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Chapter Twenty-Four

Griffin’s Beach Undertaker

“ N o!” Venom snaps. “No fucking way!”

“Venom—”

“Ky, he attacked Marnie!”

Undertaker stares in angry silence at Ky’s proposal. How can the Vice President not understand how important this is?

“He killed my best friend’s sister,” he says, his voice dripping with hatred.

“What if it was Felicity who was attacked?” Venom challenges. “Would you still feel the same way?”

“I’m not saying I wouldn’t want blood, but the truth is, we have a lot of fucking eyes on us right now. I’d have to do what’s best for the club,” Ky says. “I’m not saying you’re wrong in wanting blood, but there’s a time and place for it.”

Clenching his fists, Venom leans so far back in his chair that he risks falling backwards. He’s so angry right now that he probably wouldn’t even feel it.

“You’re letting your VP run the show now?” Undertaker asks as he glares at Colt. “That’s how you’re leading?”

“Hey, fuck you,” Ky says.

“Lex was shot at while saving Marnie,” Colt says, speaking for the first time since the meeting started. “He attacked more than one of our own, and he’s killed someone close to you. I get it, believe me. I do. But Ky’s not wrong. We have to be strategic about this.”

Venom’s eyes widen as he slams the chair back down on all four legs. “Wait, you agree with him?”

“I’m taking a step back to look at the whole picture. We didn’t go and destroy Jamie’s father when he tried to kidnap her because we had enough heat on us with the Ramsey situation. If we go into this, guns blazing, we’re opening up a can of worms we can’t put the lid back on.”

“But—”

“Not to mention that you’re playing right into Travis’s plan if you go out and kill this guy,” Grayson says.

The non-member standing at the back was just a fly on the wall until now. It’s strange having him in Church, but he’s been heavily involved.

Except he’s against me, so he can go fuck off.

“What are you talking about?” Venom asks, his expression changing. Undertaker worries he’s a man alone wanting blood now.

“The GBPD wants us to do this. To take care of this problem for them, and if we go out and kill the asshole Brock and Grayson identified, we play right into their hand,” Colt says. “They think we have an unquenchable need to kill.”

Smirking, Grayson nods. “If Travis and Julian can’t take the credit for solving the murders, they’ll be happy to settle for the problem just disappearing.”

“That’s not a good enough reason to keep this motherfucker alive,” Undertaker growls. As he looks at Venom, he realizes he’s the only one left ready to pop this guy’s head like a pimple.

“What about the other unidentified women?” he counters. “Does your desire for revenge trump their right to be known and mourned?”

Well, you can go fuck all the way off a goddamn cliff, Mr. Logic.

“I get it, trust me,” Grayson continues. “But Travis and Julian won’t go out of their way to find the loved ones of these women, and they’ll forever be Jane Does. Do they deserve to have no one miss them?”

Colt locks eyes with Brock. “We keep him alive. For now.”

The confusion turns into a beaming smile. “Got it, Pres.”

“Got what?” Undertaker asks, looking between the two men. “What the fuck is going on?”

“You heard there’s a new warden in town, right?” Colt asks.

This makes absolutely no sense. “Tony Matthews or something. So?”

“Well, Beckett and I may have helped him get into that position. Moved him up from guard to warden by making sure the position was vacant,” Brock says.

“So, he doesn’t die when we find him. Is that clear?” Colt asks. “We’ll make sure he suffers, but we do this a different way.”

“If he’d killed Marnie, would this be a different conversation?” Undertaker asks.

“It sure as fuck would,” Venom says and looks at Colt.

“So, just people important to the club as a whole get vengeance?”

Resting his elbows on the table, Colt leans forward and locks eyes with Undertaker. “You’re not in a rational state of mind right now, so if you can’t follow these orders, you stay here when we go.”

“Try and keep me away, Pres ,” he says, spitting out the title like a bad tasting candy.

“His is your superior, and he’s giving you a fucking order,” Dean “Gunner” Owens shouts.

The man brought in the Army Five, and subsequently Undertaker, but rumor has it that Gunner hasn’t always agreed with leadership decisions, either. His stance now just serves to piss Undertaker off even more.

“We aren’t in the service now, Owens.”

The three Army Five still in Griffin’s Beach glare at him, and it appears to be a military showdown of sorts. It hits him right then that he’ll have no one on his side. Not a single person. Not even Venom, and he knows he needs to back down if he has any hope of participating in getting this guy.

“Okay, fine. This asshole doesn’t die when we find him.”

“We go tomorrow night. Brock locked down a location, but he’s damn good at covering his tracks. He’ll likely be ready for us, so we need a night to regroup and watch,” Colt says and bangs the gavel.

Undertaker walks out of the Chapel to find Lex sitting at one of the tables. Alone. He storms over and growls, “I thought you were supposed to hang out with Jamie.”

“She wants to be alone.”

“Is everyone in this building fucking useless?” he mutters. “I’m bringing her home.”

To his surprise, Lex stands and runs onto the stairs to block him, standing on a step to make them eye level. “She doesn’t want to go with you. Leave her alone.”

“I don’t give a fuck, so get the hell out of my way.”

Her palm hitting his cheek surprises him more than it stings, and he steps back in shock. “You need to check yourself, big boy. I’m not scared of you, and I promised her that you weren’t going up there to drag her out of here kicking and screaming.”

