Page 8

C an this get any more fucked up? Probably.

I’ve never felt old before, but less than a week on the job and I feel it now. Wouldn’t be surprised if gray hairs sprout from my head any moment now. Might explain why Law was more salt-and-pepper than anything else when he had the job, despite that he was only on the newer side of fifty.

After Billy and her group of misfits dropped the bomb that there’s nothing we can do to protect Emily in their opinion, I called a break. General needed out of there, and I noticed Bulldog wasn’t faring well either. You tell a Hound someone is gunning to take them out and we laugh in their face. You tell them it’s about their old lady and we take to planning war. When it’s about a kid? Yeah, the boys handle it harder than the rest. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still going out hunting and will laugh in the prick’s face, but first we need to hold the kid and make sure they’re safe.

It’s not even ten in the morning, and I’m drinking. Some might see it as a problem, but I never went to bed last night. Technically, it’s still yesterday.

Flint’s sitting next to me, tapping away on his damn laptop. It used to piss me off, but now I get why Law allowed it. Having someone confirm or deny something as soon as it’s spoken is useful. But him letting Bulldog know and then me getting kicked in the shin once under the table for true and twice for false needs to be altered. My shins are going to be broken if we keep this shit up anymore. No clue how Law did it unless he put metal plates into the front of his jeans. That or maybe he just knew the truth from a lie easier than I did. I can usually get it right, but Law had a knack for getting it right every time. It’s one of the things that makes him a prominent leader.

Made. I might wear the patch, but it’s still hard to think of Law gone and out. The small part in the back of my head tries to remind me that I just need time for it, but that continues to prove to be what I don’t have.

“Incoming,” Flint mutters, and I straighten as Billy comes into view. No doubt Flint has the cameras active in the main room of the clubhouse and is watching every member of C8. Most are still outside, using our backyard as their lounge space.

Talk about another shocker. An entire vigilante team made of women. And I get it. We still live in a backward-enough world that so many women go unnoticed. Add in a disability like Jack pretended to have and they’re almost invisible. It’s clever for sure, but I hate that I was one of the fools to let the wool get pulled over my eyes. I have many regrets in life, and bringing this group closer because of my dick’s needs just makes it that much worse.

I’d castrate myself except for the technicality that Flint was the one to bring C8 to our attention when Chains’ woman needed rescuing. The club’s debt with them was established long before Domino got shot and needed patching up by the vet.

Damnit! Another thing I didn’t even think about.

“Are you even a vet?” I growl before she can speak. A split second before, she was about to; I noticed her mouth open, and then it closed right after I spoke. The benefit of having a mirror behind the bar: seeing everything without having to turn around.

“Yeah, actually, I am. Started out at med school to be a doctor, but then things led to me changing my dedication. Switched to vet school after that.”

I snort at that. I can only imagine what she would have considered a reason for that change in direction.

“Charles wants to continue.”

I take the time to set down my beer, then turn my head to her. There’s no emotion on my face as I just look at her. She twitches under my gaze and eventually nods.

“Sorry, whenever you’re ready.” She backs away, and I go back to drinking. No one is going to tell me to do shit in my own club. Especially an outsider. I’m not on their time—they’re on mine.

Will I honor the club’s debt to them? Yeah. Doesn’t mean I’m going to do it with my tail between my legs.

I rap my knuckles on the bar top before I stand and head to Church. The boys inside the clubhouse all stand at once. I find my lips twitching to keep in my laughter as I hear Jack curse. Glad to know that we can still be just as unpredictable as them.

I sit in my chair at the head of the table and wait for not only my boys but the others. The same group comes back except for General. He knows he’ll be pulled in if we talk about the nutjob after his niece. I might not have established myself in what rules I’ll adhere to in the club regarding how I’ll share information, but for now, if someone is being threatened, I will share that with their family.

Threatened only. Harmed but safe and secure? That’s a different story altogether and one I don’t regret telling Ruby. She needed to be kept in the dark. Still does. When the truth comes out, she might not agree about being lied to. But I’ll stick by my decision if it keeps her and others safe.

When the group settles in, I take charge. I was kind enough to allow them to take point last time, but taking that break wasn’t only for the boys to clear their heads but for me to. And Chains was the one to put me straight.

He’d held me back a second more than the others when I called the break and glared at me, saying only one thing, which I read loud and clear. “President.”

The others might have just assumed he was acknowledging my rule, as it’s not common for a former officer to sit in a meeting like this, but Chains was and always will be an unofficial adviser to the club. I gave him advice when he fucked up, and with that one word, he was advising me.

I am the president. I’m the one in charge of not only this group but all of them as the club president of the mother chapter for the Hounds of the Reaper. I might not reign over the sister chapters directly, but I have enough power to pull them in to do my bidding. I can bring down the flames of hell if I so desire. And I needed to remember that. I’m not some soldier taking orders—I’m the one giving them.

