Sarge: Book 8 in the Vengeance MC series

by Thomas, Natasha

  her body melt into my back and her head nod against my shoulder blades.

  “Okay,” she murmurs, taking a few tentative steps backward before closing and locking the door.

  Again, facing off with Scott wasn't part of the plan, but I can't say I'm sorry for the opportunity. I've wanted to kick this guys’ ass since I found out he was using his hands on my girl and had been doing it for years.

  “Last chance, brother,” I say, ultimately leaving the decision up to him.

  Scott’s eyes bounce between me and the distance to the front door, no doubt trying to work out what it would take to get through me to Em. Squaring my shoulders and

  pushing myself to stand to my full height, I brace for him to make his move.

  Silently assessing me, Scott's frustration and disappointment are immediately apparent when he realizes there's no way in hell I'll let him get to the intended target of his”

  Never did like ultimatums, brother,” he spits out the last word as if it tastes like acid. “Giving them, yeah. Being on the receiving end, not so much.”

  “Then don't make me have to issue them,” I reply, relaxing slightly.

  His shoulders slump in silent defeat, but just when I thought he'd turn on his boot and leave, Scott floors me by

  saying,

  “Knew she didn't love me when I forced her hand and made her marry me, but I thought one-day things would be different. I'm not stupid, I knew I couldn't make her love me, but maybe, with enough time in, she'd come around. I don't much care what you think about me, but I did love her. I do love her.”

  While I've always viewed the connection between Em and me as unbreakable, never to be superseded by anything or anyone, not once had it crossed my mind that Scott could feel that way about her too. I don't know why, though because Em is far from hard to love. But seeing the sadness and loss written all over him, I can see it clearly for the first time. Scott does love his wife. Not in any way that's healthy or would guarantee they'd be together forever, but

  nevertheless, it's still there.

  “Everything we do is supposed to be what's best for the club, what's best for our brothers, but no one tells you what to do when the promise you made to your wife is in direct competition with that,” he sighs heavily. “At first, I thought to hell with it, who cares how much Emily hates me for putting her in this situation, but then she told me she was pregnant, and all that changed. I didn't want the mother of my boy to fucking despise me. I didn't want her wishing I was someone else every time she looked at me. And I sure as fuck didn't want her imagining I was someone else every time I slid inside her. But she did. Every goddamned time. I was never going to be who she wanted, so I made it clear that she could deal with it and build a life with me, or I'd destroy her. I'd take away the only thing she loved more than

  life itself, and make her regret not loving me the way I love her.”

  Just as I'm about to step forward and end his miserable excuse for an existence, Scott throws his hand up to stop me.

  “You're going to want to hear me out. I get that you probably want to avenge her honor or some shit right about now, but I'm going to have to ask you to get a handle on that.”

  “Not sure if that's possible,” I rumble, fisting my hands at my sides.

  Tipping his head to the door behind me, he states,

  “If I were you, I'd try a fuck of a lot harder. You're

  going to have enough to sort through when I tell you this, and burying my body somewhere out in the sticks is time-consuming, so rein it in.”

  Motioning for him to get on with it then, I try and breathe through the anger threatening to overwhelm me.

  “I'm going to have to ask you to keep this to yourself. I haven't talked to Hog about it yet, but I'm not going to. Today, in fact.” He doesn't wait for me to acknowledge him before continuing to say, “I came here today to say goodbye. Not just to Em, but to my boy too. I've got the papers I know Em’s probably in there calling every lawyer in goddamn town trying to sort out, signed and in my saddlebag. I'll leave them with you when I go, and I'd appreciate it if you give them to her when the time's right.”

  “Listen, I get this shit is complicated...”

  “No, you fucking don't,” he grunts, cutting me off. “Look, man, I know I didn't do right by her, and this isn't me giving you permission to step in and give it your best shot when I'm gone, but Em deserves better than I gave her. That woman has a heart of gold and has taken more than her fair share of my shit in the years we've been together.”

  Scott senses his mistake immediately, and rushes on to say,

  “I've got a temper, and I won't deny it. I took it out on Emily more than a few times. I'm not saying that shit's right, it's fucking not, but I've got a problem, Sarge. A problem

  that even Em’s beauty and light couldn't conquer.”

  “Well, how about you tell me what that is and then I'll decide how bad I'm going to make it hurt for what you put her through?” I snarl through gritted teeth.

  Scott looks to his boots, then starts talking. And fuck me, of all the things I thought he'd confess to, this was not it.

