Vice and Void (The Savage Wolves Brotherhood #1)

48. Chapter 48

Chapter 48

Callum

“Mom?” Callum called out as he shouldered through the front door of the house. It echoed through the foyer, over the marble floors and white walls. No answer. Of fucking course. He grumbled under his breath as he slammed the door shut behind him, rattling the autumn-themed wreath where it hung on the back of the door.

The house was dark, with only slivers of cool moonlight slipping through the gaps in the curtains near the living room. He cursed again, laying heavy footsteps against a plush and patterned carpet that would have never seen the light of day in his mother’s house thirty years ago.

Important, my ass . Callum had no interest in leaving his house, in leaving Dakota. Yet here he was, and his mother wasn’t even around to meet him. She had said it was about Kane. Did something happen? Something that required an unexpected trip to the Guildhall? He doubted it. More likely, Joanna was trying to pull him away from Dakota. He was pissed at himself that it had worked.

“Hello?” he called out again, but only silence answered. Letting out a long sigh through his nose, he reached over and flicked on the chandelier. The bright light refracting through the crystals cast a dozen rainbows that shined on his grandmother’s china displayed in the cherry-wood cabinet.

He could go. Turn tail and hop back on his motorcycle. A shot of irritation clattered through his chest. He was already here. Doing a sweep of the house to ensure she hadn’t fallen down the stairs or some other shit was the least he could do.

Callum dropped his keys on the console table, cherry wood to match the china cabinet, and headed into the dark hallway. “Mom?” he called for a third time. This was so fucking stupid. Stopping just before entering the kitchen, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his cell phone. The screen’s glow was vivid against the black backdrop of the rest of the house, but his eyes adjusted a moment later.

“ You’ve reached Joanna Malone. I can’t come to the phone right —“

Callum canceled the call and redialed the number. The phone rang three more times before the voicemail message sounded through the line. Unbelievable. He stuffed his phone back into his pocket.

He didn’t bother to turn the lights on as he stalked into the darkness. His sneakers squawked against the marble, which would have had his mother crawling from whatever hole she had stumbled into. If she was here. And Callum was pretty certain that she wasn’t.

This was just fucking like her: dragging her sons out of their houses at ungodly hours of the night just to ensure they didn’t spend time with their girlfriends. She pulled that shit twelve years ago. Kane lamented how she did it to him while Callum was in prison. And here she was, starting up the same shit again.

Callum almost slipped when his foot wedged into something wet and sticky, grabbing onto the counter to keep from falling completely. What the—? He took out his cell phone again, flicking on the flashlight app and letting the bright beam stream through the room.

His thundering heartbeat stalled as his gaze tracked across the floor. Crimson liquid stained the marble, slipping into the tiny gaps between tiles. His sneaker was doused in it, smears of red painting the toe. He knew what that was—far too thick for water or juice.

Callum stumbled away, trying and failing not to step in it again. He tripped, and his elbow knocked painfully against the edge of the kitchen’s island. Stars burst at the corners of his vision, nausea flaring to life in the base of his gut. The phone fell to the floor with a series of clacks, and he reached behind him to flip on the overhead lights.

“Mom?” His voice, filled with a panic he didn’t recognize, wavered. It was blood, alright. A red print of his sneaker was stamped against the marble. The crimson puddle snaked around the island, where a hand lay outstretched toward the living room. The tattoo on the wrist was as recognizable as his own, just visible where the blood-soaked sleeve was drawn toward the elbow.

The gun was out of his waistband and in Callum’s hand a second later. He clicked the safety off, steadying his trembling hands and beating heart into something controllable. He stepped forward, then took one to the side to avoid the blood pool. A curse rang into the silence as the salt-and-pepper hair came into view, as the graying, pale face of Duke Malone stared unseeingly up at the ceiling. As the knife protruding from his chest flashed against the onslaught of bright light.

There was a piece of paper pinned to Duke’s shirt. No, a rusty nail had been thrust through his flesh to keep the paper in place. Bending down, he ripped it away from the nail, flicking away a bloody clot adhered to the back before unfolding it with a sweep of his fingers.

I’m sorry. The Brotherhood comes first.

Callum’s brows knitted together at the message in his mother’s loopy handwriting. She was sorry? He glanced down at the body. Something happened here—that much was obvious. But…he scanned the kitchen. Nothing else was out of order. Either his mother did an impeccable clean-up job, or Callum was missing something.

