Hellbent (Four Horsemen MC Book 5) (15 page)

He was literally biting his thumb ring to keep the laughter in.

"Yeah?" Shep managed to make the word sound bedraggled.

"Yeah, you get a set of new recruits in, take some rookie under your wing and he goes and does some dumbass shit and the asshole gets shot. Now you feel responsible, because you're his CO … happens all the time," Duke said.

"Right. All the time," Shep repeated woodenly.

Pretty Boy bent over, grasping his knee with one hand and holding his poor, abused ribs with the other, silently laughing so hard, tears slipped down his face.

"Don't let it get to you. A man's gotta be responsible for his own fucking self. Getting’ his back and being his babysitter are two different things." Duke's Harley purred to life. "Look, we got church in a few. See you there?"

"You got it. Just got to … clean this up," Shep muttered, his voice coming closer.

Pretty Boy hustled back over to the kitchen, leaning against the counter like he was contemplating drinking the rest of Duke's coffee. Shep stomped inside and headed straight for the sink, washing the soda off his hands. Pretty Boy raised a brow.

"Don't ask," Shep muttered.

"Don't tell, actually—from what Duke was saying," he snickered.

"Heard that did you?"

"I'm a snoop." Pretty Boy shrugged. "You headed to church, then?"

"Yeah, fixing to head that way right now." Shep wiped his hands on a bleached dish towel. "Make yourself at home. When I get back, we'll go get you some clothes to hold you from the time being."

Pretty Boy nodded, trying not to let the knot of charity souring his stomach show on his face. Shep would just tell him get the fuck over it and stomp out. "You goin’ to ask them to vote on that thing for Etta?"

Shep glowered. "Are you fucking kidding me? You think you're in any condition to pick a fight? Let alone finish one. Answer's no."

"Look, I get things are rocky as shit right now—"

"You think? Eddie's warehouse did not exactly go quietly into the night and neither did your trailer. The FBI's on our ass, the rally fast approaching, but you want to go provoking the Raptor's fucking President into a prize fight? Under the cover of, 'sorry officer, we're just mischievous' and a winning smile?" Shep glared at him, looking a little winded.

"You done?" Pretty Boy sighed. "I get all that, I really do. But this isn't exactly the sort of thing that can ben penciled in when we get to it. That kid is living in that house with him every day. We could do something make his life just a little less of a living hell."

Shep stared at him.

Time to pull out the big guns. "It's the right thing to do and you know it. I'm just asking you to propose the vote."

"Fine." Shep threw his hands up in the air. "But, hear me. If Duke says you're not in a condition to fight that night, you better have a plan B. Because I will fucking chain you up if I have to. But you won't be fighting."

"Thank you." He grinned.

 Shep shook his head, grabbed his helmet off the counter and slammed the door behind him.

"Well, I think that went well." He lifted Duke's abandoned cup, toasted the empty room and drained it. Smacking his lips, he said, "Cheers."

Chapter Fifteen

The Pale Rider patch is given only to a brother who has killed on the orders of the MC.

~Four Horsemen Charter

* * *

Once upon a time, Shep had thought he'd have his own congregation. A crowd of lost and lonely souls he could comfort and guide. Be there for.

Now, church had a different meaning. It was held around a beaten table in a room with bullet scars; his congregation consisted of rough and unruly bikers riding the razor's edge of unlawful. But it was still his church.

And it was still holy to him.

His plan had been to propose Pretty Boy's plan to save the Raptor's kid today. He didn't really want to, and he'd already decided to just not bring it up and tell Pretty Boy he was in no condition to fight. And every time he’d convinced himself to shelve it, Pretty Boy asking,
how long would you have let me stay there?
 made him realize he had to ask. But the mood was all wrong for a risky move like this today. Something just felt off in the room.

With uneasy eyes, he watched Cap at the head of the table, staring at them like it was the last time he'd look around the room. When he banged the gavel, it sounded hollow. Like the final note of a funeral dirge. The others were nattering away, but Shep knew in his gut something was real bad wrong.

 “Brothers!” Cap said.

They shut their traps and turned to face him.

“This is going to go a bit different today. I think you’d consider it some old business. It’s been gnawin’ at me for a couple of decades now, keepin’ me up at night, so I might as well get it all out in the open.  I’ve been lyin’ to you. For years.”

