“I want their asses whooped, question is who’s doing it? Me, his crew, the enforcers…” I trailed off and waited expectantly for an answer.
“All you, buddy,” Cutter said. “Figured you’d want a personal touch.”
“Damn right I want to put the personal touch on this,” I grated.
The two dumbasses, Retch and Baltimore, stood nearby, a little glassy-eyed from whatever drunk or high they were on. Retch smirked at me, which just served to piss me off more.
“Look man, no disrespect was intended. Are they dumbasses? Sure. Did they fuck up?”
I didn’t let him finish. “Oh, hell, yeah, they most definitely did.”
“What’s your bitch’s problem, anyway?” Retch asked, swaying on his feet.
“No disrespect, huh?” I asked, arching a brow at their president.
He sighed, his shoulders sagging, and he looked at his two men.
“I tried, but you fuckin’ knuckleheads just couldn’t keep your damn mouths shut, could you?” he demanded. He grunted in dismay and turned back to me. “They’re all yours.”
Dragon was taking Toe Beans aside and saying, “Listen, I can appreciate you going to bat for your boys, but sometimes only lesson to be learned is a lesson learned in blood…”
And ho boy, I was gonna make Retch, at least, bleed. Baltimore wisely kept his mouth shut and didn’t have fuck-all to say except, “I’m sorry man. I didn’t know it would go down like that.”
‘Like that’… not ‘like this’. It wasn’t lost on me he was genuinely sorry for my little orchid’s suffering, not worried about his own. Still, by the look in Cutter’s eye, there wouldn’t be any going easy on either of them. We had a rep to uphold; the Kraken weren’t soft when it counted.
“You boys take your ass-whoopin’ now. Trig, Reave, get their hands.”
Impressive. Dragon wasn’t fuckin’ around. This wasn’t a fight, this was a lesson, so handcuffs came out from somewhere and they hooked up Retch and Baltimore behind their backs so they couldn’t throw down. They just had to take what I was giving.
Baltimore, I let off easy, with just a few punches to his face. Enough to bleed him and get him off his feet. Enough to leave a reminder any time he looked in a mirror for the next couple of weeks.
I beat the shit out of Retch. Not only would he have a reminder every time he looked in the mirror for the next week, he’d be fuckin’ feeling that reminder every day of it, too.
Their chapter buddies hauled them off to their tents, Doc trailing along behind to help get ‘em cleaned up and stitched if they needed it. I busted Retch’s eyebrow open pretty good, he might need a stitch or two. I think Baltimore fared better, but he was bleeding pretty good from his nose.
“Good job,” Cutter said with a nod, clapping me on the back. “Let’s grab a beer and some ice for that hand.” I nodded and shook the offending hand out, the knuckles scraped and bloody, two of them swelling. Gideon was gonna be pissed if it affected my playing. I needed to ice it, and keep it from getting stiff with some practice.
Faith appeared at my elbow as I was wrapping a bandanna full of ice from one of the coolers around my hand.
“She’s out,” she murmured.
“Thanks for sitting with her,” I said.
“Sure, anything else I can do, just let me know.”
“Actually, can you grab my bass from the room for me?”
“Sure.” She drifted over to Marlin for a quick kiss before she floated off in that way she had to do what I asked. I raised my beer in his direction, a salute to his woman, and he threw me some chin.
Later, two beers in and chilling by the fire, I was silently walking my battered hand through chords to keep it limber.
"Sounds to me she's got some real issues. You sure you're game to handle all that comes with?"
I stared at Dragon, who had spoken from across the fire and kept my trap shut. From what I gathered, he was the kind of guy that, when he spoke, you should listen. I was listening.
"She ain't a puppy, or a new pet. She is as her name implies," he said. “Orchids take a lot of care, the right conditions, to grow and bloom proper. Are you sure the MC conditions, that this life, has what she needs to thrive?"
I raised my eyebrows as I let my fingers continue to walk up and down the frets on my acoustic bass. Cutter looked from Dragon, to me and waited me out.