He didn’t have time to form another thought.

The front door opened with a bright flash, and an ear-shattering bang infiltrated the house. Callum dropped the note to clap his hands over his ears, the ringing so excruciatingly loud that he thought his entire head was imploding. Muffled shouts echoed down the hall, but Callum was already on his knees. The cooling blood soaked through his jeans.

Helmeted shadows moved through the smoke. They drew closer, moving swiftly and expertly through the thinning gray. Guns were drawn, arms waving as they spotted him beside Duke Malone’s corpse.

Fuck. I’m sorry. The message was carved in the backside of his lids, stamped in red across the pulsing minuscule vessels when he closed his eyes. He didn’t move as a barrel was crammed between his shoulder blades. He didn’t fight as two sets of arms jammed beneath his own, hauling him to his feet. His sneakers slipped in the blood, but he was held steadfast in their grip.

“Callum Reynolds.” The voice was familiar, heart-sinkingly so. It had a bite of amusement to it, and all he could think of at that moment was Dakota. Was she still sleeping? Gods, he hoped so. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Duke Malone.”

Callum finally cracked his eyes open, unsurprised to see John Montgomery and his feline smirk amongst the smoke. “You know I didn’t do this, John,” Callum started, his rage boiling his blood. “I just fucking got here. Check the street cameras. Check the stoplights. Check fucking anything, man.” One of the men behind him cinched a pair of handcuffs over his wrists.

“This feels good,” John said as he stepped forward, closing the distance between them. The cloying aftershave he wore threatened to turn Callum’s stomach. As did his ever-expanding shit-eating grin. “Between you and I, Reynolds, I didn’t think it would be this soon. Three years after your release?” He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

“You know I didn’t do this.”

John’s shrug was casual, his lips downturned in the fakest frown Callum had ever seen. “I don’t know that you did or didn’t do anything. I’m just here to check in on the sudden disturbance report my unit received this evening.”

The Brotherhood comes first.

The words were a mockery.

Callum scoffed, and an Iron Guard’s fist tightened around his upper arm. “Sudden disturbance. Yet you were able to claw together your entire fucking force.”

John’s frown fractured into a vicious smile. “You can take it how you’d like it, Reynolds. Personally, I’ll just be glad to see you behind bars again—“ Callum opened his mouth to respond, but John cut him off with a lift of his hand. “You may have an alibi. You may have video footage. But that could take weeks to sift through…months even. With the Lead of your little club gone, I wonder if you’ll have that long. The prison sits in Viper territory, after all. It’ll sure be interesting to see if all those rumors of your involvement in that fire are true.”

Callum’s blood turned to ice, cooling the raging boil to a frozen panic. “You’re gonna get me killed.”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky and land in solitary. Or maybe you won’t.” John snapped his fingers, signaling toward the door. “Dylan, take him into custody.”

The guard behind Callum transferred him over to Dylan Harrison, who took Callum by the arm. His grip wasn’t nearly as tight or unforgiving as he marched Callum from the house. Blue and white lights lit up the night sky, flashing against the trees’ golden leaves in the front yards. More Guards stood at attention near the driveway. Their guns were clutched tightly in their fists as though praying for Callum to wrestle away from Dylan to give them a whisper of a chance to use it.

Some neighbors subtly peeked through their blinds while others stood on their front porches with arms crossed over their chests. The blue and white lights lit up their grim faces, too .

“We’re gonna figure out how to get you out of this,” Dylan murmured as he opened a cruiser door. “I’m gonna pull every fucking string I can think of.”

“Dakota?” Callum managed to croak as he fell into the plastic seat. If his anxious nausea wasn’t bad enough, the scent of old vomit and stale coffee filling the cab made it worse. He couldn’t go back to prison again. He couldn’t fucking do it. When he closed his eyes and imagined the clank of the iron bars closing together, all that was left of him was spine-tingling fear.

“Rocco’s on his way. We’ve got her. She’s safe.”

That was all he could ask for. Dakota had lived through his disappearance once, had gotten two degrees, and had a successful fucking life. If death by prison sentence was what lay in store for him, he gripped onto the knowledge that she would live through it again.

Even if he wouldn’t.