Roughing my hands through my hair and wiping my face for the umpteenth time, I stilled, staring back at him. “Where were—” I snapped my mouth shut before I could finish my question. It was none of my business where Manic had been when all this went down. It was none of my business how the others figured out where Ink and I were—how Crow knew.
None of this was any of my goddamn business…even though it felt like it all happened because of me. Ink had Slither because of me. Ink lied to everyone because of me. Ink landed on the wrong side of the Sixes because of me.
All fucking hell broke loose…because of me.
21
Ink
Walking into the club,seeing the somber look on all the faces staring at us was fucking hard to stomach. The reality of what happened still hadn’t settled. It was surreal, like a dream. It didn’t even feel like I was walking. My mind was a giant haze of thoughts that didn’t make any sense.
I immediately spotted her among the crowd. Neon stood next to Alyx, Alyx’s arm draped around her shoulders, face red and tearstained. I wanted to rush to Neon. I wanted to bury my face in her neck and have her familiar scent and comforting warmth give me permission to let it all out. To fucking let go of the pain. But I couldn’t. This wasn’t about my pain, about my loss, or anyone else’s, for that matter. This was about the club’s loss. It was about the club losing one of its most loyal members. None of us mourned as individuals. We mourned as a club. A team. A family.
For the past two hours, Onyx, Granite, and I stood by watching our clean-up crew take care of the mess, cleaning up the chaos of what looked like a fucking massacre. The red, the blood, Dutch’s body, it all seemed too fucking unreal, and I just stared at his cut with the fresh tag of vice president newly stitched to the leather. God, I wasn’t even sure what really happened. I was so preoccupied with comforting Neon I didn’t even feel Slither pulling the gun from my back, shooting one of my brothers with my own fucking gun.
Granite was the target—the man Slither had been after for years. With a last fucking hurrah, Slither pulled that trigger, thinking he’d be dying side by side with Granite. But instead, Dutch took it. He took the bullet, saving Granite’s life. The man always had this sense of loyalty toward Granite. Their friendship surpassed everything else, and we all knew Dutch would probably go down in an epic fucking way, saving Granite’s life. And true as fuck, here we were, walking into the club, the death of our vice president cloaking each and every person in the room with the kind of grief that could not be put into words.
I nodded in Neon’s direction, acknowledging her, letting her know I saw her. That I felt her. That I was here. No matter how much I wanted to be with her right now, I couldn’t. The club came first. The club’s loss was more important than any of us.
Dice placed a tray of bourbon shots on the table, and without saying a word, Onyx grabbed one, slamming it back, the rest of us following suit. The alcohol stung, but it came nowhere near the burn of losing a brother.
Onyx turned to face Wraith, and I felt the weight of what he needed to do. No one told her that Slither was dead, a clear instruction given by Onyx. He wanted to be the one to tell her. Even though she knew her brother was a dead man walking all this time, knew he’d meet his fate sooner or later, it was still her brother. And as her man, Onyx respected that. But he also had the duty of respecting the club’s feelings regarding her brother—the archenemy of the American Street Kings.
I watched as he walked up to her, how her lips pulled in a straight line, her expression turning into a living picture of grief and pain. He didn’t have to say a word. Everything she needed to know, she saw on his face.
With a gasp, she held her hand in front of her mouth as sudden sobs wracked through her, tears running down her cheeks in a stream of sorrow.
The way Onyx’s jaw clenched, his eyebrows furrowed as if fighting back his own pain, he merely reached out a hand behind her head, pulling her closer and placing a desperate kiss on her forehead. It was a powerful display of a president comforting his old lady amidst the aftereffects of a tragedy that rocked his club to its core.
Without saying a word, he pulled back and walked past her, leaving her in the company of Alyx and Neon, all of them crying silently. At this moment, he wasn’t in a position to give her more than that. He couldn’t…because of who her brother was.
In silence, we followed Onyx up the stairs, on our way to attend what would be the hardest club meeting we ever had. One without Dutch.
We walked inside the room, taking our seats, the only sounds those of the chairs screeching on the concrete floor. I glanced at the chair opposite mine. Dutch’s chair. A chair he would never sit in again. A space in this room that would never be occupied by him again. The complete awareness of his absence was as loud as a goddamn car crash with the bone gnawing noise of scraping metal and shattering glass.
A life lost. Another King mourned.
It had only been a few hours since it all happened. We hadn’t even had time to digest that one of the men we lived with, rode with, fucking fought with was no longer there. Not a breath, not a heartbeat, not a single fucking whisper was left of him. Just memories—but right now, the only memory that was painfully fresh in all our minds was the second we lost him.
Onyx cleared his throat. “This is going to…” He choked on his words, shaking his head and closing his eyes. “This is not…Jesus.” He leaned back in his seat, the impatient tapping of his finger on the table a tell-tale sign of his discomfort. “This sucks, man. I don’t even know what to fucking say.”
I weaved my fingers together. “It’s my fault.” I didn’t look at any of them, my glazed stare focused on my hands on my lap. “That motherfucking chair is empty right now because of me.”
Onyx sat up straight. “Ink, this is not—”
“It’s my fault,” I interrupted. “If I wasn’t so consumed with rage, if I had just fucking trusted you from the start, none of this would have happened.”
“Ink, man. We get it.”
My gaze cut to Onyx.
He glanced at Manic, and then at Granite. “I think we all get it.”
“No, you don’t. Not only did we lose one of our own, but because of me, we have Crow taking a dump on our motherfucking back porch. All of this is my fault.”
“No, it’s not.” Onyx shook his head. “Yeah, sure, things could have ended differently if other choices had been made, but it is what it is. Dutch is dead, and we have Crow up our asses now. But, to be honest, you were right. I would have killed Slither that night we found him with Wraith. If you didn’t take him, I would have blown his fucking head off. So, whether it was you or me, the outcome would have been the same. Crow would be knocking at our door either way.”
With a clenched jaw, I looked at Dutch’s empty seat. “But he’d still be here.”