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Chapter Twenty-Seven

Montana

New York City...

“You motherfucking bastard!” she shouted as she followed hot on my heels into the boardroom. “You cannot just leave him there. He is your best friend, Montana. You have to do something!”

I grumbled as I took my seat at the head of the table in the boardroom. The mahogany gleamed under the harsh fluorescent lights, mocking me. I fucking hated this shit, this charade, this gilded cage of lies. But to save Bane, I would do whatever needed to be done. Even if it meant lying straight to the bitch’s face, a woman whose sharp intellect I both admired and feared. Her unwavering gaze could dissect a lie faster than I could construct it. However, this wasn’t just a lie to protect Bane; it was a lie to protect myself. If Meredith discovered the truth—the reckless gamble we’d taken, the desperate measures we’d employed—my life, everything I’d built, would crumble.

I lifted my cup; the warmth did little to soothe the icy dread coiling in my gut. Bane’s fate hung in the balance, a weight pressing down on me, suffocating me. He was my family, bound to me by a loyalty forged in fire, unbreakable.

The truth, however, was a bitter pill: I was failing.

I was failing Bane. I was failing myself, and I was already beginning to feel the sickening sting of regret. The lie forming on my lips felt like a poisonous serpent coiled around my throat,ready to strike. “I am doing something,” I said, my words tasting like betrayal.

“No, you are sitting on your ass as usual.”

Placing my cup on the table, I groaned. “Look, Mere, I don’t know what more you want me to do. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but I no longer have a seat at the table. I don’t have the clout I used to have. I’ve talked with Morpheus, and he’s assured me that Bane will be perfectly fine until the matter is settled.”

“What matter?”

“That’s club business.”

She slammed her hand down on the table and sneered, “You rat bastard! You are going to hang him out to dry!”

“I never said that. All I’m saying is, I’m not taking point on this one.”

“Then who is?”

I leaned back in my chair and grinned. “Guess.”

Falling into a chair, she stared at me and gasped. “No.”

“Yep.” I nodded. “So you can bitch all you want, but my hands are tied. It’s his show now.”

“When did this happen?”

I sneered. “The moment he walked into my motherfucking club.” Which was technically the truth. The second that fucker showed up, my life had never been the same. Because of him, I’d been dragged into a mess not of my making, albeit my dad was the catalyst.

But that wasn’t my fault.

Not my fucking fault I drew the short straw in the parent department. In fact, his was no better; we were both nothing more than twisted reflections of our own dysfunctional upbringing.

Now, did I make mistakes? Sure as shit did, and I owned those... well, most of them. But this whole fucked-up bloodlinemess? I had nothing to do with the initial spark. Except... that wasn’t entirely true, was it? There was a flicker, a tiny ember of knowing, a seed of resentment towards my father that I’d carefully ignored, buried under layers of defiance and self-pity. Had I, in my own rebellious way, unknowingly invited this chaos? The thought coiled in my gut, cold and bitter.

I told myself I was innocent as the driven snow, a victim. But the truth felt slicker, more dangerous. He’d pushed me, forced my hand, but I’d reacted... hadn’t I? I’d seized on the opportunity, used the turmoil to my advantage, however small. And now, faced with the fallout—the looming threat of losing everything—I was considering choices that would make even him blanch. Choices that would violate every shred of my twisted moral compass, choices that would stain my hands even dirtier than they already were.

I wanted to run, to erase it all, to go back to before I ever met him, before the club, before the mess. But I couldn’t. I was trapped, not just by him, but by my own cowardly ambition, my refusal to face the truth. This wasn’t about being innocent anymore. This was about survival, about choosing the lesser of two evils, even if that evil meant betraying everything I thought I stood for. And the worst part? I knew deep down that I’d choose it anyway.

Looking directly at her, I admitted, “I made some poor decisions. Trusted people I shouldn’t have, and now it’s come back to bite me in the ass. I have only one active chapter left, and technically it’s not even my chapter. The rest sided with Happy before that fucker died and have since fucked off. I’m sorry, Mere. I really am. I am trying to hold on to what I have left as best I can, but with this war hanging over our heads, my options are sorely limited.”

“Patch over?”

I nodded. “It’s being considered. Gotta say, I’m not thrilled about it, but it’s an option. Either that or we disband altogether. I’ve got a few brothers in this club who won’t do well on the outside.”

“Malice.”

I nodded again. “Yeah. The man is a world-renowned board-certified child therapist, but he refuses to practice anymore. I don’t see him integrating back into civilian life easily.” Shaking my head, I added, “No. Malice needs a club, and so do Payne and Rage, though they are more level-headed. Fury and Vicious are already at home in California. Storm is refusing to come back until the dust settles, Pippen is married to Sypher, and as for the rest of the brothers, they’ve been spending more and more time at their day jobs. I’m the only one here on a daily basis, trying to hold down the fort, but even I know it’s a losing battle. I’m not as young as I once was, Mere. Tess is due soon, and with York getting ready to start pre-school, my plate is full.”