CJ frowned. “What the fuck happened to you?”
Christopher gulped from his bottle. “He ran into my fuckin’ fists a couple times.”
“Yeah, okay. Cool.” Digger twisted off the cap and drained his bottle. “Sounds about right,” he added around a stinking belch. “No punch like a Outlaw punch.”
“Told you, Uncle Johnnie,” Axel piped in. “No assbeating like an Outlaw assbeating.”
“So you did,” Johnnie said blandly.
Christopher took in the scene, glancing from Digger to Johnnie and back to Digger, who couldn’t meet Christopher’s eyes if his fucking life depended on it.
“What the fuck wrong with you, motherfucker?” Christopher demanded.
Digger took another bottle as Val walked up to the table, secured his own beer and took his seat.
“Nothing, Prez,” Digger answered, nodding to Val. “Just, uh, just still a little shook about how you fucked up Torie.” He twisted the cap off. “That beautiful woman justgone.”
Christopher and Mort exchanged knowing looks.
“I’m not the brightest motherfucker.” Val paused to taste his beer. “But I swearyouthe fuckhead with the crush on the woman. Not Outlaw.”
Digger shook his head. “How you throw my fucking business out there like that, bruh?”
“So, youdidhave a crush on her, Uncle Digger?” Ransom asked in confusion.
“I didn’t say all that, little dude.” He drank more beer. “I just said she was gorgeous.”
“All youeversay is that,” Axel complained.
“Know what you haven’t said, Uncle Digger?” Ryder said severely. “That you’re not johnsoning behind her.”
“It’s jonesing,” CJ said, laughing.
“Nuh uh, C.,” Axel denied. “Dad said we have johnsons. That was on his list for cocks. We don’t have a jones, so we can’t jones behind nothing.”
“CJ right,” Christopher said. “Your johnsonjonesbehind a girl.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Dad,” Ransom said. “Are you sure your senility isn’t kicking in? That’s been happening more and more lately.”
“How we went from talking about Torie to dicks?” Digger grouched.
Mortician scowled. “I’m sick and tired of hearing about that woman. Check yourself, motherfucker.Yougot a gorgeous woman. If she hear how you harp on about Torie, it’ll hurt her.”
“Bunny not no wild bitch,” Digger said.
Christophermight’velet the comment slide if that motherfucker hadn’t side-eyed him. “You callin’ Megan a wild lil’ bitch, assfuck?”
All conversationstopped.
“I wouldn’t do that, Prez,” Digger said calmly, his eye twitching. He set the beer down and forced a smile. “But you got to admit, Meggie going off the goddamn rails. No matter what you didn’t—ordid—do with Torie, you didn’t kill her untilyouwas ready. It didn’t matter whatMeggiewanted. It just proved her power is only as weighty as you allow it to be.”
Any anger Christopher felt died the moment he looked at the brothers and saw their agreement. It was mostly the younger members, mainly between twenty and thirty-five, arrived at the club when Christopher and Megan settled into a comfortable routine as spouses, parents, and friends. Seeing a smattering of older members, their faces filled with the same belief, tore Christopher up.
“Peep this, Prez,” Digger went on. “You even stripped her of power over the little bros. She try to chastise them, they tell her it’s club business and muzzle up, and she can’t do shit.”
Christopher’s head was starting to hurt as much as his heart. In private, they’d settled this very argument. Or, at least, he thought they had. Obviously, he’d been wrong, since he hadn’t addressed the club. Rumors abounded about him and Torie. He was so busy trying to fix Megan that he couldn’t bother himself with denying shit that hadn’t happened.
But the damage was already done.
