be comfortable in his fucking room. Instead of trying, I turn and head back out and into the main room. Flashes of that night break through as I look around. There are still bullet holes in the wall from the ambush. He never repaired them, almost as if the sick fuck wanted to remember what he did to me that night. My eyes move over the walls and finally to the floor. At least he had the decency to clean up the blood that pooled there.
“Still bothers you, huh?” Freak asks, slapping a hand on my shoulder.
“There’s a lot of shit still bothering me about that night. I just can’t believe it was all true, you know?”
“No one could. He tore this place apart that night, made everyone leave. The next week he was partyin’ like it was the best thing in the goddamn world. Psycho lost his shit. He stayed in his room for almost two weeks. Preacher was lost but wouldn’t accept you were gone,” he says. I turn to look at him.
“And you?”
“You’re my best friend, Grave. The four of us have been since we were fuckin’ born. Even tryin’ to think about movin’ on without you tore me the fuck up, brother. You’ve had my back through everything and then you were just gone, man. I wanted answers. I wanted to know who the fuck raided us and pulled the goddamn trigger, but I knew somethin’ was off when Cash didn’t make any calls. We never retaliated. We never got revenge, and that isn’t who we are as Royal Devils.”
“You felt it was off,” I say.
“I knew it was. Somethin’ wasn’t right but I couldn’t figure it out. When I heard Cash talkin’ about the hit on your mom, that was it. I reached out to Mystic in hopes you would too if you were still out there somewhere. I wasn’t ready to accept you were gone, man.” Fuck. Emotions run deep between me, Preacher, Freak, and Psycho. We were the four fucking amigos when we were kids. Preacher was smarter than the rest of us which is why he was voted in as VP over the older guys. Cash knew what he had in him.
“I was lost, Freak. I didn’t know where to turn. I just tried to take it day by day and think, but fuck. Who wants to think their own dad pulled the fuckin’ trigger, yeah?”
“Heard that brother. That had to be hard to come to realize.”
“It was and it wasn’t. I’d always known Cash didn’t want me around, yeah? But to go the lengths he did?”
“That when you found her?” I nod.
“She was beat to fuck, shot in the side. I woke up in that hospital alone and I couldn’t picture doin’ that to her.” Her sniffles pull my attention. I turn around and she leaps into my arms, burying her face in my neck.
“I love you, Grave.”
“I love you, too.”
“This is where it happened?” she asks when she pulls back.
“We didn’t know it was him at the time,” Freak adds.
“Why would you even think it? He was the president. You had no idea what was in his twisted mind,” Silla adds, keeping her body wrapped around mine.
“That’s the thing though. We should have. When he didn’t make a move to find out who did this shit, we should have all realized somethin’ was off.” The anger in Freak’s tone tells me just how much he cares but this isn’t on him.
“You did what you were ordered to do like a good goddamn soldier,” I remind him.
“Yeah, well. That shit still has me fucked up.”
“Don’t let it. You got this. We’ve fuckin’ got this. This is our club now, Freak. We’re gonna make the changes and then move forward.”
“Goddamn right we are,” Preacher adds as he strolls toward us.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
My knee bounces up and down as I sit behind the desk in the office. All his shit. His paperwork, his bullshit lies sit in piles around me. I wish I could burn it all and start fresh, but I can’t. Regardless of what I want to do, this is my role now and I need to get that shit right in my head.
“Can you stop that shit,” Psycho hisses, his eyes wilder than normal today.
“Fuck you. I’m sick of waitin’,” I add.
“Yeah, well you’re fuckin’ with my head, brother.”
“Your head is already fucked,” Preacher reminds him. Psycho flips him off, but I see the ghost of a smile on his face.
“All