But once I managed it, I took in Tasha sound asleep beside me in my bed.
The clubhouse. I was back in the clubhouse.
That alley and the shit that’d gone down there was long past.
Well… kind of.
It was still haunting me.
Months and months had passed after it’d happened where I’d been plagued by nightmares and flashes of it all. I hadn’t been able to escape it. And, fuck, it’d put me in a real bad headspace.
I’d thought I was finally past it a little while ago when all of that had finally faded away.
But I’d been wrong, because the Strikers bringing it up had my head messed all over again.
“Fuck,” I muttered, bringing my hands to my face, as I fought to get a grip.
I couldn’t… be like this. I just couldn’t. Too much was on the line right now. I had to keep my focus. Nothing could be screwing with my head. I couldn’t let it pull me under.
That fucker had deserved to die. He’d really deserved it.
I’d done the world a favor.
So, what the fuck was all the guilt about?
I didn’t want it twisting me up inside.
And I didn’t deal well with that shit.
I needed to push it down.
Right the hell now.
I tossed the covers aside and swung out of bed, trying to be quiet about it so I didn’t wake Natasha. She’d been through so much lately on top of the pregnancy and she needed her rest whenever she could get it.
I dressed quick and took a long look at her sleeping so peacefully curled up in a ball under the covers, her long, silky black hair fanned out all over the pillow.
Mine.
***
I flipped on a couple of the light switches by the door, just enough so I could see my way to the booze. I stalked across Steel Titans’ premier nightclub, Vibe, checking it out as I went to make sure things hadn’t gone to hell in the weeks that I’d been away. The club was my responsibility, something Slade had thrown my way to keep me out of trouble, his attempt to quell my aggressive tendencies.
With the vote that’d gone down during Church a few days ago, where he’d finally laid out everything with Tasha and the Strikers, it seemed it’d just been a stalling tactic. Because we were going to war now. The club had been put to work to gear up for it. We were going to put an end to Nik’s reign of terror once and for all.
I needed to keep my head in the game more than ever. I couldn’t let some bullshit remorse gain traction. I had to bury it down deep and rise above it. If not, it’d shake my resolve and lead to hesitation, which would be useless on the fucking battlefield. Useless to me. Useless to the club. And, worst of all, useless to Tasha and our baby.
Sighing with the weight of everything bearing down on my shoulders, I walked behind the bar and snatched up a bottle of Jack. I made a mental note to reimburse the bar. Slade was real strict about members taking from the stash without replacing it. I screwed off the top and grabbed a glass. Best monitor my intake. Getting shitfaced wasn’t the plan and it wouldn’t be tolerated while we were on the verge of war either. I just needed to take the edge off.
I slid onto one of the chrome stools and started filling the glass.
Well, tried to.
My hands were shaking, something I hadn’t taken the time to realize in my haste to get down here and outrun that fucked-up recollection. Liquor spilled over the rim, sloshing over the bar top too. The more I tried to still my hand, the worse it seemed to get.
And then a strong, steady hand clasped mine around the glass. The bottle was pulled from my grip.
I looked up to see the most unlikely person of all pouring my drink for me.
“Mason,” I spoke, my surprise clear.
He stepped back and put the bottle down beside me. I watched him fold his arms across his chest, striking that stance of his that meant he was in an all-business frame of mine.
“Come here for more?” I asked, gesturing to my fading bruise from the punch he’d dealt me when I’d first arrived back in Warlow with Natasha. “You should know, I won’t let it happen this time so you’re going to have your work cut out for you.”
He rolled his eyes and scoffed, “Let it happen? You really think a lot of yourself.”
“I just call it like it is,” I shot back.
“Well, I’m not here to test that theory.”
“Why, then, huh? You made it clear you’re done with me. You even moved all of your shit out of the clubhouse to drive the point home. So, what the fuck are you doing in the same room with me now?”
“Vibe’s on my patrol route. I saw the door open.”
Oh, right. With that brutal Mikhail memory so fresh, I was more than a little out of it, so much so that it’d slipped my mind.
I chugged back a couple of burning gulps of my Jack, then eyed him. “Well, as you can see, all’s well. You can head on out.”
Instead of taking the out and leaving me to it like I wanted, he stood stock still like the wall of muscle that he was.
“What?” I snapped.
“I didn’t know Nik was using Mikhail to blackmail you.”
Either he simply didn’t get it, which was unlike him, given how astute he was, or, as was more likely the case, he just refused to acknowledge it. I shook my head at him and delivered the cold, hard truth. “He blackmailed Natasha by using me against her as leverage. She risked the wrath of the likes of you and everyone else in the club to protect me.”
“The reason Mikhail happened was because of her. If she hadn’t called you down there to bail her out then—”
I slammed my
