Empire of Savages (Savage Hunt MC #1)

Epilogue

Vox

Two weeks later…

Tugging my gloves down, I sat at the table in Church and watched the members file in. We would all look back on today as a day that left a stain on the Savage Hunt, Detroit Chapter. A day with a mixture of emotions. Some, like Kaash, would be celebrating the untimely demise of Rixon Ward. For others, like Silas and me, it would be a day of mourning.

The news had reached me when I was picking Myla up from school this afternoon. The president had been sideswiped by a truck on the freeway. He’d hit the concrete divider at full speed, dying on impact. The only positive I could take from it all was that it had been quick, and he hadn’t suffered.

I knew he’d still been mourning Molly. I knew he’d turned to drinking to dull the pain, and that he’d probably been riding drunk. A small part of me wondered whether it was a conscious thought. To drink. To get on his bike. To see that truck and wonder if all the pain would end. It wouldn’t have been the first time his thoughts had strayed to suicide.

With Molly gone, he had nothing to live for. He was like a wounded animal. Snapping and snarling at people. And the reason he was like that was because of love. Molly’s death had reduced him to that. Nick’s absence must’ve also played a part in his spiral to substance abuse. Losing your wife and a man you saw as your son in the span of a couple of weeks would reduce any man to that.

Kaash strolled in, followed by Maverick who had filled Gunnar’s place at our VP’s side. Kaash would never have admitted it, but after Nick told me what had gone down between them, I was betting Kaash had been conspiring to get rid of Gunnar the whole time. Like Nick, he’d been a game piece that could be easily cast aside once its usefulness had worn out.

Silas, Ryker, Mac, and Kai arrived next, each taking their respective place around the table. Jaxon, Xander, Karter, Beckitt, Nash, and Easton were the last to file in and fill the table, while the prospects lined the walls. Since we were voting in a new president, this shit affected them, too.

Kaash leaned back in the president’s chair, not bothering to look distressed over Rixon’s death. Reaching forward with a wicked gleam in his eye, he slammed the gavel onto the scarred table and brought the meeting to order.

“Rixon is dead,” Kaash announced, looking around the room, that gleam in his eyes becoming more and more vicious. “The funeral will be in a couple of days, but we need to vote on a new president.”

Nash, Xander, and Maverick slapped their palms against the table, smiles curling up the corners of their mouths. If I had any doubts as to loyalties before, it was pretty fucking clear now. Kaash was gaining more momentum. More sheep to follow him.

Nick had once asked me where my loyalties lay. I’d told him it was with my president. I had been loyal to Rixon. I never wavered. I was the kind of man who thrived on stability and always knowing what was coming next. Rixon only had the club’s best interests at heart, but Kaash was a wild card.

If Nick were to ask me again, I wouldn’t be able to say the same thing.

“As VP, I’d like to put my hand up for the position,” Kaash started, arrogance in his tone. He knew he was a shoo-in for the position, and I couldn’t handle the thought of a man like him getting exactly what he wanted.

“I nominate Silas,” I said. Looking diagonally across the table, I caught Silas’s eye. He nodded. My gaze skimmed back to Kaash, finding his jaw bulging and his brows in a menacing scowl.

“This is a democracy,” he ground out. “Anyone else want to put their hand up for the job?”

When there were no other candidates, Kaash called a vote. One by one, the officers cast their votes—writing the name of their preferred president on a slip of paper and sliding it to Mav. The patched members and the prospects got to have their say, too. Maverick quickly tallied the votes, a smirk on his face as he announced the winner.

“Kaash wins with fifteen votes.”

Kaash grabbed the gavel and brought it down onto the table with a resounding slam . “The Savage Hunt has spoken.”

There was a lot of back slapping at this point, while Silas sat and stared at the table. I commiserated. I couldn’t shake the feeling that perhaps this was the beginning of the end. I wondered if the boys knew the truth about Kaash, where this club was headed, if it would’ve changed their vote.

“There’s one more announcement,” Kaash declared. “It’s been confirmed that Killian Kavanaugh has been assassinated by his son, Aidan. I know this doesn’t mean a lot to any of you right now, but believe me, it’s a fucking good day for the Savage Hunt.” He looked around the room. “Any other business we need to attend to before we all get our dicks sucked?”

The room was quiet.

With a triumphant grin, Kaash slammed the gavel one final time, adjourning the meeting. Everyone filed out, the club girls already waiting for the members to kick things off. Music began blaring as liquor started to flow. I couldn’t stand the idea of partying now. It was disrespectful to Rixon’s memory.

I left the clubhouse, breathing in the cooling night air. The worst of the summer heat had passed, and we were beginning the decent into fall. The cooler weather would soon wreak havoc on my hands, but I wasn’t a stranger to pain.

As I strolled to my bike, something drew my attention to the fence. I could make out someone standing a few yards away from the gate, shifting anxiously from foot to foot. Judging from the size and build, it was a woman. But why would a woman be here at this time of night?

With all the prospects still inside for the moment, I walked down the driveway to see who it was.

The woman had black hair, high cheekbones, and dark, slightly uptilted eyes. My gaze dragged down to the hand she held protectively over her stomach, and my brain came up with a memory.

I’d seen her before, somewhere.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

She took in my mask, inching a step back from the fence. “Is Rixon here?” she asked in a small voice.

“He’s dead.”

Her eyes widened for a moment before they dropped to the ground. When she looked at me again, she clutched at the chain-link fence and asked, “What about Nick? Is he here?”

“Nick’s gone to Columbus.”

“ Fuck! ” The word was a harsh whisper.

I stepped closer, sensing she was about to run. “Are you in trouble? Is your baby’s daddy giving you grief?”

If there was one thing I couldn’t abide by, it was women getting slapped around by asshole men. My own mother had been the victim of domestic violence—until I was old enough to do something about it.

“What? No,” she replied. “It’s my friend.”

I frowned. She must be talking about one of the club girls. “Clubhouse is closed for a private party. Nobody in or out until morning.”

“It’s not that,” she replied, shaking her head. “She didn’t come home last night. That’s not like her.”

Jesus fuck, this was below my pay grade. “What do you expect me to do about it?”

She blinked, like hearing the question confused her on some basic level. “I-I don’t know. But I don’t know who else to go to.”

“Call the cops. Report her as missing.”

She shook her head. “They won’t do anything about it yet. Look, Quinn left me this really weird voicemail saying something about getting a job at a club. She went in for an interview last night and didn’t come home.”

My greedy mind snagged on that name. Quinn. “You have been here before,” I said, not phrasing it as a question, because I wasn’t asking one. I knew she’d been here before, because I couldn’t forget the blonde that had come with her. Quinn . Her name was Quinn. I wasn’t ashamed to admit that I’d jerked off to her since that first day I saw her. She was equal measures of timid and feisty, but it was her vulnerability that had really called to me. The short interaction we’d had couldn’t have been called anything less than an intimidation on my behalf. I only realized afterward how it must’ve looked. Me looming over her, watching her, studying her, wanting her . I was fascinated by her. Couldn’t look away from her even though I knew she was scared. That fear only lasted a moment before she threw back her shoulders and demanded to know what the hell I wanted. She’d even called me Skeletor, and I appreciated the 1980s TV show reference more than I should have.

“Please,” the woman said. “Please help me find her.”

Grinding my teeth, I bit out, “What’s the name of the club she interviewed for?”

“Muse.”