Page 7

S he could've been a saint. But I touched her, and now she was mine—too stained to save, too perfect to let go.

The mask didn't hide me—it held me back. A mercy for those too fragile to witness what lay beneath. That was what made me useful to Prez: an unleashed thing he could point at enemies like a loaded gun. But he never saw the full extent of what I carried. It writhed just beneath the surface, desperate to leave proof behind. To make them remember what happened when they forget what I was.

The devil's traits without his charm. Unkempt hair, hollow eyes—a face that warned of danger without a sound. A giant's frame, stretched tight, always close to breaking.

I watched my brothers from the shadows, old habits making me memorize every flaw, every vulnerability. The way Tyrant exposed his throat when he laughed. How Sarge's knee betrayed him with every step. My fingers itched, muscle memory tightening like a trigger, but the urges felt hollow now. Everything before her felt like dust.

Oakley.

Her name pounded like war drums in my veins, silencing the fury that never stopped screaming. She was the only one who'd survive if the thing inside me ever got out. The rest, even these men I call brothers, would fall beneath me if they ever threatened her.

Survival was instinct. But living? That was never meant for something like me.

Redemption. Brotherhood. Humanity in scraps they thought they still had.

I never had anything to lose until her.

One shallow inhale, and the chaos in my head hushed. Her stillness was the only leash I'd ever willingly worn, my rage dying before it crested whenever she was near. The silence she brought was addictive—a drug that worked when nothing else could.

She claimed a truth she didn't yet grasp, a darkness beyond her nightmares.

A man not ruled by emotion was one not to be fucked with. But she made me feel things I could only process as control. The urges that rotted into need, the kind I could only understand as compulsion. The need to take every trembling gasp, to own every smile—it was an obsession that made my usual bloodlust feel like foreplay.

Faith's challenge at the gym flashed through my mind. The way Tyrant and Knight had to drag her back, their fear poisoned the air. They knew what I was capable of. If someone deserved death, I didn't discriminate. Man, woman—they all bled the same. But Faith's death would have been just another savage end. Anyone threatening Oakley would learn pain could be endless.

Sitting in church, brothers were waiting for the first excuse to break. The lights buzzed overhead. Then her scent cut through everything else—a faint mix of jasmine and fear. She stood quietly at the edge of my vision, her presence I didn't deserve.

Grim cut in. "We need to make this quick."

Tyrant's smirk vanished. "Ever since Sarge and Joslyn found those blueprints in the trap house, he's been spiraling."

They’d been fucking around at Joslyn’s house when they came across random blueprints her sister’s gang had planted there. The Flock or whatever the fuck their name was.

I could sense Oakley's presence through the walls like a phantom limb—the kind that ached worst in storms. Even her quietest sigh twisted the darkness seething within me, a thousand serpents crawling toward her heat. My thumb traced grooves worn into the handle, synced to the whisper of her breath—steady, mesmerizing.

"Prez looked like he knew what they were. He's hiding something from us," Husk said, his words floating past like meaningless moths drawn to dying light.

Sarge's palms met the table with enough force to make lesser men flinch. Wood splintered beneath his rage, a sound like breaking bones that should have fed the beast gnawing beneath my bones. But his anger was predictable, boring—nothing like the delicate spectrum of Oakley's reactions that I filed like scents I'd never forget, each one stored away where no one else could touch them.

"No shit." The words barely registered through my constant awareness of her. The gentle tapping of her nails against polished wood. The stutter in her throat when voices rose. Each tiny detail fed the obsession. "Douglas knew Dagger and Hollow. No one else should know who they are but us."

Dagger had been dead for years. Hollow missing just as long. Death came quickly in our world—a snapped neck, a severed artery, one wrong glance at the wrong man. More things in this world wanted to kill you than keep you alive. I learned that lesson young, wrote it in scars and broken bones.

"What do you want us to do?" Knight asked from his seat, following Tyrant's lead like a shadow afraid of its own ghost. "Start a mutiny? We can all take him." His eyes searched the room for agreement, finding none. The anticipation hummed beneath my grip, hungry for something that never satisfied me the way tracking Oakley's movements did. Even the promise of bloodshed felt empty compared to documenting each tiny gasp, each shift of apprehension.

