Cracker was already there, drinking from a bottle of nasty Bell’s whisky, scowling at me, the challenge in his cloudy eyes clear.
I ignored him and checked on the food I’d dumped in the slow cooker. If he wanted to provoke me, he’d have to do better than that. Unless he wanted to talk about the fact he was becoming too much of a pisshead to ride. I didn’t give a shit about most archaic club rules: if a brother wanted to ride a Triumph instead of a Harley or a biker chick wanted to roar into my compound on a fucking Honda, my gates were open. But I had no space at my table for cunts who rode drunk, and he knew it.
Didn’t stop him poking the beast, though. And I had to wonder why, tonight of all nights, he wanted to fight me.
I returned to the table and took my seat. “Something on your mind, John?”
His glower deepened, hating that I sounded and looked just like my dad—a man he’d loved, once upon a time. “Nothing’s on my mind, kid. Just sitting here minding my business.”
“You’ve never minded your business your whole damn life. Why start now?”
Cracker grunted and lit a hand-rolled cigarette made from the same tobacco Cameron O’Brian Snr had smoked. He blew a lungful in my face.
I didn’t blink.
Neither did he.
I sighed. “You seem annoyed. Anyone would think you were counting on that bullet blowing my brains out.”
“Are you accusing me of being disloyal to this club?”
“I didn’t say anything about the club. Are the two things connected?”
“Don’t talk in circles with me, boy. I know that’s how you get the others to do as they’re told, but it won’t work with me.”
“I don’t tell you to do anything. You’ve been the club secretary since the fucking nineties. If you don’t know your job by now, I got nothing to say to you.”
Cracker exhaled more smoke, to the side this time, thinking better of getting too far up in my face. “What about your job? You think you’re doing right by the club these days? Taking boys out to ride knowing full well they’re going to get jumped?”
“By the Crows?” I reached for my own smokes and lit up. “Fuck off, mate. We’ve been scrapping with them since beforeyoujoined this club. What happened today was predictable and every brother with me on the ground knew what they were riding into. Shame you couldn’t make it, eh?”
“I already told you Loretta had an appointment at the hospital.”
“Yeah sure, but you also told me six months ago that she didn’t want you at her appointments no more because you turned up drunk to her chemo and the hospital threw you out, so...”
Cracker’s bitter gaze flickered.He doesn’t remember. Thought as much. Arsehole was doing a bottle of hard shit a day at this point. He had no fucking clue what was coming out of his mouth and there were pros and cons to that.
The pros were he was letting shit slip he used to keep to himself. The con was he was doing it with everyone so who the fuck knew what he was spilling every time he got wasted away from the clubhouse.
Watch him.
For some reason, the voice in my brain was Alexei’s, and it took me out of the moment, reminding me of the stupidity I’d agreed to without his consent. I pictured myself rocking up at his place with an overnight bag, and a laugh bubbled up in my chest. It wasn’t a bad way to end a day that had seen a bullet rattle my brain, but it felt like a fantasy. He wasn’t gonna go for it, and yet I still wanted to ride out and put it to him, just for the sake of seeing his face for the ten seconds it took him to laugh in mine.
“Something funny,Pres?”
I blinked at Cracker’s tone, refocussing on him, my distaste for him finally getting the better of me. I’d leaned back in my chair while I’d thought of Alexei. I let it fall forward, crashing the front legs to the floor, moving like a snake to seize Cracker by the throat.
Snarling, I ripped him from his seat and launched him against the wall, squeezing my hands around his fat neck. “Talk to me like that again, old man. Do it. I fucking dare you.”
Cracker’s eyes bulged, his face turning red. He said nothing, but the hatred in his glare hit me in the gut.This is more than the shit he’s been stewing over for years. Maybe he really does want me dead.
The thought made me sick to my stomach. It was one thing for old timers to harbour resentment that the world—and the club—was moving on without them, but active dissent was dangerous, and I had more than my own life to worry about.
I tightened my grip on Cracker’s throat, constricting his windpipe for real, tapping into the darkest pit of my soul that would rip a man apart with my bare hands if I had to. “Don’t fucking cross me. You ain’t clever enough to get away with it, and I won’t hesitate to end you when the time comes.”
When. Not if. I never said shit by accident, and the finality of it settled in my bones. Cracker was a problem, if not right now, then soon.
“Cam.” Embry grasped my forearms and tried to tug my hands from Cracker’s neck. “Easy.”
