Vice and Void (The Savage Wolves Brotherhood #1)

4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Callum

Callum’s lips were on hers, tongue and teeth and hands tangled in a frantic dance he couldn't wait to lose himself in. She was against the dresser, then the wall, then the door, and she was tugging at his clothes, desperate to rid him of them. But she tasted wrong , and she felt wrong , and fuck, everything was wrong .

He tore away from her, sweeping his hand over the nearest bedside table. A stack of books scattered from the surface, crashing against the closet door before falling heavily to the worn carpet. That wasn’t enough. The lamp came next, and the porcelain base left a jagged crater in the drywall.

“ Gods-fucking-damnit !”

The woman, Vanessa, was coolly unfazed as she stepped back and adjusted the strap of her tank top into place. He could feel her eyes boring into him as he breathed, his chest and shoulders heaving.

“It’s her again, isn’t it?” Vanessa asked. “I heard Rocco and Logan in the—“

“Get out,” Callum rasped, not bothering to look at her as he ran a hand through his hair.

“But—“

“Get. Out.”

Vanessa gulped but turned on her toes and slid from the bedroom. He stepped over the pile of clothes he had unceremoniously dumped from his bag the night before and slammed the door shut behind her. The frame rattled, shaking the old black-and-white photographs his mother had decorated with years ago.

Callum had been trying to forget Dakota- fucking -Montgomery for hours now. One shot of whiskey turned into a fourth, and before he knew it, he was stumbling against the walls of the clubhouse, desperate to rid himself of every muddled memory. Yet still, all he could recall was that fear-riddled look in Dakota’s eyes when they finally landed on him, how her face paled so quickly that the smattering of freckles on the bridge of her nose jumped off of her skin. And when she ran, skirting past him to get through the door, amber and vanilla with a hint of raspberry hit him with such ferocity that he was struck stupid.

Because, then, he wasn’t the Vice of the Brotherhood. No—he was fifteen and playing with her hair in history class if only to annoy her. Her glittering glare as she whipped around to reprimand him was so fucking sexy, and it was the first time he had gotten hard in public. Gods, the embarrassment of that moment still lived with him. It took the entire hour to calm down. He spent six more months trying to escape her scent before it finally wore him down.

“Glad you’re feeling better,” Vanessa’s muffled voice flittered down the hallway. “I didn’t think you would be back tonight.”

Callum tore the door back open and stormed across the bedroom's threshold. The pounding of blood in his ears was the bass of his rage, and that same pounding clouded his vision into a tunnel of red there was no end to. He tried to swallow, but his throat was bone-dry from the sharp, jagged breaths.

As Callum expected, Ace was seated at the table in the communal space of the club, his shoulder expertly patched with a clean bandage. Vonnie and Vanessa, who had seemed to move on from Callum with relative ease, were fawning over him. Rocco gazed around, looking at the records that hung on the exposed brick walls with an air of contempt, but his eyes widened when he spotted Callum blazing past the stereo system and the set of old, sunken couches.

“Callum—“

But Callum had already fisted the back of Ace’s T-shirt, yanking him from the chair. Ace staggered, swinging his arms in a wild attempt to twist toward Callum. The table’s legs screeched across the floor when Rocco pushed out of his seat, and Vonnie’s four-inch pumps tapped frantically on the kitchen tile as she stumbled away.

“What the fuck was that?” Callum roared. The muscles in his neck strained against his skin as he bumped into Ace’s chest, his body coiled for a fight he intended to win.

Ace wrenched from Callum’s grip. “Not now, man, I was just shot!”

“Shot because you can’t keep your fucking mouth shut!” Callum retorted. Rage singed his flesh—a living entity vying to possess him.

“What’s going on?”

Ace’s nostrils flared with every forced inhale, each exhale fluttering the dark locks framing Callum’s face. Callum didn’t remove his glare from his best friend when his mother's tall frame appeared in the doorway.

“Hey, Mom…” Callum’s brother, Kane, began but trailed off when he caught the impending storm over the crown of her head. His eyes flicked nervously, and he visibly braced to intervene, presumably for when that storm inevitably broke.

Ace and Callum continued to stare at one another, fists clenching and unclenching, the threat of violence overflowing into a tension that filled the room with palpable unease.

“Boys,” Joanna, Callum and Kane's mother, snapped. She wouldn’t warn them again. The second time would be accompanied by a whack to the back of their heads.