"He's the man who fuckin' saved us," Grim reminded them, threat coiling beneath his words like a viper in summer grass. "Show some fuckin' respect. None of us would be alive if it weren't for him."

Prez saved us from the grave—or so they believed. He thought himself a god, manipulating his fallen angels, each of us sworn to protect and die at his word. But I was never an angel. I was the demon he kept leashed, used, and abused as a weapon, simply by pointing at targets whispering lullabies to the grave. The others didn't see it that way. They never saw anything clearly.

The club had always done shady shit, killing and laundering money without hesitation. I couldn't understand their outrage. Their loyalty didn't mean shit to me. As long as it didn't affect Oakley, I wouldn't intervene. Her safety was the only thing I gave a fuck about—the only commandment worth following.

"Yeah?" Tyrant challenged, "He did. But you can't deny he's got somethin' hidden from us. Look past the fact that he's your best friend and father-in-law for a sec."

"My relationship with Nyla has nothing to do with it," Grim defended too quickly, "If Knight pulled this bullshit you'd be torn too."

"Yeah," Tyrant agreed, "But Knight didn't do this. We're not talking about what-if situations. This club pulled all of us out of a dark place. I'll do whatever it fuckin' takes to save it."

His voice hit that note—the one that used to mean torment was coming to me. I inhaled through my nose, steady. That kid was gone. No more fists. No more needles. No more Mother with her sweet voice hiding cruel hands.

No more them.

I'd never be forced into the night again, because the darkness answers to me now. The only light I needed reflected from jade green eyes and quivering smiles. The way her lower lip shook when she was trying to be brave. How her pulse fluttered beneath tempting skin when I stepped too close.

The argument between brothers blended into white noise until the church doors exploded inward. Prez filled the doorway, wearing that smug look I'd seen too many times, long hair skimming his collar. Every flicker of his expression got weighed against the gentleness I'd memorized in Oakley's face. "Well, well. What do we have here? Y'all havin' a meeting without your President? That’s disrespectful, dontcha think?"

They tensed, but I reclined, watching impassively. Only the invisible tether pulling me back kept me from leaving stains they'd never scrub out.

"We wouldn't be if you weren't actin' like such a prick lately," Knight gritted out.

Prez chuckled, leaning against the doorframe, unbothered. "And what did I do to deserve this verbal lashing?"

Grim's hands slammed the table, the sound sharp enough to make Oakley jump in the other room. My fingers tightened on my grip, every muscle yearning to soothe her flinch with destruction. "You're not telling us the truth. How the fuck would Douglas know who Hollow and Dagger are? No one knows about them outside of us." Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.

"And he said your name specifically," Sarge's voice lowered to a growl. Before her, it would have stirred my predatory instincts, but even that paled compared to the stutter beneath her collarbone—a reaction archived in what belonged to me. "If you don't tell us what the fuck is goin' on with you, we know how to make you sing."

Prez tipped his head back and laughed—loud, careless, the kind of sound that dared someone to stop him.

"You think bein' a traitor is fuckin’ funny?" Sarge shot up, his chair crashing to the floor as he lunged forward, all muscle and rage with nowhere to land yet.

Prez held his head high, brave or foolish among killers eager to strike. The room stank of old grudges held back by loyalty. "Power always demands sacrifice."

Tyrant's gaze met Knight's, a brief exchange of disbelief. Sarge's jaw tightened, fingers flexing with barely controlled restraint.

"What happened to you, Prez?" Grim's voice fractured.

Silence. Prez turned sharply toward the door, ignoring the calls of the others as they filed out behind him. Soon only Hex remained, waiting until the door swung shut. He met my eyes, a quiet, wordless understanding passing between us. We stood at the same moment, crossing the empty room and stepping into the main area of the clubhouse.

Victoria rose, that familiar hope painfully clear in her violet eyes—a weakness she'd carried for years, one I never understood until Oakley taught me the cost of wanting. Her footsteps echoed, each step taking her closer to a ruin she refused to see. "Prez?"

He stopped. "I'm done."

Her eyes widened, "What do you mean?"

