Vice and Void (The Savage Wolves Brotherhood #1)

2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Callum

“I’m not going to ask you again,” Callum said, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned against the doorframe. “We’re here to collect. If you want the protection of the Brotherhood behind you, I need to take her blood.”

The man's gaze drifted to the gun casually resting at Callum’s side, and he began to tremble so violently that his body shook. “We—we had her g-give blood last m-month,” he stuttered. “P—please, we’re on time with our p-payments.”

“This is so fucking annoying,” Ace spat. He pushed himself onto the kitchen counter, letting his legs swing beneath him. “Payments change. Let us take her blood, or we’re turning you into the Guard. Simple as fucking that.”

The man took an alarmed step backward. “She’s fifteen years old!” he cried out. His daughter peeked around the frame of her bedroom door, her eyes bright with fear. “Isn’t there someone else you can get blood from?”

“There’s a contract we're here to uphold,” Callum explained for what felt like the twentieth fucking time since entering the house. His patience was still intact, though just. “We need all the blood we can get.”

“But she’s a child!”

Ace let a shot off into the kitchen floor, the crack of the gun so loud that the man nearly jumped out of his skin. The wooden plank splintered where the bullet struck, and hot metal replaced the stiflingly stale air of the house .

“ Gods-damn , Ace. Fucking control yourself!” Callum scowled at his best friend, who was too busy glaring at the man hiding his daughter to notice.

“I’m on a time crunch,” Ace retorted, pointing the gun at the man in question. He tried to dodge the barrel, but Ace followed him with the glee of a kid magnifying ants in the afternoon sun. “I’m meeting Vonnie in thirty minutes.”

“Vonnie will still suck your dick. Take a walk.”

It was Ace’s turn to scowl. “I don’t want to go for a walk. I want this piece of shit to let us take his daughter’s blood.” He turned back to look at the man attempting to creep down the hallway. “Plenty of kids with the mark are locked in the Fieldhouse getting their blood drawn every other day. Do you want that to be her? Or do you want to keep her in this fucking shack until you can marry her off?”

The man’s face paled even further. “H-how do I even know th-this isn’t something you all m-made up?”

Callum’s neck and shoulders stiffened, his annoyance evolving into a mean agitation that would swiftly take flight into anger if this man didn’t get out of the gods-damn way. Luckily for him and unluckily for the man in front of them, Ace was quicker.

“What the fuck else would we use a fifteen-year-old’s blood for, you sick freak? It’s us, or it’s them. We can call the Guard right now and tell our man to swap her test results. Then we’ll see how fucking fast they get to your door.”

Bringing Ace was a mistake. He had begged Duke for the last six months to let him go on blood runs again. He was Callum’s best friend, but Callum still expressed his concerns. Ace wasn't ready. Duke thought he was. They would all pay for it now.

The man flicked his gaze over to Callum. Like he was the moral fucking compass of this mess. Ace also set his cold stare on Callum, presumably daring him to say something in contradiction. But Callum was going to back his brother no matter the cost, no matter how fucking crazy he was being. That was the Savage Wolves’ way.

“Please,” the man said, his eyes brimming with tears. His puppy-dog gaze searched Callum for a reprieve, roving his tattoos and the sleeveless leather vest—or motorcycle cut—with the SWB patch on his chest. Callum knew he would find none. “Please. She felt weak for days after the last time. Please.”

In response, Callum lifted his fingers to his lips and let out an ear-splitting whistle. The side door opened with a bang, and the man startled again. Rocco Moretti and Maverick Malone stomped into the house, guns already in hand.

“I don’t want to do this the hard way, but I will,” Callum warned. His pulse beat a steady drum down to his fingertips, growing more commanding with every passing second the man skulked against the wall. “Your daughter has the mark. The governor recorded it. We swapped it in the system to keep her safe. You owe us.”

“That mark is a cancer!"

Callum was pleasantly surprised at the outburst. He didn’t think he had it in him.

“Of course it is, you dumb shit,” Ace gritted through his teeth. “The plants we’ve been eating our whole fucking lives are changing people, and your daughter is one of them.”

Changing them down to their DNA. The agricultural farms on the outskirts of the three major cities were growing fruits and vegetables where the blood of the Banished Gods had been spilled. That magic seeped into the humans and mutated those at random to develop valuable blood. Extremely valuable blood. Most didn't know what they had become, passing off the new mark as a mole or cluster of freckles.

The Savage Wolves Brotherhood had once dealt only in Euphoric distills, Norwich's drug of choice, but Tex Reynolds discovered from an informant that the governor’s team was experimenting with adding the blood from marked humans to the distillation process. It transformed the once harmless and healing medicines into weapons that temporarily increased speed and strength and gave the power of divination. Now, the Brotherhood dealt in those, selling the distills at a premium cost to anyone with enough money to knock on their door.