Nobody moved. They froze in place. Something like dread clawed its way up Shep's throat. Whatever Cap was about to confess had to be what had been brewing between him and Eddie a couple nights ago when Cap had called Shep and sent him over to look after her. When he’d arrived, she’d been drunk and hollering her frustrations at the moon.  And it had to be more than either of them had bothered to clue him in on. A little cheating wasn't the kind of thing you confessed in this church.

 “So, what the fuck.  I'm callin’ it a day. Doin’ what I gotta do. I need to tell you somethin’ about the RICO case.”

Shit. The stuff between Cap and Joker. The look of betrayal in Eddie's eyes. The anchor of guilt weighing Cap down that had gotten so heavy it showed in his every step. Shep thought back to the night in the desert they had crushed bones together and finally pieced together the skeleton Cap had really been trying to hide, seconds before it all came tumbling out.

 “Back in the day, before the RICO case, I’m the one who tipped off the FBI. The Feds were crawlin’ up our asses, looking for a reason to bust us, and I gave them one. I called the tip line and told them the location of a meet. We were runnin’ coke from Mexico to Las Vegas and we had a meet set with our distributor. They hadn’t been able to pin anything on us until I tipped them off.”

Holy. Shit.

Well, to fuck with new business, then.

Shep glanced around at his brothers, waiting for the first reactions before he decided how he needed to proceed.

“Why the fuck would you do that?” Duke finally asked.

Cap wore weary like a crown. “There were a lot of reasons, but I wanted to protect the club.”

“By ratting them out?” Ryker asked. “Ratting
my dad
out.”

Cap kept glancing at Goat, as if for permission or confirmation – hell, maybe absolution. But Goat's face was a stone wall. “We were into some bad shit at the time – coke, guns, whatever paid well.”

“Yeah, but you know what you signed up for,” Axel said. “If you had a beef with how they earned, you shouldn’t have prospected for the Horsemen.”

Captain nodded. “I know. But I didn’t know how deep this rabbit hole went until I got involved.”

The fear and desperation in Cap's voice echoed in Shep's soul. But he had to find a way to be fair and even about this. That was his job, his role—his contribution. Hiding his own personal demons made him rather sympathetic to Cap's plight, but if he didn't want the harshest hammer of the Horseman's judgment to land on their—likely former—leader, he had to find a way to help his brothers suss this shit out.

He spoke up softly, “We all know the club wasn’t what it is today. But why didn’t you try to change it from the inside?”

Cap held his gaze like it was the last life raft on the
Titanic.

“At the time, I couldn’t think of a better way to solve the problem. The brothers in the club weren’t like any of you. Most of them had drug habits.  They wanted to line their pockets. We killed people, extorted people, dealt drugs in neighborhoods.”

 “Fuck you,” Ryker growled. “Yeah, my dad had his troubles, but he was basically a good guy.”

Shep shot Ryker an eyeful of 'take it easy, man' and Ryker nodded stiffly. Even as a kid, Shep had been well aware of his uncle’s faults. He had doted on Shep mostly to stick it to his self-righteous brother, but it took more than candy, toys and motorcycle lessons to pull the wool over his eyes. Ryker, as the youngest, had remained mostly unaware.

“I stand by what I said,” Captain said quietly. “Except for Goat. Goat was the only solid member, but he went to jail shortly after I arrived. I couldn’t have changed the club if I wanted to. And there was something else.” Cap paused like he was a kid teetering on the top of a waterslide, wondering whether or not to jump. “Joker was getting ready to sell out the club.”

Ryker shot to his feet. “You’re a fuckin’ liar. My Dad would never –“

Damnit. Shepherd reached across the table, grabbed the gavel and smacked it down. The men jumped a little, turning to him. He was certain to Cap the men looked angry, but to Shepherd? They looked scared—none of them wanted to lose Cap. None of them wanted to believe this shit was actually happening.

But then, none of them had the up close and personal viewpoint on Joker. If they’d known the man the way Shep had. His uncle looked out for himself, first and foremost.

Shep met each of their eyes in turn. “Everyone cool down. We’re going to hear him out, before we decide what to do.”

Ryker's glare should have set the gavel on fire, but he sat.

