“I’m sorry!” I say yet again, knowing it’s too insignificant for what I did.
“Fine. You’ve apologized. You can leave now,” Wirth says.
But I can’t leave. Not yet.
When I don’t say anything or move, he chuckles darkly. “Oh, I get it now. You think I would actually betray the fucking MC, my own fucking brothers, to help save yours after he helped shoot them up? You may be hot, but you’re not that fucking hot.”
“Please, Wirth. Rian is only eighteen! Do you remember being that age? Doing stupid shit without thinking?” I ask him. “I don’t know how long you’ve been a member of the MC, but we grew up surrounded by violence. My father practically shoved a gun in Rian’s hands before he could walk.”
“That’s not my problem,” he replies, crossing his arms over his chest.
“No, it’s not your problem. It’s mine. I just thought…I thought you were a good guy, one who wouldn’t like having the death of a stupid boy on your conscience.”
“He apparently didn’t mind having a death on his,” Wirth points out before he lowers his arms and turns to start walking away from me. Without turning around, he calls out, “Get the fuck out of here, Maeve, before I tell everyone what you did!”
And I know then it’s only a matter of time before I get a call or someone shows up at my door, telling me my brother is dead.
Chapter Fourteen
Wirth
As soon I walk back into the pool hall, I go behind the bar, grab what’s left of the Crown Royal we have on hand, and start chugging.
“Fighting with your old lady?” Devlin asks, leaning his forearms on the other side of the bar.
“I don’t have an old lady,” I assure him.
“That Maeve girl is pretty hot…” he trails off.
After I swallow a quarter of the bottle, I tell him, “Maeve was a fucking mistake that I’ll regret for the rest of my life.”
“Damn. That’s harsh, bro,” he says with a chuckle. “What the hell did she do to you?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? She did nothing and you’re over here drowning your liver in whiskey while badmouthing her?”
“Guess so,” I tell him. “Shouldn’t you be home with your woman before shit goes down tomorrow night?”
“Yeah, later. She took the Dickhead to some gamblers anonymous meeting. Like that’s going to help him be less of a fucking tool.”
“What dickhead?” I ask in confusion. “You don’t mean her brother, do you? The one who knowingly pimped her out to a crime boss for a night?”
“The one and the same,” Devlin says, yanking the bottle from my hand and taking a big gulp before slamming it on the table.
“I can’t believe you let that shit fly.”
“What am I supposed to do?” he asks. “Tell Jetta she can’t be around her own brother because he might sell her out again? I can’t make her choose between us. He’s her family and I’m just her fiancé, for now. We can’t pick our blood family, but we have to do our best to stand by them.”
“I’m glad I don’t have any siblings,” I grumble.
“Me too,” Devlin says.
“Maeve’s brother is actually causing some…conflict,” I admit to him without going into details.
“Oh yeah? You two only fucked once, and the family is already causing problems?” he jokes with a grin.
“Something like that.”
“Don’t make her choose between him or you. It won’t end well,” he says.
“I wasn’t going to,” I huff. “But, ah, she wants me to help him because he’s young and stupid.”
“How young?” Dev asks.
“Eighteen.”
“That is still young,” he agrees. “Dudes don’t mature until we’re, like, twenty-five or thirty.”
“He’s old enough to vote and serve in the military,” I remark.
“Yeah, but probably not smart enough to make good decisions yet. If you like her, maybe you should give him a break.”
“You don’t know what that would mean…” I trail off, downing the rest of the whiskey.
“Then don’t, I guess, if you never want to see her again.”
“I don’t want to see her again,” I mutter.
“Bullshit,” Dev says with a chuckle. “If you didn’t care about her, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. She wouldn’t have you all worked up.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Isn’t it always when it comes to women?” he asks.
“They’re not worth the fucking trouble.”
“Eh, I would beg to differ, but unlike you, I’ve got a woman waiting in my bed for me every single night, ready to take on the day with me when the sun comes up, no matter what happens. There’s no amount of trouble I wouldn’t endure for Jetta.”
“And that’s what they call being pussy whipped,” I say with a roll of my eyes at his sappy ass.
“That’s what they call loving someone – sticking by them through the good and the bad, even if the bad is their fault.”
I can’t tell Devlin that it’s not the same for me with Maeve. I barely know the woman. We fucked a few times and that was it. I don’t owe her anything, and I certainly don’t have any loyalty to her brother, who is the MC’s enemy.
In fact, I think I need to remind myself what he did.
“I’m going to see Fiasco,” I tell Devlin. “Tell the guys I’ll see them later.”
“Yeah, okay. Tell him we’re thinking about him.”
“I will,” I agree before I head out on my bike. Thanks to the anger burning through my veins, I don’t even feel the slightest buzz from the whiskey.
Maeve
I call Rian as soon as I sit back down in Crystal’s car.
“Yeah?” he answers.
“The MC is planning something. It won’t be long before they come after the Irish.”
“I’ve already told you that we’ll be ready for them. We’ve got cameras everywhere around this joint.”
I hear the loud hum of a group of motorcycles right before a group pulls up across the street.
“The MC is bringing in more guys, ones from out of town,” I tell Rian. “You all will be outnumbered.”
“Not a problem. In fact, we figured that would happen.
