Page 28 of Wild Side (Vicious Reapers MC #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

ZADIE

The air in the bar is thick. I’m not sure why I even came down here other than I got tired of watching television.

Goose and the others are all just hanging out.

There is a group playing pool, another small group is playing darts, the older man is sitting at the edge of the bar, and a prospect hands out drinks.

It’s nothing wild and crazy.

It’s still daylight, but there is a charge in the air that I don’t quite understand.

When the door to the bar opens, I expect to see Chase walk through the bright sunlight that shines in from the outside, but it’s another man. It’s Posey’s husband, Ivy, and I remember her telling me he was an attorney.

As if Goose also feels something in the air, I sense him walk up to my side.

He doesn’t say anything. Turning my head, I look up at him, but he’s staring straight ahead at the door.

He doesn’t watch Ivy. No, he’s watching that door.

I open my mouth to say something, to ask him what’s going on, when I hear his breath hitch.

My eyes follow his line of vision, and that’s where I see a police officer walk into the room.

Goose doesn’t say a word. His feet move toward the officer, and I’m so confused by what I see, because I remember my father talking badly about the police all the time, and yet nobody is blinking an eye that a uniformed officer is walking into this building.

I move toward them, can’t stop myself from feeling this draw. I need to know what’s going on. There is no way around it. I have to know what the hell is making me feel this heavy.

“Something happened,” Goose states before the officer can say a single word.

The police officer dips his chin slightly, his eyes flicking from Goose’s to mine, then back to Goose before he speaks. When he does, I have to wonder if he’s part of the club life, just with the way he speaks.

It takes me slightly off guard.

“It’s the store, brother,” he murmurs. “It’s fucking gone.”

“What do you mean it’s fucking gone?” Goose demands.

The officer lifts his head slightly, looking directly into Goose’s eyes. “Blown the fuck up. I was on a call when I heard it over dispatch. I drove by on my way here. Firemen everywhere, fire, the whole fucking thing. The building is gone.”

“What the fuck,” Goose hisses.

The officer clears his throat before he continues. “I don’t know who was there or what was going on, but there were a couple of bikes in the parking lot. One of them was Maverick’s.”

My knees instantly give out from beneath me. I can’t catch my balance as I begin to fall to the floor. Thankfully, Goose senses my ass falling and, with his quick reflexes, reaches out, sliding his arm around my waist and pulling me to his side before I hit the hard ground.

I open my mouth to ask what the hell all of this means when the door opens again, light spills in, and I watch as Chase walks through the door. Unharmed and unburned. I snap my lips closed, then open them again, trying to think of something to say, but nothing comes to mind.

The only thing that comes is the tears. They flow down my cheeks as I attempt to gather myself and stand on my own two feet without the help of Goose’s support. He releases me once he realizes that I’m stable, but neither of us speaks.

The four of us are now staring at one another, three of us in shock and Chase in confusion. The officer is the first to speak. “What the fuck happened?” he demands.

Chase swings his gaze from me to the officer, his brows knitting together. “What do you mean, what the hell happened?” he asks.

“The surveillance supply building is burning to the fucking ground,” the officer announces.

Chase’s lips curve up into a grin. “You don’t say.”

My eyes widen as I look at the policeman. No way did he just announce that he knows the building is burning to a police officer. What is going on here? The policeman grunts before Chase continues.

“Got a box truck pulling up to the back of the warehouse. We got a whole fucking problem with two prospects. But we need to gather the rest and everyone else who is here. We’re going to have a teaching moment.”

The police officer and Goose walk away without another word. I don’t watch them go, though, too focused on Chase, who is still standing in front of me. Instead of waiting for him to speak, I blurt out the question that’s been bothering me for the past ten minutes.

“How is a police officer just walking around here, and why did you tell him about knowing about the fire? Aren’t you scared?”

Chase’s brows lift, and his eyes widen before he laughs. Thankfully, it’s not an attention-causing belly laugh, but it’s enough that my cheeks heat from him finding this so damn funny.

“Piggy is a brother,” he says eventually.

My lips part in surprise. I stare at him for a silent beat, then shake my head once and snap my lips closed before I speak. “What do you mean, he’s a brother?” I ask. “Surely, he’s not…”

Chase gives me a wide smile. “Yeah, honey. That’s exactly what he is. He’s one of us.”

“But he’s one of them.” I wrinkle my nose.

He leans down slightly, his eyes not looking away from mine. “He’s also the brother of Lainey from the bakery. He is many things, Zadie. But at the end of the day, he’s a Reaper.”

Wow.

I didn’t know that was even possible. I thought the attorney thing was a pretty big stretch, but a police officer, too? Just mind-blowing. I’m unable to move as Chase slides his lips across mine, then straightens.

“I have a couple things to tie up here. Wait for me in our room?”

Our room.

Wow again.

He takes a step backward, gives me a wink, then jerks his chin toward the hallway. “I’ll see you soon, honey.”

His words come out in a whisper and send a chill of desire up and down my spine. I fight every urge in my body to take off running. Instead, I walk… swiftly.

