gives a bloodthirsty shake of his head.
“These fucking shits are honing in on what’s ours,” Vice grits out, glaring at me. “Now is not the time to turn yellow.”
“There’s nothing fucking weak about protecting our goddamned club,” I tell him darkly. “We’ve got too much other shit going on to be pouring more gasoline on the fire.”
I lean back in my chair when goes quiet and looks at the table.
When I glance at Scar, he inclines his head and meets his prez’s waiting gaze.
“I’m with Spider on this. If we start a war with the Minions here, and the Bastards decide to lash out at you guys”—his sweeping gaze takes in Dragon, me, and the rest of the Casper men— “we won’t be able to help you. If we end up facing battle on two fronts, we can’t be there to back each other up. We’ll spread ourselves too thin.”
“Yes,” I agree. Then, I add in a harder voice, “That said, if talking this out with the Minions doesn’t make them back the fuck off, then we blow them and their fucking clubhouse sky high and send them all to hell.”
Dex picks up his gavel with an air of finality. “Let’s put this to a vote. All in favor of trying the diplomatic approach first.”
Hands rise around the table, along with a chorus of “Aye.”
Goliath’s hand goes up a little slower than the rest, but at least he agrees. Vice’s hands remain on the table in front of him, his expression obstinate. Too bad for him that he’s out-voted.
“Majority rules,” Dex says, banging his gavel once. “Motion passed.”
Dex rises from his chair. “Come on fellas, let’s go get some booze and pussy. Dragon has business to discuss with his boys.”
Scar and the other White Springs guys follow Dex from the room.
“I only need Spider, Striker and Rat,” Dragon says.
Fuck, here we go.
The rest of the Casper guys depart leaving Striker and Rat behind with me.
Our prez waits until the doors to the chapel close, then picks up Dex’s gavel, studying it for a moment before setting it down.
“We need to talk about the shit that went down after Briggs left.” Dragon’s eyes bore into me.
I immediately tense. Dragon and I have gone head to head plenty of times, and I know how to handle him, but whenever he looks at me like that, it always feels a little like I’m walking through the arctic. The Wildcat has become more of a curse than a blessing.
“Spider, what in the fuck happened today?” Dragon barks.
“Prez, that clusterfuck was out of my control. Seems like some asswipe—we don’t know who—got it into his head to snatch her.”
I want to tell him that the fucker took what’s mine, but I don’t dare say that in front of him right now. He already thinks I’m too caught up in her.
“Satan’s Bastards?” Dragon asks.
Rat speaks up. “No, Prez.”
“Rat?” Dragon looks at him.
“The guy who snatched Spider’s pet is a mystery.” When Dragon waits for him to continue, he takes out his phone and turns it on. “I’ve already started going through his tats. I haven’t pinpointed their affiliations yet,” he adds to me, noticing my raised brow. Then to Dragon, “But they aren’t Bastard tats.”
Striker opens his mouth as if to say something, then winces.
“I’ve gone through everything in the guy’s wallet,” Rat continues quickly, “but there wasn’t much in it.”
As soon as we’d left the restaurant, I’d given Rat the wallet and told him to see what he could find in it. I’m pretty sure I know why Striker just looked like he was in pain. He was about to report that the kidnapper had no wallet, and Rat stopped him, probably by stepping hard on his foot under the table. He’s conveniently left out the fact that Emma stole the wallet. I’ll be adding two video games to everything I owe him now. No need to tell Dragon something I’ve already dealt with myself when it would only put me on a shit list I’m already too close to being on.
“He had nothing in it except some IDs that look like they’re fake and about five-hundred in cash. But I did find some interesting shit on his phone.”
“What did you find?” Dragon growls.
“Apparently, this guy has some sort of relationship with Adamson.”
Shit. That must be what he wanted to tell me on the way into the chapel. Wish I was more agreeable to a conversation about that now, rather than being blindsided in front