All they needed was the blood of those marked—easy enough when an entire community required a protection only the Brotherhood could provide. Quid pro quo.

The man’s breaths sawed his throat, and for a moment, it was the only thing that broke the tense silence in the house. “If I allow you to take her blood—“

“You aren’t allowing us to do shit. He’s the Vice of the Brotherhood. Second-in-command,” Ace interjected, but the man turned his terrified gaze toward Callum nonetheless.

“If you take her blood now,” the man amended, “would you allow her to skip next month?”

“No,” Callum responded simply, followed by a smug smirk from Ace. From the corner of his eye, he caught Rocco shifting on his feet, an unmistakable look of discomfort etched into his face.

The man’s expression blanched. “But we’ll be on time!”

The next three seconds happened in slow motion. Ace hopped from the counter and cocked his gun. Before Callum could lunge to grab his wrist, Ace let off a second shot, piercing the man just above his knee. Time caught up in a flurry of screams and flying curses.

“Maverick! Get him the fuck out of here!” Callum shouted, aiming for the man who had crumpled into a sobbing pile of useless shit. “Rocco, get the distills off my bike!”

Maverick shoved through the kitchen and reached for Ace’s upper arm, who wrestled away with a sharp, “ Don’t fucking touch me .” Maverick followed Ace through the kitchen and into the small yard on the side of the house. The door slammed shut behind them.

Callum knelt, taking the bandana from his pocket and tying it into a tight tourniquet around the man’s upper thigh. The man let out a shout of pain as Callum braced the leg to look at the bullet entrance. There was an exit, at the very least. The bullet only drilled a hole straight through his flesh.

“Please, please stop!” A second voice called out from down the hallway. Callum glanced up to see the daughter, her tear-streaked face peeking around the frame of her bedroom. Had he not been dumped into this shitty situation, he would have teased her for the boy band poster on her wall “I’ll give you blood. Please, just don’t hurt him.”

“Go in your room and shut the door,” Callum ordered as the door opened again. Rocco appeared at his side, three vials held in his hand. “I’m trying to fucking fix this.”

“You can’t,” the girl said, shaking so vigorously that her red hair came loose from the bun at the base of her neck. Like father, like daughter, it seemed. “You can’t fix this. It’s like this every month, and every month , you need more from me. I would rather go to the Fieldhouse.”

Rocco’s brows rose. “We could arrange that.”

The girl paused, fear flooding her brown eyes. “Would it keep him safe?”

“No,” Callum replied as he unstoppered the vial of Pain with his teeth and spit the cork over his shoulder. He dumped the contents into her father's mouth. “The Guard would come looking. Would want to know how someone like you could be hidden for over a year when you were registered after your bicycle accident.” He sent her a stern stare. “And we would step aside. You would have no help from us.”

The man shuddered before relaxing enough that his sobs retreated into hiccups. Callum uncorked the second vial, Healing, and dumped it onto the wound. The bullet entrance hissed, a sour stench replacing the lingering gunshot residue. The flesh began to knit back together, and the blood loss slowed to a trickle. He would have a scar, but at least he wouldn't die. Callum uncorked the third vial, Blood Replenishing, and unceremoniously tipped the distill into the man's mouth.

“Will he be okay?” the girl whispered. Unbeknownst to Callum, she had crept closer and now hovered above them.

“Do you listen?” Callum asked, glowering up at her from his crouch on the floor. Rocco picked the man up under his arms and hoisted him to rest against the wall. The blood puddle underneath him smeared into the cracks of the kitchen tile. “I said in your room.”

“We’ve got another problem." Callum looked over at Rocco, who had trailed into the living room to peer through the slit in the drawn curtains. “Vipers.”

Callum swore. He stood, checking to ensure his gun was tucked in the waistband of his jeans. “Stay down. Don't look outside, no matter what you hear.” Loud curses and shouts pierced the kitchen, and Callum knew he didn’t have much time…especially if Ace still had a loaded pistol. “Do you understand me?”

The girl nodded, her brown eyes so wide that Callum could almost see himself reflected in her glassy pupils.

“Rocco, out the back. I’ll try and sort this before it gets too fucking bad.”

“We’re in Viper territory—“

“I know where we are.”

Callum crossed the kitchen and yanked the door open, receiving a face full of heat so scorching it hastened the agitation coursing through him. Agitation that was not thawed when he spotted Ace in the middle of the street with his gun drawn or when three motorcycles surrounded him. Callum crossed the driveway and eased to Ace's side.

“Vice!” Maverick called from behind a set of trash containers. He couldn’t quite straighten his cowardly, petrified expression into something unreadable. And he had the nerve to bitch about his uncle passing him up to make Callum second. One of the Vipers jeered at him.