"This club." He stripped off his cut like shedding dead skin. The cut hit the floor with a weight the room didn't know how to hold. The symbol of brotherhood, discarded like trash.

It wasn't just brotherhood lying there—it was everything Victoria thought she was safe. The last shelter against a world that had never shown her mercy.

"You don't mean this?—"

"I don't fucking love you Victoria." His words cutting through years of devotion. The cords in his neck strained with the truth finally spoken, and I found myself noticing how his indifference cut deeper than my obsession ever could. Mine had always been detached until Oakley made it something else—something focused, possessive, hungry in ways violence could never satisfy. The difference was purpose—I savored every reaction while he simply didn't care. "That'll never change."

Her sharp inhale fractured the air. She looked like she'd cracked in half, her knees buckling as she collapsed to the floor. Her body shook uncontrollably, fingers splayed against the cold concrete as if searching for something to hold onto.

"Dad?" Nyla's broken whisper drew Prez's attention. His expression was one I couldn't read—something about his daughter made his mask crack from the inside out.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart." His tone wasn't one I knew how to use. "No matter what, I'll always love you, yeah?"

Her eyes darted between her father and the discarded cut on the floor, struggling to reconcile the man before her with the father she never knew. The silver chain in her hands trembled violently, catching light in erratic flashes as her fingers shook uncontrollably. A fragile link to a father she no longer recognized.

"I barely—I barely know who you are," she whispered, voice cracking on each syllable.

He pulled his silver chain free, matching the one Nyla clutched like salvation in her trembling hands. Her tears carved paths down pale cheeks, her breathing coming in short, painful gasps. More tears. More proof that humans break too easily.

His boot came down on the cut, it wasn't fabric that broke—it was the last lie she had left. Victoria made a wounded choke, like her throat forgot how to grieve. But I was more interested in the soft catch of breath in her lungs.

Something shifted in her eyes then—a fracture becoming a break. Her hand moved to her boot, pulling out a hidden knife. The switchblade snapped open with a click that silenced the room.

"Victoria—" someone warned, but she was already moving.

She launched herself at the discarded cut on the floor, snatching it up before anyone could stop her. She laughed—wild, unhinged—stabbing leather, shredding memories until nothing remained but madness and torn fabric. Her eyes were wide, tears still streaming down her face.

Victoria's laughter died in hiccupping gasps, shoulders shaking, shredded leather hanging from bloody hands. She looked up at him, a smile stretched across her face that didn't reach her eyes.

The room had gone completely silent. Every face showed the same expression—witnessing a shift beyond repair. Some looked away. Others couldn't. Nyla pressed a hand to her mouth in horror.

Throughout her entire breakdown, Prez had remained perfectly still, his posture rigid and controlled. Not a single muscle in his face had twitched during her display. He watched her with the detached interest of someone observing an insect under glass—almost curious but unaffected.

Everything went still when the laughter stopped. Not a breath, not a twitch—just the weight of what she’d done pressing down on everyone.

Victoria's eyes hardened, pain and fury carved deep into every word. "You're fucking replaceable."

His lips curved slightly, dark eyes trailing her curves. "I already replaced you, baby."

He crouched down, his expression unnervingly calm as he reached out to wipe a tear from her cheek with his thumb, the gesture almost tender. Victoria's breath caught, hope flickering for just a moment before he whispered, "These tears are wasted on someone who never wanted them." He leaned closer, his lips almost brushing her ear, his voice dropping to a whisper meant only for her. "You always knew this would end. Stop pretending it hurts."

If anyone ever spoke to Oakley like that, I wouldn't stop at the cut. I'd peel back their face and let them watch themselves die.

Each word cracked through her like a crowbar to porcelain, shattering whatever remained of Victoria's carefully constructed reality. The switchblade slacked in her grip—the sudden clarity of someone who discovers they've been dead for years and only now notices the decay.

Prez stood walking backward before pausing at the door, offering a mocking salute that made Victoria's fingers whiten around her blade. "Let the hunt begin, boys."

The door slammed. The room turned cold. Oakley's eyes were fixed on the empty space where Prez had stood, not blinking, not breathing. From the corner of my eye, I caught her hands clutching her elbows tighter, her shoulders stiffening with quiet dread.

