Page 45 of Crucified By the Dark
“Trev, you really need to work on your fun, lighthearted calls,” she said. Trev laughed before hanging up.
Well, that meant no fucking income this month. Morry needed to find someone else wanting weapons that wouldn’t let them end up on the street. Not that the club technically needed it. Morry was very strategic with the money over the years, and they had millions stashed away, but it took a lot to keep a place like this running.
Morry couldn’t help wondering if Dean knew what his father was doing. She was positive he would be pissed and out for blood if he did. Dean hated that man. He’d only ever told her bits and pieces of what was done to him, but even that was horrific and terrifying.
It was well past dark by the time Stephen finally made it back to the property's gates. Morry had watched him slowly weave between the Hummer’s headlights for the last few miles like he’d been out drinking all night. The question became, what should she do with this guy? He was technically ex-military and Tyler’s brother, so Morry felt compelled to help him, but she could tell he was used to lying and getting what he wanted. That was a dangerous combo. You could never fully trust chronic liars. And now she felt like she would have to do a deep dive just to make sure that anything he told her was the whole truth.
This was the last fucking thing she needed right now. She felt like throwing her hands up in the air and saying,not my circus, not my monkey, then walking away. The large gates opened, and the guards on duty nodded as she passed with Stephen, now walking and dragging his leg like a zombie. Once the gates were closed, she veered around him and parked.
“Lady Luck, lockdown.”
“Lockdown mode initialized.”
Placing two fingers in her mouth, she whistled a loud shrill sound that had everyone looking in her direction.
“Avery and Jeff, get over here,” she called as Stephen collapsed to his knees and then landed face-first in the dirt.
“Boss,” the two chimed together like a pair of parrots.
“Throw Stephen here in the showers and make sure he’s moderately rinsed off before putting him in his room. You know the drill.” She looked down at the guy, who was breathing but very clearly passed out at her feet. “Tomorrow, I want him working in the gardens all day,” she said, marching toward her office.
Morry paused, looking over her shoulder to see Avery and Jeff pick up Stephen under the arms and drag him away. Just before they made it through the doors, she would’ve sworn that his eyes opened and met her own. Then they stepped inside, out of her sight.
Too many problems. She had way too many fucking problems.
Like the day before, Morry woke up, and Jeremy wasn’t in bed. Even though she hadn’t invited him, he managed to talk his way into her room last night. If Morry was being honest, it hadn’t taken a whole lot of talking when he showed up with no shirt on and a bottle of her favorite wine.
Morry could hear the motorcycles before stepping outside, and it filled her with joy. The deep rumble always felt right and sent a shot of adrenaline through her veins. Of course, Judd was riding in front with the newest sweetbutt sitting behind him like he was the king of a parade. All he needed to do was lift his hand and wave to complete the look.
She nodded to the men as they drove past and waited for The Bus to pull up. It was black, like everything else she owned, and she had to admit it looked fucking fierce with all the additions.
It had massive ramming bars on the front that were welded right to the frame. The side panels had all been swapped out for bulletproof metal, and the glass was army-grade. Very few weapons could stop this bus, exactly what Morry had been after when it was outfitted. The inside was as good as a hospital room when needed. It only had so much storage space for essentials like blood or medications, and you couldn’t operate if you needed to keep moving, but it was still a shit ton better than what they had been using when she took over.
The old leader had a seventies Cadillac. He would throw people in the back seat and hope they made it to wherever they were heading, usually some veterinarian, to have the guys stitched up. She burned that Caddy with the old leader in the trunk.
The bus hissed as it came to a halt, and the doctor opened the back door as she walked around to greet him.
“How are the patients,” she asked as Duke limped toward the door. He was putting a little bit of weight on his leg now, and she smiled widely at his furry face.
“They are both doing better,” Henry said, hopping down from the bus as two nurses unlocked Wolf’s stretcher from the holders in the floor. “Duke, as you can see, is starting to get around better, and his appetite has increased. I swear he could chow down as much as a horse.” She smirked at the statement as she picked the dog up and set him on the ground so he didn’t have to jump. “I’ve stopped administering the drugs that were keeping Wolf in the coma, and he should come around at some point today. The drive last night was long but smooth.”
“Why are you here so early? I didn’t expect you until later this afternoon.”
“No, you unhook it over there and then flip the lock to the side,” Henry barked at the guy, still fumbling with the lock on the stretcher. Shaking his head, he turned his attention back to her. “Judd said it was safer to travel at night. Less traffic and fewer people to remember a large procession of motorcycles passing.”
The nurses moved Wolf’s bed to the back of the bus, and she gripped a corner as Henry grabbed the other side. Between the four of them, they got the stretcher on the ground. Wolf looked much better with the extra days of rest and meds. His coloring was back to normal, and his hands were clenched into fists like he was already pissed off and ready to jump from the bed, even while he slept.
“I have his room ready in the medical wing. You can head on in. I need to go speak with Judd,” she said, squeezing the doctor’s arm before she left.
It was going to be another hot one. It was barely eight, and Morry could feel the heat pressing down on her as she walked to the Legion clubhouse. She could hear the deep laughter of the men who had returned. The music was already blaring, and she knew that by the time the clock struck noon, they would all be hammered and lying around the clubhouse or having sex against a wall.
Usually, women weren’t allowed in church, and she definitely shouldn’t have been allowed in the clubhouse when they were busy partying with the sweetbutts. Morry’d laid out the men who tried to tell her that tits didn’t make her as much of a man as they were.
Morry walked through and never batted an eye at the shit they got up to unless some idiot brought drugs onto her property. She’d shot people for less, and they all knew it. They could drink all they wanted, smoke all they wanted, and fuck whoever they wanted—other than patients—but don’t ever bring drugs onto Legion property unless you wanted to be gutted alive.
Pushing through the door, she spotted Jeremy near the bar, talking to Butch while a couple of the newer girls worked at getting his attention. He turned and smiled at them. She was too far away to hear what was said, but it didn’t matter. The rage and jealousy were instant and burned like she’d stepped into the middle of a boiling pot of acid. He held up his fingers, signaling the bartender to get two drinks for them, and that was all she could stomach.
Andrew had ruined her. She’d barely been able to find it in herself to trust TK, and it only happened because he spent every waking moment with her and walked by her side through the literal bowels of hell.
