about getting trash like that to live up to their reputation. They’re violent, and stupid, and they sell drugs. Everyone knows it, but I had to remind them about it. Give ‘em a push, huh? So, yeah, we had the bags printed up, and I had someone I trusted do the actual distributing. Him and the Abacus liaison. He was young, and good-looking, and he had a real smooth way with the young people. What kid wouldn’t eat up that kinda attention? Boy or girl.”
“Shit,” Leah breathed.
“The mayor’s basically saying he sold drugs to kids and blamed it on the Lean Dogs,” Gabe said, stricken and delighted all at once. It was a harrowing, ugly thought – but the juiciest gossip since the last mayoral fuckup – that had been Mason’s father, and Ava had been the one in the crosshairs.
Leah felt a creeping sense of unwelcome déjà vu.”
“How is the station getting away with airing this?” she asked.
“They said they got it from an anonymous source who definitely wasn’t the cops. None of this would stand up in court, but it’s enough to make Cunningham look really, really shit.”
“I’ll say.”
“They have to go away,” the mayor continued. The audio had been edited, so she couldn’t hear who was asking him questions, only his responses. “For a buncha fucking criminals, they sure do like to play Robin Hood. If they ever found out what was going on in this country, they’d try to shut it down, and a lot of important people would end up broke or arrested.”
“Oh my God,” Isobel breathed. “Who do you think he’s talking about?”
“I don’t know,” Leah said, distractedly. Her attention had been caught on Robin Hood.
For all that they weren’t heroes – even if she loved its members and considered so many of them as her second family, she could be honest about that – the Dogs did hold to certain codes and standards. They didn’t pick on the weak; didn’t countenance bullies. They weren’t exactly robbing from the rich and giving to the poor…but it struck her as an appropriate metaphor.
She felt a pulse of pride, and fought to keep from smiling to herself.
“What’s gonna happen?” Isobel asked, sounding worried. “Will the mayor have to resign?”
“If he’s lucky,” Leah said.
~*~
Pair a relatively intimate Southern college city with the digital age, and word spread like wildfire. Mad Mike, with his ears and lips full of piercings, his arms laced with intricate ink from Dog-favorite tattoo artist Ziggy, was all too happy to share the edited audio that Fox, Ian, and Tenny had gathered over lunch with Cunningham. Ratchet had a contact at the news station, someone in the social/gossip section, and the photos went there: were currently trending on Twitter, locally. A dozen bloggers and picked up the story from other sites, and were sharing links. Soundbites were all over.
“Ha. The four o’clock news is covering it right at the top of the hour,” Aidan reported, holding up his phone.
“Good,” Ghost said. “We’re in the right spot. He’ll want out before rush hour traffic hits.”
Carter knuckled his sunglasses farther up his nose – the sun had warmed his face, sheened it with sweat, and the Ray-Bans kept trying to slide down. It was nearly May, and the afternoon was warm. Bees and flies droned behind them, in the verge, and, staring down the long, straight stretch of four-lane highway, he spotted his first heat mirage of the season.
Most of the club was parked along the shoulder on either side of the road. They’d brought a van, just in case, and Evan leaned against its rear doors, arms folded, eyes shut and face tipped back. He looked asleep.
Carter checked the time on his phone – again. He’d promised Leah he would be waiting when she got off work, and he planned to be. Hopefully, after this, he wouldn’t have to worry about her quite so fiercely. Things felt far from settled, but, like Ghost had said: it would be good to cut the head off this particular, local snake.
“Someone’s coming,” Mercy called, farther down the row of gleaming bikes.
Carter lifted his head, and he saw a faint glimmer, a wink of sunlight on metal, distant, but coming closer at speed.
“Might not be him,” Roman said.
“Yeah, but unlike you, I don’t like taking chances,” Ghost said. “Everybody fall in.”
Bikers strode out onto the pavement, lining up, stretching from one side of the road to the other, blocking it totally. Carter felt Mercy’s shoulder brushing his on