“They trained?” Gator questions with an eyebrow raise, and it pricks at my anger.
“Watch your mouth, boy.”
He holds up his hands in surrender. “No mouth, just questions. If they were just some flyby boys, this can be tossed aside as a sloppy mess. If they were trained, then we have to assume that there was more than one guy up here to get the drop on your team. And if that’s the case, we might need to think on whether they knew about them before they came up here.”
“What are you saying?” Jumper asks as he kneels beside the guy I don’t know. One who must have been with the team that nabbed Ruby.
“This was planned. They’ve been watching her. And they’re good. So good that you and your team didn’t notice. They saw her leave, saw an opportunity, and took it.”
I nod but then shake my head. “These guys trained with me. No way they got taken out by a rookie.”
“Exactly. This was planned and well organized. King picked a fucking great time to screw us all over,” Bass mutters as he steps over a body and goes to look at something across the way.
Having the Crazy Eights would have helped us. They have resources. They can get into places—havegotten into places—without others noticing. They play at being weak, exploiting a person’s desire to look away from the uncomfortable, like someone with a disability or smelling of garbage. They hide that way. They do it well too. We never saw it coming when they pulled that shit on us. And from the OHH debriefing forms I’ve looked into, they still make it work.
“There a reason why you picked them?” Bass stands tall and nods to the bodies on the ground. “Why you asked for their help and not ours?”
The club. The brotherhood.
“You know why.” I hold his stare, which isn’t easy to do. Hounds have an ability to make anyone uncomfortable just by looking at them. Even another Hound.
“You ever think that was your sign? That if you had to hide it from us, you shouldn’t be messing around in it?”
Bass, like everyone else, has a right to what he feels. Hell, I know he was close to my girl. He’s always seen her as a baby sister and ragged on her enough that it was a mutual thing for her. He has a right to have thoughts, feelings, and whatnot. But he doesn’t get a say in how I feel. InwhatI feel.
“You might think you know what happened, but you don’t,” I say with a shake of my head. “It was never meant tobe like this. What I feel for her….” I hang my head as I put my hands on my hips and look at the bodies. “It didn’t start out that way. She was a job. Just a job. They were called in when I wanted a night off. I still did the job, just outsourced when I got tired, or bored. But then….”
“Things changed.” This from Gator, and I see that he’s starting to get it. He’s newer to the club. Prospected a few years back. Not as much history as some brothers have with Ruby, but still close. They all got close to her. She was around. She was nice. She fit in with the old ladies. Still does.
I nod. “Yeah. Things changed.” I look back at Bass. “I needed them to protect her when the club couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.”
Bass looks away first, then turns back and nods. He understands now.
“What now?” This from Jumper.
I don’t answer, because I don’t know. Hunt, obviously. But where? Which direction? We’re blind.
“We call our friends.” Bass pulls my attention, along with Gator’s and Jumper’s. “We pool our resources. We do what we have to do. Ruby’s family. She might not like us right now, but she is.”
The boys nod and pull out their phones to make calls. Bass pats me on the back as he walks by.
“Don’t worry, brother. We’ll get your old lady back. Kicking and screaming if we have to.”
While I appreciate his call that I’m still his brother, I doubt his words. Getting Peaches back won’t be easy. And there’s no doubt that she’s doing a fair amount of kicking andscreaming. The girl doesn’t like to be pinned down. From my experience, she’s the one who does the holding down.
And I’m the only one who gets to enjoy that. I promised myself I would be her first and last. And I don’t break promises.
I breaknecks.
Chapter 34—Ruby
Have you ever been hungry? Like you could throw up from craving food so much? That type of hunger when you question if you can feel full from eating your fingernail?
I’ve never gone without before. I’ve been hungry, sure. Skipped meals here and there because I was busy and wanted to push through. But I always knew at the end I could eat. That there would be something to fill my stomach.
Now I don’t know when it will come.
Once we were in the van, I fought. I fought long and hard and got beaten down easily. Everything hurt—my face, my stomach, my legs. I was kicked and punched so much that I feared I would die in that van. But I didn’t know then that I would soon wish it were true.
