by Renee Rocco
“Now, my friend here is going to make it so your jaw stays wired for a while. Think of it as a reminder to keep your fucking mouth shut.”
I shove away from the doorframe with a heavy sigh, outwardly indifferent. What’s going on in my head is another story. The monster smells blood, and it’s banging at the bars. It demands freedom as it claws at my gray matter.
With six months of pain fueling me, I grip Axel by the shirt and haul him to his feet. “We’re going to start this right. Hit me, asshole.”
I need that first punch. But Axel stands there confused and bleedings wounded deer in headlights. Finally, he darts a worried glance to Jester.
“You heard the man, punch him,” Jester says.
Axel shakes his head. “I ain’t hitting you, Wraith.”
I snatch his trembling hand. Curl his fingers in a fist. “Fucking punch me. Give me everything you got. One shot.”
Again, he shakes his head. “You’ll kill me if I do.”
“I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
Axel swallows, his fist hanging in the air. But he eventually works up the balls to draw it back. Then his arm flies forward and his knuckles connect with my jaw. Doesn’t do damage, but it wakes the nerves and twists my lips into an evil grin.
Perfect.
Axel sees the malevolence etched on my face, and he backs away. For every step he takes from me, I take one toward him. And then I’m whaling on him. No. Not on Axel. On the man with me in the cage, because in my mind, I’m back in Gomorrah. Back in the Coliseum. With the crowd cheering all around me. I hammer on my opponent until my arms scream from exhaustion, and my hands are raw. I sweep his legs, and when he hits the mat, I straddle him, pressing my forearm to his chest and deliver a volley of elbows to his face.
I hold him down in a pool of blood as the monster’s maniacal laughter echoes in my skull. Someone grabs my arm to stop me from cracking the bones of my opponent’s face. Is the man dead? Did the bell ring? I tense in anticipation of the cattle prod and the pinch of the needle. Expect the exquisite agony of ket.
None of that happens.
A glance over my shoulder shows me it’s Malice who has my arm.
What the fuck is he doing in Gomorrah?
I look down at the person I have pinned to the mat. Not the mat. A concrete floor. I’m not in Coliseum. This isn’t the octagon. I’m in the old mill, and it’s Axel beneath me whom I’ve beaten nearly to death.
Dosed with adrenaline, I’m shaking as I climb off him. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”
I don’t know who I’m apologizing to. Maybe Axel. Maybe my friends. Maybe myself.
Malice, his expression unreadable, shoves me at Jester. “Get him outside.”
Jester puts an arm around my shoulders. “Come on, bro.”
“The fuck?” I say, dazed as my brain and body catch up to each other.
“You weren’t here, Wraith,” Jester slips his arm from around me and looks all kinds of sick as we step outside. “Was that how it was in that place? That’s what you had to do to survive?”
I wipe my bloody hands on the legs of my jeans. “Yeah. That and worse.”
When we get to his Wrangler, he leans against it and kicks the dirt with the toe of his boot. “I’m sorry, man. I’m so sorry we failed you.”
His apology is a shot to my gut. “What? No. No one failed me. Who the hell would have thought to search for me in Florida? None of us heard of Crane or Gomorrah or his sick fucking gladiator games.” I lean against the truck as a crushing realization crashes down on me. “I can’t fight anymore. No way can I risk getting into the ring after being in that place…after the things I’ve done.”
“You don’t know that.” Since when is Jester diplomatic?
“Nah, man, I do. Look what I just did to Axel.” I know what I’m now capable of, and how Gomorrah got me all sorts of wrong in the head. “I don’t trust myself. The lights. The crowd. All of it. I can’t. It’ll put me back in that cage, and I won’t be able to stop. I’ll end up killing someone.”
For once, Jester’s expression is serious. “What happened, Wraith?”
