Sins of the Father: A Ravens Ruin Novel

by Marie James

  I had to get away from all of that. Those types of thoughts are poison for a man like me.

  The redhead stepped into my path at just the right moment. She served a purpose, the catalyst I needed to get Candi to see the real me, the man she shouldn’t trust, the man I will always be.

  Somehow, though, I regretted it the second she opened the door and found me there. My brain wasn’t even working up to that point. Survival mode is like that I guess. I don’t think I breathed from the second I walked out of the room, leaving her asleep on my bed, until she pushed opened that door and found a girl on her knees with my cock in her mouth.

  “That good, huh?” I can hear the sarcasm in his voice without even looking over at him. “I thought you’d be pleased.”

  It’s criticism. He’s ridiculing me for even walking away with that girl. He’s upset because I didn’t push her away at first sight, and if I had to guess, he’s outright pissed that I followed through.

  “How was Andover?” He was heading out just as I was being led down the hallway with Cherry, nicknamed aptly due to her hair color.

  He stiffens beside me, realizing that I’m going to fight fire with fire. Something has been niggling in my gut, and I know he doesn’t want me to focus on it. If he’s smart, he’ll stay very far away from any conversation concerning Candi.

  “It’ll never be the same,” he replies, his voice dripping with satisfaction. “Your brother is psychotic.”

  “I’ve known that since he was eight.” I lift the coffee cup to my mouth, only to lower it again when I remember that I’ve been out here for over an hour already. The coffee is cold, just like my damn bed.

  “He was extra brutal last night,” he clarifies.

  His comment startles me. “I figured you’d be the one to dispense justice.”

  “I’m a badass,” he grunts, “But four against one are odds I won’t take with civilians.”

  I nod, understanding completely. Gangs, other MCs, criminals, we have a code. We retaliate; we don’t call the cops. Disposing of people who act like upstanding citizens in the light of day and deviants at night requires a little more finesse. Those people have families and mothers who make phone calls and send emails to TV stations and shit. We have enough going on. We don’t need the damn publicity or scrutiny on the club while we’re still transitioning.

  We sit in silence for what feels like hours or days or a millennia. The sun continues its slow arc across the sky, and the weight of the world presses heavily down on my shoulders. I’m numb, but not in an indifferent way. Everything is coming at me. There’s so much to get done, so many things that require my attention, but still, I just sit here.

  The front door opens, and I smell the soft fragrance of her perfume before she even steps out on the porch.

  My cock, conditioned to respond when she’s near, kicks in my jeans, but still, I stare at the horizon. I can’t look at her. I don’t want to see if she’s in pain or worse yet if she’s apathetic to what she saw last night.

  “We’re going to the mall with the girls,” Molly says sweetly.

  “Prez?” Briar says, seeking my approval.

  The standing rule is that Molly and Candi don’t leave the compound. We know Andover police are looking for Candi as a person of interest in the frat arson, but we aren’t sure if Molly has been implicated. After what TJ and Briar did last night, however, this may be the only time they get to leave here for a long while before all hell breaks loose.

  “Take a prospect,” I mutter.

  Molly squeals, delighted with the permission to leave after long weeks of being trapped behind the gate and turns to run off the porch before I can change my mind.

  “We only have one prospect,” Briar reminds me.

  Fucking Ronan.

  “Take Smalls,” I amend.

  Molly waves over her shoulder, letting me know she heard me, but she doesn’t slow her stride into the back of the clubhouse. Candi never even glances my way. I never feel her eyes on me.

  “She didn’t even spare me a single look,” I mutter, snapping my jaw closed when I realize I said that out loud.

  Briar must be feeling generous because he doesn’t add anything to the slip. Bless his dark soul, he changes the topic altogether.

  “You know that snitch we had trailing Miller?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s gone.”

  “Like dead?” I turn my head to look at him. He was a damn decent tracker, but being former military in some covert ops group or some shit before he got hooked on heroin contributed to his skill set.

  “Like off the grid. Vanished.”

  “No one vanishes,” I mutter, another one of Cowboy’s sayings.

  “Some people just don’t want to be found,” Briar quotes. “Regardless, he’s gone, and we have no idea where Miller is either.”

  “I need you to get eyes back on that fucker. He’s volatile these days. I don’t want him sneaking up on us.” A cold chill rolls over my skin, remembering the last time Dietrich Miller stepped foot on our property. “As far as the snitch, he wouldn’t be the first one to ghost on us. He’s probably face down, OD’d in an alley somewhere.”

  “I have a bad feeling about this one, but I have a couple guys on it,” Briar assures me. “I just wanted you to know.”

  My eyes refocus on the sun. It’s bright enough now that looking at it makes a headache begin to form at the base of my skull.

  “There’s more,” Briar huffs, and I already know whatever it is, he isn’t happy about. “Professor has a release date.”

  A smile begins to take form at the mention of my closest friend, my enforcer, while I was locked away at Cedar Junction.

  “You don’t have to look so smug.”

  “Your jealousy is showing,” I taunt.

