I explode out of my chair, knocking it back a foot. “What the fuck! No fuckin’ way did she do something that stupid.”
“Sit the fuck down,” my father orders. After I take my seat, he continues. “I know she wouldn’t touch any of the poison they deal. Deacon’s being an asshole. Said he’d take cash, like he was doin’ me a fuckin’ favor.” My father snarls out the last few words. There’s already bad blood between our clubs, and Dad has a special hatred reserved for the other club’s president. Now his shitty mood makes more sense.
From farther down the table, one of my brothers lifts his hand. “Prez, price of meth has come down a lot. Shouldn’t be more than five grand. Better to handle it their way rather than set things off with them.”
“Fuck you, Santa,” I snap, refusing to show the older member any respect after such a stupid suggestion. “We let them push us around on this, we might as well hand them our fucking patches now.”
Santa backs down.
“VP’s right,” Hammer, says. At least someone’s using their fucking brain this morning.
“I’m inclined to tell Deacon to go fuck himself.” My father glances at me. “Just for the reason you said. We give in to this, we look weak and they’ll come at us again for some other bullshit.”
“Not if we keep our women in line,” Santa mutters.
I lean forward, but he won’t meet my eyes. “You got something you want to say to me, bro?”
“No, man. It’s totally cool your girl got picked up by Red Storm. No issue there, bro,” he answers with so much disrespect, I’m tempted to jump over the table and ram my fist down his throat.
My father seems to sense this and settles his hand on my arm.
“You need to dial it back, Santa. You seem to forget Kadence is my stepdaughter. Known her a long time. No way she stole anything from them.”
“She’s always been a mouthy little bitch,” Drake offers.
“Fuck you, Drake,” I snap.
“No disrespect, Blaise. I like that about her. What I meant was she’s got a mouth on her, but she’s not dumb. She ain’t gonna lift anything from an MC.”
I nod at him.
“You need help performing a body cavity search, say the word, brother,” Thorn says just to piss me off. He’s never hidden his interest in Kady. I’m pretty sure the two of them hooked up in high school, which makes me all kinds of ragey when I dwell on it for too long.
“Fuck off,” I growl.
Dad slaps the table again. “One more filthy comment about my stepdaughter and I’m stringing all of you up by your fuckin’ balls. We ain’t here to discuss my asshole son’s love life.”
“Thanks, Pop.”
He ignores my sarcasm and continues. “The problem is that if we say no and tell them to fuck off, we’re basically declaring war with them. Are we prepared to do that?”
The cheeky attitude Thorn displayed a moment ago disappears, and he’s all hard-ass enforcer. “Their numbers are down. They been fucking with us for months. Problem is, we heard they were recruiting LEO not that long ago, so steppin’ to them could bring heat we don’t need right now.”
“Anyone ever confirm that LEO shit?” Bolt asks.
No one has an answer.
“Callin’ an ol’ lady a thief after what they did to her can’t go unanswered, Prez,” Drake says.
“Since when is she your ol’ lady?” someone down at the end of the table asks.
“He said it to get her out of there safe,” my father explains before I have a chance to say anything.
Church isn’t the time to get into my love life. My brothers can give me shit later.
“We had support from the Iron Bulls MC last night—”
“How the fuck did that happen?” Santa asks.
