“Fuck if I know,” Picnic said. “But he better watch himself. London’s one hell of a mama bear, and I got the feeling she won’t be nice if he hurts her little cub. We’ll have church first thing in the morning, though. I’ll update everyone, make sure they stay sober enough for action until we get the all clear.”
“Appreciate that,” I said. “Okay, gotta head back in.”
“Hey, Gage?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t think we don’t see what you’re doing for the club,” my president said, his voice dead serious for once. “We won’t forget this.”
“Just don’t forget to stay sober, because I might need you soon,” I told him bluntly. “And make sure you’re ready to ride. I got a real bad feeling about this one. I know we need more intel and I’ll hold out as long as I can, but something’s changed. Marsh is on the edge. Nothing would surprise me at this point.”
• • •
Sitting back and watching as the guitar player eye-fucked Tinker on Friday night was just the beginning of one of the longest, shittiest weekends of my life.
Marsh dragged us all out of the bar around midnight, forcing me to leave Tinker with Joel. The thought of that guitar-playing bastard sinking into her hot, sweet pussy while I sat around with my thumb up my ass was almost more than I could stand.
I considered calling it off.
Considered telling Marsh to fuck himself, then walking across the bar and claiming my woman. I’d have done it, too, if the Reapers had been at full strength to back me up. We had a lot of information already, and if it wasn’t quite as much as we’d hoped for, such is life.
Then I forced myself to think about what would happen if I did.
My brothers would be in unfamiliar territory, and with Marsh’s hangarounds they’d be outnumbered. Ultimately, I knew the Coeur d’Alene Reapers were tougher than those little fuckweasels. We’d take them in the end, that I knew for a fact.
The real question was how many of us would find ourselves in the morgue along the way. Could I justify risking my brothers’ lives over a woman who didn’t even know my real name?
The Portland and Bellingham brothers were still down in Cali. If I made the call, the Coeur d’Alene brothers would come. Period. That’s just how it worked in our world. But with that kind of loyalty comes the understanding that a man doesn’t make the call unless he’s run out of options.
Deal with it, asshole. It is what it is.
It was probably a good thing that Marsh dragged us back to the clubhouse. Guitar Fucker had been buying Tinker drinks all night, sitting next to her between sets.
Touching her.
If he’d tried to stick his tongue down her throat, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold my shit together. Of course, once we left the bar my imagination took over, and damned if it wasn’t already pretty vivid when it came to my curvy landlady. She’d been wearing bright red lipstick. Would it be smeared around his cock by the end of the night?
I’d have to hunt him down and shoot him.
Only reasonable response under the circumstances.
• • •
Things got worse when we reached the clubhouse. Not only was I tense as fuck, but I realized that the only men out there were Marsh’s people. Cord’s faction—the original brothers who didn’t like Marsh—hadn’t showed their faces all night. Either Marsh hadn’t invited them or they were planning something. Either way, the split was coming. Maybe soon.
Part of me thought we should pull them aside, maybe see if we could recruit them to our cause. On the other hand, they were the ones who let the situation get this bad in the first place.
We spent the night drinking and playing cards while Talia and her friends kept sneaking off to do more drugs. Marsh was so tense that he punched one of the prospects when he was stupid enough to win a hand at poker with a bluff. The Nighthawks’ president kept muttering about Hands, and how we all needed to look out for traitors.
I swear, his eyes followed me when he said it, too.
At least Talia wasn’t giving me too much shit—she was too busy hot railing meth with her girls in the bathroom. Around three that morning, Marsh got a text message that pissed him off enough that he threw a chair, screaming, “Shut the fuck up and play poker, you fucking losers!”