No one moved. Even the air seemed frozen, punctuated only by Nyla's sobs and the whistle of the wind. I knew the rules—one hour head start before the real fun. More entertaining that way. Watching prey exhaust themselves before the kill, their terror sweetening their blood like wine.

Fascinating how humans clung to delusions, how they wrapped themselves in paper-thin dreams sharp enough to reopen scars.

I was beside her. Jade eyes locked on mine. Those teeth worried her bottom lip—a habit I'd memorized through such repetition I could feel it in my own muscles. My eyes fixed on that softness, drawn to the faint sheen clinging to it. An unfamiliar urge surfaced—the need to taste her fear, to mark the curve of her lower lip with my teeth. These weren't my usual impulses. Something about her transformed even my cruelty, evolved bloodlust into a different kind of hunger.

Her body trembled, but this wasn't the same panic she'd shown in Hell with me. This was something different, something that made my demons purr instead of their constant screaming.

Sometimes I feared she'd leave and take the silence with her, and all that would be left was screaming.

"The hunt?" Her voice shook, drawing me from my observations. She'd caught me watching again, the way I always did—counting breaths, measuring each motion of life. Each ripple of emotion across her face burned into the part of me that watched. Color rose beneath her skin as she tucked hair behind her ear—a mirror of how I'd touched her before, hands that knew how to break things pretending they could soothe. Did she think of me when she made that gesture? The possibility stirred something unfamiliar in my chest, an all-consuming thirst.

I found myself matching her posture, shoulders slightly forward, weight shifted to one side. My breathing had unconsciously synced with hers—the same measured rhythm, inhale for inhale. The revelation didn't disturb me. It felt right that pieces of her were becoming mine in ways even she couldn't see.

"We hunt traitors," I explained, adrenaline surging at the prospect of chasing and maiming. But even that familiar rush felt different now, filtered through my awareness of her. Every urge to hurt, to break, to destroy transformed into something else when she was near—a need to possess, to collect, to own. "We don't stop until there's nothing left to bury."

Her pupils expanded, swallowing the jade until only stillness remained. I wanted to press my fingers to her neck, to feel each tremor of her heart the way I felt each strike reverberate through marrow. "Y-You're going to kill Darrell?"

"Yeah." I lifted the weight in my hand, years of dents and splinters a comfort. Blood dusted from it like it wanted more.

The brothers exchanged glances around me—silent questions with answers none of them wanted to face. Tyrant shifted uncomfortably, fingertips drumming against leather. Knight's gaze dropped to the floor. Each heartbeat in the room seemed synchronized in dread.

Nyla's sobs created an irritating backdrop, the sound grating like gravel in open flesh. I glanced over, noting how she collapsed against Grim, her body jerking with each cry. Their tears meant nothing. How did people function carrying so much inside them?

"Are you sad?" she asked, her soft tone making my fingers twitch against the handle. The way she said it made something twist in my chest, like she was reaching past the demon to touch something that might have once been human.

I studied Nyla's tears like examining an unfamiliar species, trying to understand what Oakley saw in them. Just saltwater, another weakness dribbling down a face, meaningless except for how the sight affected what's mine. Grim cradled his wife as if she might shatter, chin resting protectively on her head as though his body could shield her from her emotions.

"No," I answered, watching how the single syllable made her swallow. Sadness was for people who lost something. I only gained. The concept itself was strange—a language I'd never learned to speak but recognized in others, like watching foreigners converse.

The small movement in her throat was worth more than all the lives I'd ever taken.

Her throat shifted again and the storm beneath my ribs purred. Before her, violence was the only language I knew. Now I saw quieter ways to claim a soul.

The MC life spread death like rot. They all knew the rules when they joined - survival was never guaranteed. Getting attached was suicide. But Oakley... she wasn't an attachment. She was an extension of myself I'd never known was missing. Her fear belongs to me. "Isn't he the one who brought you into the club?"

The question brought me back to a night of rain and blood, but it felt distant now, like examining photographs of someone else's life. "He was." My mind flickered to that day eleven years ago - a feral fifteen-year-old with only a bloodstained instrument and haunted eyes. Prez found something useful in that wraith of a boy. "It was this or prison."