I heave out a heavy sigh. “I told you most of it. They kept me in a cell and doped me up on ket. Ripped my body apart in ways you can’t even imagine. Sick ways. Shit we wouldn’t do to someone. Fuck.” I fist and unfist my hands, my breathing rough and erratic. I close my eyes and knock the back of my head against the Wrangler. When I reopen my eyes, I focus on the sky to avoid looking at my friend. “I murdered nine innocent men, Jester. Nine.” I hold up my hands and stare at Axel’s blood smeared on them. “Beat on them until they were raw meat. Broke their fucking necks. Who does that?”
“Someone fighting to survive.”
I drag my gaze from my hands to Jester. “What gave me the right to walk out of the cage and not them?”
“No one gave you anything, Wraith,” Jester snaps. “You earned it. If you can’t fight anymore, who gives a shit? You fought because you wanted to, not because you had to. You’re Unholy first, a fighter second. Keep it in perspective, and remember we’re going to kill that sonofabitch. Oh, and you took his wife. Let’s not forget that little piece of nasty.”
“Nah, man, Jamie was never that cunt’s wife. She never even fucked him.”
“Holy shiiit. Are you serious?”
I give a one-shoulder shrug. “It’s complicated, but yeah, Jamie never let that scumbag touch her.”
I purposely leave out the part where she’s a virgin. That part of her story is mine.
“That little minx. I knew I liked her for a reason.”
He can like her all he wants. I’m still pissed as hell at her, and that’s not going away anytime soon. “Yep. She’s a peach.” I pull out my phone. “I have to call Crow.”
Jester looks horrified. “Why?”
I point to the mill. “Because I beat a Berserker within an inch of his life. That’s something our president might need to know.”
He waves his hand through the air. “We can make him go away.”
“We’re not making Axel disappear.”
He throws up his hands. “Kidding. But not really. I love Crow, and I love the Unholy, and I’m loyal as fuck to them, but you’re my brother and I hate to bring up the elephant in the room, but after what you’ve been through, I’m more loyal to you than I am to them.”
“Love you, too, bro, but I have to call Crow.” I tap the contacts icon, and when I get to Crow’s name, I hit that, too.
Our president picks up on the third ring. “What’s wrong?”
I cut right to the chase. “Things went sideways.”
“How sideways?”
“I beat the shit out of Axel.”
“Last I checked, that’s what I pay you to do,” Crow says.
“No, Crow. I really beat the shit out of him.”
There’s a pause. A long pause. Then, “Is Axel breathing?”
I walk back to the mill. Jester tails me, mouthing what’s he saying. I frown and shake my head as I peer inside and see Malice prop up Axel in the chair. He’s bloody, and his face has seen better days, but he’s alive. “Yes, but it’s bad.”
“Define bad.”
Even from this distance, I see he’s, like, for real fucked up.
“More than a broken jaw, but he’s intact for the most part.”
“I see.” Crow never needs to say much because it’s what he doesn’t say that’s important. “I’ll talk to Flint. Axel is a liability. It’s why we were allowed to handle him.”
Jester stays with Malice as I march back to the Wrangler. “If there’s blowback, it’s on me. Jester and Malice stopped me before I killed him.” Crow trusted me to get this job done with my usual precision and professionalism, and I’ll own my mess like a man. “I’m sorry, Crow. It won’t happen again.”
It’s a promise I intent to keep even if it means giving up my rank within the gang.
“As your president, I’m holding you to your oath. But as a fellow Unholy and
a friend, I’m asking you if you’re okay.”
Hell no, I’m not okay.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“No, Wraith, are you good?”
Not even close.
“Other than feeling like balls for dumping this on you, yes, I’m good, Crow. But I’ll be better once Crane is dead.”
“Don’t worry about this. You do your job and finish up there, and I’ll do mine.”
Before I end the call, Malice and Jester emerge from the mill.
“He’ll be hurting for a while, but he’ll live,” Jester announces.
“Put Malice on the phone,” Crow says.
I hand the cell to Malice. “Crow wants you.”
Malice takes the phone. “What’s up?” After a brief pause, he says, “Nah, Wraith’s good.” Another pause. “Jaw’s busted. Nose, too. Missing a few teeth, but we’ve all seen his grill. Wraith did him a favor by knocking some of them out. We’ll dump him on the edge of Berserker territory and head back to Sanctum.” One more pause. “Yeah. Okay.”
