Both men looked at Michael. He felt the touch of their eyes and was repulsed by it. Seeing them in the flesh like this made it too real for him: he could envision their hands on his Holly; could imagine them forcing her down, climbing above her. Could see the way their faces would torque with passion and fury, as she lay helpless beneath them.
Slowly, holding their gazes, he drew his finger across his throat.
Both of them glanced away.
Ghost made a gesture that meant they were leaving, and Michael headed toward the door alongside Walsh.
“Oh,” Ghost said, hanging back a step. “Did you ever find your son-in-law?”
Abraham frowned. “No.”
Michael remembered the feeling of the knife punching through the boy’s flesh, sliding between his ribs, finding the tough muscle of the heart. Inwardly he smiled. Outwardly, he caught the fleeting brush of Abraham’s gaze…and he swore he’d make it tortuous when he brought the man death.
All the long ride back to the clubhouse, Michael ran Walsh’s words through his head. By the time they’d parked their bikes in front of the clubhouse, his fingers were curling and uncurling in involuntary twitches. The agitation was so strong, it was taking physical form.
He slammed his helmet down on the handlebars and said, “So what do we do now?”
His president and VP were dismounting with none of his enraged clumsiness.
Ghost tugged at a glove and said, “I don’t know about you boys, but Mags put a Ziploc box of chicken in the fridge this morning” – he gestured over his shoulder at the clubhouse – “so I’m gonna have lunch.”
Walsh, standing up the collar of his chambray shirt against the wind, rings on his fingers catching the light, understood the question. His eyes were cautious. “You mean about those brothers.”
Michael nodded and swung off his Dyna, wanting to be on eye-level, not wanting to feel like the seated child in this exchange.
“Do you think you’re right?” he demanded of Walsh. “That this Shaman wants a takeover?”
Walsh shrugged. “I think I’m probably right, yeah.” Without a shred of self-congratulation, he said, “I usually am.”
And he was, which was the part that made his prediction so frightening.
Michael looked at Ghost. “You can’t keep them on. They’ve got to go.”
Ghost’s brows lifted. “I can’t?” Little snort of amusement.
Michael sighed and glanced out across the parking lot. Cars were milling about. Customers talked on cell phones beneath the beaming sun, oblivious to the buried politics of the MC. A normal day. And by that standard, agoodday.
So then why was there this hot ball of anger clawing its way up Michael’s throat?
He was challenging his president; he’d never done that before.
He met Ghost’s gaze again. “I’m sorry. You’ll do whatever you think is best.”
Ghost nodded. “An enemy in the hand is worth two in the bush,” he said, sounding almost cheerful, and headed for the door, thinking about lunch and not at all about the two sick fucks they’d left standing in Fisher’s living room.
Walsh lingered, studying Michael in that unnerving way of his. “Something’s got under your skin.” Not a question.
“Yeah, well…”
It was a five-foot-two something, and damn if she wasn’t already grafted on.
“I need you to do something for me.”
Ratchet startled hard, sending a full can of Red Bull to the floor off the edge of his desk, sticky energy drink showering across the floorboards, spattering Ratchet’s boots and jeans. “Jesus!” He grabbed at the paperwork that had gone flying in his sudden scrambling panic, snatching the sheets that drifted like autumn leaves and managing to save them from the Red Bull catastrophe.
Michael stood on the other side of his open laptop, watching the spaz attack. “Did I scare you?”
“No.” Ratchet shook his head, but his face was flushed. He slapped the gathered paper back onto the desk. “I just didn’t hear you coming is all. You need to wear a bell, man. Anybody ever tell you you’re quiet as a cat?”
