Page 44

“Enough! God, you’re all fucking children. Continue.”

“Then, a few days later, she came into the shop. She had an appointment with Indie but canceled it.”

“What was she getting done?” Colt asked.

“None of your fucking business.”

Colt’s shit-eating grin said he knew exactly how to push Gunner’s buttons, and he enjoyed doing it. Hell, we all did. Things got a little stale around the clubhouse sometimes, and we would get a bet going to see who could piss him off the fastest.

Jack usually won.

“Then I ran into her at Manny’s. She said every time she left the house in the last week, she ran into me and accused me of following her.”

“Are you?” I asked, sure he was stalking her.

“Am I what?”

“Following her?” I clarified.

“No, I’m not fucking following her. I was at the bar first. She walked into my fucking shop. Where I work!”

“You just happened to be driving by Manny’s and needed a reason to go in the store? Was she the reason?” Jack asked with a smug look on his face.

Gunner turned a glare on Jack. That was why Jack always won. He was the instigator. He knew all our buttons and pushed them often.

“Why the fuck are we talking about this? Don’t we have important shit to go over? If not, I have shit to do.”

King and Gunner faced off. A silent conversation ping-ponged back and forth between them until King barked, “Gunner’s right. We have other shit to do.” Then pointed at Gunner and added, “Stop following the fucking shrink!”

“Any news on Sypher?” Blade asked.

“Nothing. Fury said he’d call once they knew more. I got a call from Steele, though. Freeway’s getting out. He wants to send him up here.”

“What the fuck? Why?” Gunner asked, his voice low.

“Too much shit goin’ on down there. With his... history, Steele thinks it would be best if he had a new place to land.”

“King,” Blade whined. “Freeway is an asshole.”

“I know, but he’s a brother.”

“Have you told Dec yet?” Cash asked.

Freeway was a name I had heard many times, but a brother I’d never met. King’s brother Dec was a patrol cop back in Arkansas, and the story was he caught Freeway dealing drugs at an elementary school and tossed him in the clink.

The way I heard it, Dec went and smoothed things out with Steele, but Steele wasn’t really all that bothered by it.

“No, and I’m not going to. Not until he’s out and on his way here. Steele assures me he has spoken with Freeway and explained everything. We aren’t a 1% club anymore, and if Freeway wants to stay in, he has to act accordingly.”

“This is a bad idea,” Jingles murmured.

I didn’t agree or disagree with Jingles. I had never met Freeway. He went up the river two years before I joined the Silver Shadows. There had been rumors, though.

I tried not to pass judgment on people based on rumors. I figured it was better to give them the benefit of the doubt and let them sink their own fucking ship rather than hold the guilt from being the cause of their demise based on lies.

What’s that scripture Colt was always spouting?Let them think you’re a fool instead of proving it by opening your mouth?

Something like that.