  “You know where I came from, who my parents are. We had money when I was growing up, and they've still got plenty now, but for a while there, shit got tight. Dad had gambling debts up to his eyeballs, and he was too pussy-whipped by my mom to tell her she had to slow down on her spending. Mom was used to shopping, spa days, getting her

  nails done and fucking facials every other week, and my old man wanted her to have that. He wanted her to live the way she always had, so he hid that shit from her and kept doing it until he couldn't.” Shaking his head, he chuckles without humor. “When mom found out they were on the verge of bankruptcy she all but lost her fucking mind. Screamed, yelled, threw things, the woman went batshit crazy on his ass until he promised to fix things. My old man was willing to do anything by then to get her to stay, so he did what she asked and fixed it the only way he could; he called me.”

  “He knew I had contacts, so he used me to broker a deal that would let him pay off his debt. Blow, coke, pills, you name it, he promised he'd sell it for these guys. It was the fucking mob, man. My dad made a goddamned deal with the mob in exchange for facials and Botox.”

  “Jesus,” I hiss. "Tell me you’re fucking joking?”

  “I’m not,” Scott groans defeatedly. “But that's not the worst of it, though. My folks never made a secret of hating my choice to join the club. Publically, they supported me, but that shit didn't carry over to privately. They, especially, dad made peace with my position in the club when he saw how it could benefit him, though. His reasoning was that with the kind of people I associated with there was money to be made. And there was. A fuck of a lot of it.”

  “What the hell are you trying to say? You sold fucking blow under Vengeance's banner? You used the clubs’ name to peddle coke all in the name of bailing your useless, waste of fucking space folks out?” I seethe.

  “No, what I'm saying is I sold it all,” he corrects me.

  Faster than Scott expected, my fist lashes out and connects with his jaw. I can't fucking believe it. This asshole jeopardized the club, his brothers, and his family to sell dope and crack to pay off his old man's debts. What the fuck?

  Cradling his jaw in his palm, Scott groans,

  “Shit, Sarge. You hit like a goddamn wrecking ball.”

  “Fuck you, motherfucker. Do you have any idea what this could do to us if the cops find out you've been pushing blow in the clubs' name? Hog's bad enough, what with back rooms at the strip joints, hauling guns across the border, and

  transporting for the cartels. But you? You are out of your goddamn mind if you think the shit you're doing won't amount to blowback. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but one day this clusterfuck is going to lead back to the club, and we're going to lose good men to prison time and orange jumpsuits, you stupid fuck.”

  The thing about Scott is, that for all his stupidity he's not actual
ly an imbecile. Dumb, yes. Impulsive, definitely. But not straight up imbecilic.

  “What'd you think would happen? That I'd feel sorry for you, we'd get a drink and convalesce around the fire pit, singing Kumbayah? There's a reason the club doesn't deal, and it starts and ends with the cartels,” I inform him needlessly.

  Scott knows what we risked, the men we lost, while the club fought to secure the few drug pipelines we have left. They aren't run or fed by Vengeance, but we do own the territory the cartels have to pass through to get where they're going.

  Our alliance with the Vasquez cartel is tentative at best. We struck a deal ten years ago, which secured our ability to profit off providing protection for cartel shipments moving through our territory, but that was based on the proviso Vengeance didn't deal. And not only could we not deal, but we also couldn't align ourselves with the cartel's competitors either. What Scott's done has put everything we've worked to preserve in jeopardy.

  “Fuck, I know that, but what the hell was I supposed to do? Those are my parents, Sarge, my family. I couldn't leave them out there to swing. You know what the mob is like; those bastards are brutal with how they recover their debts,” he tries to reason with me.

  “Yeah,” I nod resolutely. “That's exactly what I fucking expected you to do.”

  Taking in his disheveled appearance, his dilated pupils, and the muscle mass he's lost in recent times, I put two and two together.

  “That's not all of it, though, is it? When did you start product testing the gear you were selling? A year ago? Two? Five?”

  Scott sucks in a deep breath and mutters,

  “Sixteen.”

  And that’s when I lose my goddamned, motherfucking mind!

  CHAPTER NINE

  ~ Sarge ~

  Thermonuclear

  Unbelievable!

  There are no words to describe what Scott just shared. There's no way for me to process them, either.

  After he told me just how much of a colossal fuck up of a human being he is, I proceeded to beat the ever-loving shit out of him, but came up short when he begged me to stop so he could finish his story.

  I won't lie; I thought about denying him for longer than I probably should, but in the end, I let him finish. As far as I was concerned, Scott wouldn't be breathing much longer, let alone talking after Hog found out what he'd done, so it was best to get everything out in the open now.

  Struggling to his knees, Scott crawled the few feet to the bottom step of Em's porch and sagged into the post beside him. I had worked him over to the point I knew I'd broken ribs, and I couldn't find it in me to care.

  Through a labored wheeze, Scott talked, and I listened. He didn't hold back, and when he was done, I think he knew so was his time walking this Earth. A man didn't do what he did to Em, to me, and to Diesel without retribution, and he was no exception.

  “Say something,” he urged at the end. “Tell me what a piece of shit I am, that I don't deserve to breathe the same air she does.”

