Page 27 of The Bonds We Break

I put my palm to the wall.

“You okay?” Spark asks. “You’ve gone gray.”

“I’m fucking fine. Listen. Today’s not the day for this conversation.”

Spark folds his arms. “Well, when is the right time? Because you’ve been really fucking distracted the past few weeks.”

Yeah, the past few weeks since I watched a man whom I expected us to kill walk out of the club’s shed alive. I huff a laugh. “We were all distracted. None of us noticed a traitor among us.”

Spark shakes his head. “He might have arrived that way, but Saint found a home with us. He’s at risk. You think the ATF will go easy on him when they realize he switched sides? They’re going to come after him. He’s not safe from us. He’s not safe from them. He’s living in a half-world.”

“What did he have on Cillian to make him get involved?”

“He had details of a rat in Cillian’s organization. Not a name. But a rank and a series of incidents that had led up to him being tagged by the FBI to rat. Cillian was able to put the pieces together.”

I swear to God, my eye starts to fucking twitch in anger. “And what did Cillian do?”

Spark opens his mouth to answer, then closes it again. And I know the reason why.

“He killed the fucker, didn’t he?”

Spark glares at me. We’re eye to eye in height. He has more brawn; I have more fight.

He knows I’m right.

Spark turns to walk back to the bar, then pauses and spins to face me. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you let the club have a choice when you had already decided what you wanted to do?”

I close the gap between us. “Because I assumed we were all of a similar mind about this life. The forces that work against us always get their comeuppance.”

“You didn’t see the state of him when we got back to my house. He paid. Deeply. He’s going to be scarred for the rest of his life.”

Stepping right into Spark’s space, I narrow my eyes. “Yeah, I guess the key words there arerest of his life. He’s lucky he gets to experience that.”

“You aren’t going to let him come back to the club, are you? Even though he has the money to pay what he owes.”

I think about Rae tucked away at the cabin. About the way I’m going to use her to make him suffer. “Oh, I definitely am. I’m going to enjoy getting my pound of flesh.”

Spark shakes his head and steps away. “That’s not the brotherhood I signed up for. It’s not the brotherhood your grandfather and father built. If you’re just going to bring him back to punish the shit out of him, you shouldn’t take the money and let him believe there’s a path back.”

As if I don’t already know I’m lacking compared to Dad. The president title has sat heavy on my shoulders ever since he died.

A palm hits my chest, only it’s Halo’s hand. His other palm hits Spark’s chest. Guess he handed off the baby. “Not sure what the fuck is going on here, but you both need to take a step back and cool off.”

Spark steps back first. I feel a small victory, a flash of dopamine.

“I’ve said my piece, but think on what I said for the sake of the club, Uther.” He walks back toward the bar, and I see Clutch slap him on his shoulder as he walks by.

Spark never calls meUther. AlwaysPrezorKingorboss. It’s rare for him to address me by my real name.

Which, Jesus. Even that. I’m named after a dead king. King Uther Pendragon. A shady motherfucker. I bet Rae has realized the symbolism of that already.

“You okay, Prez?” Halo asks.

I look over at Halo. “You don’t have the kid anymore.”