“I’m listenin’,” I replied, pulling a joint out of my top pocket and lighting it. “Grab the girl. Casa will knock out the cameras. She’ll be alone, but she’s a wild one. Keep everything on the down-low. Got it.” I picked the picture back up and let my eyes graze over her face again. She was looking at someone off camera, her eyes glaring at whoever it was and her jaw looking tight. She was pretty, no doubt, but not my type. I liked my women more…pliable to my needs, and this bitch looked like she would tear me to pieces given half the chance.
Still, she could have been fun to break. She would have been a challenge, if nothing else. Life had other plans for us though. Another time, another world, another life, perhaps. But not this one, that was for damn certain.
“I’ve made this as easy as I fuckin’ could for you, so no screwups or there’ll be consequences,” Hardy continued, his tone dark.
I looked up from the picture in front of me and scowled at him. “What did you just say to me?” I replied, not happy about the threat.
No one threatened me.
No one.
Not even my president.
Hardy’s nostrils flared as he stood up slowly, his chair scraping along the old wooden floor of the chapel. He pressed his hands into the table in front of him as he leaned forward and stared at me. “I said, there’ll be consequences if shit goes south. For you, for her, for your brothers, for this club. Razuuk finds out we did this and he’ll come down on the club like the Devil himself. But if all goes to plan, we’ll be swooping in and saving the day. Pinning this shit on another club and putting the Vipers in our back pockets. So like I said, no fuckups.”
I stood up, picking up the photo and shoving it in the top pocket of my cut. “There won’t be any fuckups.” I turned and headed to the door before looking back in at Hardy and Gauge. I wondered how much of this plan the rest of the club knew. Rider sure as shit wouldn’t be happy about involving civilians in this war, and there was no way in hell Butch would have agreed to it. Yet Hardy and Gauge had decided to go ahead anyway, plowing on without getting anyone else’s opinion.
That should have rung alarm bells.
But I was a soldier and these were my orders, and I’d follow them to the letter regardless, putting my trust in my president that he wouldn’t throw me under the bus if shit went wrong.
“You got somethin’ to say?” Gauge asked, sitting back down in his chair, his hand running over his short beard.
I shook my head no, and he smiled because he knew I was lying. I just needed to keep my mouth shut, because this was a job; a direct order from my president. I had no choice in whether I did it or not. But even if I did, I wouldn’t have backed away from it.
“Don’t damage her,” Hardy said with a dark smile that was anything but happy. “She needs to go back to daddy dearest in one piece and I know what a sick fuck you can be, brother. Play, but don’t mark. Got it?”
I nodded and left, weaving my way through the busy clubhouse.
“Fighter?”
I turned at the sound of my name, spotting Jesse and Skinny talking at the bar. Skinny was still fucked up after what went down with Battle and Quinn. She’d managed to get most of the bullets out of Skinny and Battle had carved the final one out without popping anything too important, but he was messed up: tremors in his hands and constant pain in his spine. The doctor the club used said it was nerve damage, that he was lucky to be alive at all, because everyone of those goddamned bullets had missed the important stuff, but Skinny didn’t see it that way. And neither did I.
I slapped him on the shoulder. “Brother,” I grunted.
He nodded. “Just telling the boy here what it feels like to be shot.”
“Why the fuck you doin’ that?”
“The boy wants to know.”
I glanced across at Jesse. He’d lived in the clubhouse since he was just a little thing barely reaching his father’s knee. He was only a couple of years younger than me, but those years made all the difference in this life. He was a little shit growing up, always up in everyone’s business, but he was a good kid with a good fuckin’ heart. Between Butch and him, one day the club was going to be in damned good hands.
“That true?” I asked, and Jesse nodded. I pulled a joint from behind my ear and lit it, taking a hit before handing it to him. “Why you askin’?”
“Figured one day this life was going to get me shot,” he said around a mouthful of smoke. “Thought it’d be good to get the heads-up on it.”
I looked at Skinny, who shrugged. “Told him that shit was dark. Too dark for him to be thinking about.” Skinny took a sip of his beer. He wasn’t supposed to be drinking with the meds he was on, but by the way his hand was shaking I was guessing that the pain must have been bad that day.
“He’s got a point though,” I said, taking the joint back. I couldn’t fault the logic, no matter how dark it was. I still remembered my first gunshot and I remembered wishing someone had warned me of the pain.
“Only idiots get shot,” Skinny bit out.
“You callin’ yourself an idiot?” Jesse smirked, tucking his long hair behind his ears.
“Must be to have ended up like this. Trusted the wrong person and look where it got me.” He picked up his beer again, his hand shaking so much that he spilled some of it on his lap. “Fuck!” He slid off his stool and headed toward the bathroom cursing the whole way.
I glanced at Jesse, whose brow was furrowed as he watched Skinny walk away. He finally looked back at me.
