Page 19 of Pink Poison (The Butchers MC #1)

Chapter twelve

Graves

My brothers' tension in the clubhouse thickens, choking me with each passing minute of silence.

I know I should step in and break this up as a leader would, but even my position isn't enough to sway me.

Not when Stone knew what he did with Stevie would cost him.

Fucking idiot. After the way he shamed me that night, one would think he wouldn't be such a goddamn hypocrite.

Now, I'm forced to figure out whether he’s not as smart as I thought, or if he is simply willing to pay the price of his actions.

A persistent buzzing from my pocket distracts me from the guys.

Frowning, I pull the device from my pocket to see several texts from an unfamiliar phone number.

Odd. My fingers harshly swipe over the most recent text, revealing a surprisingly clear surveillance photo of the blonde temptress who's responsible for this strife between my family .

What the fuck is she wearing?

As I zoom in on the photograph, my heart fucking stalls. “God fucking damnit!” I lash out, kicking the table in front of me. Another photo emerges, her back turned towards the camera, displaying our patch in 4K.

Adrenaline tingles through my limbs as my heart ricochets against my sternum.

Fucking Kash. Mack may have something to settle with Stone, but it has nothing on my score with Kash.

After all of our excruciating work over the last few years, we finally got in with Atticus Lennon.

All of the lives we lost—the ones we’ve taken, and he throws it all in our faces by claiming her.

I'm going to kill the sonofabitch.

“What happened?” Mack asks.

“Kash,” I grunt. Shaking my arms out, I try to bring back a semblance of feeling in them. “He fucked up.”

He did more than fuck up, but putting that into words right now feels like an impossible fucking task.

“ Fan-fucking-tastic. ”

Mack turns back to Stone, who stands unphased by my outburst. “You and I have something to settle.”

Stone’s arms relax at his side, accepting our VP’s word with a subtle dip of his chin. “We do.”

“You knew she was off limits,” Mack huffs in disbelief. “And you still went after her.”

“I did,” Stone admits. “ Twice .”

God, help me.

I slump down in a chair in an effort to clear my tantrum. If I stay upright, I'm liable to take a shot at him myself. Once was already bad enough, but twice? Fucker has to have a death wish, pulling this shit .

“So that’s where you were after we left the table,” Mack sneers, his words soaked in vitriol. “I should’ve guessed the whore would spread her legs for anyone.”

Flashing a cocky grin, Stone taunts, “Sounds like you only want her to spread her legs for you, man.”

Mack falls for Stone’s obvious bait, hook, line, and sinker. “Stephanie is mine to punish, to torture—to run out of this fucking city. Mine, ” he spits.

Ah, shit.

Our enforcer smiles smugly as he reaches into his pocket, pulling out his cell phone and a tiny pink scrap of fabric before setting both on the table behind him.

“Funny you say that she’s yours when she was screaming my name when she came on my dick, taunted me into taking a picture of my cum leaking from her cunt, and let me take her panties to jerk my dick in later. ”

“You piece of shit,” Mack seethes, clenching his fists.

“Mack,” I interrupt, “You know the rules, man.”

My best friend grits his teeth as his nostrils flare, showing just how much he doesn’t give a shit about the rules. I can’t blame him for wanting to beat down on our brother. Stone hit a nerve that he can’t take back, and from the looks of him, he doesn’t want to.

“It’s cool, Graves.” Stone tilts his head to each side. “Mack knows I’ll swing back if he goes for an extra hit.”

For fuck’s sake.

Closing my eyes, I bow my head into my hands.

Guilt. Anger. Defeat. All three consume me.

Everything is blowing up in my face. We aren’t any closer to finding out what happened to the club five years ago, and now, with Stevie back, old wounds are bleeding out faster than I can cauterize them.

Seeing her again threw gasoline on the torch I've been carrying for her. Knowing that Mack touched her, that Stone has had his dick in her, and most recently is wearing Kash’s goddamn cut—I'm at the end of my rope.

I can’t have her.

I can’t .

Fuck. I want her, though . I want her so goddamn bad that it hurts.

“I’d say I’m sorry,” Mack growls, “but I’m really not, brother.”

A sickening crack slices through the clubhouse as flesh meets bone. I can’t stop the grimace that sweeps over my mouth with Stone’s pained groans, knowing just how hard Mack hits when he’s pissed.

Scrubbing my jaw, I lift my head synchronously with Max’s next hit as his fist extends forward precisely on Stone’s jaw. I can’t pull my eyes away from the altercation— it's like watching an impending trainwreck when Stone's body sways with the impact.

“Mack.” I stand from my chair, torn between intervening and just letting Stone take Mack's ire.

My warning tone falls on deaf ears as Mack lifts his leg, landing a cheap knee shot to Stone's exposed rib cage. Relief puffs from my lungs as Stone recovers quickly, grabbing ahold of Mack’s leg before sending him to the ground.

Stone holds his side while crimson drips from his now crooked nose and busted lip. “Don’t make me hit back, VP ,” he spits.

“Fuck you, Shawn,” Mack groans.

I force my feet towards the duo, summoning every ounce of control I have to stop their bickering before shit really does go too far. “Knock it off, both of you.”

Their eyes snap to mine, both ready to continue stoking the flames of their frustrations.

I can’t say that I blame them. I’m supposed to be their leader, the one person they can count on to fix shit when it goes wrong.

But this ? I don’t know how to fix this .

Not when Max refuses to admit why he hates his stepsister.

