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Fury

August 2024, after the meeting at the Gentlemen’s Club,

“It’s late, kid. Go home,” I said, walking by Shame’s office to find Pippen still working diligently on the club’s ghost file mystery, and that’s when it hit me.

It wasn’t Shame’s office anymore.

It was Pippen’s now.

I wasn’t ever going to get used to seeing Pippen in here. To me, the kid would always be the prospect. Technically, he kind of still was, but more. No longer a prospect but not yet a brother. The kid had five years of an internship to complete before he could receive his brand. The funny thing was, I knew the kid would do it. Pippen was a determined bastard. Smart as hell and right now, very fucking valuable to the club, especially since Shame was gone.

“I’ll finish this up then go,” the kid promised, typing something into the computer.

Shaking my head, I walked into the office and took a good look around.

The place looked sterile.

Wiped clean. Minus a small box that sat in the corner.

There was nothing left of Shame.

Nothing to show that my brother was even here.

“What is that?” I asked, pointing to the box.

“Shame’s personal effects. I didn’t know what to do with it, and I didn’t want to throw it away. Was going to give it to Montana or Mercy, hoping they would have an idea.”

Walking over to the box, I opened the lid and frowned when I picked up an old flip phone.

“Thought you said Shame’s personal effects were in here.”

“I did. All I could find was that phone,” the kid replied.

“You mean to tell me that all he had in here was this damn phone?”

“Yeah,” the kid confirmed. “Thought it odd, too. All of you have pictures, personal mementos to show your likes, family, hobbies and interests, but not Shame. When I cleaned out this office, that was all I found.”

Flipping the phone open, I checked the contacts list to find none there. Frowning, I then checked the call log and saw that no one had called. It was odd because I knew that Shame always used his iPhone. Brother had that damn thing attached to his hip.

Why the fuck would he have an old, outdated flip phone?

“You run a diagnostic on this?”

“Yeah. Nothing came up.”

“So, he never used it?”

“Not that I could tell. Those old phones are only good for one thing, Fury.”

“Yeah, burner phones. But that begs the question, why would Shame have a burner phone?”

“I don’t know. You want me to run some more tests?”

Shaking my head, I pocketed the phone and said, “No. By chance, did you find any relatives for Shame? Parents, siblings, a cousin? Did he have any family?”

“Montana told me not to. Just to consolidate his company and absorb it into the club.”

Yeah. I remembered that part.

I understood the club had a lot on its plate, but we could have taken five fucking minutes for Shame. He was our fucking brother, after all.

Saying nothing more, I left Pippen to whatever it was he was doing.

It was late, and I was tired.

After the clusterfuck of a day, all I wanted to do was go home and see my girls.

High-pitched squeals and laughter immediately assaulted my ears as the elevator doors opened and I saw Elizabeth and Andi chasing Bri down the long hallway from Vicious and Lindsey’s penthouse toward mine.

As a sitting board member in the Soulless Sinners Motorcycle Club, Vicious, Linsey’s old man and I took over this entire floor of Davenport Tower, since I was the biological father of Linsey’s nieces. Despite Mercy’s displeasure with the tiny bit of remodeling we asked him to do, the entire floor was now fitted to house six children and three adults.

The enemy grossly outnumbered us, and the adults knew it.

Somehow, through a lot of discussion, compromise, and a little bit of understanding, the three of us had found some semblance of normal in our crazy, unconventional family unit.

Rarely did an absentee father of three little girls and their aunt, the latter married to a man who had his own adopted daughter and recently had twins, come together to make a unique family unit.

We were the quintessential modern-day family, and I loved every fucking thing about it.

“DADDY!” my middle child, Brianna screeched loudly, causing every nerve in my body to shiver, almost like she raked her tiny little nails on a chalkboard.

Plowing into my legs, I grinned when I bent down to pick her up. The second she was in my arms, she stuck her tongue out at her sister Andi and then at Elizabeth, Vicious’ adoptive daughter, the oldest of the children on this floor.

“No fair!” Beth cried, pointing a semi-automatic Nerf gun at me. “No parental interference allowed. Hand over the perp and you won’t get hurt, Uncle Chris.”

Trying hard to hold my laughter, I looked at the young girl, cleared my throat, and asked, “As the attorney for the suspect, I demand to know what crime she is being accused of tonight?”

“She’s a thief!” my oldest, Andi, huffed. “She took my Barbie.”

“Did not!” Bri shot back.

Looking at Brianna, I sighed. “You know it’s not good to lie to your attorney. How can I defend you if I don’t have all the information?”