“Callum Reynolds,” the front rider said, tugging off his helmet and pushing his sweaty black hair out of his eyes. “Out of the slammer and back on the streets, I see.”

“It’s been three years, Finn," Callum responded coolly.

Finn Blackthorn, leader of the Blood Vipers Legion, shrugged a shoulder and leaned forward to rest casually against the handlebars of his motorcycle. The engine rumbled beneath him. “Haven’t seen you in a while. Thought you might have gotten yourself locked back up.”

Callum’s return smile was tight. “Nine years was enough.”

Ace’s fingers drummed against the side of his gun, and Callum didn’t like the calculating look in his gleaming stare. Still behind the reeking trash, Maverick rocked from his heels to his toes and back again.

“I saw your wheels,” Finn went on, jutting his sharp chin toward the motorcycles parked in the cracked driveway. “I would hate to think you were doing business on Viper territory.”

The Blood Vipers Legion, though still the rival motorcycle club to the Savage Wolves, didn’t come close to making the same black market deals as the Brotherhood. They peddled guns and stolen Euphoric, remaining in the dark regarding the creation of any distills—experimental or not. Callum intended to keep it that way. He paid a lot of fucking money to keep it that way.

“Our business is none of yours,” Callum replied. His fingers twitched as he resisted the urge to grab his gun. Finn Blackthorn kept his well-strapped to his hip, and Callum didn’t want to be the first to draw. Not yet.

Finn clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. You're in my territory. Out here…” He trailed off to lean back, spreading his arms in a broad gesture toward the broken-down homes, shattered window panes, and sunken porches. “I outrank you, and I can’t imagine Duke Malone would be happy knowing you crossed us.”

At the mention of his uncle, Maverick’s swallow could be heard over the whispering breeze. Callum held Finn’s wolfish grin.

“You don’t outrank him. This isn't the fucking military,” Ace snorted, curtly shaking his head. “From what I hear, you barely hold your club together. See this shithole neighborhood? Your people would sell you out for us to fix it in a second. Do us all a favor and ride away before we pile your bodies in the street for the Guard to find.”

Callum’s expression remained impassive, but his heart thundered against his chest. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans so the others wouldn’t see them curling into fists. Fuck, Ace needed to stop talking. That mouth was going to get them all killed one of these days.

Finn hadn’t noticed Callum’s rigid stance, his dangerously focused gaze sliding toward Ace instead.

“I would hold your tongue, Ace McCoy ,” Finn warned. His blank, indifferent stare flashed momentarily. “I’ve heard some stories about you. All of your friends have been promoted. All of them but you. Does make one wonder—“

Ace held up his gun, and Callum’s stomach dropped to his feet. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! ”

“Ace,” Callum said quietly, though a second warning underlined his tone. “Stand down, man.”

Finn’s eyes narrowed on the barrel as the two Vipers flanking him drew their guns and pointed them at Ace. “Daddy as the Sergeant-at-Arms, best friend as the Road Captain. Hell, even Callum Reynolds was made Vice, and he spent nine fucking years in prison. Do you think it has to do with your sist—“

A shot exploded from Ace's gun, ricocheting off the frame of Finn’s motorcycle mere inches from where he had propped his foot. A series of return pop, pop, pops came from the Vipers, and that acrid scent of gunshot residue was on the air once again. Ace collapsed to the road, his face pale and his breathing shallow.

“Let’s get out of here,” Finn ordered to his men as he kicked his motorcycle to life. The three sped away, a cloud of dust and loose gravel following their wake.

Maverick turned a concerning shade of green and looked like he was ready to vomit on his shoes. Rocco sprinted after the three, letting off two shots that burrowed into a tree blocking the bend in the road. He swore as Callum kneeled beside Ace, peeling the blood-soaked shirt away from his injury.

“What do you need?” Rocco huffed when he returned, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “Distills?”

Callum held pressure on Ace’s shoulder, harder than was necessary, but at least it took the edge off his fury. Warm crimson leaked through the gaps in his fingers when he adjusted to swipe a rock from beneath his knee. “I used them all on the fucker he shot,” he retorted in anger. Stupid fucking Ace and his stupid fucking mouth. “No exit wound. Bullet has to come out.”

Maverick took a few shaky steps out from behind the trash bins. “The Guard is going to get called.”

“If they haven’t been already,” Callum noted, jerking his head toward the house across the street. At Rocco’s glance, the curtain in the bay window snapped closed. “Help me get him on my bike. We’ll take him to the Guildhall.”

"And hope they don't ask too many questions," Rocco said as he bent down to grasp Ace under an arm.

That would be the least of their problems.

If they didn’t get arrested, Duke Malone was going to skin them alive. And after all of this bullshit, Callum would still have to come back and get that girl’s blood.