Brothers in Arms (The Kings of Mayhem MC Book 2) Read online

  Isaac’s blood.

  The realization seeped into me.

  My face crumpled.

  Isaac was dead.

  I fled to the bathroom and thrust my hands under the running faucet, furiously scrubbing at my fingers and wrists. Bloody water filled the basin and swirled down the drain in a rust-colored whirlpool. I grabbed more soap and lathered it onto my skin, washing it until the water ran clear. I turned off the faucet and began drying my hands but stopped when I caught a glance of my reflection in the mirror. I straightened and stared numbly. Isaac’s blood was speckled across my face like bright red freckles.

  I felt Mom’s hand on my shoulder.

  “You need to catch a breath, baby girl,” she said gently. She turned me around and handed me a towel. “Have a shower. Collect yourself. And then you’ll be ready to help Abby.”

  Mom was right. I needed to compose myself before I saw her. Abby needed me to be strong. Calm. Collected. Everything that I wasn’t right now.

  Suddenly overcome with love and gratefulness for my mom, I threw my arms around her and hugged her tightly to me, absorbing the comfort of her soothing mom-rubs up and down my back.

  “You’re okay,” she said reassuringly to me as we parted.

  I exhaled deeply and nodded, every ounce of me heavy with the numbness of Isaac’s murder.

  When mom left, I closed the door and stripped off. Stepping into the shower, I let the warm water wash Isaac’s blood from my skin. I washed my hair and scrubbed at my skin with the shower loofah I found hanging from the tap, and scrubbed under my nails. Once clean, I dried off and put on some clean clothes, feeling grateful that my clothes were still here and not at the new house. The new house. We were due to move in this weekend.

  I sat on the edge of the bath and drew in a deep breath in some attempt to calm the chaos.

  And then I started to cry.

  Hard.

  My hands shook and my chest caved with the weight of my grief as the events of the past couple of hours caught up with me. Isaac was dead. And he had died right in front of me.

  I dropped my head to my hands and sobbed, trying desperately to force the images of his last moments out of my mind.

  His struggle for breath.

  His fight for life.

  His fear.

  The way his blood soaked hand had reached for me, tugging at my shirt, begging me to help him.

  The whip of the bullet as it punched into his forehead.

  I sank to the floor and buried my face in my arm, my body wracked with pain.

  I had loved him.

  My whole life.

  And now my friend was gone.

  I sobbed harder and let my grief take over until I couldn’t cry anymore. Until my self-preservation finally showed up and I was able to steady my nerves and calm my heart.

  I drew in a deep breath and wiped the tears from my eyes. And when I was sure I was able to hold it together, I rose to my feet and went to the basin and splashed water on my tear-stained face.

  I had to hold it together for Abby.

  And Cade.

  This was going to devastate him.

  Dressed, I felt calmer. Steadier. Composed. Strong enough to see Abby. I went downstairs and my mom was waiting for me in the kitchen.

  “You look better,” she said. She came and stood in front of me, taking me by the arms. “You’ve got this, okay.”

  Mom drove us to Abby’s. It took us twenty minutes and I barely waited for the car to stop before running up Abby’s driveway to her front door. I didn’t even knock, I burst through it. Abby was at the dining table, an untouched cup of coffee in front of her. When she saw me her face crumpled and she started to cry, her whole body shaking with her grief. I went to her and wrapped my arms around her, letting her cry uncontrollably into my shoulder. And even though I didn’t want to, I started to cry with her.

  “You were with him?” she asked, pulling back, her icy blue eyes red from crying.

  I nodded. “We were coming back from Head Quarters. Someone set fire to it. We went out there to check it out. On the way back . . .” I had to pause to catch my breath as memories floated up and made my heart hurt. “. . . it happened so fast.”

  Abby started to cry again.

  “I want to see him,” she sobbed.

  Ronnie and Mom exchanged concerned looks.

  “That’s not a good idea,” I said gently.

  “I don’t care, I want to see him.”

  I thought of the bullet in Isaac’s forehead.

