“What makes you think you get to know anything?” Walter asked.
“I asked Phoenix if we could listen in on their meeting in exchange for providing safe transportation for his members to their home base,” Buck said.
“They’re fucking sleepy, Buck,” Walter grumbled. “You make it sound like we’re escorting them through enemy territory.”
“Doesn’t matter what it sounded like,” Buck retorted. “Phoenix said yes, so your nosy ass should thank me.”
“Whose nosy ass?” Walter laughed.
I chuckled to myself as I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they became honorary members of the club. They might as well have been with as much shit as they were involved in.
What seemed like seconds later, Dice shook my shoulder to wake me. “We’re here.”
I wiped my hand over my face and groaned. I only needed to make it through church, and then I could go back to sleep. Right down the hall in my room at the clubhouse. I rarely used it after I moved into my house on the farm, but it came in handy from time to time.
Blindly stumbling along behind Dice, I followed him into church and dropped into a seat at the end of the table. Thankfully, we were the last ones to arrive. I don’t think I wouldhave been able to stay awake if we had to wait for others to show up.
“Let’s get to it,” Phoenix said and called the meeting to order. “Last night, Flint, Edge, Dice, and Ink went to a party to get Raven and Blaze. They had been drugged, but Raven was able to call for help before she passed out.” Phoenix held his hand up to stop the grumbling that had erupted around the room. “They got there in time, and they caught the fuckers who did it.”
“Fucking hell,” Ranger said. “You wouldn’t call us all down here to tell us you killed three wannabe rapists. So what the hell happened?”
“He’s telling us,” Shaker said.
“Right, right,” Ranger said and gestured for Phoenix to continue.
“We identified the guys as Leon Rhodes, Willy Smith, and Ricky Calvin Reynolds II,” Phoenix said.
“As in Ricky Reynolds?” Duke asked. “The one who used to throw parties around here before he moved his business to Cedar Valley?”
“Yep,” Phoenix said. “This is his son.”
“His son is the one who drugged Raven and Blaze?” Duke asked.
“We don’t know who drugged them,” Phoenix explained. “But Ink heard Calvin attempt to assault Blaze through the phone, and he’s the one they saw on top of Ariel when they got there.”
“Who’s Ariel?” Shaker asked.
“If y’all will shut the fuck up, I’ll tell you,” Phoenix yelled. “Now, when the guys arrived, they found Blaze on the floor of a bedroom. A guy was on top of an unconscious girl on the bed, and Raven was hiding in a closet. The unconscious girl turned out to be seventeen-year-old Ariel Calloway, daughter of ER nurse Presley Calloway. The girl Ariel went to pick upwas reported missing by her mother this morning, but that doesn’t seem to be relevant at this time. So, as I was saying, the main culprit is Calvin Reynolds, son of Ricky Reynolds. We’ve known about Ricky for a long time, but he hasn’t been a problem for us. Regardless, his son tried to rape my daughter and granddaughter. Any professional courtesies I might have extended to him were null and void the moment the girls took their first sip. But you guys know me and my bleeding heart. I couldn’t bring myself to kill his son.”
I snorted a laugh and spoke before I could stop myself. “Bleeding heart? You broke his jaw and stomped on his balls so hard that both testicles had to be removed. Killing him would have been kinder.”
Dice slapped me on the back of the head. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Fuck. Sorry, Prez. I’m still sleeping,” I said.
Phoenix pinched the bridge of his nose. “Because I know you got the least amount of sleep out of all of us, I’ll let that slide.” He turned his attention back to the room. “So, yeah, we beat the hell out of them. Made sure they understood their mistakes. Then we dropped them off at the hospital.”
“Is this something we’ll need my mom to help with?” Shaker asked.
Phoenix chuckled. “No, Byte took care of it. He took the hospital cameras offline for a few minutes.”
“And no one noticed that three guys beat to hell showed up around the same time you did?” Ranger asked.
Dash laughed. “No, and I was the one who told them that there were three drunk guys passed out right outside the doors.”
“Back to that little nugget Ink casually dropped,” Shaker said. “What’s this about balls being removed?”
“Apparently, both of his testicles were ruptured beyond repair and had to be surgically removed,” Phoenix explained.