  His eyes narrow into tiny blue slits. “I’m not jealous.”

  I scoff. Of course, he is. He didn’t understand the quick bond Professor and I made in prison. He’s never been, so he doesn’t have a fucking clue what that life is all about. I wish every day I could forget the things I did, the men I killed, the crew I ran while I was locked away. The only thing I want to remember is Professor and the countless times that man had my back.

  “Do you trust him around Molly? Candi?”

  My laugh falls from my mouth.

  “Exactly,” he mutters.

  “Still sound jealous,” I return.

  “I’ve been in this club for ten fucking years. I stayed loyal and served under your dad while you were gone for almost two years of that.”

  “Thanks for the loyalty, Brother.” What the fuck else does the man want?

  “You promised him the VP patch.”

  So that’s what this is about.

  “I offered it to him before I offered it to you. Told him it was his when he got out.”

  “What?”

  “He turned it down.” I shrug. Easy fix. “He doesn’t want it.”

  “No wonder you can’t see what’s right in front of you,” he seethes as he jumps to his feet. “Candi doesn’t even have a chance with you if you can’t see how fucked up that is.”

  He doesn’t say another word as he walks off the porch and disappears toward the garage.

  The situation with Professor isn’t fucked up. I promised that man a piece of this club in exchange for his protection, and I never break my promises. It doesn’t matter that I was nineteen, and honestly never saw myself leading the club. I always thought my destiny would stop at the end of my father’s gun, yet, here we are.

  Briar understands loyalty. He’s the most loyal man I know, but him being pissed at me is perfect, considering everything else in my life is fucked up.

  Chapter 30

  Candi

  “Trouble in paradise?” Molly asks as she loops her arm through mine on the way into the mall.

  The parking lot is nearly empty, only a few cars dotting the pavement. I expect nothing else since it’s a weekday and most people are either in scho
ol or at work. Smalls walks behind us, and I know anything I say will be overheard. I’m not one to just spill my guts anyway, but he’s definitely a deterrent.

  “Don’t want to talk about it,” I grumble.

  “I’m your best friend,” she whines.

  “Tell me about Briar,” I challenge.

  When she stiffens at my side, I know both subjects will be dropped.

  “That’s off-limits, and you know it,” she hisses with her head close to my ear. “You, on the other hand, put your business on display in front of everyone last night.”

  You don’t even know the half of it.

  She has a point, but the guilt I anticipated settling in my gut, doesn’t weigh me down today.

  “Let’s just say I know exactly where I stand with your brother.” In a long line with every other woman at the clubhouse.

  “He cares for you. I’ve never seen him with anyone the way he is with you.”

  I snort in the most unladylike fashion. “Tell that to the girl I found sucking him off last night right after he fucked me.”

  “Oh shit,” she whispers, shock raising her eyebrows high.

  “Yeah,” I mutter before changing the subject. “Why are we here again?”

  “I busted the screen on my phone.” She holds up the evidence and points to the store a little ways in. “I’m hoping they can fix it for me.”

  Smalls grunts behind us, and a smile forms on Molly’s lips as she turns to look at him over her shoulder.

  “I know Boston could fix it. I asked him, and he’s out of screens for this model.”

  Smalls grunts again. How fucking weird. The guy is massive, a literal wall between us and everything at our backs, but I’ve never heard his voice. I always assumed he was mute, but the grunt tells me something in his throat works. He’s the definition of silent but deadly. His head tilts when I look at him in a questioning gesture.

  “I’ve got to pee,” I tell him.

  His head nods down the short hall on the other side of the store Molly is heading. I take it as his permission and walk away preparing my speech in my head if the big guy tries to follow me in the restroom. When I look over my shoulder I see him standing, bulky arms crossed over his barrel chest. His eyes are darting between me and the storefront where Molly is. Satisfied that he’ll stay there and not insist on holding my hand while I pee, I pull open the heavy door and enter.

  Oddly, the lights are off, and panic sets in as I reach out and try to find the switch. My fear, bubbling up in a fucking mall bathroom, forces a snort out of my nose. Compared to the clubhouse, this place is a sanctuary.

  All of that fades away on a shriek when I flip the light and see the masked man standing in front of me. He captures me before I even have the chance to respond. His hand clamps over my mouth just after he spins me around and presses me against the dingy, tiled wall.

  “Be quiet,” he orders in my ear.

  The familiar snap makes my skin crawl.

  “Are you listening to me, Zoe?”

  I’ve heard that question over and over for as long as I can remember.

  “Dad?” My voice is trembling. He hasn’t spoken to me in several months, and he chooses this moment, this method, to reach out. I know immediately why he’s acting this way.

  The Ravens Ruin MC.

  “I’m going to release you.” His voice is calmer, less commanding. “Don’t scream.”

  Why would I scream? Not for the first time, my heart kicks in my chest as fear wages war on my soul. The one man I’m supposed to be able to trust, the one man who is tasked with caring for me and protecting me is making my skin crawl. I immediately yearn for Lynch when I’m spun around and face the empty eyes of my father. Their darkness doesn’t change when he pulls the ski mask off his head.

