Page 8 of Truth

I smirked. “I’m always nice.”

We both laughed when Shadow stretched across my lap, completely at ease. I wished I could be too. I wasn’t. Even as I sipped my tea, I knew tonight at the same time I’d have yet another nightmare. Her face may be Chelly’s or worse—the girlthat I saved. Last I saw her, she was rushed off on a gurney. I couldn’t bear to look at her. Maybe that’s why she visited me in my dreams.

I prayed she was okay. I sure the fuck wasn’t.

“How you feeling?”Brick asked.

I shrugged then tossed a shot of whiskey back. I didn’t know how I felt. I was too afraid to feel because if I did, I’d become the monster I knew resided within me. It was the same monster I’d inherited as the son of Emric “Beast” Saint. He was feared, even behind prison walls.

I didn’t want motherfuckers to only fear me. I wanted them to fearandrespect me. The fact that Genevieve was in a hospital bed with second degree burns, bruised ribs, and a broken leg told me otherwise. Bitches were fucking with me. I didn’t take too kindly to being fucked with.

“Truth?”

I swiveled my head in Brick’s direction. I loved my brother, but he could be annoying as fuck. The other brothers gave me space and allowed me to breathe, but not Brick. He was clingy as fuck. I knew why, but his hovering wouldn’t change shit. Someone had done the unforeseen, the unthinkable, and touched one of ours, and the motherfucker who did would have to pay.

“I’m listening, B.”

“Genny woke up and cried out your name. I know why you won’t go see her, but maybe you should reconsider that shit.”

I felt guilty, extremely guilty. Our baby sister was hurt on my watch. I vowed after our mother’s death just after Beast went away that, that shit would never happen again.

“I’m paying for the best of care, the absolute best. When she’s released, I’ll see her because she’ll come to stay here with me.”

He laughed then poured himself a drink. Wasn’t shit funny. Even the prospects who were here at the clubhouse kept their heads down as they ran in and out, completing errands. If they did speak, they spoke with their heads down then scurried to get the fuck out of my way. I barely touched the shit but kept it around for others since we had the best cedar wood whiskey in town. This last situation had me breaking my own rules. I didn’t believe in being fucked up, medicated, any of that shit.

I ate clean, I lived in my personalized gym, and any woman I fucked had to have a clean bill of health with proof before my sheathed dick entered her body. That included any bitch that we allowed near us, except Brick.

He had a fetish for gutter bitches, but they were all rumblers to me, even the ones that officially worked for us. I respected their hustle but none of them could or would ever be my woman or carry my last damn name. For damn sure they wouldn’t carry my seeds. In fact, no one fucking would after raising my three younger siblings. They were more than enough.

“Gen ain’t gon’ like that. You spoiled her all her life, allowed her to ride with us, shoot the shit and all, even watched her handle niggas, and now, you want her holed up under your roof. Truth, man, I feel you, but keeping her close is only a temporary answer. With that being said, we have to deal with the bigger issue, and it’s more than Gen’s care.”

I poured another shot and tossed it back. All he’d done was remind me that I’d gone against my better judgment and gave her too much rope to be out there like she wasn’t fucking royalty. She was. She was a Saint by blood, our little genius, ournumbers person. She was also the only woman I loved besides our mother. God rest her soul.

“Beast is also pissed,” he added, and I scoffed. “Asked where your head is.”

I was on some “fuck Beast” shit at this point. Leave it up to him to question what happened as if it wouldn’t have happened if he was here. We ran a respectable organization, and blood was only shed when it needed to be. Fuck he thought I was doing?

“I’m sure he did.”

“That’s all you have to say?” He grabbed a bottle and eased in front of me as I sat, praying my raging thoughts settled down. “They are calling us out, Truth. I’ll be damned if we sit around like pussies with our tails tucked. Genny is fucked up.”

“Say that shit again.” I slammed my fist down and gripped him by his shirt.

The fuck he wanted me to do with no answers? Unlike him, I refused to move recklessly. Someone wanted to be at war with us, but why? That was the question. It couldn’t have been those Dice Pussies. That beef should have died almost twenty years ago when Beast went to prison if Jake and Logan had to tell it. He took Cinco, their president, and the bitches took our mother. That shit still hadn’t set right with me but I had orders to stand down. I did, but my relationship with my father paid for it. Hell, we had no relationship and never would.

I released him, shoving his big ass back. I’d never allow a bitch to fuck Brick up, but I knew he wanted me to test his entire fucking jaw. That was his strategy. He wanted me riled up, unhinged, and I was damn sure close to it.

“You finished?” He chortled softly.

“Fuck you,” I muttered, waving him off.

He slid a box across the bar counter toward me.

“The fuck is this?” I frowned.

“Open it.”

He watched me as his eyes lifted over the rim of the filled glass. See? He wanted me to fuck him up.

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