Puck followed me to the door. “We need to talk.”
I crouched to unhook Waffles’ leash and gave him a push inside before closing the door between us. No way I was giving Puck an invite to my house.
I straightened and turned, towering over Puck. He’d always been a small man at five-eight and a buck sixty. I wasn’t sure what I’d ever seen in him. I was young when we met, vulnerable. He’d taken advantage of that.
“What do you want? You already sold me out to the Serpents.”
“I didn’t. Not like you think.” Puck gnawed on his lip. “One of the other guys mentioned you. Not by name, but he said enough that I didn’t have a choice but to fess up.”
“Oh, well then, I guess it’s okay you jumped me with two other dudes and nearly broke my goddamned ribs.”
“But we didn’t break them, did we? I held back.”
I rolled my eyes. “Am I supposed to thank you?”
“Do what you want, but Hector wants to have a chat.”
I shook my head. “Let you lead me into slaughter? No way.”
“It’s just a talk tonight. Serpent’s honor.”
“How would you know what honor is?”
He huffed. “Yeah, fine. Whatever. You know Hector keeps his word, though. He wants to chat, and I think if you play along and play it cool, there might be a way out of this mess for you.”
That got my attention. I tilted my head. “I’m not going back to the club.”
“You made that clear.”
“So, what is this about, really?”
“It’s about negotiating your exit so that we can both benefit. What do you say?”
I hesitated. I could be rolling right into the lion’s den. But what choice did I have? If I didn’t go now, they’d come after me whenever they wanted. Hectorwasusually a man of his word. If all he wanted was a chat, maybe hearing him out was the lesser of two evils.
At the minimum, I’d get an idea of where his head was and how fucked I really was.
I nodded. “Okay. I’ll follow you there. But you better not be fucking me over, man.”
“Would I do that?” He winced at my expression. “Never mind. Don’t answer that. Just know that if we wanted you dead, we could have sent ten guys tonight instead of just one.”
That was true. It might seem odd that it was reassuring, but it was. Hector didn’t need to do his own dirty work. He had a whole biker club at his disposal.
I swung a leg over my bike. “Okay, lead the way.”
Puck headed northeast, and I followed him the two hours to the far side of Omaha. The Serpents were in the same damn clubhouse as when I’d gone to prison. It was essentially a biker bar, but they ran a bookie business out of it, taking betson everything from illegal fights to the latest football or baseball games.
I parked beside Puck, next to a whole row of Serpent bikes, and really hoped I wasn’t signing my death warrant by following him inside.
Two guys sat at a scarred bar, drinks in front of them, while others sprawled on battered couches and armchairs, half of them under half-naked women and well on their way to drunk as fuck. A big brute was fucking a woman over the edge of a pool table, a few of the guys giving him calls of encouragement.
Yeah, the Serpents were a really classy bunch.
When I stepped inside, I caught a few looks. A lot of guys I didn’t recognize, the newer joiners, looked curious.
Gunnar turned from the bar, eyes sparking. He sported a new face tat, a serpent sliding out of his mouth. Not an improvement on his ugly mug. He sneered, obviously pissed I hadn’t come home like a good boy. Nacho looked wary, probably worried about what sort of trouble might break out. That made two of us.
Pierce broke away from the bar, though, and came over to give me a big hug and backslap. “Hey, brother. Are you coming home?”
