I Will Revel in Glory
I Will Revel in Glory © C.M. Stunich 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
The For information address Sarian Royal Indie Publishing, 89365 Old Mohawk Rd, Springfield, OR 97478.
Cover art and design © Amanda Carroll and Sarian Royal
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, businesses, or locales is coincidental and is not intended by the author.
this book is dedicated to
those brave enough to try this series when there was only one book out.
thank you for believing in Gidget’s story.
thank you for believing in me.
Sign up for an exclusive first look at the hottest new releases, contests, and exclusives from bestselling author C.M. Stunich and get *three free* eBooks as a thank you!
Want to discuss what you've just read? Get exclusive teasers or meet special guest authors? Join my online book club on Facebook!
Nothing beautiful can ever bloom from darkness.
That’s what most people think anyway. But there are entire worlds of shadows where life thrives: in the deepest parts of the ocean, in the coldest caverns, and inside the heart of a girl who only ever wanted to belong.
That was it, all along.
I wasn’t supposed to be a dirty princess with an honor guard.
I was meant to carry a sword into battle; I was meant to fight.
That last moment, the one before Cat pulls the trigger, everything becomes clear. Of course, like with a strike of hot lightning on an ebony night, it’s only crystalline for the briefest span of an instant, and then reality comes crashing down.
And life, as we all know it, is anything but clear-cut.
The lens with which we view the world is hazy, distorted, and oftentimes, obscured by our own bullshit. So, imagine my surprise when my brother’s blood—and not mine—spatters the wall near the office door.
His right foot moves forward, as if he’s about to take another step, and then he just slumps over like a broken doll, collapsing into a twitching heap with his body half-in and half-out of the doorway.
I sag back against the bookcase behind me, my eyes lifting up to find my father’s. He just shot his own son in the back of the head, like George did to Lennie in that shitty old book they made me read in school—Of Mice and Men.
If you really think about it, what dear old dad just did is a kindness in its own way. He made Gaz think he’d won, encouraged him to say his goodbyes to me, and then sent him on his way, none the wiser.
But what about me? Do I deserve even that miniscule speck of generosity from the president of the Death by Daybreak Motorcycle Club?
Is he really going to kill me next, knowing that I know that this is the end?
Cat’s rust-red eyes meet my matching gaze.
I truly believed he was about to shoot me; he was aiming at me. But at the last second, at the last second …
“You killed Gaz,” I whisper, and then my knees just give out and I find myself sitting on the floor. I can’t stop staring at my brother’s body. He was an evil man, there’s no doubt, and he deserved to die for the things he’d done. He murdered a prostitute, beat my dog, and used me as a punching bag.
More important than any of that: he led the mafia to my sisters.
“Don’t tell your mother,” Cat says, his voice distant and cold, as if his only son isn’t lying on the floor with a gunshot to the head. “If she asks where he is, you say that you don’t have a goddamn clue.”
My brain struggles to keep up with his words. What is he saying? Why is he telling me this? Isn’t he going to punish me now? Both of his remaining children were, after all, traitors to the club. It’s a crime punishable only by death.
Cat moves over to where I’m sitting, blood running down the sides of my face, dripping off my chin. My whole body hurts, and my ears are still ringing from the explosion. But my mission remains the same.
I need to find Sin. And Crown. I need to know if Beast and Grainger are still alive.
“You want to tell me what this is?” Cat asks, removing the bottle and the syringe from his pocket. I swallow hard as I look down at the items in his palm and then redirect my attention to his face.
“Gaz and his buddies drugged the kegs; they laced the cocaine with something. I don’t know what that is, only that we have to give anyone who’s been affected by it an injection, or they’ll die.”
He grunts at me, shaking his head and rising to his feet with the items still in hand. I’ve always thought of my father as the devil, the leader of hell’s demons, a creature crafted of cunning and brimstone. I see now that I was right all along, and one of Reba’s oft-quoted Bible verses pops into my head.
Be sober, be watchful: your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
Me. He wants to devour me.
“Get up.”
Cat turns and leaves the room, stepping over my brother’s body like it isn’t even there. I’m struck by how similar this situation is to the one I found myself in when I woke up and the Don of the Grey Wolfe Mafia was staring at me.
He made me crawl on my hands and knees.
This time, I force my aching body to my feet.
When I get to the doorway, I look down at my brother’s wide back, at the small entry wound in his skull. The exit wound will be much messier, much bloodier, raw and jagged and graphic.
I don’t want to see it.
I stumble over Gaz, my shoulder slamming into the wall as I struggle to stay on my feet. I’m in shock; my body is brimming over with adrenaline. All I can see when I close my eyes is a memory I thought was long-buried, one where Gaz, Queenie, Posey, and I are playing together in a small yard filled with flowering dandelions and the rusted-out shells of two cars.
Gaz was so much older than me, but I liked that when I was little. He could put me on his shoulders and carry me around. He could reach things on high shelves. He could make Queenie laugh.
Dizziness sweeps over me, but I push it back. I shove with all my might until nostalgia fades into the distance and the blurriness of the real world fills my vision. It’s hard to tell where the floor ends and the walls begin, if there’s even a ceiling, if I’m standing up or sitting down.
“Gidge!”
Loud footsteps precede warm hands on my rib cage, lifting me up, pulling me close.
Suede and violets.
It’s Crown, my father’s vice president and one of the four men in this club that I dare to call my own.
But only if he wants me.
I don’t know if he does, if he can’t have all of me.
“Oh, Gidge,” Crown says, smoothing his hand over my hair and tucking me so tightly against him that I feel like I must be crazy. How could I ever imagine this man didn’t want me when he holds me like this?
“Sin,” I start, trying and failing to prevent another coughing attack. I got hit in the chest hard. That, and the smoke and heat from the blast seem to have irritated my lungs. “Beast. Grainger.”