The bastard had made disgusting comments and tried to hit her within the first five minutes of meeting her. I wasn’t sure if he knew she was his cousin, or he was just that fucking stupid. Either way, me being the one to watch her was the only thing keeping her from being seriously hurt. I hated that I needed to worry someone in my club could harm her. Whether she was their family or not, I didn’t condone that shit.
“They’re a big club, and not just the Sussex Chapter, the whole country. We’re small fry to them,” Ranger went on. “Just a few chapters in Jersey, New York and Philly. They want to bring the weight of their club down on us… you,” he corrected. “Then you better be prepared to fight. Or run.”
“I’ll never run.”
“Yeah, I know. But that doesn’t mean you can’t play it smart.”
“What exactly are you suggesting?” I asked but I knew what he was getting at.
Over my dead body. The Kingsmen were my life, all I’d ever known, and I wasn’t going to let Danica, or Nytro sink them. But at the same time, I wasn’t going to align myself with our rivals. Not that they’d want that either, given the shit that had gone down between the two clubs lately. Nytro and Danica had well and truly killed any chance at an amicable relationship.
“They work smart,” Ranger got a faraway look on his face. “Always did. I never had any trouble with them. We kept out of each other’s way, knew the score on territory. You know yourself, if we had to, we spoke to them, but we didn’t go out of the way to deal with them.”
He was right. I’d had dealings with War Curtis a few times. I’d never met King though. War had always been the one to iron out any issues between our two clubs. He was a decade younger than me, and I’d been surprised when I first met him, but he wasn’t stupid, I’d caught on to that real quick. And Ballistic, his Enforcer was usually with him if we met face to face.
It took a lot to unnerve me. I wasn’t afraid of Ballistic, he’d put up a good fight if it came to it. I thought we would be an even match, even though he was about twenty years older than me. I wouldn’t want to mess with him.
“King is a tough son of a bitch, but he’s always been fair with me. You know it never hurts to keep your enemies close.”
He was preaching to the choir, but I let him. I could tell he was slowly dying out here. He was less than a shadow of his former self. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was dead before the year was out. By his own hand. I hated the idea of that, which was why I kept in touch, why I still came around to try and keep him motivated to stay the fuck alive.
“Mace, listen to me,” Ranger shifted a little, he tried to push himself up a little higher with his one good arm, but he only slipped sideways.
I wouldn’t offer to help, it would only make him angry. He huffed and straightened the top half of his body, his cheeks reddening slightly. I held his gaze without changing my facial expression.
“I don’t know what is going on and I don’t want to know. You can’t tell me and I understand that. But taking King Curtis’s daughter was a huge mistake. It’s going to end up getting people killed.”
Already happening, I thought. When Ranger nodded, I knew he’d read that all over my face.
“It will get worse the longer you hold her. If I were you,” he pointed at me. “I’d have nothing to do with that. Family means everything to them. They will be all in on this. Watch your back.”
I nodded, he didn’t know I was so close I was practically up Waverley Curtis’s ass. Rubbing a hand over my mouth I tried not to think about her ass. That kind of thinking wasn’t going to help anyone.
“I’m serious,” Ranger said. “The Kingsmen aren’t what they used to be, Mace. There is no loyalty, no rules and no trust. If you can’t trust your own brothers…You end up like this,” he glared at his useless legs. “Or worse.”
My phone rang. I got to my feet, nodding to Ranger as I walked out of the room. I could hear the TV coming from somewhere else, wherever Marla was, so I went out front before answering.
“What?”
“Hog’s place just blew up.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear at the screaming. “Blew up? How?”
“The whole place is burnt to the ground, people said they heard explosions, all the bikes, the building...Someone hacked the cameras,so they were shut off but I know who did it. It wasthem, the fucking Devil’s.”
I raised my brows as I headed to my bike. Explosions? That seemed a little out there. Nytro sounded manic. It made sense that it was Devil’s behind it. They were going after everything and now I was really pissed. I didn’t give a shit about Hog’s fuck and drug palace, as he referred to it.
Only a few hardcore assholes who were staunch supporters of Nytro hung out there. I didn’t like the place because I knew they invited high school kids there to sell to them, they’d get the girls high and do whatever the fuck they wanted to them. I fucking hated the place and in a way was glad it was gone.
“Anyone hurt?”
“They found a fucking body upstairs, in the office where Hog works.”
‘Works’ was a loose interpretation of what he worked on up there. There was no love lost between me and Mad Hog. I knew he was vying for my role and Nytro was scheming to figure out a way to do it, I wasn’t stupid. If the asshole was dead, I wouldn’t mourn him, I wouldn’t even care. But there was more at stake here.
“The bikes were all there but the cops said there was no one inside besides the one body but it was burnt to fuck. I know for a fucking fact Hog was there because he called me about twenty minutes before I got word. This is fucked, this is so fucked. I’m not sitting back and taking this shit anymore. I’m going to make them fucking pay.”
I got on my bike and stared at Ranger’s house.