“I sorry, Daddy,” Bri muttered.

“Now. Did you take Adrianna’s Barbie?”

“I jus’ wanna play with her. She got pretty hair.”

“Brianna, you have your own Barbies.”

“But they have no hair.”

“That’s because you cut it all off. We talked about this, sweetheart. When you stop cutting your dolls’ hair, Aunt Linsey, Uncle Gregory and I will start buying you new ones. Until then, you have to play with the ones you have.”

“I sorry.”

Kissing her chubby cheek, I earnestly added, “I know you are. Now be a good girl and give your sister her doll back, please.”

Placing Brianna on her feet, I said nothing when my dejected little girl marched back into Linsey and Vicious’ penthouse, as if she were heading off to the gallows, followed closely by Elizabeth and Adrianna.

Chuckling, I headed for my penthouse, leaving the front door open and dropping my bag on the floor near the table. Emptying my pockets, I divested myself of keys, phone, and any loose change, which I dumped into a large plastic gallon water jug.

Shortly after we all moved in together, I started collecting change for the girls. Each girl had their own water gallon with their names on it. The second I looked into college for three girls, I damn near had a heart attack. That wasn’t including the cost of raising three girls and all that entailed, like clothes, shoes, unmentionables, plus, future cars, hair and nail appointments, and whatever else their hearts desired.

I needed all the help I could get!

Seeing Shame’s phone, I picked it back up and frowned.

Heading to my bedroom, I shucked off my coat and placed it on the back of a chair, before kicking off my shoes. Walking over to my bed, I sat, looking at the phone in my hand.

The black burner phone was the only thing I had left of one of my best friends. I thought it odd that this little piece of machinery was all Pippen found in Shame’s office. Shame had been a brother in the club for years, and yet, this was the only personal effect he left behind.

I wasn’t buying it.

Flipping the phone open, I brought up the contacts.

Like Pippen had stated, there was nothing in there.

Opening up the call log, it too was devoid of anything. It was like Shame never used the phone. Yet, it was the only thing Pippen found of any significance in his office.

“What do you have there?”

Sighing, I muttered, acknowledging Vicious, “Shame’s burner phone.”

“A burner?” Vicious said, confused, leaning against the doorjamb. “Why would he have a burner?”

“Don’t know.”

“Did Pippen test it?”

“Yeah, but nothing came up.”

“You doing okay with everything going on?”

Shrugging my shoulders, I placed the phone on my bed and rubbed my hands down my face. “No. One of my brothers is dead, and Montana brushed it off like Shame’s death was an inconvenience. To make matters worse, everything that Shame owned has been consolidated into the club. Don’t even know if he had a girlfriend or family out there.”

“His apartment is below ours. Have you gone and looked through his things there?”

“No. Mercy generally does that shit.”

“Well, I know for a fact he hasn’t. Since this shit with Silver and Malice, Mercy’s been practically babysitting Montana. Plus, with Reaper back in the chair, you know as well as I do that Shame’s death is the last thing anyone cares about.”

Looking up at my brother, I whispered, “I care.”

“Well, I’ve got nothing planned at the moment. Linsey’s got the girls corralled with some Disney movie. Why don’t you and I go downstairs and check things out? Maybe we will find something there that puts your mind at rest.”

Nodding, I said nothing as I got to my feet and followed him out of my penthouse. It didn’t take us long before we were standing in front of Shame’s door.

Unlike most floors in Davenport Tower, which catered to the uber rich, the club reserved penthouse suites on the upper floors for its board members. The primary penthouse and the floor below belonged to Montana and Mercy. Two brothers shared the subsequent penthouse floors. Like Vicious and I shared a floor. Malice and Payne, the club’s enforcers, shared the floor above us. The floor below, Shame and Storm shared. Only a few of us lived in Davenport Tower full-time. The rest either stayed at the clubhouse or had homes of their own.

Punching in the code to enter his penthouse and hearing the door unlock, I entered, only to find the place completely barren.

The place looked like no one had lived there before.

Looking around, Vicious and I searched every room, both of us coming up empty-handed.

“I thought he stayed here,” Vicious said, looking around the empty place.

“I did too.”

“What about the clubhouse?”

I shook my head. “No. The only thing there was a bare mattress and an unused dresser. There weren’t even fresh towels in the bathroom.”

“This makes no sense. Shame left the clubhouse every day. If he didn’t live here, just where the hell did he lay his head at night?”

Looking around the barren place, I wondered the exact same thing.