I blew out a heavy breath and shook my head. “You people never learn.”
“It’s The Hounds who never learn. You’re in so deep, and you can’t see your end is in sight,” he croaked.
“It seems you know more about my own club than I do. Enlighten me, bleeder.” Releasing my tight hold on his chin, I reached up and wiped away a strand of blood that had broken through the grazed skin on his left cheek. “Tell me why Trigger sent you. Deliver your threat. Make me tremble with fear.” Then I wiped the blood from my thumb down his other cheek, never taking my eyes from his.
“Keep your father off of Navarro Rifles’ land, Tucker,” The Nav said coolly.
“My father?” I asked, looking up to find Eric through the gates. Standing next to him was Ayda, her eyes fixed on mine intently.
“His threats against us can’t save you. If the ATF has something on you, keep it on you. No more deflecting to us. Trigger is watching—always watching. You don’t even know. We all are.”
“Trigger is watching us?” I smirked, turning back to him and leaning in closer. “Us?”
The Nav nodded once, swallowing his ball of fear again, no matter how small he tried to keep it.
“Then he should know that I’m about to bring him and all his crooked army down. Taylor’s already dead. Walsh may benext. After that, who knows where I’ll lash out? I’m not playing anymore. You tell him that from me.”
That set him off, his rambling in Spanish sounding like a yapping puppy I wanted to roll over with the front end of my bike. Looking up at Eric and Ayda again, the blood rose in my cheeks along with my need to hurt something or someone. As the shit bag next to me spoke, and the more he went on with his rambling, the angrier I grew.
Not at Eric.
Not at Ayda.
Not at any of them.
I was angry that someone had the nerve to threaten me and my family again. I was angry I’d let them all think I’d becomethatsoft, and it was around the point of The Nav’s ramblings turning to Spanish again that I finally had enough, and my fist lashed out to connect with his jaw.
“That’s one way to shut a man up,” Slater sighed above me when the enemy crumpled to the ground in a heap.
My response hung on the edge of my tongue, cut off as a slow-rolling vehicle turned onto our street, the familiarity of it not lost on me. I rose at once, stretching out my legs as I turned toward the mid-afternoon sun.
“ATF,” I whispered. “Great.”
“Want me to do anything?” Slater asked.
Glancing down at the unconscious Nav at my feet, I closed my eyes and gave myself ten seconds to come up with a plan. When I opened them again, I found myself spinning back around to the cop car and waving my arms in the air for them to stop.
“What the hell are you doing?” Slater mumbled, and the rest of my brothers grunted behind me.
I stepped out into the street, flagging the car down, and when it stopped, I made an effort to jog to the passenger window, tapping on it for them to roll it down.
The two cops I’d given snark to before looked at one another, their confusion clear before the one nearest to me reached for the gun on his belt.
Time to act, Tucker.
“Boy, am I glad to see you guys,” I huffed out, faking breathlessness. The Owen Wilson lookalike glared at me, his scowl deep like he was waiting for this to be a setup.
“What’s happened here?” he asked, gesturing to The Nav and his bust-up bike.
I looked behind me and pointed at Slater. “My man was just about to call 911. This guy here was riding past our yard, firing off shots in the air blindly. I’ve got women in there, man. Women. We came out, opened up the gates to try and wave this guy down, and the next thing we know, he’s hit something on the road, his front end has gone, and he’s smacked straight into the gates, twisting himself up. He looks pretty beat up from the fall.”
He glanced at his partner before looking back at me. “And let me guess? This guy who happened to run into your property just so happens to be a member of a rival MC. An enemy?”
“We have enemies?” I frowned hard, pulling my chin back and tugging down the peak of my cap.
“Cut the shit, Tucker.”
“I thought all our enemies were dead when they tried to blow us, the innocent ones in all of this, up. Remember? The warehouse job gone wrong...” I pressed my hands to the window frame of his door, leaning forward and holding eye contact as the guy quizzed me with expressions alone.
