Page 21 of Pain

I mean, it wasn’t like I could have stopped myself. I’d heard them stumble into the room after the attack, half of them shouting at the other half, and though they’d simmered down to only one person talking at a time, they were still shouting and banging around.

It would have been impossible not to hear them.

Equally impossible to keep from leaning my ear up against the wall and trying to figure out who was who.

I’d known Knight was there, of course. He hadn’t said anything, but the way the other men were talking had made it obvious that they were having a discussion with someone they thought could make a change.

And when it came to an MC, the only person capable of changing anything in the club’s direction was the president himself.

The others... Well, Knight had just called out Gemini, and I knew that name. Gemini was Knight’s VP, though from what I’d heard, giving him that position had been a gamble on Knight’s part. Yancy, or Gemini, was a man with a short temper, and a bad one, but he had helped to keep the club together when Knight was in prison. He could be cool, calm, and collected when he was in the mood but switch to hotheaded and violent in the blink of an eye.

Hence the name.

He’d also thought, if the rumors held true, that the MC would become his if Knight stayed in prison much longer. Knight had kept him on as VP when he got out, to reward him for having behaved himself during Knight’s time in jail.

But it had kept Gemini close enough to president that it was inviting trouble—or at least that was what Devil had always thought.

From the conversation currently happening on the other side of the wall, I was inclined to agree with Devil. I knew you were supposed to keep your friends close and your enemies closer, but from what I could hear, Gemini was entirely too dangerous—and too mouthy—to keep around at all.

“You’re going to throw away everything we worked for on a girl!” That very man was shouting now, his voice very close to where I was sitting.

I heard the sound of flesh hitting flesh and a grunt, then heard the quick shuffle of retreating feet.

“You’ll keep a civil tongue in your head, or you’ll have me and Brock to answer to, Gem,” a new voice muttered, just to the side of where Gemini’s voice had been. “Do I have to remind you that you’re speaking to your president? Or that you’re not president?”

I shoved my fist up against my mouth, doing my level best to quiet my breathing.

On the list of things I thought I’d be doing right now, listening to a meeting of the Banshee execs had never even made an appearance.

Listening to them fight had been even less likely.

“I know exactly who I am and exactly what my position is, Tinker. But I’m as much a part of this club as you are. The club means just as much to me as it does to you. More, maybe, since I don’t have a fucking brother to fall back on if anything happens to this place. You bastards are my brothers. But this girl, this idea, is putting us all at risk. It’s giving us drama we don’t need, and over what? Some girl? That little attack back there was just a warning, I can promise you that much. And over that bitch? What’s she even going to do for you, Knight?”

Another blow, and this time it was a punch. The grunt from Gemini was deeper, more muffled, like his mouth wasn’t working quite right.

I cringed again, shoving my fist farther into my mouth in shock. It wasn’t like I’d never seen violence before. Fuck, I was attached to the most violent MC in Arizona.

But that was my home MC. Right now, I was listening to the men who might very well have been my enemies lay into each other. And they were arguing about me.

The thing was, I was sort of on Gemini’s side. Or... No, that wasn’t quite right. He was evidently against Knight, and I would never take that bet. But I saw what he was saying. And I sort of agreed with him. Knight had brought me here without taking it to the table. True enough, I’d begged him to do it. I’d been flat-out desperate for him to get me the hell out of town when he found me, because I’d just tried to escape Devil’s prospect, and I knew what would happen to me if Devil got a hold of me after that.

But.

That wasn’t the sort of thing a guy could do without at least thinking about taking a vote on it first. Having me here meant a big change for the MC itself. Bringing a new person into the club was never easy or seamless.

Especially when that person had been part of another MC. A rival MC.

Especially when that person came with a healthy, very immediate helping of danger to the MC and all its members.

I’d been three steps into the garage when Devil’s men—and probably Devil himself, though I hadn’t seen him—came screaming around the corner, engines revving and guns blazing. I’d looked out and seen the guns pointed at us, the men wearing the colors of the Devil’s Steed.

I’d known exactly what they were there to do. And who had caused it.

Which brought me back around to agreeing with Gemini on this point. He didn’t want me here because it meant Devil and his men would come after me—or attack Knight and his club for taking me. I didn’t bring anything to the table, as far as he could see, so there was no reason to take that particular gamble.

And I’d been here nearly twenty-four hours without Knight having taken it to the table for a Banshees vote. The club hadn’t been given any choice about my presence, and as far as Gemini could tell, that was probably unforgivable.

He had every reason to want me gone. Every reason to want to send me right back to Devil, even if it meant my death.