Never Trust the Living (Battle Crows MC Book 7) Read online

  She sighed. “That’s just it. I doubt he’ll rot in hell. My guess? He’ll get lucky and go to a psychiatric facility. He’ll be back one day.”

  That didn’t mean good things.

  Not at all.

  CHAPTER 4

  I’m not always an asshole. Sometimes I’m asleep.

  -Bram to Dory

  BRAM

  Mimi had changed.

  Since the incident where I’d almost died, she’d turned into someone that I didn’t want to know anymore, let alone be around almost twenty-four seven.

  The more she pushed, the more that I pulled.

  Which led us to now.

  I’d thought about signing up for the military out of desperation to put some distance between Mimi and me. I only had a semester and a half until graduation, but I could use it to enter the military, but honestly, my degree could take me to any body of water around the world.

  Just the threat of the military caused her to be even more scared.

  “You can’t go!” she screeched. “You can’t leave!”

  Mimi had been the love of my life since I was fourteen.

  I’d always thought that we would be forever.

  But she’d turned into this nervous mess. One that I didn’t even recognize.

  I mean, I knew that she was scared.

  But hell, she hadn’t been the one to be tortured and nearly killed. I had.

  And I damn well would go to the sentencing if I wanted to.

  “I’m going,” I told her, tone final.

  I needed to go.

  I needed to see where this went.

  It’d been six months since the day I’d been rescued, and today was finally the day. The day we would all find out what Amon Wheeler had in store for him.

  If my vote was to be counted, it would be the electric chair.

  “You can’t be serious,” Mimi said. “You’re going to his sentencing? Why?”

  “Because I want to know how it goes.” I barely refrained from adding ‘duh’ to the end of my explanation.

  But Jesus. She was really not putting any effort into her thinking nowadays.

  She was just ‘doom and gloom’ everywhere we went.

  And it was getting exhausting.

  I’d had to testify via webcam at the trial a week and a half ago to tell the jury my side of the story. And there Amon had sat, smug in the thought that he would get off easy.

  By easy, I meant pleading of insanity and getting sentenced to a psychiatric facility he would never leave again.

  “This is insane,” she said. “You can’t go.”

  I pulled away from Mimi where she had my shirt in a death grip, then pulled away and hoped that by the time I got back, she got a few of her ducks in a row.

  My guess? She wouldn’t.

  And tomorrow, after this was all over, I would have to decide how to handle this. How to deal with her overprotectiveness that was bordering on suffocation.

  I’d loved Mimi since I was fourteen. We’d been inseparable since. We graduated together. Started college together. We talked about me joining an MC with my brothers, and her becoming my old lady. We talked about our kids and our life together, where it would lead us.

  But none of those possibilities were with how she was acting now. How every time I turned around, she was there, hovering, watching my every move.

  It’d gotten to the point now that she stalked me. Wanted to know where I was going, who I would be with, and for how long.

  Hell, I couldn’t even take a shit anymore without her standing outside the door asking me if I was okay.

  “Fine,” she said. “If you’re going, I’m going.”

  I looked at her with serious eyes and said, “No. You’re not. Because you can’t be around him and not want to claw his eyes out. I’m going. You can stay in the car and wait for me, or you can…”

  That’s when we saw Amon’s sister, Dorcas, walking across the parking lot.

  She looked haunted.

  As in, she looked like she’d lost so much weight that I barely even recognized her.

  “I fucking hate her.”

  I looked over at Mimi with surprise. “Dorcas? Why?”

  That completely surprised me.

  Never in my life had I heard Mimi be mean… yet there she was.

  “Dorcas Wheeler is the sister to Amon Wheeler.” She looked at me like I was dumb. “How could I not hate her for what her brother did to you?”

  I felt a sick reminder of why we were here today and grimaced.

  “Dorcas didn’t do anything,” I told her honestly. “She’s sweet and kind and saved my life. If it wasn’t for her, I’d be dead rotting away in Amon’s storm cellar.”

  Mimi flinched. “I don’t have to like her just because she saved you. It’s her fault that you were even in that situation to begin with.”

  Over the last few weeks, while Amon Wheeler had been in court, we’d found out a lot of stuff that he’d done, and why.

  I closed my eyes, remembering the first day that I watched the court proceedings from the comfort of my brother, Haggard’s, living room couch.

  All of my brothers, my dad, and my uncle were present. Mimi and my mom had gone out shopping—though the only reason Mimi had agreed to do that was because I’d promised to stay put—so it was just us guys watching.

  • • •

  “Why did you do it?” the prosecutor asked Amon.

  Amon sat back in his chair and smiled. But again, one of those soulless smiles that creeped me the fuck out and reminded me of times best spent not thinking about.

  “I’d knock that motherfucker out if I could,” Shine hissed. “Goddammit.”

  Shine, the only one not there, was on speakerphone in the middle of the coffee table. He was in the military and wouldn’t be home for a while. That didn’t stop him from joining in on this weird sort of fucked up family fest we were having.

