“Tomorrow it is then.”
He nodded his head. “Tomorrow the war begins.”
15
Cage
Opening Autumn’s bedroom door, I’m half surprised to see her awake, sitting up in bed. Her eyes locked on the dresser across the room. I see the numbness in her eyes from here.
“You okay darling?” Even as I ask the question I feel stupid, as she wasn’t okay—I knew that. Yet here I was asking the question.
She nods her head weakly and throws back the blankets getting up. “You can go Cage, I’m fine.”
I narrowed my eyes on her, was she really going to bullshit me?
“I don’t deserve you to love me. I don’t deserve you to be here caring for me. You need to go.” The words comes off her lips and I realized now what she was doing. She was punishing herself. She thought she couldn’t be comforted because of what she had done.
I walked towards her, when I’m standing over her. I cup her face. “Darling you and I are unconditional.”
“Don’t lie to me.” I see her holding back tears. “You can’t like who I am.”
“I don’t.” I say and she looked at me like I had proved her point. “I love you.” And she looks at me like I have lost my mind.
“You love a mother killer, an executioner, a drug dealer?” She challenges me, like she is expecting me to back out. “Don’t lie to me, or yourself.” And she shoved me on the chest, trying to break my hold on her.
“You saying you don’t love me?” I challenged her right back. “That you can’t love me because I deal drugs, which cause mass overdoses, I’ve executed people. Fuck my hands that are cupping your cheeks right now, have squeezed the life out of a mans eyes.”
I don’t hold back the truth.
Her eyes don’t widen with shock.
But she also doesn’t say a word.
“Like I said Autumn, our love for each other is unconditional.”
She tilted her head back up, looking at me. “I can’t love you Cage.” And tears brim in her eyes. “I physically can’t love you, or anything, or anyone.” And the tears drop from her eyes. “I’ve stopped feeling. I felt nothing tonight when I killed that man. I felt nothing ever since I killed my mother and the sick part?” She paused, and inhaled sharply. “I don’t regret either circumstances.”
And perhaps it was the fact there was no emotion in her voice as she spoke, I began to realize, that Autumn and I did have a problem because she had switched off emotions. So while I went to war against the Cartel, I was going to have to somehow get Autumn to feel again to.
I don’t have a solution, but I brushed my lips against hers. And then she kissed me back with no emotion.
I don’t stop, as I grip her over large shirt ripping it off her. Why she slept in baggy clothes when she had a body to flaunt I didn’t know. I continued to kiss her as I backed her against the bed.
Her hand on my cheek, sparks me to keep going.
I nipped her bottom lip and if she thought we weren’t going to fuck like we always did, with no limits because her father was up the hall she was wrong. I wanted to hear her, and I wasn’t planning on going slow or gentle with her.
* * *
“And if anyone has a mother fucking problem with her being here, you can take it up with me.” I declared to the table. I knew some members would be okay with Autumn being back on club land, others wouldn’t be because she hadn’t only just cooked create product but she was refusing to cook for us. Which I understood because I was the one stopping her. Which I had just explained.
I didn’t want Autumn cooking meth for us. I didn’t want her doing anything to do with the club apart from being with me.
Hawk had remained quiet, mainly because I was the one who laid out what was going to happen when it came to Autumn being back here. If one member so much as looked at her the wrong way, I’d be punching their lights out.
“Brother,” Vod said, looking up from his cigarette, “Ain’t no one here got an issue with Autumn being here. I’ve fucking missed her.”
Lit and Wild nodded, fuck even the prospect nodded—who hadn’t even met Autumn. I shot the prospect a glare. But then sat down at the table.
“So this brings us to the beef with the Cartel.” Hawk had the unpleasant job of telling the boys we were at war against them.
As Hawk explained what happened, including why Autumn had killed the man—the table did the opposite of what I was expecting. I expected them to be upset about the war. Instead, they fucking welcomed it.
“She did a year for that!” Wild yelled down the table. “A fucking year of her young life in a maximum prison and now they want to revenge a death of a rat!”
“Fucking bring it on.” Lit said.
But I noticed how Jacob was quiet.
So by the end of the three hour meet up, we had settled on Autumn being back here, the war that was coming, and our normal table business handled. So when Hawk brought the hammer down. Things were sorted.
Getting up, I noticed how Jacob was staring at the table, quiet still.
Hawk noticed it too, and we exchanged a look. Finally Hawk gave me a nod to leave and by the seems of it, he was going to have a word with Jacob.
I walked out and noticed an influx of members at the bar. Fuck it was only twelve. Then I caught sight of her blonde hair. Autumn.
The members were welcoming her back, and a few of them said, it was only because of me they stopped talking to her. Way to throw me under the fucking bus!
