“Mom said theyhave it covered.” I stroked her back. “It’s more important that you feel safeand comfortable.”
She bit her lip,wincing, then trying to cover her reaction and I knew she didn’t want me toknow she was in pain.
“Fuck,” Ihissed, jumping up to grab a wet washcloth.
“I’m okay.”
“You’rebleeding, baby,” I countered, setting the flannel gently against her lip.“Press.”
She took thetowel and pressed it against her mouth, blinking back tears. “I wanna thtayhere.”
I slid my handaround her waist and kissed her temple. “I’ll get us a room.”
Before she couldsay anything further, Cash and Razor walked in… with Booker, Hatch, and Flearight behind him.
“Daddy?” Daisypulled, out of my arms and rushed to him.
“Hey, babygirl.” Booker pulled the washcloth away from her face to survey the damage.
“I’m okay. Whatare y’all doing here?” she asked.
“We need totalk,” Flea said, closing the door behind them. “Glad you’re okay, sweetheart.”
“First things first,glad to fuck you’re all okay,” Hatch said. “Now, Huck, I need you to take offyour cut and hand it over to me.”
“Uncle Hatch,please don’t—”
“Stay outtathis, Ducky.”
I took off mycut and handed it to Hatch.
“Good. I’m gonnaneed you to take off this prospect patch and replace it with this,” he said,handing me back the cut along with a Dogs of Fire Club Members patch.
“Wha-what?” Istuttered out.
“I don’t wantyou to get the wrong idea. This patch isn’t a shortcut to your full membership.For that, you still have to bleed but tonight, you drew blood to protect afamily member. If that doesn’t prove that you’re worthy of membership, I don’tknow what does,” Hatch said. “But most of all, I’m giving you that patch toprotect you, Daisy, and the club.”
“I don’tunderstand.”
“As a prospect,you’re not owed the protection of the club but as a member, what you didtonight, will never leave the lips of any of the brothers. We may not beone-percenters, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know how to get blood off ourhands. What you did for Daisy and for society by wiping that psycho off theface of this earth, was just. Razor and Cash saw to it that no one will everfind Cyrus’s remains or the gun you used to shoot him. Cash made double surethere’s no surveillance evidence of you there either.”
I swore. “Thatgun was an antique. It was the crown jewel of my father’s collection. It’sirreplaceable.”
“Actually,” Fleasaid. “There were seven hundred made, and I already have a line on threesuitable replacements. I’m also bidding on a nice pair of French duelingpistols. They’ve got really cool engravings.”
“Okay, Flea,take it down a notch, brother,” Hatch said. “As you can see, I’ve got the rightman on the job to replace your old man’s piece.”
“He’ll noticethe difference,” I said.
“Just tell himhe must have gotten hit harder than he thought.”
“Uncle Hatch!”Daisy admonished.
Hatch shrugged.“Don’t worry about it, Booker’ll fix the registration papers electronically tomatch the replacement’s serial number, no one’ll be the wiser.”
“Where do we gofrom here?” I asked.
“You finish yourtrip as planned, until your old man gets back on his feet, then we go home andact as though nothing ever happened. Flea and I’ll make sure everythingcopasetic here, and head home tomorrow. Booker can decide what he wants to dowith Archer, but Cash and Razor are gonna stay.” Hatch crossed his arms. “Imean it when I said we’re men of our oath, an oath you’ll take in front of allyour club brothers once you return home to Portland.”
