I laughed and shook my head.“I don’t need backup.Yet.”
But I had a feeling I might if their club was here to cause problems.
And Twister?
He wasn’t going to be easy to ignore.
Chapter Three
Twister
Sunlight bled through the busted blinds like a goddamn interrogation lamp.
I rolled off the mattress I’d thrown on the floor of one of the upstairs rooms and stretched as my bones cracked in protest.The room smelled like old paint, sweat, and fresh sawdust in a comforting, weird, broken kind of way.Like the start of something dangerous and real, but it was mine.
This was ours now.Time to make it feel like it.
Downstairs, the sound of boots, hammering, and the occasional curse echoed through the floorboards.They were good sounds.The boys were already at it.I pulled on my cut, ran a hand through my hair, and headed down.
The clubhouse was still a mess, but less of one than yesterday.
The main floor was wide open, brick walls on two sides, scarred hardwood floors, and that long, battered bar we’d all agreed to keep.It had character.The kind of bar that soaked in secrets.
Behind the bar was a doorway that led into a narrow galley kitchen that ran the length of the bar.We’d found ancient pots, three toasters, and something growing in the back of the fridge we still hadn’t identified.
To the left of the bar, a hallway stretched toward the back and led to a small office and three other rooms.They’d once been God knows what—storage?Gambling dens?Hell rooms?—but we were turning them into six by busting and rebuilding the walls.Every brother deserved his own space, except the prospects.They could bunk up like summer camp.
“Watch your damn swing, Sully!”Magnum barked from down the hall, holding a pry bar and looking half-feral with sawdust in his beard.
“I was aiming at the wall, not your foot!”Sully yelled back, shirtless and sweating, with a sledgehammer propped against his shoulder.
“Same difference with your aim,” Nugget chimed in and ducked out of the office doorway with drywall dust coating his eyebrows.
Swift was at the far end of the hall, using a chalk line and a stud finder to measure where the new walls would be placed.
I stepped into the hallway and nodded.“Looking good.Any surprises?”
“Wiring’s a little sketch in the far room,” Swift said.“But nothing Hodge can’t handle.”
“Where is Hodge?”
“Down the hall, stripping out old closet doors with Wheels.Gramps is making a map of who gets what room.”
I snorted.“Gramps deciding who goes where?Seems like something I should be doing.”
“He doesn’t trustyouto remember,” Swift said with a smirk.“He knows you’ll stick him in the room farthest from the bathroom, or maybe even the attic.”
Fair.
Gramps and I got along pretty well, but he sometimes struggled with being older than I was.He would forget that I was the one in charge and not him.
I walked back through the main area and hopped over a couple planks someone had laid across a sticky patch of stripped floor.Behind the bar, Cord and Plug were scrubbing the shelves like their patch depended on it.Which it kinda did.
“You two enjoying your bonding time?”I asked.
Cord looked up, flushed and sweating.“Yes, sir.”
Plug didn’t say a word, just kept scrubbing.
