Thirty-Three
"Do not stand at m-my grave and weep …"
The prospect's soft voice, choked with emotion, sent more than a few heads bowing among all those gathered to pay their last respects to April Hobart. Despite the fact she had tended to hide herself away since the shame of her ex-husband's ejection from the Sons, the turn-out was more than decent. The shocking brutality of her death had struck a nerve in the community, especially so soon after the passing of the young boxer.
"I am … not there. I … do not s-sleep."
A tear escaped down Charlie's cheek and he scrubbed it away, the hand clutching the piece of paper trembling as he struggled to get the words written on it out. He had wanted to do this, for his mom. It was important to him that he paid tribute to her, that he did her proud. But the poem seemed to swim on the page, even as he felt the pressure of all those people gathered in front of him. He couldn't look at them, but he knew they were there just the same.
Chibs, Tig, Happy and all his brothers. Knox and a host of out-of-town patches. Eden and Seth. Lyla. Even Flick.
Everyone that mattered to him, all expecting him to get this right.
"I … I …"
He couldn't. Couldn't get the words out, could barely even see them printed right in front of him. Couldn't bear the thought that this was the last thing he would ever get to do for his mother. The woman who had worked so hard to raise him, mostly on her own.
Sat beside her brother, Eden was anxiously willing the heartbroken young man to get through the reading, but realising it was all proving too much for him, she was starting to wonder if she should intervene. Just as she went to get up and go to him though, she caught sight of Chibs getting up from his place in the front row.
The president headed to his prospect's side, laying an encouraging hand on his shoulder, giving him the chance to pull himself together. But seeing how Charlie's breath hitched in his chest, his tearful eyes panicked, Chibs gently took the sheet of paper from him and cleared his throat.
"Do not stand at my grave and weep," he began, his voice low and rough, his accent seeming a little thicker than usual. "I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond glints on snow."
As he read the moving poem, Chibs kept Charlie by his side with a strong arm wrapped around his shoulders. By the time he neared the last line, there was barely a dry eye among the gathered mourners.
"Do not stand at my grave and cry," he read, glancing up at all those in front of him, his gaze seeming to seek out Eden instinctively. "I am not there. I did not die."
"Earth to Eden …"
"Huh? Oh, sorry, I was miles away," she said, managing a smile for her partner as she sat up from where she'd been slumped against the passenger-side window of their ambulance.
"Anywhere nice?"
"Not exactly. That funeral I had to go to this morning … Guess it just got me thinking."
"About?" Desi prompted gently. "Or tell me to mind my own business. But you know if you got shit on your mind, you can always offload on your Uncle Desi."
That drew another small smile, but a more genuine one this time, and she nodded. "I know. And you know I really appreciate it, right? Much as I needed a fresh start, transferring and starting over … I thought it would kinda suck, but you've been so good to me since we got paired up."
"We're partners," he shrugged easily. "That's how it works. I got your back, you got mine. And with that in mind, I'm concerned about your fluid intake – coffee run while we've got five minutes?"
"Sounds like a-" Eden trailed off, with a roll of her eyes as the radio crackled to life with details of their next shout. "Plan. On second thoughts, rain check?"
"Rain check," Desi sighed. "Gonna be one of those nights. Light us up …"
Pulling his bike over at the end of a secluded dirt track, Mack pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and grimaced at the name lighting up the screen. Stella. Again.
He'd be lying if he denied getting a serious kick out of knowing just how risky a game they were playing screwing around behind Johnny's back, but that was back when he only saw one side to his president's old lady – the side she presented to the world as she fought to find a place for herself. To try to step up to the position in the wider community left vacant by Gemma Teller.
Strong woman. Matriarch. Badass biker queen.
Now he could see her for what she was though. Desperate.