  I could, and it would be justified, but I wasn't going to let him off that easy.

  “Truth?” I questioned, not caring if he answered me or not. “You're not worth it. Any man who's a real man doesn't live a life causing everyone he loves nothing but pain and heartache. A real man works his fingers to the bone, busts his balls, and breaks his back to see them live and breathe easy.”

  With his head hanging between his splayed knees, Scott nods.

  “I fucked up; I know I did. Starting things with Em, helping my old man out, getting hooked on blow, none of it should have happened. But it did, and there's no going back. I can't change the past, brother, but I can make sure it isn't their future.”

  “Whose; the clubs', Em's, Diesel's? Sounds to me like everyone who's ever met you, you've fucked over. You hung them out there as targets. The mob doesn't take its pound of

  flesh from their dealers; they take it from their kids, wives, brothers, and sisters. And if they don't think you got the message the first time around, they start taking it from your friends, their families, the women you fuck, even the cashier you paid at the goddamn grocery store if they have to.”

  “I know that. You don't have to tell me shit I'm already well-aware of, brother,” he snaps defensively.

  “Do. Not. Call. Me. That. Never that. I am not your brother. Brothers have loyalty, trust, and respect for each other, and by the sounds of it, we've never had any of the above from you,” I point out.

  Taking a deep breath in through my nose, I tell him,

  “I've got two questions, and after you've answered them, I want you to drag your ass off Emmy's porch, get on your bike, and disappear.”

  “Anything,” he replies gratefully.

  I get Scott thinks I'm sparing his life by letting him go, but it's only a matter of time before the mob, Hog, or the cartels catch up with him. And when they do, regardless of which one gets their hands on him first, Scott's going to wish I'd done him the common decency of ending him first.

  “How old was my boy when you knew he was mine?” I demand.

  Finding out Diesel is my son, that he was probably

  conceived the last night Em and I ever spent together, broke my heart. Not because I haven't loved him like he was my own anyway, but because I think back on all the years that I've missed with him. All the things I missed out on teaching him, too.

  I wasn't there when he came into the world, and I wasn't there to rock him to sleep at night. I didn't see him cut his first tooth, say his first word, or take his first steps. I didn't walk him to class on his first day of school or teach him to ride a bike or throw a football. And never, not once, even though it's my right, has he called me dad. Diesel is my son, my blood, the best part of Em and me, and he's been calling another man dad since his mouth could form the word. And that shit stings.

  Scott coughs and spits out a mouthful of blood before answering,

  “Before he was born.”

  “Explain that. And do it thoroughly. Don’t leave anything out,” I demand impatiently, the thin thread of my temper fraying even more dangerously by the second.

  I wanted this conversation over and done with quickly. Especially since there's a woman inside the house behind me that owes me some answers of her own and I intend to

  get them. Tonight.

  “The night I found you in Tampa, I found Em and confronted her. I gave her a choice, but at the same time,

  made her feel like there was only one real option. I promised not to take retribution on you for touching what wasn’t yours. I vowed you’d stay alive if Em promised to come home and marry me. Just for good measure, I lumped her dad in with you. I told her if she came quietly, did as she was told, the truce between our clubs would survive. I made it sound like if she didn’t, war was imminent. She was devastated. Fucking gutted. Em loved you; I saw it in her eyes. It killed her to have to choose me, but I knew once I threatened you and her old man, that she’d come around to my way of thinking.”

  Jesus, what I wouldn't give to kick his teeth down his fucking throat. But I don't. I simply stand there seething and plotting how best to dispose of his body after I carve it into pieces.

  “It wasn't until about three months after I brought her home that she came to me and told me she was pregnant. I knew the kid couldn't be mine because she hadn't so much as let me kiss her since before she left for Tampa.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I interrupt. “I was her first, and I planned on being her last. Thanks for that motherfucker,” I end on a snarl.

  Scott flinches, admitting,

  “As far as I know, you are.”

  What. The. Fuck?

  “Excuse me?” I rasp, having to brace myself against one of the porch uprights to stop my knees from going out from under me.

  With a humorless chuckle, Scott tells me,

  “Part of the deal I had with Em is that she would be my wife in name only. Seriously, do you really think I’d let all those bitches at Hounds and the clubhouse suck my
dick if I had a woman like Emily, ready and waiting for me at home?”

  “Are you trying to tell me, you and Em have never...” I let my sentence trail off, not able to bring myself to finish it.

  “That's exactly what I'm saying,” he confirms. “Not once in fifteen years have I so much as slept in the same bed as my own wife. Tried a few times to change her mind, but that never ended well for me. I'm telling you, that woman is vicious when she wants to be. There were a few times there when I didn’t think my balls would ever recover.”

  If I weren't so shocked, I'd laugh because isn't that the truth.