen’s shoulder. His other club brothers take turns asking Terrance questions. They hit him with one question after another.

Siege keeps pounding away at why he was stalking me. “Did you have a thing for your cousin?”

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