He held the phone out to Derby, who stared at it like it was a poisonous snake, before he blew out a heavy breath and snatched it.
“A bitch for a bitch?” Derby echoed the words he’d just heard Wally, Jr. say on the video. “I didn’t fucking kill Eliza Bart!” He stormed to his feet, his hand going to his gun.
Always expecting shit to go fucking south, Christopher drew his .9mm and pointed it at Derby. Since none of the Hounds pulled, Christopher knew his boys drew on those motherfuckers.
“Val killed Eliza, Derby,” Christopher said. “Cuz she was forcin’ Ryan to fuck her.”
“How fucking dare you sound so goddamn blasé!” Derby snarled, ignoring Christopher’s gun and getting right the fuck in his face.
Christopher shoved the .9mm against Derby’s midsection. “I know you fuckin’ hurt but pull back on your fuckin’ disrespect before I shoot the fuck outta you.”
Derby glared at Christopher, but snapped his mouth shut, tears still rolling down his cheeks. “Gypsy didn’t deserve this, Outlaw. She helped that motherfucker, too. To make me jealous, yeah, but she still opened her fucking house to him. She still fucked him and he fucking repaid her with a bullet in her brain?” He sat in his seat, put his elbows on his knees and hung his head. “She told me she was meeting a friend tonight and that her houseguest was dropping her off. I didn’t fucking care. All I thought was she’d be out of my fucking way so I could fuck the new stripper.”
Christopher nodded to his boys, signaling them to lower their guns.
Standing, Derby looked at Gypsy’s body again, then walked to Mortician and held out his hand. “Thank you, brother,” he said on a sob. “I know you did your best.”
Thursday, March 28th
For a second day in a row, Diesel arrived home after a night of club business, walked into his room and sat on the edge of his bed.
Yesterday, he’d been disappointed that they hadn’t caught their targets. Mama Grevenberg was dead, but her fuckhead son and husband were still breathing.
Diesel expected the search for the Grevenbergs and Wally, Jr., to continue, while everyone went about their normal activities. The last thing he ever expected was receiving news of Gypsy’s death. Seeing her laid out on the counter. A corpse, not the living,breathingwoman he’d known half his life.
Diesel didn’t think much about Derby. For that matter, Gypsy was barely a blip on his radar. He’d fucked her two or three times—he couldn’t remember. After Diesel and Gypsy’s initial hook-up, she opened her fucking mouth to Derby. That clued Diesel in that she was playing a fucking game: Who to fuck and have Derby react. She was a good fuck and loved to suck cock. She’d preferred to have her ass tapped, rather than her pussy. Not that it mattered to Diesel. He emptied his nuts either way. She hinted she’d like him to keep her, which he ignored. He’d enjoyed her company. She loved to crack jokes when she wasn’t crying about Derby.
That had been her main fucking problem. She would’veused anyone to get Derby’s attention. She hadn’t wanted to be rescued or cherished. Fuck, she hadn’t even wanted to be kept. She wanted Derby. Diesel refused to allow her to usehim.
After Gypsy “let it slip” that Diesel fucked her, motherfucking Derby had the fucking nerve to confront Diesel. He turned down Derby’s offer to buy pussy from Gypsy, and fucked her a couple more times, then had enough of her.
Despite her flaws, she shouldn’t have died by Wally Jr’s hand. Unfortunately, it wasbecauseof those flaws that she had. She’d ignored Mortician’s orders. Initially, Diesel wondered if she’d been working with Wally, Jr.
Why the fuck else would she not onlynotcall Aunt Meggie as she’d been instructedtwice, but not get the fuck out like Symphony had?
But, no. She’d just been fucking hardheaded. And why not? Gypsy had been Derby’s miserable old lady for decades.
With Wally’s death, they had one down and two motherfuckers to go.
When they arrived back at the club, Uncle Christopher called and let Johnnie know that Wally, Jr. was in the meatshack. An unfortunate circumstance. Hearing what that motherfucker wanted to do to Rebel left Diesel anxious to chop him into little fucking pieces.
He had to let it go, though. Wally had attacked Johnnie’s daughter, so he deserved to get his body.
Wanting to see Rebel but knowing he couldn’t–shouldn’t–Diesel glanced at his watch. Just after eight. After showering, he’d get ready for work. Tomorrow, he was due in court to request a dismissal against a burglary suspect. The motherfucker swore he was innocent. Evidence suggested otherwise. Unfortunately, it was the fucking son of one of their smaller support clubs. His father wanted his son exonerated. If it was up to Diesel, he’d cut that motherfucker’s hands off, butUncle Christopher told him to get him off and if he committed another burglarythencut his arms off. Diesel had saidhands. He shrugged. Semantics. Like Uncle Christopher said, hands were attached to arms, so it was all the same at the end of the day. It was cheaper to obtain robotic hands than entire fucking arms. They’d end that motherfucker’s crime spree one way or the other.
All in all, it meant he had to go to the office today.
Standing, Diesel peeled off his clothes. He hung his cut on the back of his desk chair but threw everything else in the corner on top of the small pile of dirty clothes. He’d drop them off in the laundry room before he left.
In his bathroom, Diesel glanced around, wondering why he felt watched, though he saw nothing out of the ordinary, despite how his skin crawled.
“Ax?”
No answer.
Axel swore he didn’t have a listening device in the bedrooms or bathrooms, but he was determined to protect Aunt Meggie at any cost. Diesel wouldn’t put it past his little brother to have something in every fucking room he could think of, partially because he was a nosy little motherfucker. Mostly because he was a scared kid, coping as best he could while stuck on one thing. Keeping Aunt Meggie happy.
Remembering his behavior yesterday, Diesel winced. Guilty regret surged into him. Both Aunt MeggieandAxel had every right to confront him. What the fuck was wrong with him to have acted like such a raging prick after he’d worried she wouldn’t come back and swore never to repeat the behavior that sent her away? Now that she was, he was back to being a motherfucker.