“That’s my girl!”

“No, I’m not!” Jamie calls out. “Not anymore.”

“Then what the fuck are you still doing in my clubhouse?”

He hadn’t meant to say it, but it came out anyway. Flinching at his own words, he realizes the entire room is not only silent but glaring at him.

Lex’s eyes widen as she smirks. “ Your clubhouse?”

“Stay in your fucking lane, Alexis.”

“Be a fucking man,” she counters. “Don’t forget, Undertaker, I know everything.”

His stomach drops, and he hates that Jamie told her about the rules. He wasn’t upset when Lex first confronted him because she was worried about Jamie, but now it’s going to bite him in the ass.

“You’re big and tough with the club watching three feet away, huh?”

“Outside then,” she says and walks to the door, holding it open. “Ladies first.”

Clenching his fists, he knows he has no other option than do as she says if he doesn’t want to be shot dead by at least five men in this room. He walks outside and says, “You know, you’re acting a little too much like—”

Her fists slapping against his chest repeatedly force him backwards. It doesn’t really hurt, but he’s surprised once again by her outburst of violence.

“You took her virginity, and you didn’t think about how attached she’d become? Then you had those stupid fucked-up rules and dropped your end of the bargain. Are you stupid?”

“Hey!” he shouts, grabbing her wrists to stop her. “You’re only doing this because you know I won’t hit you back.”

“You wanna hit me?” she asks, pulling her arms from his. “Go ahead. You may be as big as a building, but you’re not a speeding SUV. Pretty sure I can handle it.”

“Knock it off. You don’t understand what’s actually going on.”

When she turns, he thinks she’s about to storm inside, but she climbs onto the picnic table instead to be more at his eye level. Just like the stairs.

“I’m the only one here who has any idea how she feels. It hits pretty fucking close to home for me.”

“What are you talking about?”

She sighs and looks over his shoulder into the night sky. “Look, as a girl, your father is generally your first experience with love. Just like a boy and his mother. It sets the stage for what you expect with future partners.”

Annoyed and ready to get inside, he shakes his head. “What are you talking about?”

“My brother hated me with a passion and tormented me growing up, and my father downplayed all of it. To this day, he will die on the hill that I’m overreacting. That teaches a girl what she deserves, and he proved I wasn’t worthy of being cared for.”

“Yeah, and you’re really in such a bad place, aren’t you? Wife of the President with four kids and an entire club doting after you. Yeah, you really have it tough.”

Shaking her fists at her side, she lets out a frustrated cry.

“What is with you men? Are you just born arrogant assholes, or is this something you acquire once you hit the age of thirteen? You don’t know what it took to get me here, but you assume you do.

And then you talk down to me like you know best. Guess what? You fucking don’t.”

Her reaction shocks him. “What am I missing, then?”

“Quick history? I was forced to leave Griffin’s Beach because I almost died , then I came back when my mobster ex-fiancé tried to rape me and put me in the hospital.

He followed me, finally got me, and beat me within an inch of my life.

My father set a standard that made me think I deserved to be treated poorly. ”

Undertaker gapes as his eyes widen. “What?”

“Talk to Jennings and ask him. My reckless and destructive past behavior was actually a cry for help. A… way to get my father to see I was worth more than he thought I was. I’ve been beaten, kidnapped, tortured, and used as an emotional punching bag because I always thought I deserved it. It’s the reason I ended up in therapy.”

“You’re in therapy?”

“Do you have any idea how long it takes to accept that it’s not my fault my father doesn’t love me the way I need to be? VP set the stage for how I see myself and my worth, and it’s not easy to undo all of that thinking.”

The strongest woman he’s ever met just admitted she’s talking to someone outside the club about her issues. “I guess it’s good you’re getting help.”

“That’s why I understand Jamie. She’s spent her entire life feeling like she’s not good enough and doesn’t mean anything. Then you come along, feed her a line that would send most women running, and she thinks she’s found everything she’s ever wanted.”

The rules. It always comes back to the fucking rules. “Lex—”

“You made her feel like she mattered, and then you just dropped her. Just like everyone else in her life has.”

“That’s not what happened.”

Lex levels him with a glare, and he feels a small twinge of fear. “When I asked where your girlfriend was, you didn’t even think about Jamie. Nina was all you had on your mind. Explain to me how you didn’t forget about her.”

“Okay, that—”

“Was a rhetorical question. You’re big and intimidating, so most people don’t call you on your bullshit. But I will. You did exactly what you promised you wouldn’t, and you treated her no better than her father did.”

No hit could hurt more than those words. It pulls all the air from his lungs, and he just stares at her. How does he argue with that?

“The longer you sit here and deny this fact to yourself, the more time you give her to see this isn’t anywhere near what she signed up for. That you’re not the man she believed you were, and you’ll lose her forever.”

“Why do you say that?”

Stepping off the table, she walks towards the door. “Because deep down, we’re still just those little girls begging their daddies to love them. You had a chance to break the cycle like Colt did. Instead, you chose not to be a man.”

“How do I fix this?”

“I’m not certain you can.”

She walks inside, and he stands there. His eyes lock with the door, and he struggles to take in a full breath.

I didn’t mean to push Jamie to the side and forget about her. It was never my intention to make her feel that way.

“Whether I intended to or not, it’s still my fault,” Undertaker mutters.