The crowd slowly parted, and I saw her sitting there with a fake smile on her face. She was acting like she was fine. But I knew she wasn’t. But how I was ever going to get her back to okay, I didn’t fucking know and perhaps if I had a heart that worked properly. Well that fact that Autumn would never be the same, would break it, however my heart was tainted and screwed the fuck up. So I was just thankful she was breathing, and I had her back.
Even if she wasn’t the same person.
AUTUMN
Decisions shape our lives, and choices make us who we become. As I sat here, staring at the stick. I knew I had to make a massive decision and it wasn’t mine to make on my own. The last month had gone by in a blur. With a war being called, the boys were anxious when it came to the safety of their family. So we were all locked down to the clubhouse.
I felt so out of place, but so at home at the same time—if that was even possible. I hated myself for starting this war. But Nate and Fate had stepped up with The Vultures. So two of the biggest underworld figures were fighting the Cartel.
I knew bodies were dropping and the guilt I felt around that was never ending. But nothing and I repeat nothing had anything on this moment as I looked down at the two lines on the pregnancy stick.
I was pregnant.
It was Cage’s and we weren’t ready for a child. Hell we hadn’t even been in a stable relationship. Fuck that, we weren’t really in a relationship now. We fucked, that was about it.
He wasn’t around to have a relationship with, and I knew that was partly my fault to be blamed. Because I was the one that started this war.
I went to light up a cigarette and stopped. My eyes dropping to my flat stomach. How the hell was I going to tell Cage? More importantly I knew I wasn’t capable of caring for a child, let alone a newborn. My lack of ability to feel made me in no shape to mother anything.
CAGE
One moment can define your character. I accelerated through the gears, chasing the hot rod down. The boys were right behind me and we were tearing up the streets of this city with this war. The police were left behind.
I pulled out my gun, and fired at the tires, the car come to a squealing halt and smashing into a buildings wall.
I slowed down and knew I couldn’t stop the police weren’t that far away. The boys came up behind me, and we fired round after round into the car, their bodies turning into pin cushions, with our bullets being the pins.
Taking off again hearing sirens. We were in black,
on bikes we would be burning, and guns that had no numbers on them.
There was nothing linking us to these city crimes apart from that fact that. Everyone knew, including the police the Cartel and The Vultures were at war.
Weaving in and out of the traffic heading for the desert rural land where a van was waiting for us. We’d ditch the bikes, burn them. They weren’t our daily rides, just bikes we had lifted for tonight’s run down.
I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket but I couldn’t pull over and answer—so I kept fucking riding.
* * *
I didn’t want to fucking do it. Yet here I was, about to call the President and Founders blood of Hade’s Horsemen.
It wasn’t ideal.
However I was learning nothing was when it came to wars. The Cartel had declared war on us, for Autumn executing their right hand. But not just that—they were wanting to bury the Vultures club and wipe us out. We had manpower. But not the type that would go up against the Cartel.
Autumn had just informed me that Ash, who she cooked with, worked for the Cartel. Which made the unknown pieces of the puzzle to click into place.
Hade’s Horsemen were currently at war with Cartel over territory and they cut their cocaine suppliers off.
After I called Zeke Hunt, my next phone call would be to Aaron Crow—who I was hoping would agree to this plan which could be considered madness on my behalf.
My goal was to unity the three clubs as one. But the fact Hade’s Horsemen was one fucking blood deep generation club, well it was fair to say that Zeke wouldn’t be agreeing lightly to a patch over.
I had thought of all the angles.
I had thought of all the possible answers. And now, it was time to get one.
So I ignored Autumn’s missed phone call and waited for Zeke to answer. When he barked a rude hello in the phone. I explained it was me.
“Didn’t think Cage Hurley had time for Hades?” Zeke said to me through the phone.
If my plan was to work, I’d be riding for a form of Hades by the end of the month.
“Need a sit down brother have a proposal for you.” I said into the phone, looking at the burning cigarette in between my fingers.
“Busy with the Cartel, is this proposal worth me flying from my state to yours, to hear?”
“Yes.” I replied. “It could be the answer to all your fucking war.”
He went silent.
“Heard you were losing brother? The war that is.” I added.
He remained quiet. From what I heard their body count was going up, not down, and the more men he lost, the more chance he would lose his club.
“I’m sorry for your loss as well.” I said, speaking about his parents Haylee and Lucian, who had lost their lives to the war.
He didn’t say thank you. Instead he said. He’d come and I knew then, things were changing and if I had it my way, Hade’s Horsemen, The Crows and the Vultures, would all be coming one; Hade’s Vultures.
CAGE’S RUIN Page 6