Page 34 of Pink Poison (The Butchers MC #1)

Chapter twenty-four

Graves

STONE: It's Stevie…

The screen blurs as I read the rest of his text.

I choke on my next breath, the words I never wanted to read in my life stealing my composure.

Le Papillon. Stevie. Drugged. Assaulted.

Creed Hill. Nausea riots in my stomach, coaxing the bitter liquor I've spent the evening drinking to my throat.

My world tilts off its axis and I stumble to stay right side up.

This can't be real. I can't accept it. I can't. If I accept it, that means I am forced to acknowledge how much of a devastating failure I am as a leader.

It means I have to look myself in the mirror, every fucking day for the rest of my miserable life, knowing that the woman that I have felt something for, for the last five years, was hurt because of me—by my lack of action.

I'm going to be sick .

I lean over the trash can, the contents of my stomach releasing before I can blink.

My eyes burn as I attempt to stop the next lurch of bile, but the reprieve is short lived when I gag another round anyway.

Groaning, I spit into the can and pull my ass together.

As shit as a leader as I am, I'm still their President, and that means I don't get the luxury of staying down unless a bullet keeps me there.

Breathing out a harsh breath, I walk out from behind the bar. Before anything, I need to find Mack and tell him… shit. I don't know what the hell I'll tell him, but I'll figure it out when I see him.

April eyes me as she struts up to the bar, her face giving away just how fucked I must look. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Club shit, don't worry about it," I grunt a little too harshly.

Her sculpted brow lifts, silently challenging me to pull that tone with her again.

Scrubbing my face, I do my best to wipe the distress away and replace it with something palatable.

"Sorry—just something that came up. Have you seen Mack? "

She nods. "Yeah, I think I saw him take off to his room."

"Thanks."

Rushing off to the back of the clubhouse, I push past the patch bunnies and prospects who are all two sheets to the wind. Normally, I would knock on doors before entering, but I don't have time for that shit.

"Mack."

I freeze the moment I walk into his room as erotic sounds blare from his phone. There's no mistaking what it is, the sound of wet, aroused pussy being fucked. I'm too scared to fucking breathe when my heart rips from my chest.

Voices —mainly her voice—and the sounds she makes when she’s on the brink of pleasure filter through his speaker.

I'd recognize them anywhere when I spent months coaxing them from her perfect lips.

When I've spent the last handful of years chasing them in my dreams. I may have no right to them now, but neither did the sick fuck who recorded this.

“Mack,” I growl.

His eyes track me slowly, a telltale sign that he’s walking the line between being buzzed and drunk. “What? Never heard porn 'fore?”

“Don’t.” I bark. “Delete that audio— now .”

“Why?” he drawls, giving me his best fuck off face.

He doesn't know. He's drunk, or almost drunk. He doesn't know.

I repeat the mantra, willing my coiled muscles to relax enough until I can trust that I won't throw a hit. Exhaling slowly, I inform him of what he doesn't know, “It’s Stevie.”

“I’m more than aware.” My jaw sets, crushing my teeth between the pressure. His eyes narrow, his addled brain just now taking in the disdain written over my face. “Are you jealous she didn’t send one to you or somethin’?”

“Delete. The. Fucking. Audio.”

He smirks. “Nah, I’m gonna hold onto this.”

All sense of reason snaps in my mind as I throw my fist into his face. I should have turned her ass out of the city the second Stone told me she was back. I should have walked away when I saw her on Hill’s arm at Memento.

I should have protected her.

His delayed reaction time allows me to swing again.

I feel the snap of cartilage before I hear it, and it does absolutely nothing to sway me from wrapping my hand around his throat.

Whatever fucked ass story Mack has created in his head about Stevie is over.

We will no longer be catering to his delusion.

“She. Was. Drugged!” I yell in his face. “Hill raped her, you stupid piece of shit.”

He groans, but I'm not done .

Squeezing his neck, I strip away his ability to speak.