“What’s the debt?”

“Straightforward.” Charles gives me an eyebrow rise before smiling. “I like that.”

“Don’t give a fuck what you like.” I see the others around her tense, but I give zero fucks.

Flint might seem like he’s only fact-checking, but he’s also rallying the troops and giving them all notifications on their cell phones of what’s needed. The club might be surrounded, but I know C8 has zero fucking clue about the tunnels we have under this place. We can take out the four in this room and leave the whole fucking property before anyone from the outside knows.

“Tell me why you’re here and what you want, then get the fuck out. We only owe you one favor, and me not putting a bullet between the eyes of these two and the one out there shows more than enough grace than I have anymore.”

This has Charles tilting her head at me and narrowing her eyes. “You threatening one of my own?”

I nod. “Not a threat. They showed when they weren’t welcome. We invited Wendi, Penny, and Abigail into the club. Not whoever the fuck they are.”

My eyes move to Billy as she sinks a bit in her chair, but then I go back to staring at Charles. She can read into that for all she wants. My attention was only pulled to her because she moved. Nothing more. Not that I have pity for her or feel something for her. Sure, she’s a victim, too, like Emily, but that’s not my problem.

Charles folds her hands in front of her, rubbing them around each other before grasping them together and settling them on the table. “As you already know, we’ve noticed certain things about members of this club, and it seems now is the time to call in the debt by using one of your own.”

My boys don’t talk, but I know they’re glaring. They’re the type. I keep my cool till I have all the information. Then I show emotion. Well, sometimes the emotion comes faster than I can prepare to hold it in. But now that I know what the game is, I’m prepared to lock my shit down. I give nothing away and don’t speak, knowing she has more to say.

Not sure if the small smile that twitches on the woman in power is respect or not, but I feel as if we passed some sort of test when we didn’t start demanding more than what she was offering. She holds out her left hand, and the guy at her back passes her his phone. She puts it on the table and slides it to Flint, who stops it a second before it crashes over the side.

“We have intel that an operative of ours has been compromised and needs help in an extraction. The phone holds a file to download so you can see for yourself.” Flint’s already hooking up the phone to his laptop to download it after running an analysis to make sure it’s not a hack. I’ve seen him work long enough to know how he operates, always running shit through a system to limit the amount of damage it can do to the club.

“Who’s the operative?” This comes from Billy, and I raise an eyebrow at that. I never expected her to speak and show her hand, or her lack of knowledge, out in the open like this. Figured it was all smoke and daggers between this group.

“Hansel,” Charles says, and I watch both Billy and Jack deflate.

I grind my teeth, already well over the code names. I get it, a group of vigilante woman all named after men. Let’s move to something we can work with, like a goddamn legal name.

My heavy sigh pulls the attention of the women back to hopefully what they see as the issue. That the club can’t sign off on some half-cocked rescue mission without us knowing more than a code name.

“You would know her as Candy.” Charles’s meaning rings loud and clear.

The club’s only ever dealt with one person by the name of Candy. We weren’t even the initial people who were hired to find her, but a club brother was soon tied up in the mess, and that brought in the entire club.

I look at my VP and see him tensing at the news. Chains is no different, but Flint’s the one who has murder in his eyes. His girl wasn’t even involved with Candy, but with those who took her.

“He’s dead,” he seethes before I can rein him in.

Charles tilts her head, and a look passes over her face. “Is he?”

Her words send a cool breeze against the back of my neck, and I glance at my boys before I look down the table and see Billy staring at her hands, which are in her lap.

Son of a bitch. The bastard is still out there.

“Were you the ones to cover it up?” No use pretending we don’t all know who we’re talking about.

Duke.

He’d been fucking with my club since the guy knew of us. Which, as far as I know, was even before Law’s time in the presidency chair. Not sure why. He has his own club, even got to the position of VP for the Devils Damned. If rumors are true—and they’ve proved to be, based on what we’ve found out—he likes the skin trade.

The president of the Devils Damned is a bastard and crazier than anyone I know, but Psy never wanted to be involved in that part of the crime side. He does everything else—and I mean everything—but that’s the line in the sand for him. And his VP never got on board with it.

From the little intel we could gather on Duke, his boss had sent him up to Oklahoma to start another chapter of the Devils Damned, but he kept coming north the more time he was here. First, it was just the south side of Oklahoma and the Kansas border, where we ran into his whorehouses that Chains’ old lady was held in after being kidnapped. Despite us burning it to the ground, he took it as an invitation that our area was open to him.

He had connections to Flint’s old lady through the money he was trying to hide from his boss, and then he took it further and tried to use another brother’s girl as a buyer for his stock. Guy even kept the people he was selling for sex in horse stables like fucking animals.

We started searching for Candy then but never found her. We were close to finishing Duke then, too, but he should have been named Slime. Not only is he one, but he’s slippery as hell.

