Hyde's Absolution (Sydney Storm MC 4)

Nitro shook his head. “Nothing. Hyde made sure he was in enough pain to speak if he had anything worth sharing, but he didn’t.”

Bronze nodded. “I don’t need specifics.” It was the warning he often gave us when we were about to cross one of his self-imposed boundaries. I didn’t know why he bothered. Simply working with us the way he did crossed enough lines to ensure his imprisonment if his colleagues ever discovered his corruption.

“I want to know everything about him,” King said to Bronze, indicating he wanted Bronze to look into him.

Bronze exhaled a frustrated breath. “I’m stretched, King. You’ve got me investigating three other guys. I’m trying to get through a huge workload at work, and I’m trying to evade Ryland, which is starting to prove difficult. Something’s gotta give if you want me to look into this.”

King frowned. “Why the fuck is Ryland on you?”

Bronze shrugged. “Got no fucking idea. I’ve either searched something or asked the wrong person something, and it’s triggered his interest in me. He’s been sniffing around for days, asking me all kinds of shit about Storm. I need to lay low.”

King met my gaze again. “We need to deal with Ryland.”

“Take him out of the equation?” I asked to confirm I’d understood where he was going with this.

Bronze held his hand up. “No. Let me look into him.”

“What will that achieve?” I asked, not following.

“There’ll be some dirt there. I just need to find it and then use it to get him to back off.”

This whole fucking situation was doing my head in. I’d had little sleep this week. That, on top of dealing with this shit, caused me to lose my patience with Bronze. “I’m about fucking done with pussy-fucking-footing around this, Bronze. I say we remove Ryland once and for all. And as for these three other Italians, why th

e fuck are we being so damn careful with them? Just fucking eliminate all of them.”

“Fuck, Hyde,” Devil said, “Who twisted your panties today?”

I shot daggers at him. “It’s starting to feel like Storm has lost their edge. We need to mark our fucking territory and make it clear again that you don’t fuck with us.”

“Yeah, but we can’t just go fucking pissing over whoever we want,” Nitro warned. “That shit will give us more issues than we have now.”

I needed a fucking drink. “Fuck it,” I muttered, and turned to head into the clubhouse bar.

“Where the fuck are you going?” King demanded.

“I’m getting a drink. Maybe when I get back you assholes will have come to your senses.”

I stalked out of the office and down the hallway to the bar, ignoring the shit they called out to me as I went. The minute I hit the bar, I decided it wasn’t the best idea. Being Friday night, members packed the room, and they were loud as fuck. A headache had kicked in while listening to everything King said, which meant the combination of music blaring from the speakers and drunken antics was like walking into hell.

Kree watched me with a wary eye. Smart woman. “Whisky?”

I nodded. “Why are you here? I didn’t think you worked nights anymore.”

“I don’t usually, but we were short staffed, so I came in.” She poured my drink and handed it to me. “Why do you look like you could murder someone?”

I poured some of the whisky down my throat. “Because I could.”

An argument broke out between two club members next to me at the bar. Within moments, fists were involved, and the few empty glasses on the bar top went flying, smashing onto the ground.

“For fuck’s sake!” I roared and moved to break them apart. I managed to do that, but in the process, ended up with a fist in my eye. That infuriated me more than I already was, and I retaliated with a fist to his fucking face, knocking him to the floor.

I glared at him as I picked up my drink. “Next time you wanna fight, take that shit outside.” I downed the rest of my whisky and shoved the empty glass at Kree. “I’ll have another,” I barked.

She arched a brow. “You want to try that again?”

“Not particularly.”

“I’m not making you another until you speak to me like a civil human being, Hyde.”