“Then they will need to earn it. You don’t have the money to give away.”
“That’s not how it works around here. If we pull them off the job, we make that right.”
“I understand, but it is not a sustainable business model if you are serious about disbanding your other operations.”
“Cam’s serious. He’s wanted this for years.”
“Then you need to find other ways of making money and employing your men.”
Nash nodded. “Thanks. I mean, I knew it already, but thinking about it makes my head spin.”
“I can show you some time, if seeing it would make it easier to understand.”
“Doubt it. You know how some people get words back to front?”
“Dyslexia?”
“Yeah, only with numbers. I can count the same thing three times and write something different down.”
“As long as you can count your own money.”
“I don’t have any. It’s all tied up in the yard.”
And he wanted to give it away. What on earth was I going to do with these people?
Cam reappeared from the back of the café, his gaze distant, like it had been often since the night he’d been shot, drugged, and left for dead.
I wondered what was bothering him most. Perhaps that he’d killed a man? I’d neglected to ask if it was a brand-new experience for him.
Nash forgotten, though I would not forget the promise I’d made him, I rose and moved to Cam’s side. I didn’t ask what he’d been doing in the back; it did not concern me. Only the stress in his gaze did.
“Come,” I said. “I want to finish your walk-around with you before I go back to work.”
He nodded, and we left Nash alone, returning to the route around the compound that Cam took multiple times a day to check up on his people—people that stared, not at him, but at me. And I let them. Most had no clue who I was or where I’d come from. Just that I was with their president and I didn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.
The brave ones whispered among themselves when they thought I was not looking. But I had news for them: I was always looking, and I never forgot a face. After Cracker’s demise, a handful of brothers had turned in their cuts and fled the compound.
Others had remained, keeping their displeasure at Cam’s resilience to themselves, but I saw them.
I saw them all.
“I have never seen a motorcycle club without an auto garage attached to it,” I mused when Cam’s silence became too much even for me. “Where do you work on your bikes?”
“Round the back,” Cam said. “Nash has a place set up where brothers can take their rides for a tune-up, but it ain’t a front for the club. We’ve always had the yard.”
“Where do you go if you need more than a tune-up?”
Cam winced. “That’s complicated.”
“Why?”
“River used to be our guy for that, but when he walked, he took the garage with him, and he won’t work on MC bikes anymore.”
“So you are missing a treasurer, a secretary, and a mechanic?”
“Living the dream, man, but I’m hoping I can fix one of those today.” He pointed at the timber section of the builder’s yard. “Come meet a brother with me?”
He did not have to ask me to be by his side, but I nodded all the same and followed him to the area that smelt of cut wood and sawdust. At first, I thought there was no one there. Then I spotted the man in the quiet corner, making notes in a leather-bound ledger, a child perched on his knee, a girl with golden hair down to her waist and piercing eyes that were the same as the brother who held her.
