I wait until I hear her leave before I make quick work of the shower, knowing I don’t have long before church starts. Not that this would be the first time I would’ve turned up smelling of pussy, but in this heat, in a room filled with fifty bikers, that smell amplified by each of us quickly turns rancid.
I wash up and dry off, donning my standard outfit of black jeans, white T-shirt, and my leather cut on top of it. The cut that shows the world that I’m one of the Kings of Carnage presidents.
See, Carnage does things a little differently than most motorcycle clubs. We have shadow members who hold the same position—two, sometimes three people who carry the same title, with the same amount of power.
We learned firsthand how dangerous a loose cannon could be when the last president, Coil, lost his fucking mind.
Oh, he started as part of a duo. As a twin, that had been inevitable.
Flex and Coil joined Carnage as prospects way back when Carnage was still in its infancy. They were a good team and quickly worked their way up from grunts to royalty to eventually taking over the mantle of the presidency. But when Flex was killed by a rival gang six years ago, Coil fought the rule that said he had to take a second president to rule with him. Who were we to argue with how he grieved?
It was the biggest mistake we made. Coil had always been the more unstable of the two presidents, and without Flex to rein him in, he went off the deep end and raped a young girl who was barely on the cusp of becoming a woman.
He broke the number one Carnage rule: no woman or child gets hurt by us, or on our watch. So as VPs, Priest and I did what we had to. I slit that fucker’s throat on the same bed he raped that girl and prospects dumped him in the desert to bleed out.
“It smells like a brothel in here,” Priest comments as he walks through the door wearing his own president patch.
“Hmm… you missed out. Where the fuck did you disappear off to, anyway?” I ask, sliding my feet into my black boots.
“I got a call from Garson’s. They’re letting Saint out early,” he answers, surprising the shit out of me.
“Seriously? How the fuck did he manage that?” I ask incredulously, looking up at the guy who would look like a Viking if it wasn’t for his leather cut.
Saint was doing a stretch for aggravated assault and still had another two years of his sentence to serve, or he did.
“Apparently, he put himself between the warden and a blade. He earned himself sixty-four stitches to his stomach and an early pardon.”
“Is he all right?”
“He’ll live. He’s in the infirmary for the next week. They’re keeping him out of general pop, for now, in case of retaliation. He might have to serve out the rest of his time in solitary confinement but it’s only thirty days, then he’s home free,” Priest explains, following me out of the room.
“So do you want me to step down as pres?” I question as we make our way down to the large room we reserve for church.
“Why the fuck would I want that?” he snaps.
“I stepped up as VP when Saint got sent down, but then everything went down with Coil and I somehow ended up becoming one of the motherfucking presidents. Now with Saint coming home, this patch should be his.”
“Saint might not even want the patch when he comes out. I don’t know where his head is at, and even though I know he stands by what we did, we can’t get away from the fact that Coil was his father, and we killed him. Now, Trick and Axel make good VPs but if you step down from president to VP, could you really see them sharing their old lady with you? According to the rules, that’s what will be expected of you,” he points out with a sly grin. “Just do me a favor and make sure I’m around when you inform them all that you’ll be fucking Tilly from now on.” He smirks, smacking me in the chest.
Fuck that. Their old lady, Tilly, is one of the timider old ladies. She turns white whenever she’s near me. If I so much as looked at her with a scowl, she’d cry. If I make her cry, Trick