  “Honey, he won’t look like him,” I said, my voice shaky. “He was shot in the head.”

  Abby’s face collapsed in agony. She struggled to breathe and exhaled slowly, trying to regain her composure, but failed when she thought about what I was telling her. She ran her shaking hands up and down her thighs to try and steady them.

  “He’s gone, Abby. And seeing him that way . . . it’s only going to upset you more.”

  “I don’t care,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea, baby?” Ronnie asked.

  Abby stood up so fast her chair almost toppled over.

  “We grew in a womb together for thirty-seven weeks. We came into this world together. For thirty years he has been my best friend. Not just my twin. We talk every single day and tell each other everything.” Her face collapsed again as another spear of pain ran through her heart, because in that moment she realized she would never hear her brother’s voice again. She turned to look at me. “Will you take me?”

  I thought about it, and then nodded. I knew how it felt to lose a brother. I knew what the big hole in her heart felt like and I understood the importance of what she wanted to do. She would never share another moment with him, unless she did this.

  “Good,” she said with a newfound calm. “I’m going to get my jacket and then I’m going to go see my brother.”

  CADE

  The frigid air of the morgue made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It was like the subtle stench of death lingered in every breath you took, reminding you that the cold kept the reek at bay, and that out there in the heat the smell would be much worse.

  I was waiting for Indy and Abby inside when they arrived. Indy saw me and quickly came to me, wrapping her arms around my waist and pressing her face to my chest. The familiar warmth of her embrace and the scent of her was a welcome break from the tortuous pain in my heart. Her scent. Her touch. It brought me the only relief I’d felt since this morning and I closed my eyes, pressing my lips to her hair and savoring the comfort even though I knew it was going to be brief.

  “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

  “Mom rang . . . are you crazy? Bringing Abby here?” I whispered back.

  “I’m right here you know,” Abby said.

  She came to me and fell into my arms.

  “I’m sorry, Abs,” I breathed, holding her tight.

  “Don’t be angry at Indy. I was coming here with or without her.” She looked up at me. “I need to say goodbye.”

  I nodded. She was an adult. She knew what she needed to do and I wasn’t going to try to stop her.

  Camila, the morgue assistant, greeted us and then led us out the back where the bodies were kept prior to being moved to the funeral home.

  “Isaac’s hasn’t been autopsied,” she explained. “Dr. Sumstad will be doing that tomorrow. In the meanwhile, we’ve taken good care of him.”

  Pain rose up from my core and I drew in a deep breath as we followed her into the cool room. As we waited for her to show us Isaac, Indy’s fingers curled into mine.

  “Ready?” Camila asked. When we nodded, she opened the stainless steel drawer and pulled back the sheet covering Isaac’s body.

  A strangled gasp came from Abby, and a pain as vicious as anything I had ever known tightened my chest.

  Isaac was the pale color of death. He had been washed clean of all the blood and brain matter, and his hair hung in cold, damp
tendrils off his face, concealing the crater in the back of his head where the bullet had exited. His eyes were only half-closed, and I was knocked on my ass by the milky lifelessness of them as they stared back at us, unseeing and empty. His mouth was closed, his lips pale, and just above his nose, right between his eyes, was the blackened, star-shaped bullet hole.

  “No,” Abby sobbed.

  Her knees went weak and I pulled her to me to stop her from collapsing. But I had no words to comfort her. My throat was cold and tight, strangled by grief. I felt her falter in my arms, her body wracked with pain as she sobbed into my chest.

  “No,” she cried again, shaking her head.

  She pulled away from me, and I watched with a stony face as she stepped closer to her brother and took his cold hand in hers. Her chin quivered as she tried to sniff back her tears. At first she just opened her mouth, but no words came out.

  She exhaled deeply, tears spilling from her eyes with every blink.

  “I just wanted you to know that I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else as my twin, Isaac. You were the best big brother that a girl could have hoped for. Even if you were only ninety-seconds older.” Her face screwed up as a rush of pain overcame her, but she drew in a deep breath to steady herself and licked her lips to steady her quaking chin. “It’s okay. We’ll be okay. So you go in peace, you hear me? And when it’s time, we’ll see each other again.”

