The Rampage MC #4: Max and Briony

Chapter 13 (Max): You're Going To Fight

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA

Taking Corner to the ground with one punch to his face, I followed that fucker down, my hands wrapped around his throat, beating his head against the floor as I choked the life out of him.

"You motherfucker! You fucking let him in! You fucking let him in! He could have fucking killed her!" I was yelling, punctuating each curse with a slam of his head against the floor while I kept squeezing  his throat tighter and tighter. Blue had never looked so good.

Before I could kill the bastard, I was pulled off of him by Chain and Atlas and a couple of other brothers. Beard stepped between us, his back to me as Corner choked and wheezed, hand at his throat. He may have been drunk, but my attack had sobered him up somewhat.

Beard nodded to two brothers, Eyes and Buzz, standing off to the side. 

"Take him --" at the last second Beard remembered there were civilians around " -- to sleep this off. He's too drunk to hear the list of charges, so we'll handle that tomorrow. Chain, why don't you go make sure he gets to sleep all right?"

Chain walked out the door, followed by Buzz and Eyes, who were supporting Corner between them since he was stumbling over his feet. I realized that the entire clubhouse was silent and everyone was staring at me. I'd fight, everyone knew I was more than willing to fight and fight hard, but I rarely instigated, and I'd never tried to outright choke a man to death as I bashed his head against the floor, especially not in front of non-MC witnesses. It was only because I needed to feel the life leaving him through my own hands that I didn't pull my gun and just end him on the spot.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. "You OK, brother?" Atlas asked.

"Fine," I said, shrugging his hand off. I didn't want anyone asking if I was OK. I didn't want anyone touching me. I didn't want anyone's concern. I took off for the door, suddenly needing to get out of the clubhouse, get away from everyone, avoid their eyes, avoid their thoughts. I knew what everyone was thinking anyway. 

You can't blame Corner when you're the one who left your post.

If you hadn't left your house, he couldn't have gotten to Briony.

The blame is still all yours.

This is on you. You left the door wide open for him to get in, so this is on you.

They were all right, too. It was still on me. Logically, I knew that the anger I felt at Corner was probably misdirected, but I found that didn't stop me from feeling pure rage at both him and myself. He'd created an opening for a threat to get onto the grounds, but I'd left Briony unguarded.

"You want to be there tomorrow when we go down the list of charges?" Beard asked from beside me.

"Yeah," I told him without turning to look at him. I was standing by my bike, deciding whether or not to just get on it and go and maybe never come back. See if I could outrun the devastation I lived with for allowing Briony to be hurt. Maybe I'd take off after tomorrow once we'd fed the body of this motherfucking traitor to the pigs. There'd be no demotion to prospect for Corner. He'd signed his death sentence by deliberately helping an enemy onto the MC grounds.

"We're meeting in the wet room in the morning at nine. Chain's doing a little meat tenderizing tonight, but not too much because Corner's still pretty drunk and we want him fully aware for everything we're going to visit on him tomorrow."

Beard started to walk away, then looked at me over his shoulder. "Promised you a long time ago you were always going to be safe here. This is on me, too."