Malice ends the call and hands me the phone. I tuck it in the pocket of my jean. “No worries. He’ll live.”
“Thank you,” I say, but it’s not enough because Malice glossed over how I lost it. If he’d been honest, Crow would have benched me—indefinitely. And rightly so.
“I owe you, and not for cleaning up some blood,” Malice says with a shrug.
He doesn’t owe me shit.
We’ve all cleaned up each other’s fuck ups over the years. It’s what we do. In a world gone insane, we’re all we’ve got. It’s how it works when you’re Unholy. But, yes, there was a time when Malice messed up. Bad. He killed someone who didn’t deserve the bullet. No one but me knows about that night because I was the only one him. I helped him make the body disappear. He believes there’s a reckoning coming for him. Tells me he feels it in the air. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but as we head toward Hawley—toward Berserker territory—I wonder if Crane can feel me coming for him.
Feels it in his bones.
Feels it in his fucking soul.
I hope he knows I’m bringing his death with me.
17
Jamie
“Told you she was nice.” Ava’s loud whisper comes complete with a hip bump to Tempest, a stunning brunette who’s carrying an armful of napkin packages across Sanctum’s yard.
I’m trailing them, walking with Sadie, who, along with her husband Rooster, put together this barbecue. I arrived with Wraith, but for some unfathomable reason, he’s been avoiding me since the day we went riding. Nor will he tell me why he came home yesterday covered in someone’s blood. But his sudden mood shift hasn’t stopped him from ending the day with me in his arms. Honestly, I’m tired of asking him what’s wrong only to get evasive answers or hostile silence. When he’s ready to talk, he’ll tell me. Until then, I’ll give him his space to work out whatever crawled up his ass and match his silence with a good dose of my own. Because if there’s one thing I excel at, it’s defense mechanisms.
We’ve been here nearly two hours, and I haven’t seen him since. He dumped me with the women, and he went off with Jester and Malice. I assume he’s tearing over the track behind the clubhouse. I’d check on him, but no. I’m having a wonderful time with Ava and I’m not going to let Wraith’s grumpy attitude ruin my day.
Tempest, a dark haired and seductive beauty, gestures at the bustle of activity all around us. “Whisper a little louder, Ava. I don’t think everyone heard you.” Then to me, she says over her shoulder, “But it’s true. You are nice, Jamie. It’s refreshing to have another drop of estrogen is this pool of testosterone. Once you stop being bitchy, you’ll fit in fine.”
“Tempest.” Sadie swats at her. “Watch your mouth.”
“What? It’s true.” We get to the row of tables, and Tempest drops the napkins. “You seem super cool, but you have to stop getting all stiff and shit every time someone comes over to talk to you. Be chill like you are with us. That’s all I’m saying.”
Wow. How rude of me. Everyone has been warm and welcoming when they could have flipped the script and treated me as an outsider. Or worse, an enemy.
I deposit my bags on the table and unpack their contents. “I hadn’t realized I was standoffish.”
“Standoffish? No, I said bitchy.” Tempest leans in, and her red lips are an inch from my ear. She smells like candy and sin. “People like us, the whole antisocial thing comes naturally. That’s how I was, too, when I first got here. Trust me, J, you can be happy in Mayhem. Real happy. But you gotta do like I did and get the hell out of your own way.”
Before I can respond to her astute remark, Tempest glides off, her impossibly long legs carrying her toward Sadie, who’s at the other end of the tables unloading more bags. She’s tanned to perfection, and her body is showcased in torn jeans and a tight black top decorated with the American flag. There’s something about her that’s as wild and free as Mayhem itself.
Ava told me Tempest works with her at Devil’s Den, but where Ava’s a stripper, Tempest works in the brothel.
There was a pause after she dropped that information like she was waiting for me to get judgy about it. Again, not happening. How someone lives their life is no one’s business but their own. As long as everyone is of legal age, consenting, and no one gets hurt, it’s all good.
Ava sidles up next to me. “Tempest comes on strong, but she means well. Hope you didn’t take offense.”