Whatever he has to say right now doesn't matter—it’s time for him to listen.

“I gave her up for you ,” I seethe. “One slip-up almost cost us our entire friendship. I chose you when I was falling for that woman, brother. I wanted her so fucking bad, but I couldn’t do that to you.

” Sloppily, he claws at my hand, but I can’t let go—not until he understands.

“Seeing her again after all these years is killing me, Mack. Knowing that Stone and Kash were willing to go after her, no holds barred, pisses me the fuck off. I’m jealous .

I’m bitter . I should be there protecting her. ”

My chest heaves as I release his neck, knowing damn that this will be Mack’s breaking point. It’s time for him to man the fuck up and see that he is the problem, and has been all along.

He coughs, sputtering the spit that he choked on with his first full breath in a minute. “W-Where is she?”

“Safe with Kash and Stone.”

“We need to—”

I shake my head, cutting him off before he can finish his sentence. “No.”

A noise, a keening , reminiscent of an animal wounded cracks from his throat. It's raw, laced with an unbearable pain that matches his eyes. “Jamie.”

I knew this would break him. How could it not when it broke me?

But this ? This is different. This is the broken pieces of his messed up mind, warring with his heart—his morality.

He has spent far too long in his delusion, in his loathing.

He, somewhere along the way, blurred the lines between love and hate—before he clocked me for being with her the night I dumped her at the bus station.

His feelings for her have been his only constant…and now he's forced to face them in a new light.

It's enough to kill a man—to see his best friend grapple with himself, to hear his soul's deep devastation—to know that he's going to hate himself for every slight spoken, every twisted thought and action he has done to her, because of her.

“She is safe,” I remind him, my voice nothing but a rasp.

His hands clench, then unclench at his sides, repeating the pattern until his forearms bulge. “I want that sick fucker dead. ”

And just like that, my blood is back to boiling. Creed fucking Hill will die, and it will be by our hand, no matter how long it takes.

“Look at me,” I bark. His darkened green eyes meet mine, burning a hole straight through me.

I understand the sentiment. Hell, I share it.

We may be broken, hurting for a life better lived, but we cannot rush into this.

If Hill even has an inkling that we’re after him, we will be taken out faster than we can blink.

And I'm not too proud to admit it. “ We need to be smart about this. We’re no good to the club— to her —if we go in and get ourselves killed,” I explain.

“Fuck that!” He makes a move to walk towards the exit. “I’ll take him out myself.”

Stepping in his path, I box him in where he stands. “We need to do this right, Mack. For her. We owe her that and so much more.”

“How about the fuck do we fix this?” he asks as his chest rattles.

I wish I fucking knew, brother.

“I’ll reach back out to my contact. He said he’d be available all day.”

He bows his head, his shoulders sagging as if all the fight has been siphoned from his soul. “I-I, fuck. Jamie, I can’t—”

“Go take a breather,” I direct. “Do not fucking leave. I’ll take care of this, Max. I’ll fix this.”

I have to. I have to fix this, because there is no alternative.

“Fix it,” he repeats, seemingly on autopilot before leaving his room.

I wait until I hear a door close before swiping my phone out of my pocket. Everything is a blur as muscle memory carries me through the motions of sending an encrypted text. I keep my words short and to the point, asking just one question:

Who is Creed Hill?

Anticipation sits heavy in my gut as I wait for his response. I’ve never been one to pray, but I say a few words to the man upstairs anyway. God knows we'll need all the help we can get for whatever shitstorm is headed our way.

Minutes tick by before my phone buzzes, bringing a smirk to my face.

I guess the guy wasn't lying when he said he'd be available all day. Glancing down at the screen, my smirk is wiped clean off my face. Numbers and letters scatter, corrupting the encryption with my contact. I don’t know dick about this shit, but whatever this is, it can’t be fucking good.

I move to power down the device when a message in red text appears.

firewall://access.denied//

In a blink, my screen goes black, leaving me with more questions than I have time to find answers to.