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“And you!” He barked at me. “Need to sit the fuck down and listen. Now!” We both took our seats.

An awkward silence fell over the room until Vienna decided to stand up and shout “keep my wife's name out yo fuckingmouth!” In his best Will Smith impression. That set me off with a scoffed laugh. Which made Crash smirk and chuckle. That sent Zach off, who infected his sons with his laughs, and before we knew it, we were all laughing at Vienna.

“Right,” Crash said, calming us all down.

“I'm sorry, brother,” Rooster said, standing up and reaching over the table to extend his hand to me.

“Likewise, brother,” I replied, accepting his hand and shaking it firmly.

“Now that we’ve kissed and made up, we need to discuss this without tempers flaring. You might not like what's being said, Dante, but it needs saying all the same. Rooster is indeed an idiot, but for once, he's right. We do need to discuss Rachel. She had no business killing Macbeth. She knew it was club business. But we also don't know the circumstances behind it. She didn't invite him here. She didn't drag him into the house herself. Macbeth was here for a reason, and I wouldn't be surprised if he knew Rachel was on her own.”

“If anyone else had killed a club member, would they get this sort of free pass?” Chicken asked, defending his brother like he always did.

“No, they wouldn’t.” Crash agreed.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my smokes as a way to distract myself.

This wasn’t fucking right. I had never had any sort of input over any of the old ladies here.

None of the other old ladies had ever killed a club member.

That much was true. But Macbeth was on borrowed fucking time. It was ridiculous that we were applying club protocol to him.

“Listen,” Vienna said, his voice firm as he took on his role as peacemaker. “Rachel fucked up. That’s true enough. But we can’t punish her for killing a club member if we’re not willing to give that same member of the club a proper biker funeral. You’re all mentioning the rule book, whilst cherry picking the rules to suit yourself. It doesn’t work like that. Macbeth was either a member, or he was not.”

“If we’re following club protocol, then Macbeth was still a member. His patch had not been removed, and his tattoo had not been blacked out. He wears our mark. He’s still a member.”

“Well…” Vienna said, his head tilting to the side as he sucked in his breath, his lips downturned.

“What?”

“He wasn’t wearing our mark.”

“Excuse me?” Crash blinked.

“None of you have seen the body yet, right? Yeah, Rachel sliced that tattoo straight off. I saw the skin laying on the dining room carpet.”

“She cut his tattoo off his body?” Ant asked with a laugh.

“Clean off. Pretty deeply too. I could see the muscle in his chest underneath it.”

“Shit,” he grinned even further, nodding his head.

Sick bastard. This was right up his street.

“So, he didn’t die a club member. He was not marked. And he was not wearing his leathers. Rachel stripped him naked and laid his clothes on the sofa. He was in black sweats.”

“Which means not a member, no funeral,” I said, directing my statement at the poultry boys.

“Which also means Rachel didn’t kill a club member.”

“Since when did you become a fucking lawyer playing technicalities?” Rooster scoffed.

“Do you have some sort of problem with Rachel?” I scowled at him.

“I have an issue with a brother being sliced open.”

“He also had his fingers chopped off. And she stabbed him in the dick.”

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