Page 98 of Ink

The thought of another man seeing what she’s been hiding makes my eye twitch.

“Stop riling him up, hellcat. It’s too damn early and I don’t want to deal with his grumpy ass in church,” Prez grumbles as he enters the kitchen, heading straight for the coffee.

“But it’s so fun.” Evan pouts.

Wrapping my arm around Sutton, I tuck her up against me, placing a kiss on her temple. “I have to get goin’. Shops closed today. If I find out you got a tattoo, I’m going to smack that ass harder than I did last night.” I lowly growl the last part in her ear, knowing she’s only bad for me.

“I guess you better hurry back to find out.” Sutton shrugs with a playful smirk on her face.

Evan busts out laughing. “I knew I liked her.”

“I can already tell you two are goin’ to be the cause of a lot of avoidable deaths.”

“Let’s get the fuck out of here and get this shit over with,” Cain grunts, downing the last of his coffee and setting the cup in the sink.

I give Sutton another smack on the ass as I follow Cain out the door.

“I’d like to make a request,” Scotch says as soon as he sits down.

Everyone is here but Hash. It’s not like him to be late to everything like that.

“And that would be?” Prez asks, twirling an unlit cigar around in his hand.

“The next time one of you motherfuckers calls me in for help with cleanup, can we not burn skin? I almost didn’t make it. I thought I was going to throw the fuck up. The whole house smelled like ass,” Scotch says, looking disgusted and irritated at the same time.

“The smell didn’t bother me. I thought it was creative and innovative.” Cyrus shrugs.

“It was fucking disgusting.”

“If we’re talking about what I think we’re talking about, I didn’t mind it. I was entertained the entire time,” Hash says as he struts into the room.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Prez asks him. “When I say church is at 11, I mean 11. Not whenever the fuck you feel like showing up.”

“Sorry, Prez. I had some shit to take care of. It’s handled and done. Won’t happen again.”

For the first time since Sutton came into my life and I got my head out of my ass, I really study Hash. He looks fucking rough. More rough than usual. He’s always been kind of a dick, but now he just seems like a depressed dick.

Prez sighs as he rubs his head. “All I asked for was it to be as clean as possible.”

“All things considerin’, I think I was pretty nice about it.”

Prez shrugs. “No one saw you, correct?”

“Right. We pulled off and walked up to the house. It was dark out and a clean B&E.”

“We aired the place out while we were cleaning up. It should be all good. I’m sure Brad will let Adducci know if it starts to get hot,” Scotch says.

“I’ll let him know to keep an eye out,” Prez says as he leans back in his chair as he looks at me. “Sutton good with everything that went down? She didn’t seem phased this morning.”

“Yeah.” I shrug. “She knows he’s dead but didn’t want to know details, which is honestly for the best.” All of my brothers nod in agreement. Some will let their old ladies know everything and some cherry pick what’s said. I’m more about what Sutton is okay with wanting to know. If she doesn’t want to know I’m not going to tell her. “Overall, she’s happy with the outcome.”

“Good,” Prez says. “Moving on to the next order of business, the Black Diamonds.”

A chorus of groans sound out in unison at the mention of the club.

“They’re being a major pain in the fucking ass,” Hash grumbles as he crosses his arms and settles into his chair.

“Agreed. Which is why we have a meet scheduled with their president in two weeks. I need him to understand how this shit is going to go.”