“I’d rather have people who at least know how to fight,” he grumbled. “Have you guys tried any tactical assaults? How did they go?”
Brock looked at me. It was like he was daring me to speak about the time Connor, Zack, and I defied orders, sneaked over to the Bandits neighborhood, and tried to kill Damian—and instead had wound up murdering his teenage brother.
“We’ve done a few,” I said. “Varying degrees of success. No, we don’t have military background. But we’re not a bunch of chickens with our heads cut off who happen to be equipped with weapons.”
Brock didn’t change his expression, but I could sense some surprise from him. I wasn’t mute in these meetings, but I usually left the harsh talking to Connor, the leadership to Brock, and the back-and-forth to Garrett. To him and the rest of the club, I was a man who provided quiet mentorship and leadership, being a good eight years older than everyone else.
But what Brock did not know—actually, what no one else knew, including my fucking sister—was just how much this was an opportunity to redeem myself entirely. I could kill the Bandits. I could finally,final-fucking-ly, bring peace to Santa Maria. Yeah, the boys talked about it. Lovely.
They didn’t have the past I had.
They hadn’t just lost peace but taken it away from others.
They hadn’t done the shit that I’d fucking done, that I had to live with each and every day.
The guys thought they had pasts that haunted them and compelled them to fight for a better future. I would have fucking blindly traded for whatever childhood insecurities and awkward moments they’d had in the past for my spot.
Shit, even for what Brock went through with Rachel, that was an easy trade. And that was fucking saying something.
“Seems to me you guys have a lot of fucking balls, and I can appreciate that,” Lane said. “However, we didn’t come down here to be your puppets. We’ll help, but don’t think of it as ‘help.’ Think of it as us taking over. We’re in charge now.”
“I’m sorry?” Brock said.
And so it continues.
“You’re refusing our offer?”
“I’m refusing the idea that we’re insubordinate to you,” Brock said. “This has been our fight. We should be the ones to land the killing blow. We’ll pay member fees or whatever we have to fucking do. But I’m not going to stand down and let someone else win our fight for us.”
Lane nodded to Axle, who leaned forward.
“In war, you don’t get a fucking choice, kid.”
“Talk to me, asshole,” I said.
I agreed with Brock. This was our fight. Plus, I had my own reasons.
“You think he’s a kid? So be it. Talk to me. I’m older than you.”
The entire room had an air of tension to it. One insult taken too harshly, one ugly word said with the wrong tone, and everyone would be out of their chairs and brawling until something or someone ended it. And I wasn’t backing down one goddamn bit.
“Brock is absolutely fucking right,” I said. My emotions were actually getting away from me some. “You don’t know what we’ve been through in this fucking town, dealing with these fucking pricks. Of course we’re not fucking suggesting putting a gag order on you assholes, but we’re going to do this together, not with us eating shit while you keep your boots on the back of our neck.”
“I’m sorry, who the fuck even created you in the first place?” Axle said.
“That’s enough,” Cole snapped. “I realize I should have better set this up.”
“You don’t get to determine beforehand who gets the winning shot,” Axle said, pointing a finger at me—a gesture that nearly made me lose my shit. “When the SEALs killed bin Laden, they didn’t fucking talk about which one of them would shoot the motherfucker dead. They just executed the mission, and whoever happened to cross with him got the shot.”
That wasn’t the fucking point. That wasn’t the motherfucking point!
“Enough!”
Cole slammed his fist on the table. The California Reapers looked at him in surprise. Something about their reaction told me that this was not the Cole Carter they were used to seeing, that their Cole was perhaps a little bit on the softer side.
“Lane, I got you and the rest of the California Reapers hotel rooms in downtown Albuquerque near me,” he said. “Why don’t we head over there right now? Grab some food, get some drinks.”
Lane’s expression softened from “ready to brawl” to “pissed but approachable.” He nodded.
