WITHOUT SHAME: Babylon MC Book 4

by James, Victoria L.

  Owen’s gargled grunt fought against the barrel of the gun in his mouth, making his eyes water even more.

  Drew pushed it in farther, making Owen gag around it.

  “You’re going to talk, Owen. When I pull this out, you’re going to tell me what I need to know to save my club. You’re going to tell me everything, or I swear to God, I’m going to make sure I fuck you up in more ways than one.”

  Owen blinked again, desperate to swallow, and I watched as the giant Adam’s apple in his throat fought to fall and rise again.

  “Good boy,” Drew whispered sarcastically before he slowly began to slide the gun out of Owen’s mouth. Owen gasped for air as soon as he could, his head rolling forward and backward as he tried to breathe. “Now talk.”

  Drew released him, and Owen’s whole body fell forward, and he struggled to land on his hands, his limbs so shaken, sore, and unsteady.

  “Marsh…” Owen spluttered, the word barely recognizable when more blood dripped out from his parted lips. “The Mayor wants rid of the MC completely. Gone.”

  “Now tell me something I don’t know.”

  Owen’s breaths grew faster, his head lifting as he tried to look up at Drew through bloodshot eyes. “One of the Hounds fucked Walsh’s wife.”

  I felt Rubin lock up beside me, even as my own shock rocked through me. For a moment, I thought he was going to launch forward with his own set of questions, or even beat the shit of the vile man himself for talking about his mom that way. Rubin hated his father, but his mom was a different story. Tightening my hand around his, I pulled him closer to me, prepared to hold him back with all of the strength I had left, but he squeezed my hand instead, a small nod making his head bob as though telling me he had this under control.

  I wasn’t sure I would have had the same restraint.

  “Who?” Slater asked abruptly, his unused voice catching, making him clear his throat.

  Owen groaned roughly, exhaustion kicking in and his body starting to shake from the bullet wounds and hits. “I don’t know who, and that ain’t a fucking lie. All I…” He coughed, more blood falling free. “All I know is that he’s had it in for The Hounds for a long time, and this was the last straw. If you think I’m the cancer in this club, you’re even more naive than any of us realized. Walsh has eyes everywhere. Every-fucking-where. He’s got The Navs putting targets on your backs every day. None of you are safe.”

  “What has Walsh got on The Navs to have their loyalty?” Jedd asked.

  “What?” Owen coughed again, his body bouncing. “You think a guy like me knows that shit?” He started to laugh, the sound a mixture of terror and hysteria kicking in. “C’mon.”

  Drew’s hands balled into fists by his sides. “And what did Walsh have on you to gain your loyalty, Owen?” he asked coldly.

  “He had my hatred for you, and that was enough.”

  Drew’s knee rose, hitting Owen under the chin and sending his whole body flying backward until he was laid out on the floor like a star-shaped sacrifice. When Drew moved to step over him, his feet straddled on either side of Owen’s hips, he looked to his father, and his face turned impossibly colder.

  Eric shook his head slowly, answering some silent question the rest of us couldn’t decipher from one look alone.

  When Drew dropped his gaze back to Owen, he let out a long stream of breath from his cheeks. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned since getting out of prison, Sinclair, it’s that letting hate make all your decisions for you is like walking yourself to your own slaughter. You’re proof of that. Here you are, lying beneath me, waiting for me to just stick a bullet in your head and relieve you of your duties. Your hate for me is something I’ll never understand—”

  “You’ve made a mockery out of this club,” Owen hissed, his teeth clenching together.

  “But it was my club to make a mockery out of. Not yours. A club born from my father’s name. A club built by the man standing beside me now. And I’ll be damned if I let a weasel like you dictate to us what the fuck we make of the Hounds on our backs.”

  Owen stared at Drew, his chest rising and falling rapidly, all his words stolen or lost.

  With one last glance at Slater, Jedd, and Eric, Drew began to lower himself down until he was hovering over Owen, with one hand pressed against his chest, while the other reached into Drew’s boot and pulled out a knife.

