I walk back around to face him, our insignia on the traitor’s back more than I can stomach. “You were told the consequences if you didn’t. You know what? We can help you with that. Get that fucker burned off right now.”
Shark’s eyes flick warily around the room, but if he’s looking for any sympathy or someone to appeal to, he’s not going to find it. The club had suffered too much. He meets my eyes, his narrow. “You haven’t got the guts.” I suppose you have to admire a man who tries. In answer, I raise an eyebrow. It’s effective, as he swallows. “We were brothers once,” he appeals.
“Kind of hard to worm your way back in after you’ve insulted the prez and sergeant-at-arms,” a voice behind me reminds him. “If that’s what you were trying to do.”
I turn and nod a greeting at Dart. “Well said, VP.” I deliberately taunt Shark with Dart’s position in the club.
Shark, though, spits. “Me? Want to come back? Fuck no. Not while he,” he jerks his head my way, “is at the top of the table.” He spares a moment to look around, his eyes landing on the men one by one, before settling on Salem. “You should have been prez, Sal. How the fuck could you stand back and let this loser take your spot?”
It’s the first time anyone’s suggested Salem should be sat in my chair, or in my hearing at least. I cast an interested eye the enforcer’s way and incline my chin to show he’s free to answer as he wants.
Salem runs his hands over a wicked-looking knife he’s taken out, as if testing how sharp it is. He stares at the steel as though giving serious consideration to the matter at hand, before lazily looking up. “Thing is, Shark, what you could never understand, is that some of us like working to our strengths and not endeavouring to take more than we deserve. I’m the enforcer, suits me just fine. Never wanted anything more. And, if you thought by flattering me, I’d go easy on you, hear this. You think you can sweet-talk me by insulting a man I look up to, a man I’m more than happy to give my all to support, then you are fuckin’ wrong.” Salem’s tone and rising volume shows how annoyed he is.
A sensible man would shut up right now and not continue to taunt the person capable of bringing him a world of pain. Shark does shut his mouth, showing he may have a couple of brain cells left after all.
There’s a bench behind me, I lean on it, folding my arms. I purse my lips, and stare at the man strung up in front of me, then cast my eyes around the room. It’s clear everyone’s deferring to me to take the lead. Shark and the dead man in my head might challenge my authority, but they’re in the minority.
Finally, I draw in a breath and exhale. “You know how this is going to go, Shark. The only choice you might get is whether we burn or slice that tat off. But believe you me, it’s coming off today.”
Shark’s paled, but a trace of his cockiness remains. “Snake said you wouldn’t survive in an MC. Not without him to lead. I don’t believe you’re going to do that.”
“Perhaps I’ve changed. Or,” I shrug, “perhaps Snake was right. I don’t much care for the scent of burning flesh, nor copious amounts of blood. And perhaps my sensitive ears can’t stand the screams.” I pause, then add, “Maybe I can be persuaded to instruct Blaze to get his stuff and do what you should have done all along. Black that tat out.”
Shark narrows his eyes and a calculating look comes into them. “Yeah?” he says at last, having considered the less painful option. “And how could I persuade you to do that?”
I don’t promise him anything. He’ll be leaving here in a box whatever I, or he, says. But let him think there might be a glimmer of hope, that I might go easy on him as I’m not the man Snake was.
You’re not,Snake’s voice helpfully confirms.
My internal conservation makes me snap. “Answer my questions, and then we may have something to discuss.”
I feel movement as my brothers step closer, as though not wanting to miss any of Shark’s explanation of what he’s been up to since he’s been gone.
I kick it off. “What are you doing back in San Diego?”
“Making a living,” he throws back.
I growl. “If this is going to be like pulling teeth, Shark, I’ll let Salem soften you up. You’ve seen his handiwork before, and I can assure you he’s not gone soft.”
The enforcer moves forward, half turns and gives me a wink out of sight of Shark. “You might want to step out, Prez, there’s going to be blood.”
Shark shudders. Yes, he’s seen Salem at work. So have I, and it’s not pretty. But he gets results.
Suddenly our captive decides that he does want to talk. “When you sent us out bad, you sent us away with nothing. No club wanted us, we lost our home, our brothers. We lost everything.” For the first time an emotion other than sneering comes into his voice. There’s no need to explain, any of us would be able to imagine the pain of leaving the brotherhood behind. His eyes again flick to Salem, then back to me. “I had to look after me. Find a way to survive. Snake had been meeting with drug dealers, setting deals up, I was present at some of them. Even with Snake dead, they still wanted to work with the MC, well, you stopped all that. Fuckin’ stupid.” He rolls his eyes. “Have you any idea how much the club could have gotten from that deal?”
“Dirty money,” Dart growls. He indicates the men around him. “The stuff you were proposing to peddle kills people, splits families up. Men liable to go to prison if they’re caught carrying or gunned down by rivals. Money? Fuck that.”
“Snake had it all sorted,” Shark insists. “He wasn’t proposing we’d stand around selling it on street corners. Nah, he had contacts. He went straight to the top. Took me with him.”
As muscle probably. I’m sure Shark hadn’t been as important as it appears he thinks he was. An idea hits me. Too outlandish, surely? I don’t dive in, wanting to explore a little more first.
For fuck’s sake, get on with it. I’d have had him begging for his life by now.
Again I push Snake’s voice to the background, preferring to get Shark to talk while he still has some teeth. Once I release Salem and the boys on him, there won’t be much left. I focus back on him.
“What was this deal Snake made? What did it entail?”
Again, Shark scoffs, his eyes flicking around the room. “Do you think it’s a good idea to hear all that you lost? All those fuckin’ dollars you could have had in the bank? Your brothers might change their minds on you Lost. It’s all down to you. Your fuckin’ fault you didn’t hear Snake out.” He takes another look up at the ceiling and back down. “It was simple. We’d have taken possession of the drugs when they came over the border. Transported them to where they’d be sold.”
