Page 36 of Brandishing Balance (Devil’s Psychos MC #3)

Jason

“ A lright Luke, I need you to listen to your mom while we’re here today. It’s important,” I told Luke as I pulled into the parking lot of the clubhouse. It was early still, just after four p.m.; the clubhouse was mostly quiet, but things would pick up as more brothers got off work and headed over.

Church was scheduled for six that night and we needed to be ready. It was going to be a rough session, and we needed to have our ducks in a row in case shit went sideways.

“Ok,” Luke agreed.

As we all climbed out of Marcos’s truck, I caught Maya’s eye. She was staring at the clubhouse with apprehension written on her beautiful face. “Hey,” I murmured, “it’s going to be ok.”

She forced a smile on her face, but didn’t say anything.

We both closed the truck door, and as we walked toward the main entrance, I grabbed her hand and laced her fingers with mine. Shit may still be rocky and up in the air between us, but I would physically make sure she knew I was here for her.

She looked up at me, a confused expression on her face. I didn’t comment, but squeezed her hand and lead the way inside.

Luke was looking around wildly, taking everything in.

It made me pause and take a deeper look around the main bar room, trying to see things from his point of view.

It was still dark and slightly run down, but Marcos was having the Devil’s Chasers clean things daily.

I knew he wanted to paint and update things, but we had also talked about moving the clubhouse out of the downtown area.

“This place is so cool!” Luke announced as he looked at the art on the walls—the half-naked women that I hadn’t thought about before I brought him.

“Uhh,” Maya said, looking around. Not much had changed since she’d last been here, but the place being almost utterly empty, really put things on display. “Let’s get to the dorms.”

I nodded and quickly led them to a hallway in the back that led to the dorm rooms. Up the stairs and down another hallway till we reached Marcos’s dorm. He recently claimed the president’s dorm room, but it wasn’t all that. It was the only suite though and had the most space.

Nico and I had pulled pieces from our own dorms to furnish the living room area of the suite, and the prospects had painted everything fresh.

We’d moved Marcos’s bed and dressers from his old dorm into the bedroom here, so it at least looked a little put together, despite the man never sleeping here if he didn’t have to.

“Hey guys,” Nico called from behind us as we opened Marcos’s door.

I looked back to see both him and Marcos walking toward us with bags of food and trays of drinks from the diner down the street. “Hey beautiful,” Nico grinned as he greeted Maya.

“Hey Nic,” Maya practically preened and tilted her head to meet his kiss.

“Little Dreamer.” Nico all but growled against her lips.

I rolled my eyes and push further into Marcos’s dorm room.

I don’t need to see that shit, not when my own jealously flared to life.

I never used to be jealous of my brothers’ relationships with her, but since I’m still on the outs with Maya…

I can’t help but feel a bit out of sorts about the whole thing.

Luke followed me into the room and we quickly headed over to the dining area. We managed to set up the living side of the suite with both a living room and dining room in a sense, but really it was a dining room table behind the couch. It fit and it worked, and I doubted Maya would mind.

Eventually they all filed into the room and joined Luke and I at the table. Marcos and Nico set down the bags of food and trays of drinks, and Luke cheered happily. “Yay! I’m starving.”

“This looks awesome guys.” Maya smiled happily as a cheeseburger was set in front of her.

Another pang of jealously hit me. Simple things like this always made Maya happy, and yet I couldn’t seem to be the one to do that.

Resolution settled within me; after we had church and the conversations we needed with other brothers, I was taking my girl home and romancing her in my own way.

I just needed to figure out what that looked like.

“This was Buckley’s room?” Maya asked a while later while we’re all still stuffing our faces. She looked around the room with a curious eye.

“It was,” Marcos answered. “I had it painted and then Jase and Nic helped me furnish it. I haven’t even stayed here yet since it became mine. But there’s a bed and bathroom in the other room.”

Maya frowned but didn’t comment.

“We bought the house, and I gave up my apartment, so I don’t really need this place, except for times like this.” Marcos shrugged.

“I like it, Dad!” Luke grinned.

“Thanks, buddy,” Marcos murmured.

As if sensing that Marcos was a little out of his element, Nico immediately jumped in. “We got you guys hooked up with TV and internet. You can watch movies while we conduct business, and as soon as we’re done, we’ll head home, ok?”

“Ok,” Maya agreed.

“After talking with Maya about things that had happened in the past before she left, and what happened during those ten years she was away,” Marcos addressed the club, “We discovered something we didn’t know back then about Buckley. He was working with Dax Hillcrest, even back then.”

Grunts and cursing went around the table as the group of leather clad bikers grumbled over their old president.

All of them had voted to kill Buckley, and let Johnny Taylor have his revenge, but you never knew who still had hard feelings over things.

It was good to see the group was upset about Buckley and Hillcrest teaming up.

“Maya told me that Buckley was feeding Hillcrest to drive her away. We have reason to believe he was behind Trish coming into the clubhouse that night before Maya left and started the fight with her. Hillcrest has been threatening Maya for the last ten years, because she witnessed him kill the mayor,” I said, drawing all eyes to me.

My father cursed and shook his head. “We heard,” he motioned to Bear beside him, “what Trish said to Maya that night, talking about Dax, how he wanted to make her his plaything. Maya was shook-up really bad. She also told Maya that Hillcrest couldn’t wait to kill the three of you and share her with his crew. ”

Marcos growled.