“I did not,” I assure her. “At least with her, there’s no games. You know exactly where you stand. It’s refreshing.”
Ava slaps her hands over her heart and blows out a loud sigh. “Oh thank God, because she’s my best friend, and now you’re my friend, too, and I’d hate if the three of us can’t be friends together.” She steps back and gives me a once-over. She closes one eye, ogling me critically. “But I should be mad at you because I thought we agreed on the other outfit.”
The pink long-sleeved baby doll dress was a last-minute decision. I kept the black Doc Martens, though. I’m a sucker for all things 1990s, and this outfit screams classic grunge.
“I couldn’t do it. I tried, but…” I shrug. “This felt more me.”
She hooks her arm in mine with a laugh. “Then you be you, girl, because it’s working. You look hot as hell. I wish I would have thought of it. The style works for you. All girlie up top. Badass down below. I love it.”
“You’re insane.”
Ava twirls her finger near her temple and crosses her eyes. “Insane in the membrane.”
I watch Ava saunter off to join Sadie in unpacking about a million more grocery bags. It takes a lot of food to feed this many people, and when I shift my gaze to stare out over the courtyard, a horde of butterflies flutter in my stomach. Men outnumber women by at least four to one. It’s overwhelming and intimidating, but oddly, I’m not afraid because there’s a familial feel to the Sanctum with everyone gathered together to welcome Wraith home.
While we set the tables staged in the center of the massive courtyard, tattooed men with beers in one hand and tongs in the other command the cooking area. If it has a flame, they’ve got it lit—barbecue pit, smokers, grills…you name it.
Thankfully, the weather gave us a perfect autumn afternoon. Low seventies. Sunny. Not a drop of humidity. No threat of rain. A handful of kids play in the dirt, but they’ll be gone, I’m told, once the sun sets and the adult festivities begin. Sanctum’s parties are legendary, and I’m slightly terrified that I’ll be here after dark, in the thick of one.
“Enjoying yourself?” Crow’s rich baritone pulls me out of my thoughts.
I give myself a mental shake and stare up at over six feet of rugged power towering over me. “I am, thank you. I appreciate the invitation.”
“Sanctum is always open to you. Always. You need to understand that there isn’t an Unholy here who wouldn’t give up their life for you because of what you did for Wraith.”
I’m not good at a
ccepting gratitude, and I shrink under the burden of its weight. “Thank you.”
He places his hands on my shoulders, his smile warm even as his eyes remain hard. Ruthless. The eyes of a man who is prepared to do anything to protect Mayhem. “Once we put this…business…behind us, I hope you can finally come home.”
With that, he walks away, leaving me confused by his statement.
Tempest comes up behind me. “What’d the boss say?”
“Not much.”
She snorts. “Crow rarely does.”
And yet he said plenty, I realize. “What’s left to do?”
She hands me a stack of utensils. “Relax and have fun.”
“I’m trying.” I arrange disposable forks on the napkins Tempest laid out.
She follows me, adding a spoon and knife. “If you have to try, there might be something on your mind you need to talk about.”
“Fine,” I concede. “I’m contemplating my options.”
“What sort of options?”
I gaze out over the mountains that scrape the sky in the distance. “If I should stay or if I should leave Mayhem.”
Tempest gapes at me like I’ve gone crazy. “Why the hell would you leave Mayhem?”
“It’s complicated.”
“You got somewhere else you’re fixing to be?”
I can lie and end this conversation, but for some reason I don’t, which goes against my rule of keeping my thoughts to myself. “I do not.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“As I said, it’s complicated.”
There’s an actual possibility once Wraith knows the whole truth, he’ll hate me. If he hates me and I stay in Mayhem, I’ll have a front seat to his life. The town is small enough that I’ll know every time he’s with a woman. I’ll pass his house. See his truck. Run into him in stores. It’ll be my own personal hell.
And what will happen to me? I’ll what? Hook up with an Unholy? No, because they’ll hate me, too. I’ll be a pariah. Ava. Tempest. Sadie. They’ll reject me. I’ll have no one. Nothing.