“As I’ll everbe.”
Chapter 25—Domino
“Your girl mad?” Lucky asks with a grin.
“Not a wise idea to piss off Menace,” Rooster says as he looks at his phone.
“And you would know how?”
Rooster looks up and shrugs. “Mack and Tommy let me see some old footage of her fighting. Girl’s good. Not someone I want to get in the ring with. Out of everyone, you should already know that.” He smirks at Lucky, who glares.
“Burn,” Mickey says with a grunt. I, of course, chuckle. Bane at least cracks half a smile.
My girl has a mean hook, no matter which one she throws. And I couldn’t be prouder. And yeah, she’s my girl. Not a clue how this will work out, but she’s it, and I’m embracing it till I’ve got to deal with it. We have no labels on it, nothing official like a patched property jacket, but it’s there. All the boys know not to mess with mine. Hell, even the boys back home have heard about it. Not a clue how, but I’d bet my left nut that Mickey’s feeding them intel like a gossiping little girl.
We might be big and bad—I mean, we are the Hounds of the Reaper club—but that doesn’t mean we don’t gossip more than the nosy neighbors across the street. We might be worse, actually. Something juicy comes up, and unless we’re sworn to secrecy, it flows like wildfire around the club and some sister chapters as well. Especially when it involves a brother and a woman.
It’s just the five of us in here, and I need to decide. While it ultimately comes down to me, I want others’ opinions too.
“So, what do we think?”
“About your girl’s stalker or the Michigan chapter?” Bane looks at me dead-on as he asks. He knows the decision could make or break every man once loyal to him.
“Both.”
Mickey props his feet up on the conference table and pushes back till he’s only got two chair legs on the ground. This room is usually reserved for officer meetings, not the full Church, as the club is too big to fit in here. But it works for small gatherings and has a few of the basic computer setups so we can monitor things without being in the cramped tech office.
“There’s enough evidence that we got the right guy. Makes sense that it would be someone close enough and yet far away. A stranger who we all looked past when we saw him at the gym. Good of the tech kid to think outside the box like that,” Mickey says with a nod.
I agree with his assessment of Link. The guy has potential to go far. He fucked up the first time by taking a break and not getting coverage, but he’s doubled down to find this guy for me, for the club.
“Still….” Lucky looks at us all in turn. “I wasn’t expecting a gun battle to end it. I don’t know about you, but I wanted a few answers.”
“Like what?” Bane asks. “Needed to know he was 100 percent fucked in the head? He killed our guy and messed with Domino’s girl. He was going to end up six feet underanyway. This just saved us from digging the hole, as he’s now the cop’s corpse to worry about.”
Lucky shrugs. “Don’t know. Just don’t feel right. He goes from slinking in the shadows with a knife to slit a brother’s throat to a full-on shootout in an open area with witnesses? If we got the guy, awesome. The evidence points right to him. I’m just saying I wanted to talk to him. I like closing things in tight boxes. Sue me for wanting finality.”
Bane growls in his throat but says nothing else.
I get what both are saying. I do. My gut isn’t helping me with this one. All I know is I want this meeting over so I can lay eyes on my girl myself. It’ll ease a lot of things. Like the chub I’ve had since she last spoke. A whole day at her mercy? Sign me the fuck up.
“As for the club, something is still off,” Rooster says, and the rest of us nod. Even Bane.
“I hate to admit it, but I agree. Even the boys can tell something ain’t right. They have suspicions about why you’re here and all, but there’s an unease among them. There’s no trust, and that’s the first thing a club needs. You might not like one another, but you’ve got to trust the others to have your back. Right now, I can only say about a third trust each other. Another third are keeping their options open to see how this turns, and the last just don’t trust anyone at all,” Bane says with a shake of his head in defeat.
I feel for the guy, I really do. This was his club. He was the president for years. He brought in half the members. Others came in before he started as their leader. And because of his lack of eyesight on everything, the club went to shit. He’s the reason for most of this, just because of his neglectfulness. He should be drawn and quartered alone forthat, but I think forcing him to clean up the mess he made is the better decision. He fucks up again, and he’s dead. Tortured and then dead. A very long one too. The club doesn’t do second chances much. Rarer than finding a diamond in the rough. Or a woman like Viv.
“I’ll talk to Casper tonight, after the fight, and give him my recommendation.”
“Which is?” Lucky asks, but it’s Bane who I look at as he raises his head.
“Dismantle. Club can be small and built on trust, but you can’t have a club without it. Get me a list of each member you think should be offered a spot in another chapter, and I’ll look it over. Not everyone will be de-patched, but we’ll lose some just because we shut down this location.”
The heaviness of my words settles, and it somehow feels as if a weight has been lifted off all our shoulders. No more deciding. One has been made. The rest is just paperwork, really.
I tap my knuckles on the table, giving the unofficial sign that the meeting is over. The boys stand and start to exit when Grim walks in.
“What’s up?” I ask.
