Nash shot Snake a look, tossed the cue down, and stalked off into the commons—past the couches where patches sprawled with local girls, past the jukebox spinning Skynyrd—and headed for the bar.
Above the newly repaired liquor shelves hung the cuts of brothers long gone, their glass cases dulled by smoke and years.All but one.Fresh wood and clean glass, Connor’s box didn’t have a speck of dust on it.
Nash didn’t let his gaze linger.He dropped onto a stool and signaled for a beer.
Kara leaned in from behind the bar—eye makeup thick, tits shoved high—and slid a cold one across.
She wasn’t from Clifton.She’d come out of the lower half of the state, where strip clubs lit the highways and men drank their pay away before stumbling home.Barely nineteen, she’d worked the bar in one of those joints when the Kings had crossed paths with a rival club, the president of which had also been a pimp who liked knocking his girls around.Things went bad fast—for the rival club, anyway—and when the dust settled, several men were bleeding out on the floor.
While the others ran, Kara stayed.Two black eyes, heavily pregnant, and nowhere else to go.
Nash had offered her sanctuary, and she’d been working for him ever since.
“Well, ain’t you a ray of sunshine, Walker,” Kara said, slapping her rag in his direction.“Scowl any harder an’ you’ll scare the liquor clean off my shelves.”
“Don’t tempt him with a good time,” Boone said, sliding into the space on Nash’s left as Sarge claimed the stool on his right.
“Kara, honey,” Sarge said.“Pour me two fingers of Ole Smoky.”
Boone chuckled, eyeing the pour.“Only two fingers.That’s Sarge-speak for don’t test me today.”
Sarge took the glass when it came, barely more than a sip.From the corner of his eye, Nash clocked the way Sarge’s gaze swept the room—Snake angling toward the bar, the patches on the couches—before settling back in.
“Someone’s gotta keep you idiots in line,” the older man muttered.
As a beat passed, the noise of the room swelling and falling around them, Boone leaned closer.
“So,” he said casually, “you two get any sleep after Con’s run, or was that more of a private…recreational thing?”
Nash’s eyes cut to him—brief, sharp—before he shook his head and took a swig of beer.
Kara leaned in.“What was that?Who’s Nash gettin’ recreational with?”
Snake reached the bar just then.“Y’all talkin’ ’bout Walker breaking rank and takin’ off with Con’s hot-as-hell little sister?”
Nash felt the words before he registered them—a tightening in his chest, a creeping heat up his neck.
“Don’t go pokin’ a hornet’s nest,” Sarge said evenly.“’Less you’re ready for what comes out.”
Snake lifted his hands in mock surrender, lips curling.“Ain’t pokin’.Just statin’ facts.”
Kara tapped her long nails against the bar.“Cassie, huh?Heard y’all had history.”
“That’s puttin’ it mildly,” Boone said with a soft snort.
Nash turned, fixing Boone with a flat look.And Boone met his stare without blinking, a faint smile tugging at his mouth.“What?Ain’t exactly breakin’ news.”
“Bet he broke her six ways to Sunday.”Snake snickered.“Hell, I woulda.”
“Say it again,” Nash spat quietly, “and I’ll break your fuckin’ face.”
Snake blinked—just once—then laughed, incredulous.
“Damn,” he drawled.“You’re real fuckin’ sensitive for a man who just dipped his wick in the finest piece of ass I’ve ever seen in this shithole town—”
“Jesus Christ,” Sarge growled.“Are you tryin’ to die?”
“If it’s such a goddamn shithole,” Boone demanded, “why don’t you move the fuck on?”
