I shrugged.
“You’d need to give me a minute to think about it.”
“Then take a minute,” Spawn said. “We got that much time, I can say that.”
I thought about the locations. The east side had been the original budding ground for the King’s Men, though “original” was going way back in time, way before I was even born. The west side was the newest location, which probably rendered it moot. The north one was in the most crowded sector.
The problem, again, was that they were so good at knowing what was going on and preemptively preparing for any threats that by the time you got there, unless you did so in the quietest manner, things were cleared out.
But Spawn and Sonny were aching for action. So I decided to give it to them.
“Let’s go east,” I said. “It’s where things started. You won’t find King there, but you might be able to kill some valuable members of that club. If nothing else, can always blow up some shit and take some weapons.”
“Now you’re fucking talking,” Spawn said. “I’ll get the men and let’s roll out.”
Spawn walked outside. I turned to Sonny, who seemed relieved, if not a little more apprehensive than Spawn was.
“You know I might as well be a full-fledged enemy of the King’s Men by this point, right?” I said. “Even if I’m right and Crush ultimately turns against the King’s Men, he’s almost certainly told King in the interim. If I don’t have a shoot on sight order on my head, it’s only because they’ll want to torture me for information first.”
“What’s your point?”
“Don’t be expecting anything more from me than information,” I said. “I’m past the point of acting as a double agent or infiltrating.”
Sonny sighed.
“I’ll shoot real with you, Asher; I don’t think we have many good options at this point,” he said, sounding pained. “Spawn will forever believe we can win, and my father won’t acknowledge it, but I’ve always prided myself on having an objective, coherent sense for how things are going. We are not in a good spot right now. I can admit that. But we need to take the morsels we can get. So what if you can’t infiltrate? Ten days ago, we thought you were a dead messenger boy. We take what we can get, even if things get worse.”
We take what we can get, even if things get worse.
Fuck, wish I’d taken that mindset with Callie. Sure would have saved a lot of heartache.
Like what’s there today. Goddamnit.
“Anyways, we should get going,” Sonny said. “Even if we can’t win this war, we’re sure as hell going to go down with a fucking fight.”
* * *
About a dozen of us rolled out to the warehouse on the east side of town, out close to near where UNLV played its football games. Although the area could get reasonably crowded on such game days, for the most part, it was a more run-down part of the city, an area where citizens went inside at sunset and kept to themselves otherwise. It was not the mecca of beauty that the Strip was, nor was it the land of culture and art like downtown Vegas was.
It was exactly what we, as an attacking party, needed. The cloak of anonymity. The cloak of a shit neighborhood that normal citizens wouldn’t care about.
It was daylight when we rolled out, but that had never stopped MCs from fighting. If anything, the day made it easier to spot someone to shoot. It wouldn’t have made for very good strategy in the north or west parts of Vegas, but it made for a good deal here.
But as soon as the warehouse came to view, I already started to get a terrible feeling in my gut.
For starters, there were no fucking bikes around the building. None. There was somehow a car parked on the street, but it looked like it was just left there from way before, not as part of someone hanging out—doubly true since it was empty.
For another, when we got closer to the warehouse, I saw no movement. Usually, you’d get the faint look of an outline moving in the window or someone opening or closing a door, but right now, it was just…nothing.
Finally, there was a piece of paper on the door. The writing was much too small, but that was a bad fucking sign. A government official wouldn’t have left a handwritten note if they were going to tear down the building. The only reason someone would have left a handwritten note was to taunt.
I got off the bike first and brushed past Spawn, who looked like he was searching for someone, anyone, to shoot. I hurried to the door and ripped the note off. My hands started shaking with anger the instant I saw the handwriting. It was…
Fucking King’s.
“Nice of you to show your face again. Not nice of you to join the enemy. We’ve taken your wife. Let’s see if you still love her. See you back in Phoenix. -King”
“God fucking damnit!” I roared, tearing up the note.
