Page 40 of Inglorious
“I’ll break every bone in your body!”
“See ya, brother!” I cut the call, laughing. No doubt Lowrider was pulling his hair out right now.
Chapter Nine.
Nanci
Inglorious returned in a great mood, which was at odds with how he’d left me. Cautiously, I approached him as he swung off his Harley.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the cemetery?” I demanded.
“Because you were determined to make me the bad guy,” Inglorious replied.
“No, I wasn’t!”
“Nanci, you came with the attitude I’d not done shit and wallowed in drink. Yeah, I did wallow, but I made sure they were honoured and remembered. The reason the cuts weren’t displayed in the common room was because it needed repainting. I’d been planning to change the décor as I didn’t want Razor and Chill regressing with memories every time they entered it. But as I drowned myself in a bottle more and more, it slipped my mind.”
“Inglorious, I thought you’d forgotten them!”
“How could I, Nanci? They were mybrothers. Think I’d be this bad for any other reason? Not even the drinking dulled the pain I felt, so I drank more, and the torment remained. I couldn’tfind relief from the guilt and agony suffocating me. Nanci, I still suffer those emotions, and it’s a battle not to drink. It would be easy to lose myself in it and gain some respite from those feelings. But I won’t fall back down the rabbit hole. I’ll learn to handle what I feel and deal with it,” Inglorious explained.
Now I felt guilty and ashamed. Inglorious was seriously trying to heal, and I kept dragging him down.
“Let’s call a truce,” I said, and Inglorious looked shocked. “Inglorious, I don’t want to be president or run the club. I had a life I loved, and I’ve had to sacrifice that for the MC. Although it doesn’t sound like it, I don’t begrudge that, as I couldn’t let Seth’s memory fade. But I resent you for your actions. Now, I might understand a bit better, and I’ve certainly misjudged you on a few things, but I don’t hate you.”
“Nanci, I never hated you. That was an impossibility,” Inglorious replied.
“That’s good to know,” I replied as warmth settled through my bones. “Where do we go from here?”
“Break bread and be nice to one another. We both hold a lot of resentment and bad feelings. For now, lead the MC. While I want to wrest my role from your hands, it’s not the best idea. I’m aware I’m struggling, and three weeks sober isn’t enough time to heal. The club deserves better than a president who’s distracted by his own problems and can’t concentrate on them.”
“Makes you a strong person to admit it,” I offered as an olive branch.
Inglorious looked sheepish. “But a weak man to have caused the trouble anyway and fallen into a pit of despair. It’s a daily battle not to fall into the bottle again. When I can better control of the urge, we’ll talk. But I feel like I’m on a precipice, ready to topple off in a strong wind. Honestly, it wouldn’t take much to push me over. Acknowledging I need to heal is a huge step, and the same for Chill and Razor.
“I can’t help them, not while I’m fighting this shit. That means they need you to be solid and dependable. But I want a promise. Rhea isn’t told any of this. She escaped and hasn’t set foot back here, like you. Rhea’s moved past most of the nightmares and is content. She’s never returned to South Dakota, and she would if she knew about my issues. Your word, Nanci, that Rhea isn’t informed.”
“Inglorious, I can do that. I remember what happened clearly.”
“Yup, I bet you do. Unlike Rage and Hellfire, we didn’t have a drawn-out war. Let’s be honest, my side murdered those involved in their sleep and buried their bodies out in the Hills.”
“That’s why Vortex and Hercules left,” I stated.
“Yeah. But as I said, Vortex had no idea Sasha was next. Those of us who survived might have committed murder, but it wasn’t cold-blooded. Not by a long shot. The club has been clean ever since, and we’re making our way in the world. Unwanted Bastards don’t do illegal crap anymore. The first thing we did was burn the drug fields hidden in the Black Hills.”
I shook my head. Psych had told me it took the Unwanted Bastards three months to extract themselves from the criminal enterprises they’d fallen into, but Inglorious had done it. They’d been legit ever since.
“One day at a time,” I said. Mentally, I made a note to inform Vortex of what had pushed Inglorious over the edge to take out half of the MC.
The Unwanted Bastards’ history was simple. The club had been opened in nineteen fifty. There’d been two presidents before Inglorious. Sting was Inglorious’s grandfather, and he ruled for fifty years before crashing his bike. Sting went out in a blaze of glory, like he’d planned. Dandelion took over the MC, and he was a weak assed president. Unlike his father, Sting, Dandelion allowed everyone to do as they wished. In the space ofDandelion’s ten-year rule, from two thousand to two thousand and ten, the club spiralled.
Inglorious ended his uncle without hesitation. He had walked in on Dandelion’s VP, Vapour, raping Rhea, Inglorious’s little sister. Inglorious hauled the asshole off and shot him in the head in front of Rhea. Psych had been with him, and they’d gathered those who thought like them. In a single evening, they put down every bad brother in the MC. They all vanished within twenty-four hours of what had happened to Rhea, including Dandelion. Unlike some of the other MCs, there wasn’t a war to regain control and remove the dirt.
In one surgical strike, Inglorious cleansed the filth, but it cost him. Some of the brothers, for example, Vortex and Hercules, questioned what they saw as cold-blooded murder. Now I understood it hadn’t been that straightforward or easy. And I was sure, if pushed, Inglorious could tell me exactly why each ex-member died. Vortex and Hercules hadn’t stuck around to discover why. They, like most, had seen it as a purge.
“Nanci?” Inglorious asked.
“Sorry, I was thinking about the past. Inglorious, I was on someone’s list, wasn’t I?”