  “Hold him down, boys. It’s time we cut the club out of him.”

  Slater and Jedd both held down an arm each, descending on Owen like vultures on road kill. He’d fucked them over, and they were more than happy to be a part of the cost of his betrayal. It took the first cut of the knife into Owen’s flesh for my mind to realize that Rubin didn’t need to bear witness to this.

  Tugging on his hand, I held him to me as the sharp bowie knife slid under the layer of flesh at Owen’s shoulder. The blood hid the hideous yellow-white of the fat and muscle under the tissue, but my eyes stayed glued to the slow peel of the pink flesh that had the hounds printed into it. There was nothing I could do to hide the screams from Rubin, and I felt him tremble just for a second before his back went straight and his eyes focused on something behind me.

  Owen’s wails of pain matched every slide of Drew’s knife as it cut through flesh. His legs kicked out, and blood oozed and slid over the surface, making the floor of the training room look like a butcher shop, but I still couldn’t drag my eyes away from the scene. Not until I felt a vibration rise from Rubin’s pocket.

  Moving slowly, he pulled the phone out, the source of light now making his face glow as we both glanced down at the screen.

  Mom Calling…

  I didn’t need to tell him that answering was a bad idea. Another round of Owen’s deafening screams seemed to ignite the air around us and draw our gazes back to the center of the room where Jedd took a swing at Owen’s face as he tried to buck Drew off.

  “Ayda,” Rubin whispered after a second, holding the phone out to me.

  Glancing down at the screen my heart froze. There was a text message from Rubin’s mom on the screen. It wasn’t long, and it wasn’t detailed, but it was enough to make my breath catch.

  Cops and ATF dispatched to The Hut, Rubin. If you’re there with your friend, please get home NOW! Your father is out for blood.

  Rubin and I looked at one another as another scream pitched from Owen and rang around the room with an almost deafening tone.

  “Drew! We’ve got trouble headed our way.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  DREW

  I was too lost in the gritty cries of Owen beneath me, enjoying the power of removing the one thing that was sacred around here from his bruised flesh. Maybe I was sicker than even I had come to understand. Blood poured from him, sweat too, but the thing that made the hairs on the back of my neck rise in victory was those toe-curdling cries of agony. I enjoyed those the most.

  Never fuck with The Hounds of Babylon. That’s what I wanted to paint on a banner and hang across every border of our small town, right alongside a picture of this vision lying beneath me. A reminder to all those who thought we—I—was soft. A reminder that love didn’t make you weak, it made you motivated. It gave you purpose. To save those you love, you’d do unimaginable things to those you never thought you’d have to punish.

  We’ve got trouble rang through my head again in the distance, the echo of her voice bouncing off the walls of my brain until her urgent call made me blink and focus, my head snapping in her direction.

  I stared at her, and I waited.

  “Cops and ATF are on their way.” She held up a phone. “Mrs. Walsh was warning her son.”

  I turned my attention back to look down at Owen, whose eyes were rolling in the back of his head, sweat dripping from his forehead into his ears and his skin now pale and deathly.

  “Fuck,” I hissed.

  “We need to get him outta here, Drew,” Slater told me calmly.

  “If they see us doing this…” Jedd added, le
aning closer, his hands tightening around Owen’s arm in obvious frustration.

  I looked up at both of them, feeling like a thirsty fucking vampire, too close to blood to turn away, but too human to be able to ignore what they were saying. Then I turned to my father, seeing no sign of panic on his face, just the same calm statue of quiet strength that always seemed to be there.

  “Any ideas?” I asked Eric.

  “None that you’ll like.”

  Owen groaned roughly, his lips parting and his head swaying from side to side. “They’ll kill you,” he pushed out desperately, a slow smile tugging on the corner of his mouth. “Big bad Drew Tucker, taken out by—”

  I swung hard, smashing his cheek with my fist to shut him the fuck up. There would be no last-minute words of arrogance falling from his mouth. He didn’t own the right to say a parting line that would wound me, or any of my brothers. His days were done. The only sound I wanted to hear from him now was his cries of pain.

