Saint Malone. Fuck. My head was full of Teddy Jones, but my heartachedfor Saint. I wondered if he could tell I’d banged someone who’d made me forget about him, just for one night. If I’d taken that deep breath I’d so desperately fucking needed.
Of course he could. There was something special about Saint. He saw things no one else did. Interpreted them in ways no one else ever could.
It was why the club needed him as their sergeant-at-arms.
And why I couldn’t have him in any other way.
Club secretary, Cracker, signalled for silence, then called every man’s name. We swore in and I pounded my gavel on the table, every facet of me focused on my job. My family.My brothers.I’d die for these men, and they’d die for me, sooner rather than later if we didn’t get a handle on the mess we had brewing. “We’ve got trouble coming,” I started without preamble. “Pulling out of the bridge contracts is proving as hellacious as we thought it would be. Guys on site are already being harassed, and last night some arsehole torched our equipment stores. It’s only a matter of time before things escalate. Nash, what else have we got?”
Nash McGovern, good-looking motherfucker, all gold hair and blue eyes, leaned forward, tatted elbows on the table. “We lost forty grand’s worth of gear in that fire. Legitimate kit that isn’t covered by insurance because it’s obvious arson and the insurance provider—and the old bill—think it was an inside job. We’re now blacklisted, and every policy we had for just about everything is void.”
Low whistles and murmurs sounded around the table, but not from me. I knew this shit already, I just didn’t want to be the one to speak it aloud when I’d warned them this would happen seven fucking years ago when I argued against bidding for the supply contracts to repair and restructure half a dozen motorway bridges. We’d won those contracts from organisations far more criminal and corrupt than us, and we’d spent every day since fighting the consequences.
And now we wanted out, guess what?
That was a shit show too. These weren’t contracts that could be torn up just because we wanted them to be. We were in bed with gangs we didn’t even know the fucking name of, and they were hitting us where it hurt. Money. Security. Safety. If we couldn’t keep a roof over our head and our members alive, we were done.
“We have legitimate business interests.” Embry spoke up, ever the voice of reason. “Just like everyone else. How can multiple insurance companies refuse our custom?”
“We’re a known criminal enterprise,” I said flatly. “And when you’ve been refused or cancelled once, it stays on your record. Like a credit score, only we now have a big fat zero.”
“Can we pull money from the yard to cover the loss?”
I shook my head. “Even if we had it—and I don’t know yet if we do, thanks to Magda losing her fucking marbles—we can’t prop up that shit with the business we need to survive if everything else goes wrong. We can’t taint it with dirty money.”
Mateo lit a smoke. “Even if it’s going in the opposite direction?”
I turned my attention to my fiery enforcer. “Afraid so. If we have any hope of getting out of this with anything left, we have to keep our operations totally separate.”
“Still dreaming of going straight, boss?” he said with a smirk that I returned. No one sitting at our table—save old man Cracker and maybe, sometimes, Nash—was motherfucking straight. We liked it alland gave no shits how anyone else felt about it. Made for an interesting road life, let me tell you, but none of us got into this ride to be boring.
“I’m dreaming of a lot of things,” I told them honestly. “But mostly finishing what my father started and getting back to a motorcycle club that runs dodgy poker games and moves a bit of green. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry you’re fighting a war you didn’t start. I never wanted this.”
“We know you didn’t.” At my side, Rubi, my road captain and childhood friend, laid a fist on my arm. “Most of us were there when you spoke against getting into big-time construction rackets. We haven’t forgotten.”
Nash murmured his agreement. Cracker scowled. Only Saint and Embry said nothing, that part of our history before Embry’s time. And Saint? Fuck, I didn’t need him to speak to know he had my back.
“Okay.” Mateo ashed his cigarette in the crystal dish at the centre of the table. “If we can’t make the money back legitimately...” He shot me a look that would’ve chilled a civilian to the bone. Except I was no fucking civvie, and fresh out of Teddy’s bed, Mateo Romano was gonna have to do better than that. “Where are we pulling it from?”
“Is that a real question, or do you have ideas of your own?”
Mateo glanced at Saint, my sergeant-at-arms, brooding, silent and beautiful beside me.
I forced myself to follow his gaze. Saint’s forest-green eyes and colourful tattoos caught me in their snare and he shrugged, telling me all I needed to know. He was a man of few words by design, but he never left me wanting.
We got this.
I nodded. “Find me later when you’ve figured it out. And no slotting any fucker stupid enough to get in your way. I’ve got enough going on without worrying about shifting cadavers.”
It was no fucking joke. We were working hard to move away from the kind of life that had got my dad and too many of my brothers killed or incarcerated, but however much we cleaned ourselves up, we were still an outlaw MC. People got hurt. People died. And sometimes we had to move heaven and earth to cover that shit up.
The meeting moved on. Mateo brought me up to speed on the weed shipment he was overseeing in the coming weeks. Rubi outlined details of a legitimate run to touch base with our sister chapter in the south. It was an ideal opportunity to shore up support if the shit I was expecting to fly came sooner rather than later, but more than that, I was digging the chance to get the fuck out of dodge. The wind in my face, my boys at my back, there was no better place than the open road.
Except the bed you crawled out of this morning.Damn. I could not get that bloke out of my head. My phone seemed to burn a hole in my pocket and all I could see was his lithe body writhing beneath me as I fucked him.
All I could hear was his quiet, wretched groan when he’d come.
“Cam?”
