“I’m also frustrated and pissed off. Christ, Pic. You got no idea what bullshit this is. The Nighthawks are a fuckin’ joke, I’m banging some bitch who thinks she owns my cock, and the woman I’m falling for is scared shitless of me. We’re not making any progress, boss. I want to call the operation. There’s more than one way to extract information. We should bring in the brothers, take Marsh back to the Armory, and get our fucking questions answered.”
“Okay, calm down,” Picnic said. “I hear you. Things are obviously changing and we need to adjust our plans.”
His words caught me off guard. I didn’t know what I’d expected—that he’d get pissed I wasn’t focused enough, or something, which was ridiculous. I’d been through hell with this man more than once, and I knew the Reapers brothers would die for me, every last one of them.
“So how do you want to do it?” I asked slowly.
“First up, shut down Talia. Do whatever it takes, got me? You’re supposed to be her man and she fucked around on you. Let her know payback’s a bitch, and that you’re done with her bullshit. You don’t want her fuckin’ up your living situation—”
I snorted again. “She wanted me to move into one of the trailers out by the clubhouse—can you believe that shit?”
“Yeah, do that and you’ll wake up with your throat slit,” he replied sourly. “Remind Talia that she’s your bitch, not the other way around, and she’ll do what she’s goddamned told. That means leaving your landlady out of it—she touches Tinker, she’ll pay. If that ruins things with Marsh, we’ll come in and shut down the Nighthawks early. One call is all it takes, brother. We got your back.”
“Good to know.”
“Don’t relax yet,” Picnic said. “Like I said, one call is all it takes, but a lot’s been going on while you’ve been away. Issues that impact the situation. This Friday the Bellingham and Portland chapters are making a two-week run down to Cali. We got some serious shit goin’ down with the cartel, which means we don’t have a lot of backup locally. If things fall apart on your end, we gotta call the Devil’s Jacks out of Portland.”
Fucking great. The Jacks might be our allies, but that alliance wasn’t the friendliest.
“What about the Silver Bastards?” I asked.
“They’d come, but they’re ass-deep, too. Union stuff down at the mine. It’s not a good time for them.”
“Got it.”
And I did.
Picnic was leaving the decision with me—they’d come if I needed them. But that’d require calling in some damned big favors, costing us our advantage in the relationship with the Jacks. Seeing as less than two years ago we’d been in a shooting war with them, this wasn’t something to do lightly.
“I’ll try to hold things together around here a little longer,” I told him, frustrated but resigned. “Don’t like it, but I’ll do it. Tinker gets hurt for real, though, all bets are off. You got a problem with that, you need to pull me out of here because it’s nonnegotiable.”
Pic didn’t say anything for a minute, then he gave a low chuckle.
“Yeah, have fun with that, brother. On the bright side, I do have some intel on the husband. He’s a piece of shit.”
“Kinda figured that already,” I told him. Picnic laughed again.
“Well he’s a dirty piece of shit,” Pic continued. “As in, you can pay him money and he’ll change how your case is prosecuted. Allegedly. We tried to pay him off a few years back after some trouble with one of the support clubs, but he’s also got political aspirations. By the time we got to him the case was too high profile.”
“You find out anything about his family?”
“They’re well known in Seattle. Supposed to be old money.”
“Why does a guy from a family like that need to take bribes?” I asked, thinking.
“No idea,” Pic replied, and for once he was dead serious. “Maybe they ran out of money. We’ll keep looking. You focus on covering your ass and remember—we are here for you. One call is all it takes.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Take care, brother,” he told me, hanging up. Shoving my phone into my pocket, I climbed back onto my bike, kicking it to life.
Time to put Talia in her place.
• • •
Fifteen minutes later I pulled up to her trailer, backing my bike in next to a car I’d seen parked at Tinker’s building. Belonged to Sadie’s mom.