I took a sip of my drink.
“I saw Cole the other day,” I said. “Last Friday. We didn’t talk about it, but I don’t think he would mind having one less thing to worry about.”
“Yeah?”
“You know how protective he is of his family,” I said. “That’s weighing on him more. Think of it as doing a favor for him, not for Brock and Steele.”
“Oh, believe me, that’s what I was thinking and why I brought it up,” Mason said. “But we’ve been sitting on our asses for a bit. We’re not accomplishing anything just having you show up to construction sites and me jerking off in the store, pretending that I’m important.”
“Really hope that’s not literal.”
Mason chuckled, this time not quite feeling as beaten down by my words as before.
“It might as well be for how little progress we’ve made on this task,” he said. “Listen, here’s what I’m thinking. I know where Damian lives.”
That got my attention. We didn’t have rules in combat, such a thing was above who the Bandits were, but there was something especially…almost dirty about going to a man’s home at night and causing some violence. I didn’t know that this was a fucking good idea, and I almost supported anything that led to a fucking good idea.
“Yeah?” I said, curious to hear more.
“He lives in a small house on the east side of town, it’s a pretty suburban neighborhood,” Mason said. “Well, suburban for this part of town. Maybe like six houses in a cul-de-sac. Real beaten down, piece of shit kind of place. I dunno if there are other neighbors there, but to be frank, I don’t give a fuck.”
I understood it. We all wanted to avenge what had happened to Rachel Reid and this entire town. We didn’t just find the Bandits annoying; we found their very existence a threat to every single life in this small town. If we killed them, the town immediately became more peaceful.
But the residents generally didn’t have to worry about shootouts.
But…
Fuck. I was not the guy to consider moral dilemmas. I was usually the guy to just go in, fists throwing, guns blazing, and let someone smarter like Zack or Brock handle the fallout. That I was having questions about this really spoke to how dangerous an idea this was.
“We can sneak up in the middle of the night. Break in. Shoot him dead. Get out without anyone knowing.”
“Yeah, without anyone seeing, maybe,” I said. “You know those assholes would be on us in a heartbeat.”
“As if they aren’t already?”
“Big fucking difference between them attacking us at the clubhouse or robbing a store than coming to where we live at night and shooting us in our fucking sleep.”
I was less concerned with the morality of it than just the practicality of it. I already had enough trouble sleeping and enough trouble feeling at ease in my home; the last fucking thing I needed was knowing that the Bandits were conducting home raids. I slept with a gun within two feet of me at all times, but if a Bandit was good enough, I’d die dreaming.
“You got a better idea?” Mason said. “And don’t tell me attack them at their base. Even if we get Zack involved, that’s three on…well, you fucking know.”
Three on too many.
“We had better succeed if we do this, Mason,” I said. “Because if we fuck up, it’s not just the Bandits that will be on our ass. It’ll be the entire club. It’ll be Cole. They won’t like us going over their heads.”
“So you don’t like the look of it?”
I shook my head.
“If you told me I could walk up to Damian at a diner and shoot him in the skull without consequence, I would. But there’s something to be said for keeping this to what we know. And you know if I’m fucking saying it…”
Mason bit his lip.
“Let’s try it once,” he said. “Tonight.”
“Tonight?”
Mason nodded.