  “Tell me everything you know about the MC.”

  “W-what are you talking about?”

  “Tell. Me. Everything.”

  My head shakes involuntarily as I take in his disheveled appearance. He looks exhausted, his face marked with wrinkles I haven’t seen before and dark circles under his eyes. His temples, previously salted with a few grey hairs, is covered with them now. He’s aged drastically since I saw him last year.

  “I don’t know anything,” I answer honestly.

  He shakes me by his hold on my upper arms. I’m going to have bruises before this is all over, but it’s the backward snap of my head hitting the wall that concerns me the most. It throbs, and if I’m not mistaken, a trickle of blood is winding its way through my hair.

  “Why are you hurting me?”

  He has always terrified me. The boom in his voice when he’s angry has always been enough for me to cower and obey him, but he’s never gotten physical. Only once before have I seen him so angry he had to clench his fist to keep from striking me. Today, he’s past even that point.

  His tired eyes search mine for the truth.

  “You need to find out everything that you can,” he urges, his tone frenzied as if just saying the words will conjure information I don’t have. “I need something worthwhile, something that will get the fucking DEA off my goddamned back.”

  “B-but,” I stammer, confused, “You work for them.”

  His eyes dart away, but I recognize his shame before he can school his face. When he looks back at me, he’s murderous.

  “What have you done?”

  His grip on my arms tightens once more with my question.

  “Do you really think I could afford to send you to Andover on my salary?”

  My blood runs cold.

  “The DEA sent you in to get intel.”

  Intel?

  His eyes are bloodshot, but his pupils appear normal. My only up-close and personal experience with someone so high they weren’t truly in control of their actions was the night I had to set the fire back at school. My father is desperate, bordering on some type of emotional break, but he doesn’t seem to be under the influence of any mind-altering substances, yet, he’s not making any fucking sense.

  “Molly is your friend because we manufactured it. Your position in her life was orchestrated by the Feds.” His sneer is only interrupted by the twitch in his upper lip, a simple interruption that only seems to ramp up his agitation. “We expected you to glean information we could use to bring the club down. Except you turned into a whore. They don’t trust the whores. They don’t talk about important things around the sluts that spread their legs for them. You’re more and more like your mother every single day.”

  Those words are familiar, too. He repeated them, yelled them through our home when he found out my mother turned to another man in his absence. I was mad at her for betraying him, angry that she took my part-time dad away. As I got older, however, I understood. He’d be gone for months and months at a time. His time with us was negligible at best. His job took him away, kept him away, starting with the very first day he was sworn in as a federal agent. No relationship can survive that kind of distance. My mom fell in love with another man; the very same man she’s still with now. Yet, in his eyes, she’ll always be a whore.

  Just like I am now, apparently.

  “You’re risking prison time,” he spits.

  I don’t even bother trying to control the tremble that has settled in my body. “I-I haven’t done anything.”

  “The fire in Andover started itself then?” He tsks. “How easily you forget I always have eyes on you.”

  Does he have eyes on me inside the clubhouse? Does he know about the depraved things I’ve done? I’ve always walked on eggshells around him, but there’s always that little hope that one day the little girl in me will make her daddy proud. Shame washes over me again.

  “I haven’t seen anything,” I confess.

  I honestly haven’t. All of their business is handled behind closed doors. I’ve heard threats. Lynch has issued enough, but I’ve never seen him lay a finger on anyone. His growl seems to be enough to keep people in line.

  “You better hope
that changes, and fucking quickly.” He shoves a cell phone into the front pocket of my jeans. “Contact me with that when you have something I can use.”

  The lights flip back off, and he shoves me back out the bathroom door.

  Smalls is still standing guard at the end of the short hallway. I don’t look back. I know my father will wait to leave until the coast is clear. Smalls follows me into the store where we find Molly paying at the counter.

  “That was fast,” I say hoping she can’t hear the tremble in my voice.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks the second she turns away from the counter and sees my face.

  So much for trying to fool her.

  “Nothing,” I mutter.

  “My brother should be shot for making you feel this way.”

  Her arm swings around my shoulder as she guides me out of the mall. Smalls goes ahead of us to open the back doors on the SUV, and somehow, I drop the cell phone, kicking it under the vehicle, without either one of them noticing.

  Chapter 31

  Lynch

  “Want to explain what the fuck happened back there?”

  “Want to give me a little fucking privacy?” I counter.

  Briar stands in the hotel bathroom doorway, refusing to leave, even after I begin stripping out of my clothes.

  “I expect that kind of shit from TJ,” he growls.

  I ignore him, more focused on the blood swirling in the sink as I wash my hands and forearms.

  “Lynch!”

  “I’ve killed dozens of men before,” I remind him, emotionless.

  “You’ve hung dozens of men. Gutting them isn’t the same as leaving them swinging at the end of a rope,” he clarifies. “That was a fucking massacre.”

  My eyes meet his in the mirror. “Was there one single innocent man in that room tonight? One who didn’t have a part in betraying the club?”