Page 30 of Damron (Bloody Scythes MC #1)
Chapter sixteen
Carly and Damron
I cleared my throat, mostly for effect. The room stilled. My fingers found the edge of the podium and locked on, bone white, nails perfect and fake but sturdy as hell. The statement was prepared, every word weighed and rehearsed. I read it like a benediction:
“Thank you all for coming. In light of the recent events surrounding my home and campaign, I want to address concerns directly and without equivocation. While I appreciate the assistance provided during a time of personal danger, I want to make it clear that I do not condone or support any illegal activities—by anyone, under any circumstances.” The silence after was thick enough to drown in.
I could feel the cameras zooming, drinking in the blush of new bruises barely hidden with makeup, the practiced smile stretched a millimeter too tight.
“Senator, is it true you were taken hostage by the Bloody Scythes?” a woman in the second row blurted, because there’s always one who’d rather be first than right.
“Reports of a hostage situation have been greatly exaggerated,” I said, keeping my tone light. “I was under protective watch. The MC members in question acted in accordance with their own protocols, not mine.”
Someone else, male, nasal: “Do you have any comment on your ex-husband’s involvement in the incident?”
I held the gaze of every camera in the room. “My ex-husband’s actions were his own. I am not responsible for the choices of private citizens, even those with whom I share a complicated history.”
“Complicated?” This from the back, where the opposing views liked to lurk. “Can you clarify your relationship with Mr. St. James?”
The question hung, and for half a second I saw the night before—Damron’s hand on my back, blood on both our shirts, his eyes flat with the kind of loyalty you don’t get in this business.
“We are divorced,” I said, a touch more acid than planned.
“He is the president of a motorcycle club. I am a sitting Senator. If there were overlap between those roles, you can be sure my opponent would have found it by now.”
The crowd tittered. My campaign manager’s shoulders dropped an inch.
I ran through the rest of the statement, dodging landmines about “gang influence” and “the security breach” and “the public’s right to know.
” Each answer was a handshake wrapped in barbed wire—just enough truth to pass the sniff test, just enough artifice to keep my throat unslit by morning.
When the official Q&A wound down, the real feeding frenzy began.
They mobbed the podium, throwing questions like axes:
“Senator, will you comment on reports of physical intimacy with Damron St. James at the hospital?”
“Senator, is it true you personally authorized a retaliatory strike against the Dire Straits MC?”
“Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Bloody Scythes?”
I just smiled, let the flashes wash over me.
“I’ll address any further questions through my official press office,” I said, which was code for “kiss my ass and wait for tomorrow’s news cycle.
” I turned on my heel, the way they’d trained me—never let them see the limp, never show your back, always leave the room thinking you’re the last one standing.
Backstage, Marcy the campaign manager was waiting with a Diet Coke and a fistful of polling data, both of which she tried to force into my hands.
“That was… good,” she said, scanning my face for cracks.
“Could’ve used more compassion, but the numbers on law and order are through the roof. ”
I shrugged. “I don’t do compassion. Not on cue.”
“You need to at least pretend,” she whispered, then glanced at my hands. “Jesus, loosen your grip, you’re cutting off circulation.”
I looked down. The knuckles were white as bone meal. My left ring finger—where the wedding band used to live—was red and raw from tapping the underside of the podium. I flexed my hand, tried to feel the blood return.
“Want me to run interference with the donor calls?” Marcy said, softening her tone as she pressed the soda into my palm.
“No. Let ‘em sweat,” I replied, twisting the can until the pop tab snapped loose. I drained half in one go, feeling it fizz against the edge of my fractured ribs. “They’ll either get over it, or they’ll cut a check to the other guy.”
Marcy nodded, then eyed the corridor where a swarm of interns hovered, ready to scrub the space of any physical evidence I’d ever been there. “Next up is the channel seven sit-down,” she said. “You have forty-three minutes to eat, change, and practice your talking points.”
“Forty-three,” I echoed. “Not forty-four?”
She almost smiled. “You’re better on an empty stomach anyway.”
I grinned. “My secret weapon.”
She faded out, already on her phone, spinning my performance for the party chair and the comms director and probably her own mother.
I stood alone for a moment, staring at the sickly green of the break room walls, at the lineup of campaign posters and the one battered American flag they wheeled out for every holiday.
