Colt Book 3

SCORP

My head was pounding from the never-ending hangover. I hadn’t stopped drinking since the funeral.

As soon as emotions started to creep to the surface, my hand reached for the bottle, and the bottle after that, and then the bottle after that.

The pattern kept repeating.

The only difference was I’d wake up at the club or the house and not remember much of the day before. Somehow Tess was still alive.

Violet was still around, much to my disgust.

Didn’t matter how many times I had told her to fuck off.

I treated her the way she deserved to be treated.

If she had any common sense, she would leave.

But being the alternative nutcase she was, she stayed.

Why? Because she thought I would change my mind? That I would somehow forgive her for killing Charlotte?

She’d betrayed the club.

She’d betrayed me, and yet she still had the guts to be around.

I was trying to get shit back together at the club, but it was like every fucker had turned into a pussy as soon as Colt left.

Right now, we were having an argument about who would take over, and all I could think of was that bastard was breathing somewhere.

Somewhere in this world, the bastard was eating, drinking, sleeping.

Hell, he was probably fucking his way through women as well.

Nothing had changed in his life, but when he’d pulled that trigger, my life fucking collapsed, or at least the part of me that had some shit together.

Now I couldn’t stay sober, and fuck, I didn’t want to.

I had nothing to live for. Nothing in this world could make me sober up and face a world without her.

I couldn’t deal with the suffocating feelings that crept through my blood every time I sobered up just a little.

All this time, the whole reason I’d fucking left her was so she didn’t get involved and pay a price for my sins. And what happens?

She pays for a betrayal I committed, and for what?

This club.

This club that couldn’t even appoint a new leader without the Devil. It was fucking pathetic.

The club was surviving on the mere reputation of Colt being the leader.

But word was getting out that he had disappeared, and the result was the vultures were circling, trying to pick off our men.

Soon they would be coming for our small businesses, if someone didn’t man the fuck up and stand up as president.

I think the bastards wanted me to step up, and while I was taking some control at the moment, that didn’t mean I fucking wanted it.

I wanted to disappear, go on a bender, never sober up, and never let the full impact of what had happened to Charlotte hit me.

I had to be numb, because if a part of me, even a small part, felt the full force of her death, I’d be tasting steel.

Then Tess would be an orphan.

Not that I was much of a fucking parent.

Hell, I was snorting everything just to not fall asleep because sleep brought back memories of what happened.

Then, when I woke up, I’d drink harder.

So, I was going on my fourth day without sleep. Tess was outside playing.

She spent a lot of time outside. Didn’t know why.

The girl couldn’t look at me.

Didn’t bloody blame her either.

Who’d want to look at me?

I’m the bloody coward who let the love of his life die in front of her.

I was nothing but a waste of space that was still breathing when I should be the one in the ground, being eaten by worms.

Instead, Charlotte was, and that thought, of Mother Earth eating the woman I loved, fucking paralyzed me.

She was meant to be here.

I swiped the bottle off the table, causing a few glances from the members.

Fuck, who were they to judge?

They hadn’t been through what I had.

They weren’t facing single parenthood to a girl who wouldn’t speak.

“Scorp should step up. There I said it.” Jace spoke for the first time, and all eyes went to me.

“He is barely sober and can’t hold a gun. Why the fuck should we look to him?”

That was Drago from the Devils Henchmen charter, which was now a supporting club, soon to be a brotherhood charter if we got our way.

He got called in because shit wasn’t going right.

No one was listening, and his years of experience meant he brought credibility.

But I didn’t see his years of friendship and service to Colt as credibility.

If anything, I saw them as painting a target on his back.

One I wanted to shoot.

Kody said Drago being here would ease some worries of the members.

But it wasn’t easing my fucking nerves; he was grating on my raw nerves.

Just the sight of him reminded me of Colt.

The continual noise of them arguing was doing a number on my head.

I got up.

“Where the fuck you going?” Drago barked at me.

“Home.”

I had a bitch to kill.

After all, she had cost me Charlotte, her and her fucking web of lies. She had betrayed the club, and I had promised the club I’d kill her if she betrayed us.

Violet had brought the violence of death into my life.

VIOLET

I’ve always been an unwanted thing. My parents didn’t want me, and even at the club, when I was a slave, I was only there to cook meth.

I wasn’t wanted, and if I hadn’t been needed to cook them their drugs, then I’d already be dead.

In some ways, I sort of wish I had died in the meth lab.

After all, what good had come from me entering Scorp’s life?

He lost Charlotte because of me, and I should have known her life was to be taken.

I should have been the one to protect her.

Me, because I saw the aura of death around her. I assumed she was sick, not that her life was going to be taken in front of me, like it was.

Guilt swallowed me as I made Tess tea and put her to bed.

The poor thing hadn’t said a word since the shooting.

Luckily, she hadn’t seen her mother’s death, but she had attended the funeral, and she saw, every day, the grief on her father’s face.

I knew grief was swallowing him whole.

He was walking a path, a lonely one, and as much as I wanted to help him, I couldn’t, because he wouldn’t let me.

He blamed me, and so he should.

Scorp was a walking ghost.

His aura screamed loneliness and grief, as every reading I did included the Hangman and the Tower tarot cards, telling me that my time with him was limited.

I wanted to repair as much damage between him and me as possible; however, each reading I did told me he was blinded by hatred.

Not that I needed the cards to tell me that.

Hell, it was clear in the way he treated me, the snide remarks, and now, as I tucked Tess into bed, something within me told me come morning I wouldn’t be here.

I sighed walking down the stairs, but then the burning cigarette I saw out of the corner of my eye made me realize I was not alone.

Not that I was ever truly alone. My sister was haunting me at the moment.

“Tess asleep?” Scorp barked the question at me.

I nodded my head, hoping, praying, that perhaps we still had something.

“Good, I don’t want her to see this.”

His words confused me. I took a step toward him, and the moonlight hit a piece of metal at his side.

The gun.

I swallowed sharply.

So, this was how it would end.

“I made a promise to my club I’d kill you if you betrayed us.” He sneered.

He wasn’t the Scorp I knew and loved.

He was heartless, and I was beginning to worry about how tainted his soul was becoming from this.

If killing me gave him back his soul, I would gladly accept my death.

For life itself moved through phases, and if this phase of my life was over, I would move on to another phase of existence.

“I never deserved the love you gave me. But don’t let your heart grow cold, Scorp. Your daughter needs you, and so does Summer. I should never have come into your life.

“The stars aligned, and while you were a gift to me, I was nothing but a curse to you.” I spoke softly, watching him raise the gun.

“If killing me brings you peace, then so be it.” I blew out a breath. “Kill me, Scorp, and claim your life back. The coldness in your eyes has never, will never, belong there.”

I watched, with no emotion or grief for life as he pulled the trigger.

As I said, I had never been wanted or loved, so there was nothing keeping me in this world.

If my life ending gave Scorp back his desire to live, then so be it.

SUMMER

He was on my mind.

A burning image of him in bed, with a smirk on his face as he tried to take a picture of me, played on repeat in my head.

How could I still be attracted to him, or even recall the good times we had, when he’d killed Charlotte?

I blinked back tears.

I didn’t know who I was angrier at, myself or Colt for getting in my head.

A small part of me, as much as I hated him, wondered where he was and hoped he was suffering as much as my family was.

The loneliness I felt every time I arrived at this house spread through my body.

Scorp’s house, the long untamed grass, the flowerbeds filled with weeds.

I took a deep breath in.

Just as I approached the door, a gunshot went off, deafening the air, and instead of rushing from the noise, I ran to it, forcing the wooden door open…

…and gasped at what I saw.