  “Don’t worry, Meems has already claimed that right if we ever get to see him up close and personal.” Haggard laughed.

  His wife was hissing about something or other in the other room that had nothing to do with the trial, and everything to do with us being in her house when she didn’t want us to be there.

  We all ignored her, as we’d been doing for the last hour.

  My eyes, though, moved from the psycho’s still form on the stand to the sister that was sitting in the back of the room, in the shadows, looking scared to death.

  I wasn’t the only one that saw that psycho’s attention was on her, though.

  “That creep is staring at that little girl like he wants to murder her,” my father said.

  “That girl that saved Bram’s life.” Price leaned forward and rested his hands on his face, elbows to his knees. “Surprises the shit out of me, to be honest. We’ve spent all this time thinkin’ she was crazy when she wasn’t.”

  “You and everyone else in this town,” Jeremiah, my uncle, said. “I only heard the worst of the worst about her. I have a cop buddy. They called her Crazy Dork at the police station when she would leave.”

  For some reason, that made me incredibly pissed.

  “Don’t call her that ever again,” I grumbled.

  Jeremiah held up his hands. “Look, I’m not calling her that to call her that out of spite. I just wanted you to know what they called her. They’re the ones that look like complete dumbasses here. Amon may talk smooth, but one of those lazy motherfuckers should’ve gotten off their asses and investigated her claims.”

  “How do you know they didn’t?” Shine asked curiously.

  I looked at the phone, then back to the screen.

  “Because Amon was up the mayor’s ass as his financial advisor. He had ins everywhere and is rich as fuck. Why would anyone believe her over that man that insinuated himself right in the middle of a pack of lazy fucks that protected him?” Jeremiah crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Hey,” Shine asked suddenly. “Are you still on track for graduating?”

  I was.

  “I have a month and a half left,” I admitted. “Then I’m officially certified to underwater weld.”

  I’d missed a few important tests while I was being tortured, but my instructors understood due to the extenuating circumstances.

  “Sweet,” Shine said. “Glad that motherfucker didn’t ruin that for you.”

  “Same,” I agreed.

  Though, Mimi very well might.

  At first, she’d never really been happy about it.

  But now, knowing that I was going to be doing something that dangerous?

  It damn near sent her into panic attacks when we talked about what I would be doing with my degree in a few weeks.

  Needless to say, that was one of the things we didn’t talk about.

  Amon’s words brought all of our attention back to the television, even Shine on his own at his place in Germany.

  “I did it because my sister deserved to be scared and know that she’s the reason it happened.” Amon shrugged as if his words made any sense whatsoever.

  “What did your sister do to deserve that treatment?” the prosecutor asked.

  Amon once again looked over toward his sister, and this time, the camera moved with his gaze.

  Then, there in the middle of a murder trial, Dorcas sat. Looking scared and frightened, and crying her eyes out.

  I wanted to commit murder just to erase those tears off of her face.

  “Because I don’t like when I see her happy,” Amon answered honestly.

  • • •

  “You’re not going to let me go in there?” Mimi hissed. “If she can handle it, I can handle it.”

  I looked at where Dorcas had disappeared inside.

  Then made my decision. “Mimi, you’re g
oing to have to control yourself. You’re going to drop me off, then go home, because you’re driving me fuckin’ nuts. Please, for the love of God, give me some fuckin’ space.”

  Mimi looked so affronted that I chose that moment to open the car door and prayed that she wouldn’t follow.

  She looked at me but made no move to loosen her seat belt.

  And I had a feeling I would pay for my outburst later, too.

  I could see the anger in her eyes and the way she shut her mouth so completely that a thin line of red appeared where her bowtie lips used to be.

  “Bye,” I grumbled, getting out of the car.

  She waited half a second past when I closed the door to peel out of the parking lot. A spray of gravel lay in her wake and pinged off of my shoes.

  I cursed and hurried toward the door, only to come to an almost complete stop the moment I reached it.

  The girl, Dorcas, was standing there looking confused.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  My brows rose. “Is there a problem with me being here?”

  She opened her mouth, closed it, and then shrugged. “I figured since you gave your testimony online via webcam, that meant that you weren’t coming in at all.”

  That had been a calculated thing on the lawyer’s part. He’d thought with me being there in person, that they might see the anger in the way I held myself and be more focused on me than on the psycho.

  According to my lawyer, I was a bit ‘intimidating’ and they didn’t want that issue.

  Whatever.

  I didn’t care.

  But he was right.

  Over the last few weeks of healing, and the previous beating I’d taken, my face had matured into some different lines that hadn’t previously been there.

  It also didn’t help that I was six foot four and a half and had hands the size of dinner plates.

  Oh, and the new tattoo I’d gotten that slithered up my neck. The words: Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand. Blood and revenge are hammering in my head. The William Shakespeare quote had been on a knife that Tide had gotten me upon my exit from the hospital. It’d been so à propos that I’d decided it needed to be embedded in my skin for me to remember every single day for the rest of my life.

