Chapter Fifteen:
present
Jesse
I woke to the sound of water dripping into a metal bucket somewhere in the room. I was lying on my back on a bed that had seen better days, given the amount of springs that were digging into my spine. Rubbing at my eyes, I yawned and rolled onto my side before realizing that my bladder was on fire and I needed to piss.
“Fuck,” I mumbled, stumbling up to my feet and crossing the room. I threw open the door and looked around, not having a clue where the bathroom was in this place. A couple of bitches were still up and drinking, though they should probably have quit a couple of hours ago, by the state they were in.
“Bathroom,” I barked out to the closest one—a tiny redhead with tits bigger than my head.
She pointed behind me and I turned and headed back the way I had just come, intending on going back to visit her as soon as I was done. There were several closed doors along the corridor, though it was easy to spot the ones that were occupied, given the snoring or the grunts coming from behind them. I found another door right at the end of the hallway and pushed it open, praying it was the magical room with a piss pot, and lo and behold, it was.
“Thank fuck.” I closed the door and stumbled over to piss, holding onto the wall for support.
Didn’t remember much about the previous night after the twelfth or so beer and Beefcake bringing out the whisky. Dom had disappeared around that time—fuck knew where, though—and Casa had returned from fucking some bitch and joined me in taking shots in memory of Butch.
It was blank after the memory of sucking whisky out of some blonde’s navel.
I finished pissing and shoved my junk away, desperate for coffee and some fresh air, when I felt my cell vibrating in my pocket. I fumbled around trying to grab it, and stared bleary-eyed as Hardy’s name lit up.
I slid down to sit on the floor and tried to clear my head as I answered the cell.
“Hardy, I’ve been trying to get ahold of you,” I said, and dragged a hand through my hair.
There was silence on the other end of the line before Hardy replied. “Jesse?”
“The one and only,” I said, stealing Butch’s line.
“Don’t get smart. I’ve been calling all morning, why didn’t you pick up?” He sounded strange; more confused than pissed off.
“I was sleeping. I was calling you all last night. Gave up around two a.m. Where the fuck were you?” I did not need him giving me a lecture at the moment; too much other shit was going down that was more important than whatever his feelings for me were.
“I’m the president, Jesse, I’m not at your beck and call!” he yelled down the cell, making my ears ring and my head swim.
I pulled the cell away from my ear while he continued to shout and I tried to contain my own anger. Arguing with him wouldn’t get me anywhere, I knew that, yet right then my head didn’t give a damn who he was. All I could picture was slamming his head into a brick wall.
I put the cell back to my ear. “Will you shut the fuck up?”
“What did you just say to me?”
“I said shut the fuck up, Hardy, we got bigger problems than whatever it is between you and me. The Reverend betrayed us and we’ve got a new player in town, call themselves the Razorbacks.”
The line went silent and I wondered if he’d gone, but the sound of his breathing made it obvious he was still there.
“Hardy?”
“What?”
“We need to put the Rev to ground and then we need to pull all the charters in to take out these Razorbacks. Fuckers had snipers on me and the boys last night.”
“You and the boys?” he asked. “Who did you take with you?” Now he sounded angry. Really fucking angry.
“Dom, Casa, couple of prospects—Pipes and Max. Thought it would be better going in with bodies,” I replied, confused by his anger. Seemed pretty obvious to me that we go in with a small crew, show force against being cut out.
“I told you to go alone,” he said darkly.
“No, you told me to be discreet, and I was.” My brain was wide awake now and I stood up, my senses alert. “I made a judgment call,” I replied. Something was wrong, off somehow, something that, in all my brilliance, I hadn’t picked up on the day before.