Ace must have read that warning just as clearly as Callum had. A smart smirk curled his mouth as he stepped away. “Sorry, Mrs. M,” he responded with an oily tip of his head. It made Callum want to throttle him, if possible, even more. “Just a little disagreement between brothers.”

Callum gave a curt nod. “Yeah, that’s it. Just a disagreement.”

“Good.” Joanna’s eagle-eyed scowl glittered against the flickering fluorescent lights in the hallway behind Callum. She turned to him as she tucked her brown hair behind her ear. “Did you get the blood?”

Callum reached into his pocket and retrieved the small vial, tossing it over to Kane, who caught it with his good hand. The other, as usual, remained limp at his side, courtesy of a motorcycle accident from eleven years ago. Callum was in prison when it happened, and Kane hadn’t ridden a motorcycle since.

Kane lifted the blood to the light, narrowing his eyes on it. “This’ll work,” he said, pocketing the vial. “I’ll take it to the distillery tonight. Was she the Vital?”

Rocco nodded, taking his seat at the table. “Yeah, she was the Vital.”

“Another Speed and Strength it is, then.” Kane shook his head. The dim light cast his already worried face into sharp relief. “We’re running out of anything from a Veil, and with the equinox coming up—“

“We don’t have any Veils on our list right now,” Joanna interjected with a long sigh through her nose. “We’ll have to ask Dylan to keep an eye out. Has he found a Void yet?”

Callum’s snort was both unkind and condescending, though he used it to cover the uncomfortable prickle against the back of his neck. “The Brotherhood doesn’t have enough money on hand for Dylan to consider turning a Void over to us. Those are tracked—“

“Then find a way,” Joanna countered through gritted teeth. “The Brotherhood voted you in as Vice. They trusted your ability to get shit done. Use it.”

Callum took the knife from his other pocket and flipped the end up to grab the blade before flipping it back to hold the hilt. Joanna’s stare was on him for a moment longer but, thankfully, leveled Ace with it in the next breath.

“And what did you do?” she admonished him. “Because if Duke finds out that you went rogue again…”

Duke Malone, her husband of six years and Callum’s stepfather, came up behind her and placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. She quieted immediately, like a good little housewife, and Callum could barely stomach to see his outspoken mother hushed.

“You should listen to my old lady,” Duke said, leaning down to kiss her on the temple. A small smile was on his lips, and he glanced down at Joanna with something that could be perceived as affection. But all Callum knew was that his mother was a widow when he went into prison, and she was married to Duke Malone when he got out.

Joanna took an obedient step back as Duke brushed past her. Duke Malone wasn’t someone to fuck with. The thick scar across his throat told that story to anyone who dared look at it. His blue eyes were cold and hard, rivaling only Ace’s in unsettling demeanors, and he held himself to the standard of a highly regarded, albeit dangerous, politician.

Maybe he was. Nothing happened in Norwich that Duke Malone didn’t know about.

Duke stopped in front of Ace, who shifted his gaze downward out of respect for the Lead—something he would never do for Callum despite being second-in-command. The room went deathly silent, and even the clock above the wet bar seemed to stop ticking.

“Heard you boys had a run-in with the Vipers,” Duke started. “And had some issues getting blood from the girl.” Kane made to retrieve the vial from his pocket, but Joanna laid a gentle hand on his limp arm. “What happened?”

“I shot the father, sir,” Ace began immediately. Even he knew better than to fuck around with Duke Malone. “And the Vipers saw our bikes in his driveway. We got into it.”

Duke’s gaze slowly slid to Callum, who didn’t dare move a muscle. “And you? ”

“You mean, what was I doing between not letting the dad bleed to death and not letting the Vipers blow holes in Maverick and Ace?” Next to him, Ace bristled.

Duke sucked a tooth, tightening the knot of irritation in Callum's chest. “Ethan Sullivan was at the Guildhall when you arrived, and he brought John Montgomery to investigate. Luckily, I contacted Dylan to chalk it up to a drive-by on the south side of town.”

Callum felt Rocco’s stare boring into the back of his head at the mention of John Montgomery, but he dutifully ignored it.

“I’m sorry, Duke, I—“ Ace started, but he was cut off when Duke waved a dismissive hand at him.

“Don’t apologize. You did what you had to do,” Duke said. “More importantly, we got that Vital’s blood for the full moon tonight.”