Captain continued his story, filling them in about Joker banging Loretta Beauregard and trying to jump ships and join the Raptors, selling his brothers out in the process. Then Ryker called him a Rat, but his brother Axel stepped up, backing what Cap said with his childhood memories of their dad and a woman who sounded like Loretta. Goat piped in with a whole mess of drama from the past about Buckley Beauregard hiding his daughter’s death from the Raptors, to keep a war from breaking out between them and the Dixie Mafia.

So, yeah. Shep could see where a man like Cap—especially all young and idealistic, head over heels for Joker's old lady—made a decision like he did. But it didn't seem like the rest of the table was quite on board for calling it a justified move.

“That still doesn’t excuse what you did,” Duke said. “You turned your back on your club, went to the feds behind their back.”

“And we only have Axel’s word for it who was a kid at the time,” Ryker said. “Do you have proof?”

 “No." Cap swallowed hard. “I happened to overhear a conversation one night. We were all at the clubhouse and everyone was passed out, except me. Joker phoned his honey. And I was drunk, but not that drunk.  I heard him whispering to her, tellin’ her he was setting up a bogus run for the guys, but I don’t have any hard evidence.”

Shep surveyed the room, then turned to his mentor, his friend. "Is there anything else you'd like to say?

He shook his head.

He looked sad. A practiced eye could see he was a little scared. But he also looked kinda … free. Like something that had been dogging him for years was gone and the relief was tangible.

Shep wanted to ponder what that might feel like, but now was not the time. He was sure that day of reckoning was coming for him. And he just fucking hoped he was brave enough to handle things with the kind of grace Cap had shown today. Man had balls of steel.

“Okay then. We have a decision to make." Shep took a breath, the words he was about to speak like ashes in his windpipe. "Will Captain meet the Pale Rider?”

‘Meeting the Pale Rider’ was a death sentence vote. This vote was not a decision to be taken likely, nor one that was made often. As of now, only two members held the dubious honor of sporting the Pale Rider patch. The patch designated they had killed on orders for the club. Captain. And Duke—the guy who'd have to kill him if the vote went the wrong way.

"I'll take him outside while you all deliberate, but I've already made up my mind." Ryker stood.

Shep sighed.
Fucking hothead.
Ok, yeah—Cap was currently banging Ryker's momma. And when it came to hatin’ a man who was doing that, Shep couldn’t cast any stones. But there's a time and a place—and a point where you let a fucking thing go, right?

Like say, when it came to talking about killing a man who had handed you your entire world on a shiny, silver set of handlebars, for instance. Cap had stepped in for Axel and Ryker, taught them to ride, to fight, to drink. He’d been a better father to those two than the disgrace that had sired Shep. He glared at Ryker. "That's a bad fucking idea."

“Yeah, no shit,” Captain muttered under his breath.

“I’ll keep my hands to myself,” Ryker promised.

Maybe this conversation would go better with cooler temperaments in the room. He gave Ryker his 'I will whup your ass, son' face and said, "See that you do."

Duke handed Ryker some zip ties from his cut pocket and Ryker bound Cap's wrists and marched them out the door. Shep couldn’t help noticing the way Duke’s eyes had become flat like a shark. Somewhere inside, he was already distancing himself from Cap. Just in case. The thought sent a chill through Shep.

Maybe it was all semantics and at the end of the day, you were damned no matter why you did it. But killing a man in a fit of rage, in a vengeance driven haze was one thing. Planning it out? Killing a friend because you were following orders? Shep didn't think he was made of whatever it took to do that. He didn't want to be.

"Vote now?" Goat called, eyeing Shep standing near the head of the table, holding the gavel.

"Talk now," Shep corrected. He couldn't believe this was happening. "Arguments for?"

"He's a rat," Axel tossed out. "I, for one, believe his story—but that doesn't change the fact that he went to the Feds. Or that he lied to use all these years."

"How many people died because of that Rico case?" Cowboy asked. "We've all heard the stories—hell, we make the prospects practice reciting it. Everything went to shit cuz of what he done?"

"Same token, brother,” said Coyote, “It's that tragedy that made us what we are today. The phoenix chapter rose from the ashes of a dead MC. Bigger, Better, Brighter." Coyote sat forward, tapping the phoenix patch on his chest. After the RICO case, Eddie and Cap had rebuilt, re-forged and renamed the Horseman chapter to reflect their struggle and rebirth. "Would we be loyal to the MC if it was still what it used to be?"