We had intel—or at least thought we did—that he was killed in a shootout for trying to set up something in Central Texas. Even had Bass check it out. The guy we thought was Duke was burned beyond recognition, but with no other info to go on, we moved on. Sure, we knew we could be mistaken, but till we got pinged with new intel, we were going to live on.

Of course, that never stopped Flint from running weekly scans across the nation to find him on satellite imageries. A little side project that no one denied him of. He could have lost his girl before he had her at the hands of Duke. But so could a lot of the boys, it seems.

“No, but we were the ones who pushed it through once we knew the truth.” Charles continues to take point in answering our questions.

“Who was it?” I’m finding it harder and harder to keep my face neutral.

“Who do you think?” She gives me a look that I can only take as “you must be stupid not to know.”

“Psy.” I shake my head at how obvious it is. Guy might not like what his boy’s doing, but he’s club. And club take care of their own—even take our own out if needed.

She nods. “Club life always did like to play things close to the vest.”

“Where is he now?” Flint is about one direction from going out for a ride to exact his revenge.

I kick Bulldog lightly under the table and hold my stare on Flint. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Bulldog raise his head. It’s not a nod, but it’s enough communication for me to know my guy understands that Flint isn’t to be left alone for a bit. We don’t need a brother going out alone to start a war. That’s something we do together.

“With Psy. For now. Don’t know for how long. That guy was never known for giving second chances, so the VP is still around for another reason we don’t know of yet.”

“So, what do you want us for? They closed that whorehouse down.” Chains looks bored, but it’s an act. I think we all knew that this second round of talks was going to go different, and most—not all—of us have locked our shit in.

“They did, but not before Candy was sold off. We lost her before we could get her out. She went in undercover, but she went too deep, and now it’s not looking good. We lost her.” For the first time, I see regret in Charles’s eye.

“You want us to find her?” Bass chirps from his post at the door. He could have taken a seat if he wanted to—he’s an officer after all—but I appreciate him at the door to make sure no one comes in or goes out till I say so.

Charles is slow to answer this time. “No, we’re pretty sure we know where she is.”

“So, what’s the problem?” Chains again, but with an eye roll this time. I fight the smile on my face, as I can see both Jack and the guy behind Charles getting pissed at the lack of respect.

“We have tits,” Jack supplies as if it’s obvious. Maybe it is for them. They might run into this all the time. But I still don’t get the issue.

I make a show of looking them over—even the guy—before addressing Charles again. I might have lingered on Billy’s a bit more, but that’s only because it’s the first time I’ve seen them outlined enough and with her cleavage on display. I’m not disappointed. Not that I’m interested, of course.

“You don’t seem like the type to let that stop you,” I say at last.

“Normally, yes. But as you have no doubt noticed, we prefer for others not to know of us. The place we assume has her, or will have her, has more innocent lives involved than not.”

Bulldog growls like a dog before he snarls, “Jesus, just speak plainly and stop with all this spy shit. You’re worse than our ex-CIA guy.” I half expect a bark out of him, but he just rubs his hand over his face in frustration.

“Fine,” Charles snaps, clearly done with all of this like we are. Fucking finally. “Plain as it gets, here you go. We need someone who’s aware of the BDSM community and can pass as a skilled Dom to infiltrate a highly reserved weeklong event with one of our own. We need your man to play the role and take out the threat if needed, but mostly to get Candy out. We have intel that there will be an auction one night, and while most are playing the game, she’ll be sold in the underground once more. We’ve already lost her once, and I refuse to lose her again.”

“Which brother did you want?” Chains looks at the boys in the room. He already knows that the club is many things and is willing to do most, within reason. But if they’re looking to pull in a Hound who has an old lady, this chick is going to get an ass-whooping by someone in the club who doesn’t wear a vest. Our old ladies are just as mean as us if forced, and if you take their man? Yeah, pretty sure Lady, Bulldog’s girl, already proved what happens to those who mess with her guy.

“General. It’s clear in our assessment that he’s played before and could blend well.”

“And who’ll be going in for your team?” I interlock my fingers together as I lean forward a bit on the table.

“Billy here.”

I look to the girl who’s been named the sacrificial lamb and see surprise on her face a second before she nods. She must be used to getting orders like this. In front of everyone with no say. It’s crap, in my opinion, but I don’t run the Crazy Eights.

“She’s done the submissive side before and can pull it off better than the rest of my girls,” Charles continues.

Jack snorts at that, but a hard look from her boss has her clearing her throat and standing straighter.

“Do we have a deal?” Charles turns back to me. She’s only looked at me but didn’t ignore the men when they asked question. She knows who’s in charge, who will make the call like this.

I don’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“Good. I’ll have our group send you all the intel we have. We get Candy and the club’s debt is paid in full.” She holds her hand out to shake, and I take it.

“Done. But General isn’t going.” She pulls her hand back and tilts her head at me. I grin. “I am.”