“Uh, I’m sorry, Prez, I don’t mean to interrupt, and I know I’m not supposed to speak,” Kaleb says suddenly, a slight tremor to his voice. “If you’d let me, I’d like to be with you when you tell Carson’s mom. His father just got diagnosed with cancer, and his mother is struggling to keep the pieces together at the moment. She knows me, and I can at least be a face she knows.” There’s a slight pleading now as he finishes.
Bullet nods. “I see no problem with that,” he agrees, looking around. We all nod our agreement. None of us wants to be the one to deal another blow to that family. Bullet will do it as President, but we all know how heavily it will weigh. “When we do the call, Kaleb, I’ll let you know.”
Kaleb nods his thanks, his eyes heavy with grief. “Thank you, Prez,” he murmurs.
“The next thing to discuss is going to be tough, but it needs to be said,” Bullet continues, his tone tight and turning hard. “Cryos.”
The vibe in the room shifts to anger almost instantly, and I feel it too. “Fucker shouldn’t be allowed to ever call himself a Devil’s fucking Soldier,” King snarls furiously. There’s a loud round of agreement.
“Before we took him out, we made him take off his cut,” Code states once the loud voices calm. We all look at him as he nods at Glitch, who gets up and rounds the table, leather in hand. She gives it to Bullet, who takes it and looks at it for a moment. “If hewas going to be a fucking traitor, then he didn’t deserve to walk out there with it on. Figured you’d agree.”
“You’d be right,” Bullet bites out, his grip so tight on the cut that his knuckles are white. Then he tosses the cut to the ground, staring out at us. “Cryos is no Devil’s Soldier, and as soon as we can, we’ll strip the patch and burn the cut. I’ve already asked that Glitch and Code, while they’re here, clean everything out and make sure that our information is secure, both for our businesses and personal lives.”
“That fucker had everything,” I remark coldly. “He knew our entire lives. What we said on our phones, access to our accounts, and our families’ accounts. He didn’t just betray us, he used us. He took our trust and crushed it. How the fuck do we know that he’s not made a backup of that shit somewhere to use against us? How do we know that shit we’ve done in the past isn’t going to come back and bite us?”
“Because he knows that if he does, he’ll pay dearly,” Simba says calmly. We all look at him. He glances at Savage. “You trust them?” Savage nods immediately. Simba looks back at us. “Bullet knows some of this because he was able to contact Glitch, but we’re ex-mercenaries. The shit we did we can’t talk about because of how classified it is still, but just know that we are the last people that he wants to fuck with, and he’ll figure that out soon enough the minute he tries to investigate us. Glitch is the best hacker out there, and she’ll make sure that he can’t use shit against you.”
Code glowers at him, but he says nothing when Glitch rolls her eyes at him. Are hackers with egos a trade secret or something?
“And I’ll monitor him,” Glitch offers. “There won’t be anywhere he can hide, especially not being a Fed. So if he starts trying to poke his nose in things, or use anything he knows about you against you, I’ll be there to keep him at bay and deliververy strong warnings to back off.” She finishes that with a sharp, toothy smile.
“We’re going to need someone new in that position,” Sniper also points out. “Someone who knows computers enough to get by for now and run the security side of the business. We have clients that we can’t leave hanging.”
“Maybe your newer Prospect might be a good candidate,” Code suggests, nodding at Crypt. “I was able to find enough on him to know that you’re good with computers.”
Crypt narrows his eyes slightly at that. “I’m good at getting information, but not coding. The security system, I can probably figure out the basics, but nowhere near Cryos' level.”
“We have time to figure that out,” Bullet points out. “Crypt, would you be willing to help us do the basics until we can make a new plan?”
Crypt nods. “Sure. We’ll need to clear out Cryos’ space, though. I have no interest in trying to figure out his shit, and knowing him, he’ll have fail-safes in place to delete and corrupt everything the minute we try to get through.”
“I’m already on that,” Glitch blurts out. “He’s good, but not that good. I’m running a program now to get through. I figure it will take tonight and the rest of tomorrow, but I’ll get in.”
“Maybe we should just hire you,” Twigs suggests lightly.
“Sorry, sugar, but you guys can’t afford me full time,” Glitch laughs. “And my caveman here won’t take too kindly to me being away from him all the time.”
“Damn straight,” Code nods, arm going around the back of Glitch’s chair possessively.
“We’ll figure out something,” Bullet states again. “For now, Crypt will handle it. We’ll have to adjust his duties as a Prospect, and we won’t have many once we patch in Kaleb.”
“Prez,” I interrupt. “I’d like to put forth a motion that Prospects Kaleb and Crypt become patched members as oftonight. Kaleb would get his now anyway and has done his time. We should have patched him far earlier, him and Carson, but that’s neither here nor there now. Crypt has saved the women more times than we can count, and never stands down. That will leave us with Theo, but there was talk that Erik from our office was thinking of Prospecting now that Theo is here. We can have some brothers help out with rotations until we get more, and it might be for the best considering we don’t know what flak we’re going to get from everything that’s gone down today.”
Bullet nods slowly. “I’ll accept that motion. All in favor?” All the brothers at the table nod and give their agreement. Bullet bangs his gavel. “Motion passed. Welcome to our newest brothers.” The room erupts into applause and cheers as Crypt and Kaleb step forward. Kaleb looks like he’s holding back tears, while Crypt is as stoic as ever. “Road names will be decided at your patch ceremony, though I have a feeling not much will change for you, Crypt.” He gives him a light smile, and Crypt shrugs. “Anything else anyone wants to go over?”
“When are we bringing our women and kids home?” King asks. “Not that I don’t like you all, but I could do to see my Old Lady’s face instead of your ugly mugs all the time.”
“You just want her here so she can’t threaten to break anymore dicks out in California,” Viper jokes lightly.
“Broken dicks?” Taz repeats, interest clearly piqued.
“Gag him this time, would you?” Fury suddenly growls at Karissa and Glitch, who both snicker. Taz ignores him.
“We’ll bring them home day after tomorrow,” Bullet decides. “We need to make sure this place is clear of anything that remotely might raise questions, or have the Feds still crawling around. We also have to make sure that we don’t get any blowback from the Russians. They’ve had to hear what happened by now, but hopefully, they’ll focus on dealing with the Feds and Misfits for now.”
There’s a small pause before King asks, “So, we’re all in agreement that Silver being a fucking Fed is a fucking mind twist, right? How the fuck did he get away with that for so long?”
We all agree on that.
