He leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “I don’t have to do a lot of things, but Iwantedto do this.”
Her eyes flared at him and he imagined her looking at him like that in bed. He felt that in his cock. If he wasn’t careful he’d sit down with a hard-on. He straightened from her and sauntered to the kitchen.
Three days later, the brothers had church. The somber mood had a strange edge to it that Punc couldn’t quite identify. The women (dancers and old ladies alike) were safe, and Prime, the traitor, was behind bars.
Volt called the meeting to order. “The district attorney is focusing on bringing down the Devil Lancers. From what Bernstein - the club lawyer - can gather, Prime worked a plea deal for lesser charges.”
“Fuckin’ coward,” Turk muttered.
Punc nodded, and wished that Prime and the Devil Lancers hadn’t been rounded up by the police.
Volt’s lips tipped up. “Right, but that means his charges aren’t so severe that a judge would deny bail. Five minutes ago, Patch’s contact at the jail called. He’s gonna fill us in when he gets off the phone.”
Roll frowned. “Do we know if Prime’s posting bail? If he isn’t, he’ll end up being moved to the prison too, right?”
“He should, but that slippery fucker will probably work some deal on that shit too,” Blood said.
“I’ll post his bail,” Turk said in a vicious tone.
“Not if I post it first,” Yak said.
“No,” Volt said firmly to keep other brothers from chiming in. “I’m putting it to a vote. The club will post his bail.”
Razor cleared his throat. “I’m all for stripping this asshole’s patch and any other form of retribution Yak and Turk want, but we post the bail, there will be a paper trail.”
Blood nodded. “And that’s money down the drain, not to mention they typically want some form of collateral.”
Volt said, “One more thing Bernstein heard is that Prime’s mom has been arrested.”
“Why?” Liar asked.
Yak turned toward Liar. “That bitch works at the physical therapy firm Nora goes to - but a different location. She called the other office for Nora’s contact info, spouting bullshit about Nora thinking of changing offices. That’s how Prime got to her, since she was convinced her appointment had changed.”
Liar shook his head. “How do you know all that? Prime sure as hell didn’t admit to it.”
Yak took a deep breath, and Punc could only imagine how hard it was to keep calm about this shit. “When Nora got her phone back from the cops late that night, she saw the confirmation text from the PT office for a Tuesday appointment, and we knew something was wrong. Nora mentioned it to the cops and first thing the next morning, we found out the truth.”
Beast whistled. “So, that fuckin’ coward sacrificed his mother.”
Volt nodded. “You bet he did. Let’s stay focused though. Blood makes a good point: we bail his ass out, we won’t get the cash back.”
Beast sat back in his seat. “There’s another option. Heard this morning that two of the Southside Slayers are in jail for selling meth. We could get them to—”
“Then we’d owe them a marker,” Cal said.
“I don’t want to owe them, and they’d probably do us wrong,” Volt said.
Punc stepped forward from his spot against the wall. “I’ll get arrested and handle it.”
A mixture of confusion and annoyance crossed Volt’s face. “Even if you could arrange that, why the hell would you?”
While Punc had been staying with Ava he’d paid attention to her healing. Her face had cleared for the most part, but the attack had left an unseen mark. He had wracked his mind for different ways to make Prime pay for what he’d done to Ava. His need to beat the shit out of Prime practically consumed him.
He clenched his jaw. “That asshole didn’t just turn against us. He fuckin’ arranged for sweet Ava to be beaten. Turning off monitors and shit.”
Turk’s brows rose. “‘Sweet Ava’? What is that?”
Punc glanced away. He hadn’t meant to say it like that, and he hated that Turk sounded so angry.