Those eyes watched me, unblinking. Did she know she was the last thread holding my world together?

Victoria stepped closer. Not a threat, but I still didn't want her near. Her voice was scratchy. "Come on, the guys have things to discuss."

"Okay." Oakley rose to leave, and tension coiled sharply inside me - a sensation I couldn't grasp. Watching people writhe in pain used to bring satisfaction, but watching her move did something else entirely. The world slanted around her, every step pulling gravity off-center. She paused, lips parting but no words emerging. Always so afraid of judgment. She didn't understand that the only opinion that mattered was mine, and in my eyes, she was perfect.

"Church. Now." Grim's voice barely registered through the stale air. My eyes tracked Oakley as she followed Victoria, counting the distance between us. The lights flickered overhead, casting shadows that danced across her body. She looked back. Her cheeks flushed that perfect shade of pink I'd come to need. Every sound she made belonged to me.

Cigarette smoke curled in lazy rings as brothers shuffled back into church, the scent of leather and sweat filling the confined space. My fingers traced worn grooves in the weapon's surface, smoothed by years of use. The urge to follow pulled like gravity, a force that could bring me to my knees. Victoria's survival instincts made her an acceptable temporary guardian for Oakley. If that assessment proved incorrect, she'd learn precisely how much suffering a body can truly endure before death. No nonsense like the heartbreak people claimed was real.

The club's business droned in the background like white noise - meaningless compared to calculating how many seconds it would take to reach Oakley if she called out. Grim's grief sounded like static. "We'll vote on new officers once everything calms the fuck down. Start thinking of who you want to lead. We'll make a decision and everyone has to agree. The women too, they're part of this family."

Husk shifted in his chair, leather creaking. "They shouldn't be involved in this bullshit."

"Everything that happened with Nyla and Joslyn proved they are, whether we wanted it or not." Grim's response sent electricity down my spine, pressure building behind my eyes. The voices in my head screamed louder, a symphony of bloodlust silenced only by Oakley's presence.

The veins in my neck twitched at the thought of Oakley being dragged into whatever fuckery Prez had brought on the club. My grip tightened around my weapon. The darkest parts of me coiled beneath the surface, ready to rip apart anything that threatened her with club business.

Metal scraped against wood as Grim took out his knife. The blade caught the light as he stabbed it through Prez's cut, pinning leather to the wall. "Darrell Moore is not our brother anymore. He's our enemy." The sound of fabric tearing mingled with the hum of electricity. "He gave up on our mission, but we're going to finish what he started."

"And what did he start?" Tyrant's voice lacked its usual cadence. Each word carried measurable tension. "A fucking war that should've never been ours."

Grim's attention shifted to the tattered cut pinned against the wall, "It was always going to cross us." His gaze fixed on Sarge. "The Flock's corruption hit our city. It's almost taken away the people we love." The bat heated in my grip as memories of fire and bullets danced through my mind - the night Nyla's body painted church floors, the flames that nearly claimed Joslyn. "That's why the women will be involved in big decisions from here on out. This isn't just club business anymore. It's personal."

If anything like that happened to Oakley, I would dismember every person involved. I'd start with their fingers, one joint at a time, keeping them alive long enough to watch me work. The world would burn, and I'd use their screams as a lullaby to soothe her fears.

"What about Vic?" Tyrant spoke up, "She might damn well lose her shit. Darrell was everythin' to her."

Grim's voice strained, taut as a garrote wire. His large hand rubbed his neck where sweat gathered in the back of his nape. "I know. One thing at a time."

Tyrant nodded, jaw tight. "Where do we go from here?"

Grim's shoulders dropped, resignation settling deep into his posture. "I don't have all the answers. But wherever we go, we're going to go together. We're fuckin' brothers."

"You steppin' up as our leader, then?"

"For now." He pointed at him, conviction hardening his voice. "I want you by my side."

Tyrant's face twisted with something I didn't bother to pay attention to. "You got it… Prez."

Grim dismissed us after that, and I was already moving, drawn to Oakley's trail.

These men and their power games dissolved into insignificance. Only one pull mattered.

Oakley.