  Owen fell silent, and in just a few moments of staring down at him, I knew what we had to do. If the cops showed up here, Sutton would be forced to tie me the fuck down, arrest me, and throw me behind bars because of the people who’d followed him here. ATF would take Owen and practically masturbate over all the information and secrets he’d spill to keep me down. Ayda would be alone again, left to work shifts at Rusty’s, raising Tate and maybe even our own kid, while I was locked up, back behind bars.

  We had to get out of there.

  “Fuck!” I cried out again, quickly jumping off Owen and stepping away from him. “We need to leave here, and we need to do it fast.”

  “Where do you want us to go?” Slater asked, pushing himself up to stand over Owen, Jedd following him, too.

  I turned to look at Ayda again, knowing wherever I went, she had to come with me. I couldn’t leave her alone anymore. I’d done too much of that, rode off into the night and told her to wait for me until morning, too lost in my own head to think about how she felt or what went through her mind as she worried about and for me.

  My eyes drifted down to her stomach.

  The place where my baby could be. Maybe it was growing there already. Maybe she’d got it all wrong, but I knew it would be there one day, and for now, I was going to treat her like she was already carrying the child we’d created together… just in case.

  “You’re not going anywhere, Slate,” I said quietly, rolling my head back to him. He frowned hard, folding his arms over his chest. Jedd stayed frozen in place, ever the calm VP.

  “What’s going on, Tucker?” Slater asked, and I could tell from the look on his face that he had already decided he wasn’t going to like what I was about to say.

  “You, Jedd, and Rubin are staying here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if we all leave together, they’ll know we’re fucking running. If my VP and my Sarge are at the club, two of my most important men, they’ll slow down the chase.”

  “What about the other men? The ones out on the road?”

  “Put a call out. A subtle one. Tell each and every one of them to get back here right the fuck now without actually saying the words. Have them ride in quietly, calmly, not like they’ve got hell on their heels or they’re scared. They roll in like they’ve got nothing to fear or hide.”

  “And when ATF or the cops ask where you are?”

  Rubbing my lips together, I turned to look back at Ayda once again. “You tell them me and my girl have gone for a ride. You tell them we’ve just had some pretty special fucking news that I’ll be more than happy to share with them when we get back, and you tell them to mind their own motherfucking business when it comes to what I do in my own time with my fiancée.”

  Ayda gave me a smile, but it didn’t last long. Glancing down at Owen, her eyes narrowed. “How are we getting that pile of shit out without being caught?”

  Jedd stepped forward. “There’s a repo truck I pulled in yesterday with Kenny and Deeks. We haven’t had a chance to file the paperwork properly yet. It’s not on our records as collected which means it won’t be missing from the yard if they do an inventory. Put your bike in the back of it, Drew. Throw Owen in, tie him the fuck up. You and Ayda ride up front. If anyone tries to stop you, floor it and abandon it somewhere, get your bike off the back and you two get the hell out of there.”

  “No,” Eric interrupted.

  All of us turned to him, our curiosity showing in our expressions as we waited for him to expand.

  “I’ll ride Drew’s bike out of here. Let Drew and Ayda take the truck. They won’t ask where I am.”

  “They won’t?” Slater croaked.

  Eric just shook his head and closed his eyes before he looked back up at me. “I’m the only one around here not officially bound to the club anymore. If they’ve been following us, investigating each and every one, they’ll know I’m the guy who is never accounted for.”

  I hated that he was right—but he was right. In all the time I thought he’d been back here as my father, paying his dues, trying to right all his wrongs, he was still the flighty Eric Tucker of the last decade to all who knew him. Maybe he always would be.

  “Misdirection,” I found myself whispering.

  Eric stared at me, his gaze unmoving; his eyes unblinking.

  “And if they track you down?” I dared myself to ask him.

  “You know the answer to that.”

