Harry rolled his eyes before resting back in his seat. “It’s just the smokes. Don’t you have a woman to save your nagging for now?”
“Quit that shit, Rogers.”
“I will.” He smirked. “When I die.”
I shook my head but held his gaze. That fat son of a bitch had no clue what he meant to me or this club, but I wasn’t about to go ahead and sing him his very own love song just to stroke his ego. “If you won’t listen to me, maybe you’ll listen to Ayda,” I threatened.
“You wouldn’t?” he gasped.
“Sure about that?”
“That’s foul play and you know it.”
I shrugged and looked back at Jedd, Slater, Kenny and Deeks. I didn’t miss the fact that Kenny was the only one with his head down and the only one showing no hint of amusement.
“Kenny,” I called out, raising my chin.
“What?”
“What’s with the wounded puppy dog look?”
Half lifting his head my way, he struggled to hide his scowl. “What?”
“You haven’t said a word about this since you walked through the door. Anyone would think you didn’t want to be here.”
The whole room fell silent as we waited for him to answer. Kenny’s tongue poked the inside of his cheek beforehe grabbed the edges of his cut, rolled his shoulders and straightened up on the arm of the sofa. “Sorry.”
Four sets of eyes suddenly fell my way. I didn’t have to see them all to feel Slater, Jedd, Deeks and Harry’s confused faces. My focus was all on K-Dog. “You don’t have anything to say about the plan to work with Sutton?”
Kenny shrugged, his hand rising up to rub his temple before he looked around the room. “Does Ayda know about this plan?”
“No.”
“Don’t you think she should?”
“Don’t you think Ayda’s my goddamn business?”
“Okay.” He sighed, dropping his eyes back to the floor again. “I’m good with whatever the rest of you decide. I’ll fall in line.”
I opened my mouth to reply when Jedd caught my attention from the corner of my eye, the slow, subtle shake of his head telling me to leave it. Suddenly irritated, I pulled myself closer to the desk, facing forward and picking up the pen laid out on the surface, quickly drumming it on the top to pour my agitation out in some kind of newBic-rhythm.
“Listen, I know this is a surprise to you all, and believe me, I hate Sutton more than anyone else in the state of Texas, but if we go around handling a bunch of snot-nosed brats, things are going to look bad on the club. With everything we’ve got going on with the Emps, imitating the Navs and already feeling like we’ve got more targets on our asses than a whore in a prison cell, we don’t need child-abuse adding to the fucking list. That’s something we can never come back from. If we point Sutton in the right direction, anonymously contact his superiors and tell them that we’ve given him substantialevidence as to what’s going on in Babylon, he won’t have any choice but to act, regardless of whether we were the ones to hand him the info in the first place. We back Sutton into a corner, he can’t argue the fact that we helped out. He gets a pat on the back from his chiefs, we might get a bit of a reprieve from him, and he can forget I’ve fucked his wife for a while...” I trailed off, eyes scanning the room as my hands turned palm up and my pen pointed to the ceiling. “We look good in the day, we save our blood and dirt for the night. We’re a motorcycle club trying to do the right thing for once. That’s how they’ll see it. That’s the image we’ve got to put out there. These kids ain’t our problem. The more we distance ourselves from them, the more the people of the town will believe that, although they might be wearing the Hounds’ patch, they have nothing to do with our brotherhood.”
“Babylon is our problem,” Harry reminded me quietly.
“And this is the best solution for Babylon,” I answered.
“I’m with Drew,” Jedd piped up.
A rough exhale came from Slater, his foot twitching as it rested across his leg. “Can’t believe I’m fucking saying this, but I agree. This is for the Five-O. Let them do the policing for once.”
“Okay.” Harry began to nod his head, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled sharply. “Let’s go to Sutton.”
“Just one question,” Deeks spoke up. Letting my eyes drift over to where he was standing, leaning against the wall with his arms across his chest, I raised my chin to give him the go ahead to speak. “In theory it works, but which one of us will approach Sutton? It can’t be you, Tucker. You won’t even get through the station doors.”
“I know where he lives.” I smirked.
“He’ll never listen to you. It needs to be someone he would give the time of day to. After everything, that ain’t gonna be you, brother. No offense.”