  I could barely contain my tears. They stabbed at my eyes and my face was stiff with the pain of holding them in. I looked at Indy and she was crying, tears streaming down her cheeks as she watched Abby say goodbye to her twin brother.

  I couldn’t look anymore. I had to get out of there.

  I needed to breathe.

  CADE

  It rained the day we buried Isaac. Thunder rumbled in a stormy sky. We rode in the usual procession of motorcycles through the streets of Destiny, the lights of our bikes cutting through the gloom of a cold fall day. I rode behind Bull, my heart heavy with pain and my face so stiff with grief I didn’t even feel the first drops of rain when they began to fall. I just rode.

  When we arrived at the church, Indy waited for me at the base of the stairs. She had ridden with Lady, my sister Chastity, and my mom. She took my hand in hers and I barely held it together when I looked across the parking lot and saw Cherry and little Braxton making their way toward us. Oh Christ. Braxton’s face was crumpled with sadness and he looked so lost and confused, it tore me up inside.

  I let go of Indy’s hand and went to them, scooping Braxton up and hugging him tight. Cherry started to sob against my mom’s shoulder, which set Braxton off.

  “Hey,” I croaked. “It’s okay, buddy. I got you.”

  I tried to hand him back to Cherry, but the little dude wouldn’t let go. He wound his arms tighter around my neck and buried his face into my shoulder. Cherry looked pleadingly at me. She wanted me to hold onto him, so I nodded and took him with me. I would be strong for him. For Isaac. For me. But when I walked through the doorway and I saw Isaac’s coffin at the end of the aisle, I faltered, and for the first time in my life, my knees were weak. Pain crashed through me, colliding with a grief so violent I was momentarily unable to move. It took Braxton burying his face into my neck to get me moving. Somehow I found my seat in the pew. Somehow I got through the service without breaking apart. I just focused on the coffin and let my anger take reign.

  Vengeance. I’d be lying if the word hadn’t frequented the establishment of my brain a lot in the past few days. But this time it appeared like an epiphany. Blood red and backed by the most destructive emotion of all: rage. I would find out who did this to my cousin and I would take from them what they had taken from Isaac.

  I stared straight ahead. My head full of memories. My heart full of pain. My entire body consumed by an overwhelming need for revenge. And somewhere in that church, during the service for my slayed cousin, my grief turned into a seething and unrelenting obsession for vengeance.

  Dire Straits “Brothers In Arms” played as I helped Maverick, Caleb, Bull, Vader, and Abby carry Isaac’s coffin out to the awaiting hearse. Wind whipped around our legs and my heart goddamn broke as they lowered my cousin into the ground. It was too much to bear. Filled with agony, I walked away, unable to watch Isaac’s cut disappear into the ground with his coffin. I climbed on my bike and gunned the engine, riding off into the storm.

  INDY

  Cade had changed. He’d turned cold with hate. Despondent with grief. Quietly simmering with rage.

  I hoped it would get better in time. But I’d seen the look on his face today at the funeral. I’d seen the cold, hard darkness in his eyes and the tightened tick of muscles as he clenched his jaw. He was consumed with rage. Overtaken by grief. Mad with whatever darkness was taking control of him.

  When he’d walked away, I had let him go. I’d gone to the wake at the clubhouse and spent the next four hours keeping myself occupied by serving food and cleaning up paper plates and cups. I was cleaning up outside on the patio when Isaac’s mom, Peggy, cornered me. She was smoking and taking angry sips of wine from a plastic cup, followed by angry puffs on her cigarette. I hadn’t seen her in twenty years. She had walked out on Griffin not long after he went into a wheelchair.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t little Indigo Parrish. Haven’t you grown up to be somethin’,” she said, her over-made-up eyes rolling over me with something close to resentment.

  “Peggy,” I replied with a nod. I had never liked Isaac’s mom. She was loud and brazen, and she had a sharp tongue.

