position. I shouldn’t have put my trust into their attempt at securing our roads. That’s my fault, Duke.”
“Easy, Prez,” I said. “Don’t be a fucking pussy now.”
Trev grinned. “You don’t take apologies. Okay.”
“It could have been worse,” I said. “We got our shit delivered. We got paid.”
“Now we owe them sixty-five large,” Jasper said.
“We know that the Hell Five attacked us,” Trev said. “So that’s where we go to get our money back.”
“Can I sit the fuck down yet, Prez?” I asked.
Trev gave a nod. “Sure. Just wanted to say thank you, Duke. You saved my life, and Trent’s. You saved Eden’s future. And the baby’s. You saved my family.”
The entire table looked at me again.
I shook my head. I touched the patch on my leather cut. “The club. Nothing else matters.”
Everyone made a fist and slammed it against the table, letting out a yell.
That shit made me shiver from the inside. That’s what we were about. A true brotherhood. Standing side by side, fighting our own war, living the realest freedom possible. Nothing like what it was like when I got back from the hell desert.
Funny thing… I lost my freedom by getting tossed into jail, but when I got out, I got a greater sense of freedom. More than most men could handle.
I took my seat and we got down to business.
The Hell Five.
“They know what they did,” Trev said. “So calling Carlo or Durango won’t do shit. They’ll laugh us off.”
“So what’s the plan, Prez?” Cash asked.
“Did Ivan give us a timeline for his cash?” Jasper asked.
“No,” I said. “He’s looking for our strength in all of this. He wants blood on the money.”
“Shit,” Max said.
The way the Hell Five aligned themselves was this: there were five men in charge of the entire street gang. Those men rotated based on performance or death. Right then, there was Carlo and Durango as the top two. They were the contact points. The other three guys were murderous muscles. They were Dice, Jop, and Leto. They’d made it an entire year without changing names. But stealing money from the MC and the Russians could all but promise that wouldn’t happen for a second year in a row.
“Then we make our move,” Jasper said. “Fuck these guys.”
“Why not just put some blood on the cash and give it to Ivan?” Hudson asked. “That will settle up the Russians and give us time to approach this thing.”
It wasn’t a bad idea.
Except when Ivan said blood on the money he meant something else.
“Then the MC is out money,” Trev said. “That fifty payment helps us a lot. We can shore up some things and have money to bet on some fights.”
“Plus we have to make sure Cash gets his stripper money,” Cade said.
“Cheaper than drugs,” Cash said.
“Not the ones you pick,” Xavier said.
“Seriously?” Tristan asked. “Cash goes for anything. He has no taste.”
“Wrong,” Cash said. “I have taste. Pussy. That’s what I like to taste.”
“Ivan wants blood,” I said, killing the stripper and pussy talk. “He wants us to make a statement. He’s not going to let us fuck around on this. I say we do the same thing they did to us.”
“Ambush?” Trev asked.
“Go right to their bar. Walk right the fuck in, order a shot, down it, and start a fucking fight.”
“That’s pretty bold,” Jasper said.
“Then what?” Trev asked.
“Walk the fuck out and leave. Then, Prez, you call up Carlo and start talks.”
“Or attack them and rob them clean,” Austin said. “Finish the fight, clear out the registers…”
Trev put up a hand. He nodded slowly. “We just went through hell with the O’Nuall family. With Night Soul. We have to watch our backs carefully with them. The PD is all over us because of what happened with that grenade. We’re on thin ice.”
“To be fair, Prez,” I said, “we do live in California. Not much ice here.”
I smiled.
Trev half laughed. He rubbed his chin. “From war to war…”
“I don’t think we have a choice,” Jasper said. “Hell Five attacked because they figured we were weak from everything else going on. Face it, Trev, you’re the new President up here. Every single enemy is going to take their shot to test you.”
“That’s what I was worried about.” Trev grabbed the gavel. “Take a vote. We crash the Hell Five bar, like Duke said. Start the fight. But I want to do what Austin suggested. Clean out the registers and the safe. Make a real statement. We’re not going to get sixty-five large