The painkillers were wearing off. I reached for the bottle in my blazer pocket, thumbed out a pill, dry-swallowed.
I looked down at my hands again. They still shook, but not from fear.
Not anymore. On the other side of the glass, the press lingered, waiting for the next slip, the next fuckup, the next moment of weakness.
I watched them watch me, the way a zookeeper might watch a tiger behind bars.
I wondered who was really locked in with whom. The thought made me laugh, sharp and bright and real, for the first time in months. Then I put my mask back on, straightened my blazer, and walked into the next round, ready to fight like hell to keep from bleeding out in front of the cameras.
Damron
Pain is just another flavor, once you get used to it.
Mine was bourbon, Advil, and whatever back-alley shit Augustine jammed into the IV after the doctors kicked me loose from the hospital.
The second I could walk, I limped straight to the clubhouse and let the real medicine take over: smoke, sweat, and the half-choked laughter of men who’d seen you bleed and decided you were still worth following.
I lay shirtless on the patchy futon in the back room, bandages crisscrossing my torso like someone had tried to gift-wrap a side of beef.
Every time I moved, blood seeped through the gauze, but the hospital said that was normal.
“Pink is good, red is bad,” they’d said, as if colors mattered when you’d been stitched together with dental floss and spite.
The IV bag dangled off a bent curtain rod, dripping slow as an old faucet.
The nightstand was a shrine to medical neglect—unmarked pill bottles, half a roll of duct tape, and a hunting knife caked in dried blood that was probably mine.
I ignored all of it, eyes glued to the phone.
News coverage cycled in a hateful loop: Carly at the podium, voice calm, eyes flat, saying exactly what I knew she’d say.
“While I appreciate the assistance provided during a time of personal danger, I want to make it clear that I do not condone or support any illegal activities—by anyone, under any circumstances.” The headline under her face read: “St. James Ex-Husband Linked to Biker Gang Violence.”
Every time she said “my ex-husband,” my jaw ticked harder, until I thought I might crack a tooth.
The door creaked open. Nitro sidled in, arms full of fresh bandages and a bottle of something brown. He looked me over and smirked. “You look like a busted pinata, boss.”
I grunted, then tried to sit up. Mistake. The pain flared, white-hot, and I nearly bit through my tongue.
“Easy, tiger.” Nitro set the bottle on the nightstand, uncapped it, and handed it to me. “Drink before you bleed out.”
I took a swig. The whiskey burned like justice. “You catch the show?” I said, nodding at the phone.
“Yeah,” he said, voice a little too smooth. “Our girl’s a real tap dancer. You shoulda run for governor, Damron. You got a better poker face.”
I snorted. “Fucking politicians. Always covering their own asses first.” I tossed the phone onto the bed. “How bad’s the fallout?”
“Not great.” He stripped off his cut and rolled up his sleeves, prepping the bandages. “Clubhouse is on lockdown. Police cruisers circling every twenty minutes. But the Dire Straits are even more pissed. We picked up chatter—they want you dead yesterday.”
I watched him unwrap the medical tape. Nitro was careful, methodical, the way only a man who’d once diffused roadside bombs for fun could be. He peeled away the old dressing, whistled low. “That’s a pretty one.”
“You should see the other guy,” I said, but the laugh died halfway up my throat. “What’s the body count?”
“Three confirmed. Two in the wind, but they’re leaking from at least two holes each.” He dabbed something cold on the wound. “Augustine’s rounding up prospects, but half of them are ghosts already. Cops are hitting everyone who ever wore our colors.”
I winced as he tightened the bandage. “Let ‘em. Only the strong stick around.”
Nitro looked up. “You really mean that?”
“Always have,” I said, then bit down as he jerked the tape tight. “It’s the only way we outlast these fuckers.”
He finished, then handed me the pill bottle. I popped two, chewed, swallowed them dry.
“So what’s the plan?” he asked, sitting back in the busted office chair.
I gestured at the wall, where a map of New Mexico was riddled with colored pins. Most of them marked Dire Straits territory, but a few red dots crept closer every day. “We’re losing ground. And with Ghost out of the picture, they’re gonna get sloppy. That’s when we hit back.”
The phone buzzed. Nitro glanced at the screen. “It’s her again.”
I ignored it. Instead, I stared at the map, eyes tracing the roads between here and Santa Fe. “What’s the word on the warehouse job?”