She wanted to be somebody, have some kind of role, some kind of power … Even if it was just over those bullshit little fundraisers or whatever the hell it was those prim do-gooders did. And up close, he could see the cracks in her surface. How she tried too hard, went too far. Maybe it was just that he'd only ever known the Teller woman from a distance and Christ knows if it was true she offed her own daughter-in-law with a goddamn barbeque fork, there must have been serious issues beneath the surface there too, but now he just couldn't see Stella ever earning the same respect that Gemma had - however begrudgingly - commanded.
Where the one-time Samcro queen had seemed to reign with a steely coolness, crushing any threat to her throne under a stiletto-heeled boot, Stella could only dig those talons in and cling on as best she could, mostly getting her way by manipulation, or screaming and lashing out.
Clearly Gemma must have had issues with her son's old lady, but generally … It had looked like she just kept the broads that flocked around the clubhouse in line. He'd seen them out running errands, like they were part of some big fucked up happy family instead of just the supply of easy pussy.
He knew from experience how Stella would react to younger, hotter women tottering around her territory and it was safe to say it wouldn't be fucking pretty. Hell, the only other old lady she even tolerated was Archie's wife and she was Johnny's sister. Hence the War Boys clubhouse was, unfortunately for some of its patches, something of a cold house for women. No wonder they spent most of their time using some shitty bar-cum-strip joint as their unofficial base.
Jealousy wasn't so much a mere green-eyed monster when it came to Stella – it was more a full-blown, red-with-rage, psychotic beast.
So why the fuck had he even gone there in the first place? He could only hang his head and admit he'd been too blinded by that shiny surface to see the cracks. Where now he saw her temper and insecurity and volatility, he'd previously failed to look any further than the blonde hair, red lips, big tits.
But even that image of her was losing its appeal. Suddenly the effort she put in was just her trying too hard. The voluptuous figure faked instead of natural. The make-up caked on rather than glamourous, highlighting age instead of creating an illusion of youth. The skin-tight clothes and plunging necklines trashy over sexy.
Mack cut the call without answering. He knew he wasn't being fair, but the reality was that he didn't give a shit. He'd wanted the thrill of an illicit fuck and he'd got it. Now he felt fucking trapped and he resented Stella for it, knowing that if he pissed her off, she might just be unstable enough to tell Johnny everything. No doubt painting him as the instigator, turning on the tears and twisting herself into the victim.
All he could hope for was her getting bored and moving on to some other warped little game to amuse herself. Maybe that way they could just let things fizzle out and he could keep his patch and his life intact.
Fucking women, he scowled to himself as he made his way from where he'd left his bike, through the woods towards a lone cabin almost hidden by trees. It only rubbed salt in the wound to think of the hot little bitch they'd had a run in with at the garage – how the fuck had that Scottish prick ended up with her in his bed?
As much as that whole encounter had pissed him off, his mind had drifted back more than once to the long tan legs and tight little ass in those tiny shorts. He had to hand it to the Samcro president, he had impeccable fucking taste … Jesus, no wonder Stella had been practically white with fury over how that had gone down. He'd had to shoot the damn place up just to get some fucking peace.
In fact, as he rounded the cabin to find the little used rear door, he was still a little amazed they seemed to have gotten away with that. He'd thought for sure the late-night attack on the Sons' clubhouse would rain fury down on all their heads. Maybe the bastards really were going soft.
"Oh shit …"
All thoughts of Stella, the Sons and everything else left his mind the moment Mack walked into the dimly-lit dilapidated cookhouse just in time to catch his cooks red-handed as they clearly skimmed off product for themselves. Never ignore your gut, never trust meth-heads around meth - life lessons that should have been obvious from the get-go.
"Oh shit … It ain't what it looks like, man."
"Why, what's it look like?" Mack demanded. "A couple of thieving little pricks already high on a free fix and stashing another batch to try to turn a profit on my dime? 'Cause if it ain't that, then what the hell is it?"
"Yo, we're just … You know … Thinking about quality control and shit," one of them slurred.
"Put it down. All of it," Mack said, drawing his gun when he saw them eyeing the door. "You can get the fuck out, but you leave everything behind."
