Animal (Royal Bastards MC 1)

“My brother’s a fed. Ain’t nobody getting locked up over that piece of shit. You feel me?”

“Hell yeah.” I feel him. His brother, Copper, was an old friend of this club. He was the one who confirmed Mitch being a rat.

“We’re headed your way. Give me four and a half hours.”

“See you soon, man. About time we take out the motherfucking trash around here.” I grin as I slip my phone into my pocket and crack my knuckles. “Rage,” I call out. The brooding motherfucker is watching Gracie flirt up a storm with any and everyone. He should just claim her as his ol’ lady if he doesn’t want to share her with his brothers. Jameson told me Rage’s issues ran deep, rooted in pain and heartbreak. Something to do with his ex-wife who was killed in a house fire while pregnant with his kid. Feels like he’s cheating on her memory if he moves forward with someone else. We’re a bunch of fucked up assholes with dark pasts that turned us into who we are. He takes his time dragging his ass over to me.

“What’s up, Prez?”

“Get the brothers together. We got company coming and a job to do.”

Twenty-Two

Drew

Six hours later

“Have you seen that one?” Amy groans, biting her lip. I track the path to the brothers of the Tulsa chapter. “Even his scar is all kinds of sexy.” She plays around with her top, pushing her tits up. “He’s mine tonight.” The man in question is tall and broad with intense eyes and a nasty scar in the shape of a cross on his forehead. Alec said he has club business to handle tonight. The energy coming off the new arrivals guarantees blood is going to be spilled.

My guts are queasy. “I’m just going to the bathroom.”

“Sure thing, doll. You don’t have to work, you know?” She pops her gum, winking at me. Rounding the bar, I creep down the corridor to use Alec’s office bathroom. I sense the body following closely behind me without having to turn around. I bend down to slip my knife from my boot, but before I can, Kai growls, “Don’t fucking cut me again, little girl.” I smile despite myself as I stand. “What do you want, Killer?”

“Been meaning to talk to you about the time we saw each other.”

Turning, I cross my arms and narrow my gaze on him. “You mean the time you sought me out?” He looks around the hall, making sure we’re not overheard, then shrugs with a sly hook of his lip.

“You haven’t told Animal about it.”

“Neither have you.”

“Can we keep it that way?”

“Why didn’t you tell him?” I ask, curious.

“You didn’t want to be found.” Silence falls between us. There’s more to it than that, but I don’t think I want to hear his reasons, so I just bow my head and say, “Fair enough. Let’s just not talk about it anymore.”

He slinks off back the way he came, and I remember Riley was there too. She may show up here for her dad’s send off. “Kai,” I call out. He doesn’t turn around, just tilts his head a little.

“Riley…”

“She won’t say anything,” he says confidently before disappearing around the corner.

Pushing into Alec’s office, I startle when I find it occupied by him and a man I recognize. He’s the fed from years ago—the one I saw with Alec’s dad the day he throttled me. “Sorry. I didn’t realize you were in here.”

“Drew,” he says my name with so much love, it settles the nerves eating away at me. He summons me with a crook of his finger, and I walk over to him, getting pulled onto his lap. “Don’t ever apologize for coming in here, baby. It’s your home.” There are photos laid out across his desk. The sight knotting my stomach. “Who is that?” I gasp.

“Oh, sorry. You shouldn’t see those,” the man says. Scowling, he scoops them up and puts them inside his jacket.

“Copper, this is Drew. Drew, Copper.”

“I know who he is,” I state, straightening my back.

“I’ll leave you two alone, but, Animal, this needs to end tonight—for me, for my brother, for everything he lost.”

“It will,” Alec agrees, his hand curling into a fist. When the door closes behind his exit, I sag into the crook of Alec’s neck. “I’m sorry, baby, I should have warned you Copper was coming.”

“What were those pictures?”

“Copper’s brother, Koyn, is a friend I met a while back—darkness and pain seek out each other. We bonded over the darkness living inside us, understood it. That was his wife and child.”

A wisp of air flees my lungs as the image of the bloodied, abused bodies flashes through my mind. My heart accelerates. “Who would do that? Why?” I think of my aunt and the new body discovered this morning. Someone evil.