Riley (Shattered Souls MC 4)

Zane scrubs his face and focuses his attention on me. “I get wanting to protect your girl. Look what I did, what I put you all through, to protect Harper. I want to fucking kill you for getting involved with a fed, but I get it.”

I lift my shoulders just slightly and nod. He gets it. I have no doubt he’s in the minority, but I’m okay with that. I’ll take any support I’m offered at this point.

“You’re lucky I don’t put a fucking bullet through your chest right now. Everything you could’ve done wrong, you did. You aren’t a dumb, young kid, Riley. You might act like one, but you aren’t. You know damn well that getting involved in something without talking to us is wrong. But a fucking fed! Christ, Riley. You really fucked up this time,” Enzo says.

There’s nothing I can say. He’s right. They can’t say anything I haven’t already thought to myself.

“So now what?” Finn asks.

“Now we protect Riley’s pathetic ass and we try to figure out what to do about this fed. If he’s expecting Riley at eight tomorrow, we need to fucking think fast,” Brooks says.

Zane looks around the table and his eyes land on me. “We need fucking time. You buy us that. You meet him tomorrow and tell him that you’ll do whatever the fuck it is he wants. You are not playing doubl

e fucking agent. You’ll get the intel and give it to us. I’m not going to be looking over my fucking shoulder again.”

“Z’s right. We need more than a few hours to figure out how to handle all this,” Kace says, lighting a joint.

Brooks drags his hands down his face and growls. “We need every fucking detail about this agent. I want to know the size of his fucking dick! We need to know who else is involved. You tell that son of a bitch that you’ll get Gillian to help and you’ll kill Zane, but in exchange you want to know who else knows he’s here.”

“What about Gillian?” I ask.

“What about her?” Brooks replies.

“I need her protected. I need her to get the same kind of protection that Harper and Ivy got. She’s young and scared. She got pulled into my mess and I need to know no matter what happens to me that she’ll be protected,” I say.

They all look at each other and I sigh.

“She’s safe here. We’ll make sure of it. There will be eyes on her at all times,” Enzo says.

I nod, feeling a bit of relief. She’s safe. My ass is on the line, but it deserves to be. I’ll end up dead or locked up and I have no one to blame but myself. The club might be helping me, but they sure as shit don’t forgive me. I’ll have to pay for my sins after this is handled.

“I’m sorry,” I say, dropping my head into my hands. “This club is my life. I’d never intentionally bring trouble upon us.”

“Save your apologies because right now it means shit,” Brooks says.

“Alright, tonight everyone goes home and gets their shit. We’re gonna need to stay here until this mess is handled. Gillian does not leave Souls at all. If she needs something, someone gets it for her. Riley, you don’t fucking blink without telling us. If you leave Souls, you will make sure we know. You’ll have a tail until we have a handle on things. So tomorrow when you leave for the warehouse, Porter will be keeping a close eye,” Enzo says.

I take the joint Kace passes me and take a long hit. I pass it back and after I let all the smoke out, I clear my throat. “This guy is as dirty as they get, but he’s smart as hell. He’ll notice Porter. I won’t take a shit without telling you, but meeting with agent douche is something I need to do alone. I’ll come right back here every time. Trust me when I say it’s for the best.”

Brooks lets out a humorless laugh. “Don’t you dare talk to us about trust.”

“He’s right. Shit will only get worse if the agent sees one of us. We have to let him handle that,” Zane says.

“Fine, you meet the agent alone, but if you so much as sneeze without telling us, we’ll handle this completely differently,” Brooks says, standing up. “We meet back here tomorrow as soon as Riley gets back.”

Everyone stands and I feel like I should let them all leave before I move. It could’ve been a hell of a lot worse, but I’m not naive enough to think it’s over. They’ll decide how to handle me eventually.

“Riley, come on, brother,” Porter says.

I stand and follow him to the door. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

He slaps my back as we walk through the door. “You’ve always been trouble, this is nothing new,” he says, laughing.

“You think they’ll vote to kill me?” I ask.

He looks at me and sighs. “I think you need to remind them just how dedicated you are to this club. I think you need to prove yourself. I think forgiveness may never come. But I don’t think there’ll be a vote. We all know you react before thinking. It’s just this time instead of another MC, you stirred shit with the feds.”

I shake my head as we walk toward the bar. “It was all for her,” I say.