“Not too far from you, actually,” Warlock replied. “Far enough to where you’ll never get to us in time, but close enough for you to get my point.”
Warlock panned the phone’s camera again to reveal they were on a rooftop, somewhere in what looked like the warehouse district near the port.
“This lost sheep of yours is really more of a lamb, isn’t he? What is it that you call your prospects? Recruits, right? Like you’re in the fucking army, right? Well, armies fight wars, don’t they? Armies send young men into battle to face insurmountable odds and certain death, year after year, century after century. You call this boy a recruit in your army, but you expect me to believe that you’re the president of some sort of sewing circle. You can’t fool me, Hatch. I know you, and I know how far you can be pushed before you push back.”
“I hear you and I want to negotiate with you,” I said. “Alright? You have my attention and I’m listening.”
“That’s good. I’m glad to hear that, and I’m more than sure that your young recruit is happy to hear that as well,” Warlock said, pinching Grip’s cheek, before giving it a slap.
“Tell me where you are,” I said. “I’ll come get Grip and you and I can talk when I get there. We’ll call Sundance together and work something out between the three of us, alright?”
“It’s really beautiful up here at this time of the evening,” Warlock replied before nodding to the two Spiders who were holding Grip.
We then watched in horror as they threw Grip from the top of the building. Warlock filming as he plummeted at least ten stories before hitting the pavement below.
“Oh, look, there’s that blood on the street you were worried about, Hatch. Well, I guess, now that it’s spilled, my terms are this,” Warlock said, turning the camera back to face him. “You have forty-eight hours to turn over your grow operation, or I start tossing people you actually care about off this roof.”
Warlock ended the call.
I lost my ability to stand, falling to my knees.
Someone laid a hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off.
“Back off,” I growled. No one should touch me. I was unclean.
I lowered my head, silent tears falling unbid as I mourned the loss of a young man who deserved more.
Warlock was going to pay for what he’d just done.
He was going to pay dearly.
Hatch
A few weeks later…
IBANGED THE gavel and glanced around the table at my officers. Booker was my VP, Mack, my Secretary, Hawk, Treasurer, Flea, Sergeant, Ace, Knight, and Train, all Road Captains, and I’d included my son, Flash, along with Ryder Carsen, and Reese Alden in this meeting. Ryder and Reese were ex-Spiders and club friendlies, and they had invaluable insight into how the Spiders did business. And outside of new prospects, they knew every single member, could recognize them if they were in the vicinity,and could give us a heads-up. Ryder had a team of ex-members who worked for him, and they were all willing to go to bat for us to bring the Spiders down. I honestly didn’t know if we’d be able to do it without them.
We did not give our grow operation to Warlock, and varying grim expressions met mine as I sighed. “Warlock has declared war.”
“Killing Grip was his declaration of war, brother,” Booker said.
“No,” I countered. “That was merely a warning.”
“Fuck, what’s happened now?” Hawk demanded.
“I thought you sent everything over to Jaxon,” Flea said, turning to Ace and Knight.
Jaxon Quinn was Ace and Knight’s biological brother and part of a local FBI unit we called on, very sparingly, if we got into a sticky situation we couldn’t handle ourselves. Case in point, a few weeks back when Warlock killed my prospect when I refused to hand over our cannabis grow business to Warlock.
“What the fuck’s your brother doin’? He’s got the video of Warlock dropping Grip off the side of the building. Proof he murdered him—”
“Warlock didn’t actually do the throwin’,” I pointed out.
“Jax has the two who did it and neither of them are talkin’,” Ace grumbled.
“So, they’re gonna do time and not implicate Warlock,” Hawk said matter-of-factly.
Flea shrugged. “It’s what any of us would do.”
