Page 18 of Slayin Villain (Royal Bastards MC: Nashville, TN #11)

Villain

The patch-over had gone down like a damn fireworks show in hell, loud, dirty, and unforgettable.

We were the Bastard Sons MC now. No more Royal Bastards MC.

We had torched the old cuts and branded in the new.

Hell, my back stung with fresh ink that tried to erase the old patch.

The club was reborn under Kingpin’s rule, and I’d helped midwife that bloody birth with a pen, a pipe wrench, and more patience than I thought I had left.

But peace never lasted long in our world.

We were barely forty some odd hours into our new cut when the mother charter from New Orleans came gunning for us. The ones who said we were traitors for splitting off. Who didn’t like that Kingpin was calling shots without checking in.

Didn’t like me, either. Probably because I was the one who rewrote the damn bylaws.

They hit the compound just after sundown. Flashbangs. Pipe bombs. ARs rattling like a death drum.

I’d just stepped outside the casino, cigarette between my lips, my shitkickers chomping the ground. The air still stank of fair food and fire pit smoke from the party a couple of nights before.

And then came the sound I’d never mistake, gunfire. Too close. Too fast.

“DOWN!” I roared, yanking a sweetbutt by the waist and diving behind a steel barrel.

The bullet missed Cali’s head by an inch. The scream that came out of her throat could’ve shattered glass.

Then I was up, Selene in my hand, shouting orders over the anarchy. “Lock the damn gates! Get eyes on the snipers!”

Kingpin was out front, no vest on, his gun blazing. The fucker always played cowboy. I saw the glint of a scope, someone was targeting him.

“Fuck!” I screamed.

And then I was running.

Bullets kicked up gravel all around me. A searing line sliced across my ribs as one grazed me. Didn't stop. Couldn’t.

I hit him like a linebacker, knocking him behind a parked Harley seconds before a round slammed into the headlight, shattering it in a rain of chrome and sparks.

“You trying to get yourself killed?!” I growled, holding him down.

“I was about to shoot that bastard!”

“You’re the Prez. Let your dogs handle the slaughter.”

His eyes burned hot, but he nodded.

I stood to return fire, and that’s when I caught one clean, bam, upper chest, just below the collarbone. Pain ripped through me like lightning.

I hit the ground.

I didn’t remember much after that.

Just blood. Sirens. Screaming.

Then… quiet.

Beeping.

Soft, repetitive, infuriating beeping.

I blinked hard at the white ceiling tiles, sterile light casting a cold hue across my vision.

Hospital.

I tried to sit up. Fuck. Mistake. Fire ripped through my shoulder, lighting up every nerve.

“You’re alive,” a voice whispered from my left.

I turned my head.

Rachel sat there, pale and wide-eyed, a styrofoam cup clutched in her hands like a lifeline. Her red hair was messy, her eyes swollen like she’d been crying for hours. She looked like she’d seen a ghost.

“Barely,” I rasped.

“You shouldn’t have made it.” Her voice cracked. “You bled out on the ride.”

“Never been good at following rules.”

She stood abruptly, pacing the room. “You dumb son of a bitch. Why’d you take the hit for Kingpin?”

“Because I’m Sergeant-at-Arms. Because it’s my job.”

“I thought you didn’t care about jobs. Or me.”

I flinched. Not from the wound.

“That’s a fucking lie. I never said I didn’t care. You know how much I care about the club, about you…”

“Sure as hell acted like it.”

Before I could answer, the door opened.

Ember walked in.

Her curls were pulled up, face pale. But her eyes… her eyes locked on mine like they were looking for something only I could give.

She stopped dead when she saw Rachel.

Rachel turned. “Of course.”

Ember’s voice was calm, but tight. “I came to check on him.”

“Join the club.” Rachel grabbed her purse. “I’m leaving.”

“Wait,” I croaked.

Rachel paused, halfway out the door.

My voice was rough, but I forced it out. “You both came.”

Rachel’s lip trembled. “Don’t read too much into it.”

Then she was gone.

Ember stayed frozen for a beat, then slowly approached the bed. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“I’m hard to kill.”

“Not from where I’m standing.” She looked down at my arm, the IV taped to my skin. “Villain… I’m sorry. For everything. I didn’t mean for it to get this far.”

“It always gets this far.”

She reached out and brushed hair from my face, gentle and intimate. “You don’t always have to be the one who bleeds.”

I closed my eyes.

For the first time in a long time, I didn’t have the strength to be him, the cold bastard, the untouchable. I just felt tired. Fractured.

“What happens now?” I asked.

She didn’t answer.

Just sat beside me, curled her hand in mine, and whispered, “We wait.”