Page 62 of Dragon Strife
“If you need any help with that, I’m here,” I tell him with all sincerity. I can feel the changes in the club already. How suddenly our bonds are tightening, and for once, it’s truly beginning to feel like a brotherhood. “Keep your ears open for anyone talking out of line about our new President, okay?”
“Sure, brother.” He runs his hands through his hair and his face becomes solemn. “A few of them might push back, but I think we can all agree it’s a change for the better. I’m not afraid to be led by a woman, dude.” He starts to laugh, hauling another chuckle out of me.
“She’s not just any woman,” I divulge as I bite my bottom lip. “She has this way of being great without ever knowing it. She possesses an energy that makes you want to be a better person, and I think Hell’s March will finally be the club we’ve all been hoping for.”
“I don’t know how you tolerated him for so long, brother,” Davis says as he walks to the door. “Having to be his Vice and hearing the things he did must have been a living nightmare.”
“I’ve had worse, kid.” He shoots me a look over his shoulder, his mouth quirking up in one corner. Then he opens the door and heads out, letting it shut behind him with a softclick.
As worried as I am about some of the older brothers not folding in with the new leadership, Davis was the one I worried about the most. I knew his relationship with his father was tumultuous. I could see they barely interacted, but there were moments in Barrett’s clarity when he would look at his son and I would see a longing in his eyes. No one knows who the mother was. We’ve all just kind of assumed it was a woman who frequented the club about twenty-five years ago, and narrowing down that pool would be like looking for a specific drop in the Atlantic Ocean. Impossible.
Davis doesn’t resemble Barrett, so I would assume he would look like his mother and maybe that’s part of the reason why Barrett couldn’t stand him. That’s where my curiosity ends though. I can’t figure out another’s family dynamic when I could barely decipher my own.
I hear a commotion coming from the front, a few of my brothers are yelling and none of it sounds like they’re having a good time, so I rush out of Hell and hurry down the corridor, the sound growing louder as I approach the main room.
“What the fuck?” I yell out when I see two brothers holding a struggling Cash. “What the fuck are you doing here?” The moment he hears me, he stills, and I can see the rage coating his features.
“We need to talk.” I raise my brow at the tone of his voice. His indignant attitude is going to end up getting him killed, and he can read as much without me having to say a single fucking word. So he relaxes and takes a deep breath. “I came here to speak to you,” he tries again.
I nod at the brothers to let him go, then I motion for him to follow me back into the room I came from. If Cash is here inside the compound, it means he’s cutting ties with the Steel Dragons. I turn to give him a quick once-over, and when I notice he’s not wearing his cut, I curse under my breath. This is the beginning of the end for our tumultuous but effective treaty with the Steel Dragons.
I open the door and wave him inside, pointing to a chair for him to sit in. “Is that blood?” he asks.
I look at the two spots where Barrett and Bear foolishly lost their lives and chuckle. “Yep, sure is.”
“Malik, I don’t know what part Laith has in all this, but the Varga brat is trying to take over my club, and she has our President locked in the basement.”
“Watch your mouth, Cash, you know what that girl means to me. I’m letting this one slide. The next time you call her anything other than her name, you’ll be the next bloodstain in this room. Have I made myself clear?” I pull my gun from the waistband of my pants and set it on the table, making sure the barrel is facing him.
Cash stiffens, keeping his eye on the gun, but his reason for being here is obviously greater than his own life. “Things are getting out of control.” He scrubs a hand down his old and weathered face. The man has to be nearing sixty, and yet he probably feels closer to eighty. This life we live is draining on the body and taxing on the soul. “I’ve been exiled, so she says. You know what that means.”
“Good luck with him,” I warn Cash. “He knows how close you were to Vic and you’ll have a hard time convincing him to take pity on you.” I lean on the table, resting my chin on my hand as the other covers my gun.
“I have nowhere else to go,” he admits. “So be prepared, because he’s been patiently waiting for years to retaliate, and the Steel Dragons will be the first to feel his wrath.”
“Possibly.” I shrug a shoulder. “Unless I talk to him first and let him know all the great things I think could happen by combining both clubs.”
“You wouldn’t.” His eyes widen and he sounds shocked at my words. “He would never go for that.”
“I would never let anything happen to Genevieve,” I confess to Cash. “I’d rather slice my own throat open than put her in any kind of danger.”
“I can’t even tell you what side he’ll choose,” Cash says as he rubs the bridge of his nose. “She’s a combination of the person he loved the most and the person he hates the most.”
“Is that right?” I ask as I lean toward him a fraction. “Tell me a little bit more.”
Malik’s phone rings with a request for a FaceTime… from my phone. I scramble to answer it as my heartbeat booms throughout my ears. Did something happen? I was told to go home and check on Delia and rest. I agreed because my house is closer to the Steel Dragons’ compound, but now I feel stupid. I should’ve camped outside of the place instead.
Genevieve’s face appears on the screen, her hair a little messy from the day, and bags cushioning her under eyes. “Hey,” she whispers, and my stomach flips.
“Are you okay? Do I need to go there?” I sit up on my bed and watch as she crushes her bottom lip with her teeth.
“Are you in our bed? Without a shirt?” Her voice is suddenly husky with heat and those blue eyes scorch through the phone, fanning a fire on the edge of combustion.
“Don’t,” I croak out. “I miss you too much.”
“Everything is okay here,” she assures me. “I exiled Cash, so I hope Kennedy doesn’t die… not. Jaeger is still in the basement. I haven’t gone back for a while now, but I can’t leave him there forever. I have to make a decision.” She shuffles on the screen and I see she’s laying in a bed too.
“Are you in Laith’s bed?” I know there are other things I should’ve responded to, but she’s been away for hours and my sensibility has long disappeared. “Is he there?”
