Page 86 of Brandishing Betrayals

Nico had spent the day with her Monday, taking Luke to camp so he had some alone time with her. I wasn’t sure if I was jealous or not. I was still so angry with her.

Ten years down the drain. All because she chose to listen to threats of some low-life piece of shit, and not come to us in the first place.

Seeing the fear on her face and listening to her sobs had gutted me—ripped my fucking heart out. Her story and the way it lined up with all the facts I knew firsthand… it was obvious that she had finally told us the truth.

The way Maya’s mask had been completely stripped away—I had finally caught a glimpse of the woman I had been in love with—and she was broken. It made my heart hurt.

She hadn’t trusted me enough to come to me to protect her.

I felt like I was drifting aimlessly through time, without a plan or a goal to move forward. How did we ever reconcile things? Did I even want to?

Nico spending the day with her, even going so far as to stay the night, had apparently bothered me more than I thought. I couldn’t go see her, not after what I’d done to her. She already didn’t want to be alone with me. She barely even acknowledged my presence at football practice—not that I blamed her.

That was a different problem for different day.

Today, I needed to do something. I couldn’t sit around anymore and wait. That’s all we’d been fucking doing.

Nico had messaged us Sunday night after his family dinner at the Seratelli home, and gave us the list he’d been given, and told us Leonardo wouldn’t help until the list was finished.

A week had gone by since then, and all of the list was completed—except for the three fucking names that we were all pussy-footing over. Kara was getting antsy, as her father’s trial neared, and what does Nico do? He spends all day at fucking Maya’s house and even spends the night, leaving Marcos and I, and our club to do the dirty work.

Dirty work that involved killing three of Hillcrest’s crew.

How the fuck were we supposed to stay under the radar with Hillcrest, and not draw attention to our plans, if we had to kill three of his men? Thankfully, Sunday night after Nico returned home, Marcos had the sense to call an emergency church session at the clubhouse. Nico had shared what happened with his family and had handed over the list, saying that the club was allowed to help. But the Seratelli’s wouldn’t agree to either a sit-down, or convincing Vince inside, until the list was complete.

Most of our crew had jumped all over the list, fighting over which names to take. Most of the names were known low-lives that had wronged the club at some point or another, so it was no skin off our back to help the Italians.

Except for the three fucking snakes on the list that were a little too fucking close to Hillcrest. Not quite his lieutenants, but the men held long standing positions of power within Hillcrest’s little street gang.

I had to do something.

I left my dorm room at the clubhouse and headed down the hall to the main barroom. I paused in the doorway, looking around. It was a Tuesday night, so it wasn’t all that busy, but I found exactly who I was looking for sitting at a table in the corner: Axel, Phoenix, and Blaze. The three patched members were a tight unit, but didn’t interact too much with Marcos, Nico and I.

They were good guys and had always come in clutch when needed. And they were exactly who I needed right this moment: Axel Jones, Blaze Thomas, and Phoenix Kendrick. The three men were huddled around a table in the corner of the clubhouse, playing cards and smoking cigarettes.

I knew that Axel’s little brother had been killed by Las Serpientes when he was in high school, so the three men had joined the Psychos together around that time. They were out forblood when it came to the snakes, and I would play into that by inviting them along.

I walked over to their table, watching the cards on the table, vaguely wondering game they were playing but also not giving a fuck. “How you guys doing tonight?” I asked.

“Fine,” Axel said, glancing up at me, a bored expression on his face. “What’s up?”

I chuckled softly. Axel was a man of few words, a lone wolf most of the time despite the two guys attached to him. They were a solid unit, rarely seen without the other two. “Need to get out of here, going stir crazy.” I stated. “Was going to go look for trouble on the southside.”

Axel raised an eyebrow at me. He was a bald man with a thick dark beard and heavy brows. He was serious all of the time, and I wasn’t sure if I’ve ever seen the dude smile. His eyes were dark as night and looked like they were staring through you most of the time. With his thick chest and heavily muscled arms, he was a scary motherfucker that even I didn’t want to cross.

“You guys in?” I asked.

Blaze chuckled darkly. His white teeth flashed in the dim light, a perfect fucking smile to along with the model worthy mug shot. He had light brown hair that was slicked up in some faux hawk style shit that the ladies swarmed over. There was something sinister in his icy gray eyes that saw everything. He looked like he should be seated in a board room, not in a dingy corner of a biker clubhouse playing cards. “We’re in.” His voice was as smooth as his face, and I knew he could sweet talk just about anyone into doing what he needed them to.

My eyes jumped to Phoenix, taking in his long black hair and trimmed goatee. The beard was a couple inches long, that he would sometimes braid. His black hair was usually pulled back into a braid with some kind of rope or some shit in it. I thought the man might have been native American, but I didn’t know forsure—he definitely had an olive skin tone. Phoenix was the most easy-going of the three of them. His green eyes usually were crinkled in the corner and his plump lips were pulled wide as he smiled up at me. “We going after—”

“Shh.” I motioned down with my hand, indicating for the man to keep his damn voice down. “Yes.”

“Why aren’t we telling anyone?”

“Because the less that want in, the easier it should be. Hopefully we’re in and out. I’ll meet you out front. Grab your weapons.” I turned and walked away, off to gather my own weapons and gear. I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that we were headed into enemy territory. We needed to finish this—tonight—so Kara could get what she needed, and then Maya could be safe.

Maybe once she was safe, I could figure out my shit regarding her.

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