“What time is it?”
“Time to get the fuck up.”
I slowly swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat on the edge. Cracking one eye open, I took note of the time blaring from the clock in the motel room. Almost seven.
I scrubbed my face. “Why are you calling me so fucking early?”
“We’ve got a situation here. Might need you to come home sooner than planned, so I wanted to see where you were at with everything down there.”
“Just getting started. What’s going on with the club?”
“Marx is fucking with us. He just drowned Sydney in cheap drugs. I need to find him fast before he kills our business, but the fucking feds are making that a little hard.”
Figuring out who was backing Marx was Storm’s top priority, but after we’d taken down the entire Sydney chapter of the Silver Hell MC, Detective Ryland had upped his surveillance of our club. In particular, he had eyes on King every minute of the day and also kept a close watch on Nitro, Devil, and me. Kick had managed to slip through his net somehow.
“I lost my tail on the way down here. They still all over you?”
“Can’t shake the fuckers. How long do you think you’re gonna need with your family?”
For the first time since I’d joined the club, I felt conflicted. My loyalties were divided. Letting King down was the last thing I wanted to do, but the unwavering certainty I’d felt for over a decade that I would never do that wasn’t there anymore. Truth be told, I’d been fighting this for around six months. The pull to my family had grown stronger, until I couldn’t ignore it any longer. Fucking shit up with the club like I’d been doing seemed to be my way of not facing it. At least that was Sully’s take on this shit. He’d wasted a lot of fucking breath on telling me to get my head out of my ass.
“Hyde,” King snapped when I didn’t answer him. “How long?”
“I don’t know. When you get to the point that you really need me, let me know. I’ll be there.”
“Yeah.” He paused for a beat. “How’s your kid?” The demanding tone he’d been using disappeared with his last question. This didn’t happen often, but I knew from experience that kids were a trigger for him. They brought out a side to him we hardly ever witnessed. I had to wonder whether having a kid of his own one day would soften him at all. I’d lay bets that it wouldn’t, but there were moments where I caught a glimpse of him that made me question that.
“Not sure yet. My wife’s playing hardball.”
“She won’t let you see
your daughter?”
“Not yet, but she will. I’ll make sure of it.”
“I have no doubt, Jekyll.”
“Fuck you, brother,” I muttered. He liked to call me that when referencing my moods. He’d given me the name Hyde for the same reason, but his use of Jekyll as an alternative stemmed from an argument we’d had way back when. He’d been right during that argument, but I’d refused to budge. Every now and then he threw this name at me to remind me of what an asshole I was.
He chuckled. “You reckon she remembers what a prick you can be?”
I reached for the painkillers I’d dropped beside the bed the night before. “I was a different man back then.”
“So she has no idea what’s coming for her?”
My headache increased its efforts to destroy me, and my chest tightened as I listened to him. This conversation irritated me.
As I shook two pills out of the bottle, I snapped, “I’ve got shit to do, King. Are we done here?”
His easy mood disappeared as fast as it came. “Yeah.”
I exhaled my relief when the line went dead. I hadn’t told anyone about Tenille for a good fucking reason. Talking about her and Charlie stirred feelings I didn’t want to have to deal with.
I dropped my phone on the bed and grabbed the bottle of whisky that sat next to the bottle of painkillers. A moment later, I washed the two pills down. Before I screwed the cap back on the bottle, I guzzled enough whisky to get me through the morning. Fuck knew I was gonna need it.
“Where’s Craig?”
Tenille finished stirring the coffees she’d made us, threw the dirty spoon in the sink and slid my mug across the kitchen counter to me. Lifting her mug, she wrapped both hands around it and drank some while looking at me over the rim. As she placed the drink back down, she said, “He got called into work last minute. He’s on his way to Perth now.”