MAVERICK

When I walk into the warehouse, I’m not surprised to find the crowd has already gathered.

The two prospects we unloaded from the box truck are hanging from hooks in the middle of the room.

Typically, we wouldn’t use these. We don’t ever really need them.

We can usually get what we need from someone much more easily than the effort this takes.

But this isn’t about obtaining information. This is about making a statement and showing the other prospects what the fuck happens when you betray the Vicious Reapers.

Once everyone who was in the clubhouse is in the room, Lightning closes the door. Viking walks the three prospects who were in the clubhouse front and center, to view what’s about to happen.

“I checked your phones,” Bullet announces. The two men hanging lift their heads slightly, their gazes reaching Bullet’s. “I wanted to make sure that you hadn’t involved any of the other prospects or, God for-fucking-bid, a brother.”

“What was the consensus?” I ask.

I don’t know the answer, but I have high hopes it’s only these fucks, but at the same time, how could they do all of this without help? They would have had to figure out who the buyer was. They aren’t privy to that type of information as prospects.

“It was just us,” they say in unison.

That confirms my suspicions without a fucking doubt that it was not just them.

They had help, and the way the club shit has been going down lately, I wonder if it was a clubwhore.

I hope it’s not, because I thought we had a good group of girls here recently.

None of them has started anything in a long-ass time.

“Funny,” Bullet says. “Initially, I thought the same thing.”

My focus shifts from the fucks hanging on hooks to Bullet.

Who the fuck betrayed us? My body begins to buzz with adrenaline.

It courses through my blood, and if I had any kind of superpower, it would probably shoot that shit out of my fingertips right now like bolts of goddamn lightning. I am on edge and ready to go.

Ready to kick ass and take names.

So fucking ready.

“Razor,” Bullet calls out. “Why would you be in on these threads?”

That adrenaline completely vanishes, and in its place is something else. Not just shock but pain. Hurt. Betrayal. I don’t even know how to describe the feelings that instantly fill me at the thought of our brand-new vice president doing what he’s just done.

All eyes turn to Razor. And he stands with his spine straight and his shoulders squared. Fuck. He did this shit. He conspired against the club.

“I never wanted to go against my brothers, but I didn’t agree with any of this shit, either. I didn’t want to give up our main source of income. It sounds fine and dandy, running with these trucks, but that’s not what I fucking want.”

“All you had to do was talk to me about it,” Bullet states.

Razor snorts. Clearly, he didn’t think that was an option. I can’t even fathom beginning to think about what it would take for me to not only turn my back on my brothers but also betray them the way he did.

“They could have and were going to kill us,” I murmur. “You send them there knowing they were going to kill the men who you took an oath to protect with your life.”

Razor shrugs a shoulder. My instant reaction is to shoot him about six times and call it a day.

But that’s not what’s going to happen, and he knows it, too.

There is another hook lowered. We have five, and we’ve never used more than three.

They were put in by the OGs back in the day.

They used them much more often than we ever have, but today, that changes.

“Are you ready?” Bullet asks as Lightning and Viking strip Razor completely naked, dick out and everything.

My lips twitch into a smirk, but it’s Piggy who speaks. “I’m more than fucking ready,” he grinds out.

“Get your knives out, boys,” Bullet calls out.

We do just that. Each one of us will have the opportunity to stick this fucker. He knows what’s coming. He’s been part of these before, although not very often. Very far and few between does a member of our club, of the original chapter, fuck the club over this way.

Razor has done that. Our own newly appointed VP.

Fuck him. Fuck him straight to hell, which incidentally is likely where we’ll be sending him.

Inhaling a deep breath, I hold it for a moment, letting it out slowly as I wait for my turn.

Razor, to his credit, doesn’t make a sound as men take their turns stabbing his body.

When we’re finished and he’s no longer breathing, blood pouring from his body onto the concrete floor, we turn our attention toward the prospects. We don’t take turns sticking them. That is saved for members only.

They are different.

But they will still die. It just won’t be as… dignified, if that’s what you want to call it. Bullet takes a step backward from Razor’s body. He was the first to stab him, and also the last, as per our rules. He slowly turns around to face us, his eyes lifting to meet all of us watching him.

He lifts his head slightly, looking down his nose at all of us. “Do what you will with those two fuckin’ losers. I’m going home. Church at ten.”

And that is that. He walks past us, and as much as I want to do the same, I don’t.

I stay until they are gone, too. Their deaths don’t have as much flair as the others.

I still watch, content to just observe. When it’s done, the sick part of the whole thing is that we make the other prospects clean up the bodies.

All the bodies except for Razor’s. He’s ours to dispose of after we piss on him first. He’ll go into a hole. He’ll be pissed on, and then he’ll be set on fire. A fire that will be fueled by the trash inside the clubhouse. Because this motherfucker is nothing but trash.

Although I won’t be staying for the burning. I have my woman to go in search of. Leaving the men to their fire and, no doubt, drinking, I walk away from the warehouse and head toward the bar. I’m covered in blood, so instead of going straight to my woman, I head to the shower.