Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,42
I didn’t want her to see.
And then she glanced down at the phone, opened her mouth, and tore me to pieces.
“ ‘Rabbit is dead,’ ” she read. “ ‘He survived the explosion at the club but made it to the trailer park. Found Pops and messed him up pretty bad trying to find out where you were. Pops held out, didn’t say a word. Asshole put a knife through his hand. Annie and I are at the hospital with him now. Pops is going to be fine. Tough SOB. They arrested the rest of the Skulls. Couple of the cops were circling me and Annie looking for you but with Rabbit dead, they’ve lost interest. Fuck man. You might be dead. I should never have let you leave with Joan. I should have kept you with me. We were finally starting something, right? Finally getting back to something? Jesus. I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s the middle of the night and I’m at a hospital and I miss you. Text if you can. Just let me know you’re alive.’ ”
I had to force myself to swallow the goddamn sandwich. It sat like a lump in my throat. I couldn’t breathe around it.
“You want me to text him? Let him know you’re alive?” she asked, her voice low. Of course she would understand this. The ties that bind are the ones that hurt the most.
I shook my head. “The less he knows the better. Especially if cops are circling.”
Frankly, I thought Zo had a pretty good shot at pinning the bombs on the club. It was smart and Joan was right—those guys had enough priors and history with the cops—they wouldn’t look too hard at anyone else for those bombs.
But I’d stay away from Dylan.
Just in case.
Story of my entire life right there. I’d stay away from Dylan just in case I dragged him down with me. I’d stay away from Dylan just in case he had a shot at a life that could mean something. So he could rise above the cesspool where I lived.
It worked, too; Dylan had a pretty great fucking life right now, which only went to prove that staying away from Dylan was the right thing to do.
“Rabbit’s dead,” she said.
I couldn’t quite figure out what that meant. All I could think about was Pops and Dylan and how Pops got hurt and Dylan could have been hurt. Killed. Because of me. I just kept bringing death to their door. Like some wild dog that wanted to be a pet.
Jesus. This was never going to end.
“Rabbit is dead and the rest of the crew was arrested,” she said. “There’s no one to get revenge on.”
I blinked at her, the words she was saying not sinking in.
“You get that, right?” she said, when it was obvious that I didn’t. When it was obvious that whatever the fuck she was telling me was slipping far away. “They’re all gone.”
“That’s…that’s not true,” I said, clinging to my revenge because that was all I had.
I didn’t have my brother or my father.
Or the shit family I’d created to try and replace them.
My drug deal was in ruins.
I was locked to a goddamn bed.
And now I couldn’t even comfort myself with thoughts of killing Rabbit. Of getting my revenge against those brothers who tried to kill me.
“There are still guys in Jacksonville,” I said.
“You’re going to get revenge against them?”
No. They were prospects and low-level soldiers. I had no beef with those kids. They didn’t know what Rabbit had been planning. Without us there, they’d probably split already.
There was no revenge.
It had been taken from me.
I had nothing. Straight up nothing.
The shaking started in my hands. And then the muscles in my arms started to twitch. My shoulders. My legs were restless and aching.
What was I going to do now?
Maybe now I could change things. I could walk right back into the clubhouse in Jacksonville and be president again. I could build the club back up again but without the poison of Rabbit. Maybe we could go straight. Maybe…maybe the Skulls could be different.
A real brotherhood this time around.
“You don’t have to go back,” she said. “You left once, right? You walked away once. You could do it again.”
I looked down at my hands. My tattoos. The flaming skull on my shoulder. I was covered in the club.
“There’s no walking away,” I told her, because it was the truth. “Not really.”
“Then what happened a month ago. What happened when you were gone?”