"You need us, bro – you ain't got shit without us."
His phone started to ring again in his pocket and he gritted his teeth at the distraction, unable to reach for it without either taking his eyes off his marks or lowering his weapon, and there was no telling what the jumpy little fuckers would do if he gave them an inch. Fuck, he was trying to think, but that goddamn ringtone was infesting his brain.
"Don't you move," he warned, trying to get to his phone even as they edged towards the door. "I said don't you move!"
The door opened, but from the outside and his stomach flip-flopped at the sight of his president and VP, guns drawn and faces grim.
"Well, well, well," Johnny drawled. "I coulda swore I said shut this shit down."
Even as Mack floundered for a response, the tweaking cooks seized their chance to bolt and all hell broke loose. Not ideal in a highly volatile meth lab that might as well be sitting on a powder keg. Over-turned chemicals, all highly combustible, hit the floor in the middle of a struggle. Shots fired blindly and on impulse rang out, although only one found its target. Then, just when they thought it was all over, something ignited.
The explosion blew the cabin's front windows out, levelling everything in its path.
"Fuuuuuuck!" Mack roared desperately, having hauled himself to his feet to survey the damage, his hands tearing at his hair in dismay when he spotted the casualties. What the hell had he done?
He didn't give a shit about the drug-addled cook he'd shot dead more by chance than design. But his president was on the floor howling in pain and clutching his blood-soaked leg, his thigh pierced by a vicious looking metal shard, and Archie was crawling over to see what he could do to help.
"Fuck, this is bad," the VP managed, through his own hisses of pain, glancing up only to see his sergeant recoil in fresh horror. "Don't just stand there, do something!"
Mack could only shake his head helplessly, transfixed by the gruesome burns marring one side of the other man's face.
"Mack, help me with him!" Archie yelled, too consumed by what he saw as Johnny's more pressing injuries to realise the full extent of his own. "We have to do something …"
The sergeant finally steeled himself and, wiping dust from his stinging eyes, pulled out his phone to dial 911.
"Ambulance," he demanded, waving furiously to cut off Archie's shout of protest.
"Are you fucking insane?" the VP hissed. "You can't bring anyone here!"
"I'll handle it," Mack insisted. "I'll make this right."
As draining as the last few days had been, it took Chibs longer than usual to realise his phone was ringing from its place on the nightstand, dragging him from the depths of sleep.
He cracked an eyeball to check the time and then reached for the phone to answer it, stifling a yawn as he did. "Bit early, innit, mate?" he drawled, his voice sounding rough even to his own ears. "Whoa, Seth, slow the fuck down. What's going on?"
"Eden," came the impatient response. "Is she with you?"
"No," Chibs frowned, an unease already growing in the pit of his stomach as he clamped the phone between his ear and his shoulder and started tugging on his jeans. "Why? What's happened?"
"She hasn't come home," Seth said. "And I can't reach her."
"Maybe she stayed with a … friend?" the biker suggested, not caring to dwell too much on the exact nature of such potential friends. But he already knew enough about the siblings' relationship to know that if Seth was worried, there was good reason and not just an easy explanation.
Sure enough, her brother knocked that notion back. "She'd let me know," he said. "I know I ain't her keeper and she knows that too, but this ain't her – she'd let me know. I don't need details, just that she's safe. I dunno what to do … Shit, hang on, I got another call coming through …"
Sticking his phone on speaker, Chibs threw it on the bed to finish dressing quickly, trying to push away all the scenarios trying to creep into his mind before they could take hold and render him completely useless.
"Chibs?"
At Seth's voice, he snatched up the phone again. "Aye? Was that her?"
"Fuck, Chibs, that was her boss," her brother said frantically. "They lost contact with her and Desi during their shift – they're reporting them missing."
Chibs sank down heavily on the edge of his bed and wiped a hand over his face, at a loss as to what to think, let alone say.
"Chibs?" Seth tried, from the other end of the line.
"Sit tight. I'm on my way over."
