Page 19 of Inglorious
“Are you saying I don’t honour your brother?” Inglorious flared up.
“Yeah. I’m definitely saying that. Instead of honouring their memory, you got drunk and wallowed in self-pity. And you stayed that way. You should have made sure their cuts and pictures were at least on the wall where they belonged! No! Instead, you dishonoured the dead. They gave their lives for a war that wasn’t theirs, and you then shit on them further—”
“Just wait a second—”
“Shut the fuck up. You indulged your grief, and fuck what remained of your club. Chill spent half the time drunk and the rest doing fuck knows what. Razor has been trying to handle hisgrief, the club, prospects, the businesses, and chemo.”
“Wait, what, chemo?” Inglorious looked horrified.
Shocked, I felt like I’d been slapped. “Are you telling me you don’t know Razor has cancer? Please don’t have been so far into your self-indulgence that you didn’t know he is battling cancer!”
“You’re lying!” Inglorious exploded. His expression spoke volumes.
“Razor wouldn’t have kept this hidden from you. This ends now. I’m president, and you’re under my control. You’re a raging, selfish asshole. This is what’s going to happen. I can’t bust you down to prospect, but until I recruit, you’re liable for all prospect duties. From morning till night, you’re on call.
“You’ll attend therapy twice weekly for grief counselling and find an AA meeting, which you’ll attend three times a week for the first two months. You might earn president back one day, who knows? But one thing is for sure: if you aren’t sober and straight within a year, we will vote for a new president. You’ll not be able to put yourself forward. Nor will any nomination for you be honoured.
“Doc Paul will be coming to check you out one more time. I can see you’ve still got the shakes,” I sent Inglorious’s hands a disgusted look, “and you will follow Doc’s instructions. You’ll also inform Doc that I’m to be kept updated on your condition. Fail, Inglorious, and in a year, I’ll kick you from the Unwanted Bastards and black your ink.”
“Over my dead body,” he hissed.
“That may still be a possibility,” I retorted, turned on my heel, and paused at the door. “Oh, one more thing. Don’t bother trying to get brothers on your side. Nobody wants a drunk in charge of the club anymore; save yourself the embarrassment.”
Inglorious
Upset, I sank back onto my bed, hands shaking, and my body screaming for a drink. But the urge subsided under the bombshell Nanci had just dropped on me.She’d black my ink.Hell, I couldn’t comprehend that. How dare Nanci threaten that? However, knowing Nanci, that wasn’t a threat, but a promise.
Shit. The woman who hated me so much she’d send me to hell in the blink of an eye, was running my club. Nanci had taken my role, title, and my damn dignity. I had to regain president, but was unsure how. Her words hurt, but were true. I was an addict, and I’d barely been sober since the funerals of those who’d died in the war.
The plan had been to drink myself to death and join my brothers. Nanci had scuppered that. I could run and start drinking, but not with Nanci around.
That woman would hunt me down and re-imprison me. She’d no qualms about that. Plus, the only reason Nanci had returned was because of Psych. As far as Nanci was concerned, Seth Rosky walked on water, and God forbid anyone tarnish his memory. That included me. Psych and I might have been best friends as well as brothers, but that didn’t mean shit to Nanci. As far as she was concerned, I’d shit on the memory of her brother.
My hands shook again, and the urge to hit a bar grew. I needed something to take the edge off. The only way to get Unwanted Bastards back was to stay sober. That wasn’t going to happen without a battle against my addiction. It was a fight I didn’t want, but I had to confront. I wouldn’t die being the president everyone remembered as a drunk. My name and reputation had meant something once. Who knew if it still did?
But if there were a small chance it did, if I could salvage what remained of the club and move us forward, I’d grab that chance with both hands. Did I deserve it? Probably not. Was I going to fight for it? Shit, I hoped so. Somewhere inside me was mystrength. It had currently deserted me, but it had to be hiding somewhere. A coward was something nobody could call me. Hell, the fact I attended every single funeral proved that, even if they weren’t my brothers.
Willow was the girl who nearly broke me. The dignity and honour she’d shown Grey turned me inside out. The grief on Willow’s face was soul-destroying. Her expression showed everything I’d felt but couldn’t express. Men don’t cry. That mantra had been drummed into me. Real men don’t show grief or emotion or the fact that they’re screaming inside. Bullshit. I’d experienced all of those but couldn’t express them.
Doc Paul entered and studied me. “You’re a mess.”
“Yup.” There was no point in disagreeing.
“What are you going to do? Hit the bottle or get help?” Doc Paul asked.
Whelp, there was no messing about there. “Get help, Doc. It’s going to be a struggle. Every time I close my eyes, I see their faces and bodies lying there. They’re haunting me.”
“Well, I’d haunt you too, if you’d dishonoured my memory like that.”
“Wow, Doc. Don’t hold back.” His words stung. Doc Paul might be right, but I didn’t want to hear it. No, I wanted to bury myself and my anguish in a bottle of cheap whiskey. The urge to do so was making me nearly crawl out of my skin.
“I won’t, Inglorious. Your brothers deserved better. Nanci is taking care of that. However, I will be around for a couple of weeks, and Nanci sabotaged me. I’ll knock you unconscious if I need to and drag you back here. Be warned,” Doc said.
Holy crap. What was with the hard knock lessons today? I didn’t like being sober because their words and actions hurt. Not as much as… my mind shied away from my deceased brothers. Not in time, though, and Psych’s face flashed into my mind; his expression filled with blame.
“Go shower, Inglorious, frankly, you stink, and I don’t need to smell it,” Doc said and opened the cell door.
“Yeah, it ain’t pleasant.”
