Adrenaline Rush (Death Chasers MC 4)

His eyes narrow.

“I disagree?” I guess.

Fifty/fifty odds, so one of those has to be the right answer.

“Kara, he has fucking snapped his already fucked up lid, and—”

“I think you botched that metaphor,” Maya points out.

Drex inhales a breath that sounds like he’s trying to drink in some patience.

“We’ll head upstairs for a while,” Axle says in his gravelly tone, as he abruptly lifts Maya and tosses her over his shoulder.

She rolls her eyes and allows him to manhandle her.

Snake is disassembling a pistol off to the side, staying quiet.

Drex darts a look at Sledge, but Sledge speaks before he can.

“You know how much he struggled with getting control over himself and his own life, and you sent him to watch the one girl he never wanted to let get away. What the fuck did you think would happen when he got to invade her privacy to that extent and find a sense of control over this one particular situation?” Sledge finally asks him.

That’s a good point.

I look over at Drex with an expectant stare.

“Really? Do you honestly think my head works like that? There’s a reason I can’t find Pop!” Drex shouts. “It’s because I don’t fucking think like that!”

He drops to the couch when Sledge and I both go quiet, since this angry outburst has now shifted the topic. He’s more concerned with Herrin than Rush, and now I finally see just how stressed my brother really is.

He scrubs a hand over his face several times, and I lean back against the wall. I got out. He stayed.

I’m holding it together real damn well.

He’s just barely not falling apart.

I hated Pop.

He loved him.

For the first time, I realize just how hard this must be for him. “I rearranged some of the things on the board. I think it’ll help narrow the scope. He’ll be in Halo, because he’s watching from somewhere by this point, and he wants to be close when he makes his move,” I tell him.

Drex looks over at me, eyes growing serious once again.

“We’ve exhausted Halo. If he were here, we’d have run across him by now,” he argues.

“He knows this city better than any of you ever will, and he’ll enjoy telling you just how close he was the entire time…right before he puts a bullet between your eyes,” I tell him in my let’s-be-real tone.

Snake stands, lifts the leg of the abandoned man, and starts dragging him toward the sealed door.

“Call me if someone needs shot,” is all he says before he disappears below.

“This fucking club is falling apart all around me,” Drex grumbles as he massages his temples.

“Can I go work on that board some more?” I ask in a curious tone.

“Like I give a fuck,” Drex grumbles.

My eyebrows hit my hairline.

“It’s in the meeting room,” I remind him.

He makes a gesture like he’s shooing me off so he can wallow in his stress puddle.

Sledge stands and follows me into the room, shutting the doors behind him as I move to the board.

“I can’t believe I’m in here,” I say as I turn a slow circle, fully appreciating this moment more than I realized.

It’s like marking something off my bucket list, minus the burning shit bag I planned to throw in here. I expected to have to break in with a lot of fire and fury in my fantasies.

I was a badass in those fantasies. Sort of like Sarah. Minus the overdose of crazy.

“Do you think all the slaughter makes them extra crazy?” I ask Sledge. “Rush and Sarah. Rush is definitely not the boy I remember.”

“No. He’s not. He’s a man who went cold the day you turned up gone. He didn’t know if you were dead or alive, and he shut down, Kara,” he says quietly, head down as he leans against the large table behind him.

I clear my throat, awkwardly wring my hands like an idiot. I didn’t expect him to get so serious so quickly when I was purposely trying to ask a dark question with a peppy, non-judgmental tone.

“He’s been on cruise control ever since,” he adds, his jaw ticking. “He did whatever he was told, so long as he got to do it his way. He also toyed with Herrin’s patience on purpose, because he knew Herrin had gotten reliant on his ruthless, calculated skillset—the son he wanted Drex to really be.”

My brow furrows, since I certainly didn’t expect that.

“And Herrin hated the fact that Rush didn’t give two shits about the attention he was paid. Rush is the one member Herrin worked so damn hard to figure out, but he never could. Because the last thing Herrin would have ever thought was that Rush actually fucking loved you. You may be the only person he’s ever truly loved.”

“Are you trying to make me feel like shit right now? Because it’s working,” I tell him a little angrily. “I had to leave, and Rush chose the club. At least to that girl at that time, that’s exactly what I thought. I had no reason to think otherwise until he told me so.”