“Macbeth was going to die, regardless of who killed him,” Shark said.
“To be fair, I think we should be thanking Rachel for saving us the job,” Ant agreed.
“Rachel and Mama don't exactly see eye to eye. I can't see that improving now that she's murdered her eldest son,” Rooster said. “We need to prepare for that.”
“I'll deal with Kitty,” Crash said, his voice weary and tired. “You're all right. Macbeth was on borrowed time. If he hadn't been on the club grounds, he wouldn't have put himself in the position to be murdered. There's no telling what he had planned. Rachel may have put a stop to something far more dangerous.”
“So, what’s the point in this meeting? Rachel did us all a favour,” I said, trying my hardest not to snap at them all.
I didn’t like the fact that we were all here discussing my woman, as if anything she did was any of their business.
It’s the club’s business.
And for once, I was struggling to understand why that was an acceptable answer.
“We’re here because we need to know why she did it, for one. Why did she put herself in danger when there were plenty of club members here who could have helped her? And we would have dealt with it efficiently. Why did she hide it from you? She was sneaky, Dante, and she knew exactly what she was doing. And two, we need to find out if he said anything to her. Had she let us do the killing, we could have found all this out and prepared the club accordingly. We don’t know the full extent of the arrangement Macbeth had with the Riders, and this could lead to something much bigger.”
“Yeah, and like we’ve just said, Macbeth was going to die, regardless.”
“But he could have died with us having extracted all we needed to know. Right now, Rachel is the only one who knows what his confessions were – if he even confessed anything to her to begin with.”
“I guess the only way to find out is to ask her,” I said, sighing heavily.
“We also need to figure out what to do with the body,” Vienna said. “Does he get a funeral?”
“No,” Crash barked.
“Crash…” Zach began.
“No,” he snapped, interrupting him. “I’m not giving him a fucking funeral. He made his fucking decisions. He's no son of mine and I won't bury him as such. I say we send his body to the Riders. Let them see we mean business. If we can murder one of our own, then they'll know we have no problem dealing with any of them.”
“Mama—”
“I don't give a fuck about Mama,” Crash slammed his fist on the table, interrupting Zach once more. Zach looked around with worried eyes, but he kept his silence. “She knows the rules,” Crash said with a heavy sigh, his jaw gritting. “Because of Macbeth, she was always going to be a son down. Luckily for the club, it wasn't Dante. Mac could have put a stop to this plan at any time. He could have come to us and told us he fucked up before it was too late. He chose to go through with it, he chose to betray us, so he gets fuck all. No resting place, nothing. It's what he deserves.”
“This is going to cause a Chernobyl level meltdown, but if that’s the decision you’re making…”
“Would you rather I put it to a vote? All those in favour of giving Macbeth a funeral, say, aye.”
Rooster, Sunshine, and Zach all said “aye”.
“Overruled,” Crash barked, slamming the gavel down. “Club majority, Mac gets fuck all.”
“So… Are we addressing the elephant in the room? If no one else is going to mention it, I will. What do we do about Rachel?” Rooster asked.
“What about her?” I snapped, locking eyes with him.
“It's just… well… she did technically kill a member of the club. She went against—” I didn't wait to hear any more. I was up and lunging before he even had a chance to finish his sentence. Vienna was out of his chair in an instant, sending it crashing backwards to the floor, predicting my movements like he always did. He restrained me as I lunged at Rooster. Trent, Doc and Sunshine each got up to shield him.
“You keep her fucking name out of your mouth!” I shouted, straining against Vienna's grip around my chest.
“Fucking let him go! I just said what everyone was thinking!” Rooster yelled back, pointing his finger in my direction.“Come on VP, let’s see you throw the rule book out the window for your murderous piece of ass.”
That's when everything blew up. I was yelling at Rooster; he was straining against Doc and Sunshine, yelling back at me about my psycho missus. Shark and Hacksaw came around to help Vienna hold me back, earning Hacksaw a punch to the jaw, one he took like a champion. Which set my anger off further, because it wasn’t him I wanted to punch.
“Cool it, brother, cool it!” Vienna yelled into my face, attempting to push me backwards. “Do you want to get yourself put on probation?”
“Enough!” Crash barked, standing up himself and slamming both hands on the table. “We don't fucking turn on each other! You!” He hissed at Rooster. “Have you got a fucking death wish?”' Doc slapped him around the back of the head.
