What Doesn't Destroy Us (The Devil's Dust #1)

“I think-“


“You don’t get to think,” Bull yells, cutting me off, “thinking has you fucking up my club and having brothers lying for you. You broke a law!” he screams. “Fucking with the president's daughter and lying behind my back!

“Candy the other day, was over you, wasn’t it?” I don’t answer; I know it’s a rhetorical question and nothing I say will help anyway.

“Bobby, Shadow, outside,” Bull snaps, standing up, his chair skidding across the hardwood floor.

“What? Why?” Bobby asks.

“You boys broke laws, time for justice,” Bull clarifies, “and I don’t want blood on my fucking floor, that’s why,” Bull hisses.

The last thing I will do is be sorry for wanting to be with Dani. If Bull kills me, it was worth it. Dani is the best thing that's happened to me; she's brought me out of the shell I lived in, brought me fire to show me a path I have never known. She may even be able to bring me back from the shadows that follow me, my shadows that lurk in the dark.

Bobby and I are standing out on the courtyard as Bull walks up to us, the rest of the boys come in from behind him. I’m curious at what his next move may be; he wants blood for betraying him, that’s obvious. Is he going to kill us? Nah, if he was going to kill us he wouldn’t do it here in the open, would he? I suddenly feel regret consume me; betraying my only family for a bitch is not something I would ever do. Yet here I am, and dragging a brother down with me in an ocean of betrayal.

Bull pulls out his pistol. Tapping the barrel on his leg, he looks up at me, “arm or leg?” I guess I am lucky he’s giving me a choice and not aiming at my skull.

“You better choose fast before I pick both, or change my mind and aim for your head,” he says, raising his voice.

“Ar-“ Before I can say the word he fires a round straight into my arm, the same arm that was shot in the drive-by. The shot echoes in the quiet night.

“Fuck!” I yell out in pain, grabbing at the wound barking at my flesh.

The pain radiates up my arm and into my neck; blood starts gushing. The blood is a symbol of the betrayal I have shed on my family, a reminder at how I took Dani’s innocence. The blood that was on my hands then, makes me pay with my own blood now.

“Bobby, arm or leg?” Bull asks.

Bobby looks up at me, his eyes show that he's clearly pissed that I dragged him into this shit. To be fair, I tried to tell him to butt the fuck out the day he saw blood on my hands.

“Fuck, arm,” he says, closing his eyes and waiting for the assault.

A shot rings out into the night air. Bobby groans deeply and grabs his flesh wound.

“I let you boys off easy. I think of you as my own, but mark my words, Shadow, you fuck this up with Dani, and the next bullet won’t be in the arm or leg.

“You bring her into your bullshit again, I will bury your ass,” Bull yells, pointing at me as if I am a disobedient child. I would tell him to fuck off, that I warned Dani about the man I was, but he was the one holding the gun.

“Oh, and she will be staying with you from now on,” he says wolfishly, making the rest of the boys laugh.

“What?” Bobby yells, saying exactly what I am thinking.

“I can’t have her staying at the club, I don’t need another Candy episode. I live here, so she can’t stay with me and seeing how you were so kind to take her under your wing, she’s staying at your place.” Bull turns toward the clubhouse, leaving me and Bobby bleeding and dumbfounded.

“You fucking owe me big time!” Bobby smarts off at me, gritting his teeth to bare the pain.

I just look at him. I do owe him big time, but I won't admit it.

I walk into the clubhouse tightly holding onto my wound to stop the bleeding as much as I can. Actually, that’s a lie; I squeeze as hard as I can so that I do, in fact, bleed on the floor. Fuck Bull.

“Good thing I stuck around,” Doc says, eyeing me and Bobby as we stumble in.

“Me first; it’s his fault I’m shot in the first place!” Bobby mumbles, pushing past me. I sit down on the couch and watch as Doc assesses Bobby’s wound.

“It’s a through and through; just some stitches is all,” she says, reaching into her bag. “Why did Bull shoot you guys anyway,” she asks, smartly.

“Shadow fucked around with Firefly,” Bobby says sarcastically.

“Oh!” She stops and looks at Bobby and me. “That’s kind of sweet, Bobby.” She says, examining his wound to start stitching.

“Sweet?” I scoff.