  “I heard you left town,” she said, her tone accusatory and challenging.

  When I thought about Peggy Calley, I automatically recalled the memory of her and Garrett Calley having sex on the washing machine while her husband, Ronnie, and other club members were outside having a barbeque. I had come inside for a drink of water. Hearing a giggle and some muffled voices down the hallway, my eight-year-old curiosity had gotten the better of me and I had snuck down the hallway and peeked through the slatted laundry door. Peggy had been sitting on the washing machine and Garrett Calley was standing between her parted legs, his jeans around his ankles as he fucked her.

  “I came back for my father’s funeral,” I replied, reminding myself that this was her son’s funeral and I should probably be a little more tolerant of her than she deserved.

  “And you stayed?”

  I busied myself with picking up trash left on the barbeque table and putting it into the garbage bag in my hand. “Looks that way.”

  I heard her scoff and looked up. Peggy Calley would be in her early fifties, but she looked like a woman in her sixties. The biker life and whatever cesspit she had fallen into after abandoning her family had taken its toll on her.

  But she had just lost her son, and my heart felt for her. We all had each other. The club. Me and Cade. While she had nothing and no-one.

  “I’m sorry about Isaac,” I said, that familiar sting of pain twisting in my chest.

  Cold eyes paused on me. “Yeah, well, can’t say I’m surprised. You live by the sword, you die by the sword. Isn’t that what they say?” She drew heavily on her cigarette and blew the smoke toward me. “I always told him that nothing good would come of him joining this stupid fucking club. Told him to stay clear of the lifestyle. I said, ‘Isaac, look at what that club did to your daddy. Look at what it did to your Uncle Garrett. Ain’t nothing good is going to come from you becoming a King.’” She scoffed and drew on her cigarette again. “Of course, he didn’t listen to me. Damn fool. Just like his goddamn father.”

  Peggy had walked out on her family when Isaac and Abby were nine years old. She disappeared for years. No one knew where she was or what she was doing, or whom she was with. Birthdays came and went with no word from her. No card. No phone call. No letter. Milestones were missed. Isaac could be forgiven for not listening to his mother when she finally turned up all those years later.

  “I heard you had left town. Broke up with Cad
e after he cheated on you. Took off and became a fancy doctor,” she said. “I thought, good for her. She got out. She got away. She broke a Calley heart.” Her eyes flashed with pathetic delight at the idea. Then, they narrowed and she took a step toward me, shaking her head with judgmental disbelief. “Yet here the fuck you are, a fancy-assed doctor picking up trash at a biker funeral.”

  I dropped the garbage bag at her feet and straightened. “Have you got something you want to say to me, Peggy?”

  She scoffed and sucked on her cigarette again.

  “Just that it is a real shame. A beauty like you, getting sucked in by a Calley. He’s cheated on you once before, Indy. Mark my words, that boy will cheat on you again.”

  “That was a long time ago when we were just kids. Cade isn’t like that.”

  She sneered. “Don’t kid yourself, young lady. They’re all like that. Every single one of them.”

  I focused on the small scar under her right eye—it was courtesy of Ronnie Calley. I wasn’t the only one who had seen Peggy and Garrett on the washing machine that day.

  “I think we’ll be just fine,” I said.

  She snickered and ashed her cigarette. “It doesn’t work out for the women of the MC. Look at your mom. Look at Ronnie. Cherry. Did it work out for them?”

  “You left.” I took a step closer and looked her up and down. “Did it work out for you?”

  For once, Peggy was speechless.

  I saw no point hanging around any longer.

  “Like I said, I’m sorry about Isaac,” I said.

  As I began to walk off, she called out. “It’s only a matter of time, Indy. He’ll break your heart. Those Calley boys always do.”

  I didn’t stop. I kept walking and disappeared inside where I continued to clean up. Peggy Calley was a spiteful, resentful, selfish woman. I wasn’t going to let her words get to me, even if they were the echo of my own thoughts only a few weeks ago.

  “You okay?”