“Prospect, sir?” he stammered with uncertainty.
“Damn fucking straight it’sprospect, sir. And prospect means you don’tsit at the big boys’ table unless Isay you can. Did Isay you could sit at the big boys’ table, Max?” Iglared harder at him, my gaze turning murderous.
From somewhere behind me Icould hear Cutter and Cueball laughing, but Iwas solely focused on Max.
“No, sir…” he said as Ijabbed his patch again.
“So what makes you think you can sit at the big boy table all of asudden?”
Max tried to look past me, toward Cueball and Cutter, in apathetic attempt at asking for their help in calming me down. Igrabbed the front of his cut and dragged his attention back to me.
“I’mtalking to you, motherfucker, now answer me!” Iyelled in his face.
“Jesus Christ, put him down before he pisses himself, Gauge,” Dom said behind me, and Iguessed that my little confrontation had drawn everyone out.
Keeping afirm grip on Max, Iturned my head slowly to look across at Dom. Behind him Shooter, Rider, Casa, Pops, Sketch, and Crank filtered out of church.
“Yeah, now that’swhat I’mtalking about! Fight, fight, fight!” Casa chanted, ahuge grin on his annoying-as-fuck face.
Shooter shot him alook. “Gauge, put the kid down. We’ve got two prospects outside and Max isn’tfar off from being patched so Isaid he could come in and kick back while we had ameeting.”
My gaze narrowed on him, letting him know exactly what Ithought about that. “And no one thought to let me know?”
Shooter came forward while the rest of the club headed to the bar for adrink. “Brother, you’ve been abit preoccupied.” He gestured to my body, where Iwas pretty sure Ihad started to bleed again, going by the warm feeling traveling down my side.
Ireleased Max, giving him ahard shove so he fell back on his ass. “Stay down!” Iyelled as he started to get back up to his feet. He dropped back down and Ilooked back over at Shooter. “I’mthe sergeant-at-arms, Prez, stand-in VP until Rider gets his shit together…the prospects are my goddamn territory. They come inside when Isay they come inside.”
“Nothing wrong with my shit,” Rider said from behind Shooter, but we both ignored him, knowing that was adamn lie.
Shooter and Iglared at one another, neither of us willing to back down until Casa came over and slapped us both on the back, letting out aloud whoop.
“All right, all right, brothers, put your dicks away and let'sget adrink and talk some shit,” he said, his heavy hand trying to guide us both toward the bar.
Ishrugged out from under Casa’sgrip and kept my glare on Shooter. “The prospects are mine.”
Shooter lifted his chin, his gaze heavy until finally he relented. “Ishould have checked,” he said, and Igrunted in agreement even as his lip curled in anger, “but you ever fuckin’ speak to me like that again, Gauge, and halfway to Hades or not, I’ll make sure you regret it. You feel me?”
Amoment of silence hung heavy before Iturned away from him and headed to the bar. “Whiskey,” Ibarked at Devlin, and she set aglass in front of me right away and poured out alarge shot. Ipicked it up and threw it to the back of my throat before slamming it back down and nodding at her to fill it back up.
Shooter and Casa came to sit at either side of me, the club coming back to life behind me. Devlin set out two more glasses of whiskey while Apryl grabbed acouple of bottles from below the makeshift bar and put them in front of us.
“Nice and cold, just how you like ‘em, boys,” she said with asweet smile before wandering off.
“The Bangers?” Iasked no one in particular.
“Headed back to check on their club. Since the Highwaymen are now on the Vipers’ radar, then it makes sense that so are the Bangers,” Shooter grunted, sipping his whiskey.
“You teasing that whiskey or are you drinking it, Prez?” Iasked, glancing sideways at him, and the corner of his mouth lifted enough to let me know that we were cool.
“We got asighting on Jolie,” Casa said as Dom came to stand on the other side of him, his face like thunder. “Looks like she went to stay with afriend to keep her head down. Seems like the bitch sold her out.”
My stomach tightened. “She dead?” Iasked.
“Fuck no,” Dom replied, his deep voice arumble of anger. “Take alot more than that to put that crazy bitch down.”
“Damn straight,” Iagreed.
He looked across at me and we locked eyes.
