Page 44 of Slayin Villain
“I didn’t plan this, Rome.”
“But you are planning to keep it?”he snapped.
“I don’t know,” I said.“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
His voice dropped.“Well, you better figure it out real quick, Em.Because if that baby’s mine, we’re done with this game.”
I folded my arms.“What game?”
He stepped closer, his voice a razor.“You playing house with Villain like he ain’t gonna toss you aside the second it gets hard.”
“He hasn’t tossed me yet.”
Rome snorted.“He will.And you know it.I’m the one who’s been there.I’m the one who’s…”
“You’re the one who disappeared!”I screamed.“You treated me like a backup.Don’t come in here acting like you were ever all in!”
He went quiet.Just breathing.Eyes locked on mine.
Then he said, “If it’s mine, we leave.No more club.No more Villain.We go somewhere else, start fresh.You and me.”
I stared at him.My chest ached.
“Say something,” he demanded.
“I don’t know who I’m running from anymore,” I whispered.“You?Him?Or maybe just myself.”
Rome cursed and stalked out the way he came, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the walls.
I stood there, hollow.
Maybe I was Property of Chaos now.
Because this mess?
It was all mine.
Chapter 18
Villain
The patch-over had gone down like a damn fireworks show in hell, loud, dirty, and unforgettable.
We were the Bastard Sons MC now.No more Royal Bastards MC.We had torched the old cuts and branded in the new.Hell, my back stung with fresh ink that tried to erase the old patch.The club was reborn under Kingpin’s rule, and I’d helped midwife that bloody birth with a pen, a pipe wrench, and more patience than I thought I had left.
But peace never lasted long in our world.
We were barely forty some odd hours into our new cut when the mother charter from New Orleans came gunning for us.The ones who said we were traitors for splitting off.Who didn’t like that Kingpin was calling shots without checking in.
Didn’t like me, either.Probably because I was the one who rewrote the damn bylaws.
They hit the compound just after sundown.Flashbangs.Pipe bombs.ARs rattling like a death drum.
I’d just stepped outside the casino, cigarette between my lips, my shitkickers chomping the ground.The air still stank of fair food and fire pit smoke from the party a couple of nights before.
And then came the sound I’d never mistake, gunfire.Too close.Too fast.
“DOWN!”I roared, yanking a sweetbutt by the waist and diving behind a steel barrel.