Callum recognized the gleam of dark pride shrouding Ace’s expression, and he watched the consequences of Ace's bolstered aggression play out like a scene in a bad movie. Turbulent chaos would shift into remorse-filled distillation use, which would only be quelled by turbulent chaos. A never-ending cycle of self-sabotage.

“What I don’t know,” Duke went on, “is why John Montgomery is sticking his fucking nose in a shooting his deputies can take care of.”

Ace crossed his arms over his chest, tilting his head toward Callum. “It’s about her .”

Before Callum could summon the feral rage that would surely result in ripping Ace’s limbs from his body, the front door of the clubhouse flew open with a bang. The sweet scent of heat and late-season flowers wafted down the hallway, dissipating abruptly when the door slammed shut.

“Rocco, you gods-damned bastard! You didn’t tell me you got into a shoot-out with the Vipers. I had to hear it from Logan .” Lyra stomped into the communal space, pushing past Joanna in a flurry of live-wire energy that even Ace was astute enough to back away from. “Fucking Logan . Are you serious? He’s going to hold that over my head for weeks.”

“Speaking of things that I should have heard from others.” Callum rounded on Lyra, adding before he could bite back, “You’ll never guess who I saw at the Guildhall.”

Lyra sent him a disinterested glance over her shoulder. “I know who you saw.”

“Who?” Joanna barked, but Callum and Lyra didn't pay her any mind.

“You should have given us a heads-up!”

Lyra spun on the toes of her faux leather sandals, squaring her shoulders to Callum and propping her hands on her hips. “I didn’t think you would want me to, and she definitely didn’t want me to.”

“Why didn't you tell her about Raven?” Ace demanded, closing the gap between them with two large strides. He took a single step back when Lyra quirked a warning-filled brow in his direction, making it abundantly clear that her patience had a limit, and he was toying with it.

“Who is she ?” Kane asked exasperatedly.

“You know who she is,” Rocco replied to Kane as he propped his heels on the long table to balance on the back two chair legs. A curt swipe of Duke’s fist knocked his boots down, sending him sprawling to the floor.

Joanna’s eyes narrowed on Callum, and, this time, he couldn’t ignore her. “Dakota Montgomery? Are you three talking about Dakota Montgomery?”

“Oh shit,” Kane whispered under his breath as he sank into the chair next to Rocco, who clambered back into his seat in a huff.

Joanna turned away from Callum to fix her pointed stare on Lyra. “Were you going to inform any of us that the Head Ranger’s daughter was back in town?”

Lyra angled her head, and the fringe of the amethyst scarf tied in her curly hair settled on her shoulder. “No, I wasn’t. Because I promised I wouldn’t say a word about her life. And she didn’t want to know about yours.” Something Callum had no intention of inspecting burrowed a hole into the dark recesses of his heart. “Besides, she’s not in town for long. John moved her home when the Blackdon riots got bad.”

A frigid numbness filled the holes left behind by whatever that something was, and Callum caught himself rubbing his knuckles against his sternum.

Ace’s scoff had a patronizing edge to it. “Daddy brought her home, then? Isn’t that fucking rich?”

Joanna’s lips pulled into a thoughtful frown. “We could use this. With her back in town, Callum, you could—“

The resounding no was out of Callum’s mouth before his mother could finish.

“She’s been through enough,” Lyra said, removing her hands from her hips to adjust the waistband of her maxi skirt. “Leave her alone.”

Joanna’s boots struck the old carpet as she prowled toward Lyra, predatory thumps accompanied by a voracious smirk. “Say it again. I like to be bossed around.”

“Mom—“

Lyra's eye-roll was lazily unimpressed. “As someone who has helped your sons on more than one occasion, I’m asking you to leave her alone. ”

“And if I don’t?”

“You will,” Callum said with a finality that matched how tightly his teeth ground together. “We all will. Don’t approach her. Go to the Guildhall on the other side of town if you have to. There’s no reason to get her involved with the Brotherhood again.”

Duke snorted in amused disbelief, but Joanna sauntered away from Lyra nonetheless. “This club comes before everything,” she told Callum. “Everything.”

“You know better than anyone else—I sold my soul to The Savage Wolves Brotherhood,” Callum retorted. “That doesn’t change now.”

Twelve years had passed since the last time he laid eyes on Dakota Montgomery, and Callum had no reason to bring it all up now. If necessary, he would build a brick wall one thousand feet high between their sides of Norwich before ever crossing paths with her again. He wasn’t going down that road…he didn’t think the shred of his remaining heart would survive if he did.