5- What The Vest Means

Ael

“You don’t know where your fucking kutte is? You know what that means right?”

My jaw tightened, my head staying low. I was grateful that the President’s office smelled like stale beer, motor oil, and the particular brand of cheap incense he insisted on burning because he thought it made them look less like a gang and more like a legitimate business. “Someone took it. I'll get it back.”

President Osyth took out his cigar and lit it up. He was the oldest of the biker club— Dogtooth MC, with a habit of picking up kids from the street and giving them something to do with themselves before they died.

Like me. “You’re still a rookie. You know that, don’t you, Cheon-sa. Everyone knows your family background and some of them think you’re gonna be a sell out but I thought I could trust you. You’re saying I made a mistake?”

My tongue pressed against the back of his teeth, against the piercing that had been a gift from the President himself when they first met. “No, Prez.”

The stapler came from nowhere, hitting me hard on the head. The pain was remarkable but nothing that I couldn’t handle. “Then why the fuck is that vest not on your back, idiot?”

The blood from the stapler wound trickled down my temple. “I’ll have it by tomorrow night.”

Osyth leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking beneath his weight. He was a big man, but built like a bulldog, with a gray beard and a face that instinctively made one fear him. “You’re a smart kid. A little scary with how you act. But you’re really fucking smart. That’s why I wanted you to do this drop. But you sure can’t go there without your vest or they’re gonna think it’s the feds or something. And I told them you were coming. See how this looks?”

I did.

He sighed, smoking pouring out of his nose before his telephone rang. I watched him pick the 80’s looking thing and placed it on his ear. “Osyth’s residence. What can I do for you?”

His bushy eyebrows furrowed as whoever it was spoke, his eyes moving to me before narrowing into something sharp. “Ah, so you already got my rookie there, huh? He doesn’t fit the description but he has the vest?”

What?

My head snapped upwards with a speed I didn’t know it had. My hand moved into my pocket, searching for the paper but it wasn’t there.

It must have fallen when I met—

Neven.

The name returned the all too familiar rage I never felt here on the compound grounds. I could feel it burning through my nerves, sizzling like oil on my bare skin.

I hated that bastard.

Cocky and arrogant. He thought he knew and understood everything when his idea of the world was limited to his fucking books and thoughts and—

‘Stop cussing or I’ll spank you.’

Fuck.

“I’ll be sending in another guy to confirm that he’s one of mine with the drop.” Osyth said into the phone, his eyes still on me.

The moment the call dropped, he was placing it down and looking at me. “Just got word that the vest you can’t find is on some preppy looking kid who’s calling himself Ael— and he claims he’s the one that’s supposed to be there. Gonna tell me who this person is that really wants to die?”

“Neven,” I said, a bitter taste in my mouth. “The son of my Father’s new wife”

Osyth's eyebrows climbed higher. He took a long drag of his cigar. “Your stepbrother. He calls you Ael? Is that like a nickname?”

It wasn’t.

Neven had called me that the first day they met, talking to me like we’d met before.

He couldn’t understand personal space. Couldn’t conceptualize the fact that I wasn't interested in anything about his fake smiles and fake politeness. He was a snake. I didn’t know how anyone else couldn’t see that.

But somehow, because I refused to buy into that bullshit, he made it his objective to insert himself into my life just so he could control it like he controlled everything else.

I was going to kill Neven. I was going to wrap his hands around that perfect throat and squeeze until—

But that was what Neven wanted. I would never give him what he wanted.

The asshole needed to learn he couldn’t always have what he wanted.

Osyth stubbed out his cigar with slow, deliberate pressure. “You want to handle this yourself, I assume. But the drop still happens tonight. I'm sending Kestrel to verify. You get your kutte back before he does, or this stepbrother of yours is gonna find out real quick what happens when you play dress-up with things that don’t belong to him.”

My stomach curled. Kestrel was a monstrosity of an Alpha Osyth used to send messages that he needed to sink in. But I couldn’t complain.

If it was going to make Neven Ambrose back off from me, I’ll take whatever I could get. “Understood, sir.”

The second I was out of that office and walking to my bike, I called him. He didn’t even let it ring before he picked, and I didn’t let him speak before I did. “You said you were going to clean it up. Going to a place you weren’t invited? Do you wanna fucking die? Do you have any idea the kind of shit you’re getting involved in?”

“You make it sound like you shouldn’t be involved in it as well, Ael.”

“That’s not my fucking name.”

“Stop cussing.” He said it calmly like he had all the time to ingrain it in my head. “Do you think if these men— if they are dangerous that is, kill me, would you think about me when I’m gone?”

I swung a leg over my bike and tore out of the compound like the devil himself was riding my tail. “I’m going to kill you when I find you.”

“No. You’re going to save me from this place and we’ll talk about your rules and schedule.” Neven said as if he couldn’t be bothered by my threat because he had everything figured out.

Like I was just another problem he could solve with his perfect grades and his perfect smile and his perfect fucking life. “I’m waiting for you, stepbrother. I can’t wait for the life we’re about to have together.”

Fuck.