Not when I fucked up by pursuing her and then running her out before Max could live out whatever fucked up revenge fantasy he had for her.

Not when Stone has been pulled into her orbit.

And sure as hell not when Kash has all but fucked every single one of us tonight without lube.

“Well fuck,” Kash’s voice quips from the front door. “I didn’t think you guys were going to start without me.”

“We didn’t think you would take your sweet time coming back,” I snap.

“Blondie wanted to go back to Le Papillon—” he starts.

Gritting my teeth, I flick my heated stare in his direction.

His signature smirk sits firmly in place as if he’s the cat who caught the canary.

It fuels my already weak resolve, the resolve that’s barely allowing me to hold my shit together.

“Oh, I already know all about your venture to Lennon’s club, Kash. ”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Mack asks, rolling to his feet.

“Yeah, Kash,” I bite. “What am I talking about?”

Stone’s heavy steps thump across the worn floors as he drags himself to a chair, wiping the blood from his face. “Someone needs to start talking.”

“ Creed happened,” Kash growls. “Stupid fucker didn’t take your agreement seriously with blondie. He sent her some bougie lingerie to the club and wanted her to wear it on stage."

That stupid motherfucker.

I should have known better.

I should have anticipated that someone like Creed Hill wouldn't leave well enough alone—especially where Stevie is concerned.

I'm not a fucking idiot. She is a walking, talking advertisement for sex appeal.

The woman has it in spades, and she uses it to her advantage.

There ain't nothin' wrong with that—that's her God given right, and I'd kill a fucker for challenging that—but someone like Creed Hill will exploit it for his own fucked up fetishes.

It's why I warned him off in the first place .

That, and I was jealous.

Kash snarls, dragging me from my thoughts. "I wasn’t going to let her wear something from him , so I marked her as my property.” He shrugs like it wasn’t the dumbest , most selfish decision he could have made.

Marked. Claimed. Property.

I fucking hate that word from his mouth. It's smug, too smug—leaving behind a bitterness that was surely intended to irritate us.

“You. Did. What?” Max yells, threading his fingers through his hair.

“I don’t know what you’re so mad about,” Kash says calmly, far too calmly for his own good. “I sent multiple valuable messages. One to Creed Hill, another to Lennon—" He points to me and Mack. "And the last to you two dumbasses.”

Flexing my fists, I click my tongue against my teeth. “And what’s our message for?”

“I threw my hat in the ring with Stevie.” He smirks. “She may not like what I did, but there’s no mistaking that she understands the significance behind it.”

Red filters over my vision, cutting off his arrogant words.

He compromised us all, including her with this stunt.

He knows how Mack feels about her, how I felt.

He knew that she was off fucking limits, just like Stone knew.

Betrayal worms its way into my veins, toxic and potent.

If this poison had a color, it would be pink.

Pink. Poison.

It's her .

She is the poison that has infiltrated all of us.

She is our weakness.

She will be my demise.

My brothers' yells morph into a pitched ringing as my body moves forward until I collide with my target.

Gripping my hands around the collar of his cold leather cut, I throw my head forward carelessly.

Pain bursts behind my eyes as my forehead collides with something hard, coaxing a sharp snap from one of us.

“Fuck!” Kash yells.

Hands grapple with my arms, dragging me away from him. “Stupid selfish prick,” I spit. “You’re putting pussy before the club—before your brothers.”

“I’m doing what you refused to do, Prez .” He juts his thumb to his chest. “ I’m protecting her because we all fucking know you won’t.”

His words hit their mark, clearing my mind and taking all of my fight with it.

He’s right. I won’t protect her— I can’t , not when I have to choose between her and my best friend again.

My priorities have been solid the last five years in her absence.

The club. That is the only thing that matters.

My commitment is to my brothers, to the members who look to me for guidance.

He shoulder checks me, forcing me to stumble back. “That’s what I thought," he snorts.

“Kash.” I sigh.

“Let him go,” Mack grunts. “Stone can go check on him.”

I drag my feet to the bar while waving my brothers off.

We all have our wounds to lick tonight—no sense in prolonging the inevitable.

I pull out a bar stool, ignoring the collateral on the floor as it scrapes, knocking around debris from my earlier fit.

Sliding over the seat, I take out my phone from my pocket and set it on the bar top.

It's shit timing, but maybe I should reach out to someone who can dig deeper into everything.

Stop deflecting, Jameson.

“Well, that was a shit show,” Mack says, slamming his weight into the stool next to me.

“How the hell did we get here, brother?” I ask.

“Oh, you know…” he snorts. “Back in high school, two idiots decided to start hanging around a clubhouse since they had nothing better to do. ”

I fight a smile as I shake my head. Leave it to him to find a way to make this entire scenario funny. “We were idiots, weren’t we?”

His hand claps my shoulder with a firm squeeze. “One of us still is.”

“Yeah, man.” I laugh. “You should figure your shit out.”

I expect him to laugh with me or give me more shit, instead I'm met with a sudden silence. A moment passes and another until he drawls, “Is that Stone’s phone?”

Turning, I glance at the table that holds his attention. Sure enough, Stone’s phone sits where he left it. “Looks like it.”

“I’ll go bring it to him.” He slides off the bar stool. “We’ll figure this shit out, Jameson. You’re our leader for a reason.”

“Thanks, Max.” I sigh.

I wait for the sound of his boots scuffing down the hall before turning back to my phone. Thumbing through my contacts, I reach the last name: Unknown.

It’s a risk, but this guy is the best. If anyone can get us information on what happened to the club five years ago, it'll be him.