Page 49 of Brandishing Betrayals (Devil’s Psychos MC #2)

Jason

I couldn’t settle. I was too keyed up. For days since Maya finally told us the truth, and I’d been on edge, waiting for something, anything to happen. I didn’t know what I expected. Marcos had taken control of everything, and Maya hadn’t uttered one complaint—not that I’d heard.

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 for blood 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 for sure—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.

Jason

“Fuuuuck,” I groaned, cradling my shoulder.

The gunshot wound was bleeding profusely and hurt like a motherfucking bitch.

My whole arm hung limp, too painful to fucking move.

The force of the bullet tearing through my upper arm had dropped my ass to the ground, and I was struggling to my knees while still aiming my gun at our enemies.

I fired another round down the alley way, at the group of three guys that we’d followed here tonight. The three fucking Las Serpientes we need to kill. It was fucking stupid that I got shot first.

“Jesus, Stone.” Phoenix groaned and looped my arm over his shoulder and pulled me to my feet.

More gunfire erupted down the alley, aimed at us.

“Fuck!” I shouted as another bullet tore through my calf.

“Move!” Axel shouted.

We had just turned around when the burning in my neck hit. I hissed in pain and dropped my Glock.

“Oh fuck,” Phoenix groaned. “Come on, man.” Phoenix helped me limp to safety, taking cover behind a damn dumpster in the alley.

Phoenix lowered me to the ground and I landed heavily on my ass.

Phoenix immediately prodded at the wound in my neck and sighed heavily.

“Just a graze, but its bleeding like a bitch.” He pulled his bandana off his head and folded it up until it was an inch thick, then he wrapped it tightly around my neck and tied it off, holding pressure on the wound. “Can you breathe, ok?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” I groaned; my voice raspy.

“Good. Stay here.” Phoenix turned away then, and went back to helping his brothers, leaving me propped up against the dumpster.

Annoyed as shit and bleeding out, I reached into my leather jacket and pulled out my cell phone. There was no way I was going to be able to ride out of here, I’d need someone to come get me. So much for being fucking discreet.

I pressed dial on Marcos’s number, listening to the gunshots continue down the alley. “Yo,” Marcos answered on the third ring. “What the fuck?” he demanded, clearly hearing the gunfire.

“Hey, I need a pickup. Probably back up too. I’m hit. Axel, Phoenix, and Blaze are under heavy fire.”

“Where?” Marcos demanded.

I rattled off my last known cross streets then said I’d drop a pin for Marcos to find me. I hung up the phone and immediately dropped the pin in the group chat with Marcos and Nico, knowing both men would come immediately.

My vision swam in an out, probably indicating I was losing too much blood. Things grew quiet in the alley—or I dozed off, I didn’t know which. But the next thing I knew I was being jostled as Marcos and Nico hefted me off the pavement. “You dead, man?” Nico asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Didn’t I just ask you the same question last week?”

“He good?” Axel’s voice broke through the haze that I had fallen into.

“Right as rain,” I said. “You get them?”

“Yeah. Snapped a picture and sent it to Nico to send to his cousin,” Blaze said.

“Awesome. Good work.” I huffed out a breath as Nico and Marcos dragged my sorry ass over to the back of Marcos’s pick-up truck.

“I’ll ride his bike out of here,” Nico said. “Where you taking him?”

“Can’t go to the hospital. And he’ll need round the clock care.” Marcos sighed.

He must have said something else that I missed as they transferred me into the backseat of the truck, because Nico said. “Yeah, I’ll meet you there.”