  I did. He’d told me enough. He’d promised me in the days of our midnight rides and our hell raising that if he had to prove to me that he was sorry, he’d take the fall to save me this time. He’d take the fall to pay his debt to the club for running out.

  If they tracked him down, Eric was going to let them take him in.

  And I had no fucking idea how I felt about that.

  “Eric can take my bike,” I found myself telling Slater and Jedd suddenly. “Get it out of the yard. Ayda and I will take the repo truck.”

  Ayda nodded in agreement before glancing back at me. “Let’s get this done before they roll in those gates. I’m not letting those assholes take anyone else from our family.”

  My jaw twitched as I stared at her, but with one look, I knew she was right. “Get him the fuck up,” I ordered, before I turned, found my cut, and slid it over my shoulders.

  Jedd and Slater worked quickly, pushing Owen to his feet without any tenderness at all. He groaned, cried out, hissed, and spat before he staggered and stumbled to the side. Slater caught him quickly, and Jedd left Slater, moving out of the training room at once without saying a word to any of us. After a few minutes, Slater had bound Owen’s hands together behind his back with his torn shirt, and Jedd was walking back into the room with a bunch of keys in his hand. He took one look at me and tossed them in the air, and I caught them swiftly, the skin stretching over my already swollen knuckles, reminding me how good it felt to inflict pain in the name of revenge.

  “He’s all yours,” Slater said, pushing him towards me. I caught him hard, my fingers digging into the flesh of his flabby bicep and my face turning to his drooping eyes and weak body. I stared down at the keys in my hand, my thumb rubbing over them before I looked up and caught sight of Rubin standing just behind Ayda.

  I’d forgotten the kid was there.

  “You going to be okay?” I asked him.

  He nodded once, his eyes showing more concern than the rest of his face would allow. “Yeah.”

  “You stay near Jedd and Slate, okay? They’ll look after you, and if you need somewhere to stay after today… if you don’t feel like you can go home—”

  “This is my home now,” Rubin interrupted boldly.

  Fuck. That was a hell of a statement to make from a kid his age, but who the fuck was I to argue? I’d found my family in these men at a much younger age, and there was something about the fire in Rubin’s eyes—a real fire, unlike Tate’s whose was still growing, unsure whether he was a boy or man, good guy or bad—that told me he wasn’t to be argued with.

  “
I hope it gives you what you need,” was all I added, before I watched Slater and Jedd move over to Rubin and guide him outside, leaving only me, Ayda, and the man I wanted to crush beneath the wheels of my bike. “You ready?” I asked Ayda.

  “I’m always ready,” she said, backing toward the door. “I think I have an idea of where we could take him.”

  Pushing the traitorous bastard forward, the three of us walked out of the room, Owen stumbling while Ayda and I marched with an urgency that only grew in speed as soon as we hit the air outside and heard the roar of bikes in the distance—bikes that no doubt belonged to my returning brothers.

  “Lead us,” I told her sharply, putting every man’s fate in her hands without a flicker of doubt or worry.

  She looked at me, then Owen, making a mental calculation before speaking. “I found what you asked me to look for. Harry said there were files missing. He searched Owen’s room, but there was nothing there. If you know where he lives…” She glanced at Owen again. “I bet we’d find enough shit to put some of you away for a long time. Harry wrote one word where he mentioned the missing files. Leverage. With lots of question marks.”

  My frown was deep when I looked at her, pressing the fob on the keys in my hand, waiting to see which car lit up, beeped, or started fucking talking like it was KIT from Knight Rider. “Harry had all that in his room?” I asked, looking up to see the lights on a white lifted Dodge Ram flashing in front of us. Perfect.

  “It wasn’t complete, and he was still piecing shit together, but it looked like he’d only figured out it was Owen just before he was…” She trailed off and looked over at me again. “He left it somewhere only you would think to look for it. He wasn’t hiding it from you, Drew.”

  I faced forward, my frown fixed in place as I thought about everything that had happened since I’d gotten out of prison.