  One day, Amon Wheeler would pay for his sins, even if I had to slip into his loony bin in the middle of the night and do it with my bare hands.

  Because that’s how I saw today going.

  I knew without a doubt in my mind that Amon would be getting a free ride to the psych facility.

  I also knew that he would be living a cush life, because Amon was slick. He’d get anyone and everyone on his side that was in that facility. And he would be out.

  One way or the other.

  Whether it was ten years or thirty.

  “That was because, apparently, I’m scary. And they didn’t want the jury focusing on me and my hatred. And instead wanted the focus on Amon and what he did,” I explained as I grabbed the door from her hands and held it wider open. “After you.”

  She went, but she looked like she dragged her feet the entire way to the courtroom.

  I stayed on her heels since she seemed to know where she was going.

  We didn’t sit next to each other, though.

  She went to one corner, and I went to the other, but both of us were bathed in the shadows of the shitty courtroom.

  There we sat for hours while the jury deliberated after closing statements were given.

  Hours that felt like long days and even longer nights.

  And, when the jury finally came out and resumed their seats, and the one stood up to speak, I didn’t have to be a genius to know what he was about to say.

  “We find the defendant not guilty by reason of insanity,” the juror said strongly.

  It wasn’t the words that the juror said, though, that had my skin crawling. It was the way that Amon looked at Dorcas so triumphantly that did it. Anger and disgust dueled through my veins, and I wanted nothing more than to pull out a gun and shoot him straight through his smug face.

  But, surprisingly, it was Dorcas that stood up and turned, catching my eye.

  I knew she wanted me to follow, so I did, which saved me from doing something completely stupid.

  I heard the judge talking about facilities and lengths of time, but I didn’t stay to hear it all.

  I followed Dorcas out until we were standing in the afternoon sun.

  “He won’t stay in there forever,” she said stiffly.

  “I know,” I said.

  And I did.

  “He’ll find a way out, and I’ll just have to deal with this nightmare all over again.” She looked to something behind my back, and I turned to see what she saw.

  It was just a man leaning against his car, smoking.

  But the way Dorcas was looking at him…

  “Dorcas…” I said.

  “Don’t call me that,” she whispered pleadingly. “Don’t ever call me that.”

  My brows rose. “What would you like me to call you then?”

  She never once looked away from the man across the street when she said, “I don’t care. Piece of shit, trailer trash, ugly bitch. Anything but Dorcas.”

  Then she turned to leave, and when she looked back, it was definitely not at me.

  But at that man again.

  I waited until she was in her car, and about to leave before I turned back and found the man that she’d been staring at.

  He was still staring at her. And since my ride wasn’t here…

  I thought… why not?

  I walked across the parking lot to him, and the bad thing was, he was so focused on her leaving that he didn’t notice me coming until I was right on top of him.

  He startled, looked at me, and blinked.

  “Why are you staring at her like that?” I asked.

  The man opened and closed his mouth, looking scared.

  “Um…”

  I moved until I was in his face.

  “Why are you staring at her like that?” I urged, poking him in the sternum with a finger, pressing hard, so I know it had to hurt.

  “Umm,” he squeaked when I pressed harder.

  My finger hurt, so I knew his chest had to hurt worse.

  “I…” He swallowed hard. “I was hired to follow her.”

  That pissed me off. Which was why I punched him across the jaw seconds later.

  “By who?” I asked.

  But I didn’t need to know who.

  I remembered Amon’s words.

  You’ll pay for going against family.

  I’d been in a lot of pain at the time.

  My mind had been foggy, and I damn sure had other things to think about than what those words meant.

  But now, seeing that man that was ordered to follow her… I remembered the words. And what they might mean.

  “From now on,” I said carefully. “You need to forget she even exists.”

  He looked ready to argue, but I said, “Seriously. The man just went away for insanity. He killed multiple people. When I say that he’s not of sound mind, I really fuckin’ mean it. Save yourself the trouble and keep away from her.”

  He narrowed his eyes, then sighed. “It wasn’t that good of pay anyway.”

  Then he left without looking back.

  CHAPTER 5

  When you say ‘spiritual,’ you need to be more specific. Demons are spirits, too.

  -Bram to Price

  BRAM

  “What do you mean, the trial didn’t finish?” I asked, unaware that things had changed after I’d left.

  Or, more importantly, walked home. Because Mimi left me there to find my own way back. Yet again, that was something that I was trying not to think too far into or about, because if I did, I would admit that something had changed in Mimi the day that I’d gone missing. And the subsequent days that it’d taken me to be found, and then recover.

  “They think the judge had a heart attack or something,” Shine explained. “Weren’t you there?”

  Goddammit. The luck that this psycho motherfucker had…

  I shook my head and groaned. “I was… but I left when I heard the verdict.”

  “Well, nothing’s finished yet. The judge didn’t say where and what was going to happen. They’re reconvening next week if the judge is better. I’m not sure what that means if he’s not.”

  My head spun.

  Goddamn, did that man just have really goddamn good luck or what?

  “So Amon is free for a few more nights,” I surmised.