Without looking back, I walk over to them and take a free chair. I know Penny is following me. Not just because I told her to, and I know she’ll listen. I can sense her presence, feel her warmth, smell her sweetness lingering in the air.
Penny sits down next to me, looking as nervous as ever, and she doesn’t even know the worst part yet. Maybe this was a bad idea, maybe I should have warned her. Well, shit, it’s too late now.
“You brought your pet, I see,” Maddox says, looking Penny up and down. “What happened to her face?”
I shrug. “The pet didn’t listen, so I had to teach her a lesson. That’s how you train pets, right? Hit them with a rolled-up newspaper?”
“That must have been a heavy-ass newspaper.” Trick chuckles and the rest of the table erupts into laughter while I sit there, forcing a smile on my lips. I don’t want anyone to know how fucking pissed I am right now.
“You rub her nose in piss too?” Bradley jokes, and more laughter ripples through the crowd, only poking the bear. Me being the bear.
Maddox looks over to me, his eyebrow slightly raised.Fuck. He knows me too well. I have never been able to hide anything from him. Today, that fact annoys the fuck out of me. I glance over at Penny and see her shifting nervously. Then she stops, her body going still, remaining stoically in her chair.
I follow her gaze and unsurprisingly find Tucker walking toward our table. His eyes instantly zeroing in on the petite woman beside me. A sinister grin tucks on his lips, and for the first time, I actually hope Maddox is right, and Tucker is fucking us over. That’s the only way I could get away with destroying him.
“I didn’t know we could bring sex slaves to meetings now,” Tucker says, his attention remaining on Penny.
“Just run the damn numbers, so we can get drunk,” I growl, earning me another glare from Maddox.
“Fine.” Tucker slams a stack of papers on the table and retrieves a calculator from his cut’s inside pocket. “The run we made on Monday morning brought in 3400, the one that night 8300, take 80% out, divide by 14 brothers, put the rest back in the bank…” he rambles down the numbers for each day while punching them into the calculator and making check marks on the paper.
After he has gone through the entire week, he says, “total, $91, 250, 20% back in the bank leaves 73k even. Divided by 14 means each brother gets $5,214.”
Tucker is still talking when I feel Penny’s soft fingers brush tentatively over my arm. Her touch, so soft it tickles, leaves goosebumps in her wake. I tilt my head toward her, letting her know I’m listening, but I don’t look over. My eyes remain on Tucker.
“May I get something to drink… please,” she says, barely loud enough for people to hear. Her words confirming what I was suspecting. Fucking Tucker, skimming off the top. Thinking he is so smart.
All I want to do is call him out, grab him by the throat, and use his face as a punching bag for the next twenty minutes, but I know I can’t. I need to play this smart, and I definitely need to talk to Maddox before doing anything.
“Bradley, get her a drink,” I order my brother, who looks at me like I’ve just asked him to solve an unsolvable riddle.
“I’m not a server, especially not for some bitch,” he snorts.
Barely holding on to my restraint, I grit out, “Get off your fucking ass and get her a drink before I stomp your teeth out.”
“Jesus, fuck, Ryder,” Bradley yells, but thank fuck, he gets up and walks toward the bar.
“Touchy, touchy.” Tucker grins.
Bradley returns a moment later, slamming a glass with some fruity looking liquid in front of Penny and a bottle in front of me. “I brought you a beer too. Maybe that will lighten up your fucking mood.”
Doubt it.But I still take the beer and down half of it. I really need to calm the fuck down before I do something really stupid. Something that I can’t take back.
Everyone at the table breaks out in conversation. Bradley talks about the chick he banged behind his gym yesterday, and Trick swears he fucked the same chick last week. Maddox talks to Tucker about upgrades he wants to do to his bike, and Bear chimes in about those upgrades only adding unwanted weight.
Maddox occasionally glances my way with a look that says, we’re going to talk about this later, and Penny is sitting next to me stiff as a board, nursing her half-empty drink.
“Soooo,” Bradley says loudly, grabbing the attention of the whole table. “Remember how I told you guys about this new drug coming in? The one that’s tasteless and dissolves in liquid.” He smirks, looking straight at me. I freeze. He fucking wouldn’t. I almost throw the bottle of beer across the room.
“Calm down, fucker.” He laughs. “I didn’t put it in your drink.” His gaze swings over to Penny. “I put it in hers.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I growl, standing up so quickly the chair I was sitting on crashes to the floor behind me.
Bradley rolls his eyes… he rolls his fucking eyes. I’m livid. My mind goes blank, and the next thing I know, I’m across the table with my hands around Bradley’s throat.
“Ryder!” Maddox yells, grabbing my arm and pulling me back. I feel more hands on me, trying to pull me away, but my fingers are wrapped so tightly around my brother’s throat they can’t get me to move.
Bradley’s face turns a reddish-blueish color, and his eyes are bulging out when Maddox’s voice finally gets to me, “Ryder, cut it the fuck out. Just get that chick out of here.”
