Free Filthy Bastard (Grim Bastards MC) by Emily Minton, Shelley Springfield Page B

keep you breathing as long as possible.”
    “You didn’t need to be worried. I locked the door and stayed in my room,” I tell him as I lean back and look into his eyes. “Is Trix okay? How is Grim?”
    I can tell by the look on his face that I’m not gonna like what he has to say. A second later, I find out just how right I am.
    “Trix is gonna be okay. She has some scrapes and bruises, but she’s fine.” He stops to stare at me a moment before going on. “I can’t say the same about Grim, though. I hate to have to tell you, but Boz just walked outside to bury his dog.”
    “What?” I gasp out as tears fill my eyes.
    “Doc did everything to save him. There just wasn’t anything anyone could do,” he says, running his hand over my hair.
    “What happened? What happened to them?” I ask, verging on hysteria. “Who hurt them, Brew? Who in the hell would do this?”
    “I can’t tell you that, Little Red,” he answers, regret in his hazel eyes.
    Knowing he’s right, I lay my head against his chest and let my anguish out. The man I’m falling in love with holds me and rubs my back until I have no more tears to shed.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    Brew
    I LISTEN to Stone beg the Pres to end him, then watch as Boz lifts the pistol to the temple of a man I once was proud to call brother. A second later, he pulls the trigger and Stone’s life is over. His lies, betrayals, and plots have reached the end.
    A shudder of revulsion works through my body as I watch Stone’s blood pool under his feet. Regret fills me, but not regret for the dead fucker that is bleeding out, the life that is now over. No, my regret is for not figuring this shit out faster and doing something to put a stop to it, before it caused a shit-storm for my club.
    Boz hangs his head, running a hand over his hair. I can tell he’s hurting; I know he’s feeling this shit all the way to his soul. As President, it’s his job to know everything and everyone that has anything to do with the club. He has to think this is his fault, but it isn’t. The responsibility is shared amongst us all. We all should’ve known.
    “I’m sorry, brothers,” I say to Boz and Smoke, as I walk around the body and make my way to the shelf on the wall to grab a roll of heavy plastic. “I should’ve seen this shit coming a long damn time ago, should’ve known what his ass was up to. Instead, I didn’t even have a fucking inkling of what was going down all around me.”
    “How the fuck would you have known, when Boz and I didn’t see shit?” Smoke asks, while grabbing the hose from the wall and pulling it toward the blood. “I knew this crazy fucker my entire life. Hell, he probably bounced me on his knee when I was still in diapers, and I’ve never seen anything but loyalty in him.”
    Smoke’s right about that; the man that just died always seemed like a solid brother. Hell, he was even an officer when Boz’s dad held the gavel. He was someone we all could depend on to get shit done. Never once, not one fucking time, did I question his loyalty to the Grim Bastards. Not even when his own son turned traitor against the club did I have a second thought about Stone doing the same thing.
    “With the shit with Crank, I should’ve known,” I mumble, as I roll out the plastic. “Hell, someone had to make Crank the fucked up piece of shit he was. No one is born that fucking evil; that shit’s gotta be bred into them.”
    I knew Crank was a stupid fuck, out for no one but himself. I should’ve known there was no way he could’ve come up with a plan to take down the club by himself, so I should’ve known that someone was behind him calling all the shots. Still, I never could have guessed it was Stone playing puppet master. It was, though, and that’s something we are all gonna have to learn to live with. Even after he’s buried, it’s gonna take a long damn time for any of us to accept that truth. For the brothers that didn’t hear it from Stone’s own lips,