“She also mentioned,” I pressed on, ignoring Marcos, “that Hillcrest sent her flowers in Chicago as reminders to stay away. And when she finally got the courage to come back here, and started looking at apartments, Buckley had Marcos and I arrested for those bullshit battery charges—from when Buckley told us to go after Davies. He set the whole thing up. Hillcrest informed Buckley that Maya was getting ready to move back, and Buckley sent us after Davies. They organized our arrest at the same time they knew Maya would be in the bank across the street,” I concluded.

“What. The. Fuck?” Axel growled.

I nodded solemnly.

“All this fucking time, that fucking bastard has been working with the snakes?” Axel went on.

“Yes, seems like it,” Nico said.

“I need to know what else you guys know about Buckley’s relationship with Hillcrest. Any side jobs you might have done because your president asked you. I don’t care about the ancient history, I’m looking for clues to anything that might lead us to Hillcrest now,” Marcos ordered.

“I had always wondered why Buckley had killed that girl before you guys got a chance to question her yourselves,” Bear muttered. “It was like he was covering something up.”

“Yeah, his fucking involvement,” I spat.

Grumbles went up around the table.

“He once had me deliver a payment to a house in Dixon. It’s about an hour north of here. It was a mansion in the middle of nowhere,” Phoenix said.

“I’ve done that run before.” Nickle nodded.

“Us, too,” Trick said, motioning between him and Ransom.

“Gonna need that address,” Marcos demanded.

“I’ll text you aft—”

“Get your phone now,” Marcos ordered. There were no phones allowed in church when a meeting was in session, so Trick had to get up and grab his phone from the table outside the door.

While we waited, I thought of all the ways I was going to hurt Hillcrest when we finally got our hands on him. Maya might get the last kill, but we were going to torture the shit out of him first.

“Also,” Marcos said, turning to look at Axel, Phoenix, and Blaze, “We think Maya should be the one to kill Hillcrest in the end.”

The three of them clenched their jaws, Axel especially, but in the end they nodded.

“We’re not going to just kill Hillcrest, we’re going to torture him, and then we’re going to wipe Las Serpientes off the board. I want every last fucking snake six feet under,” Marcos growled.

The room erupted into loud cheers.

Trick texted Marcos the address to the house in Dixon, and Marcos immediately shot it over to Jack Adams.

“The next thing we need to discuss—Kara came over this morning with her guys to tell us that her father, Vince Carmichael, is dead. Hillcrest had him killed in prison,” Marcos said.

“For fucking Christ’s sake,” someone snapped.

I felt the same. As we sat here lining up all the shit that Hillcrest has done over the years, it was fucking bullshit that the man was still alive this long.

“It doesn’t really affect us now, as Kara had already given us the green light to kill Carmichael; but it should have been our kill, not Hillcrest’s,” Marcos continued.

There were rumbles around the room, but no one really had anything else to say.

“Another thing you guys should be aware of is the Ravager Knights. I kinda pissed off Johnny the other day at my sister’s house—his house—and then again with Jason and Nico too,” Marcos admitted.

A couple of the guys chuckled.

“What’d you do?” Nickle asked, smirking.

“It doesn’t matter,” Marcos shook his head. “What matters is we disrespected them in their home and Johnny wants us to answer for it in the ring.”

“What the fuck?” Phoenix grumbled. “I thought things were good between us and the Knights?”

“This isn’t a club thing,” I jumped in. “It’s my fault. I spouted off some shit and Kara got upset; the guys took offense.”

“It’s a brother thing too,” Marcos added. “Johnny and I never addressed the blood status between us, and lately it’s come up when I visit my sister. And if I piss off my sister, Johnny takes offense. I think him and I need this.”

Blaze chuckled. “Yeah, I’d say so.”

Nico laughed and shrugged. “It’ll be ok. We’ll all be standing at the end and if anything, it'll give clubs something fun to root for.”

Fucking Nico, always looking on the bright side things.

“I’m having Kevin’s brother Jack Adams dig into Hillcrest, so if there’s anything more you have, we need to know.

Between the warehouse in Sparland, and now this address, I’m hoping Jack can dig deeper.

Turns out Hillcrest has not only and FBI agent in his pocket but also state Senator Bradley Bolton. ”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” someone muttered.

“Yeah.” Marcos nodded, running his hand over his head. “He’s connected and they’ve buried shit deep. Jack was having a hard time before, but I think he’s getting some solid leads now that he can connect it with the two of them.”

“What do you need from us?” my father asked.

“Keep thinking of anything Buckley might have said or done over the years that might give us a lead. Be ready to go when we go after Las Serpientes when its time. We do need to vote on who kills Hillcrest though. We may think that Maya deserves the kill,” Marcos said, motioning between him, Nico, and I, “but the club still gets a vote.”

“It’s a no brainer, man.” Axel sighed. “Yeah, I wanted that kill for my baby brother, but the hell that Maya lived through…” he trailed off shaking his head. “She deserves that kill.”

“Aye,” coursed around the room as each and every one of our brothers agreed that our woman should get to kill Dax Hillcrest.

It made my heart swell with pride that these ten other men had my woman’s best interest at heart, and they would protect her with their lives.