Page 88 of Caution to the Wind

“Yeah, man.”

I swept my gaze through the rest of the brothers at the table, searchin’ for confirmation and findin’ it in a series of confused or amused nods and chin lifts.

“Now the pleasantries are over with,” Zeus mused from his reclined position in his chair, fingers steepled over his mouth, though I thought I could see the edge of a grin in his beard. “Maybe we can get down to business.”

“My guest yesterday,” I concluded. “And that fuckin’ threat at Honey Bear Café today.”

“Yeah, but somethin’ else I think might tie in,” he added, gesturin’ to Bat to pick up the thread.

“Stella’s here in the garage’s office with Loulou,” Bat started. “She came in this mornin’ in a rage with a bloody takeaway bag she tossed onto the seat’a the Harley I was workin’ on. There was a decapitated raccoon head inside. Stabbed through with one of her own kitchen knives.”

Priest produced the said bloody bag, droppin’ it on the table with an unceremonious wet thunk.

“Nasty,” Boner muttered.

“You don’t blink an eye at dismembered humans, but a raccoon is gross?” King asked.

“Dude, raccoons have like a whack ton of diseases,” he countered, nose wrinkled.

Zeus, as he often did, ignored them.

“There was a note.” He picked up from where Bat had left off, jerkin’ his chin at Wrath, who pushed the crinkled white-lined paper into the middle of the table.

I snatched it up.

The script was cramped and spiky. I adjusted my glasses and read, “Follow and obey. The same damn thing was written on the one at Lauren’s bakery.”

“Apparently, some fucker has been pressurin’ Stella to sell the business for a few weeks now. Comes in every Wednesday mornin’ like clockwork to buy a goddamn coffee. It started friendly enough, but he’s been escalatin’. Last week, she said he squeezed the coffee cup so hard it burst all over the counter when she refused to sell again.”

“Why the fuck would someone want to buy Stella’s so badly?” King asked. “It’s a damn good diner but nothin’ outta the ordinary.”

“Same with Honey Bear Café,” Curtains added.

“Cress might fight you on that, but you’re right,” King agreed, starin’ off into the distance the way he was prone to do when he was puzzlin’ shit out.

“They both do good business,” Buck allowed. “But not at the level that warrants a fuckin’ takeover like this.”

“Not alone, maybe,” Curtains mused, pullin’ up somethin’ on his laptop before spinnin’ it to show our end of the table. “But Stella said he was an Asian guy, right? Well, a corporation has bought six houses on Crest Street, Bones’s Barber Shop, and a strip mall between us and Stoneridge just off the Sea to Sky Highway.”

A shiver of premonition trickled like ice down my spine as I leaned across the table to pull Curtains’ computer closer. I squinted at the screen for a second before reachin’ for my reading glasses.

“Fuck. I think if you do a search, you’ll find that same corp’s got a bid in on two square blocks of warehouse district directly beside land we own and an agricultural acreage that butts up to Angelwood Farm.” I rubbed at my temples. “This does not say good things.”

The industrial land housed our weapons depot, but only Priest, Zeus, Bat, and I knew the exact location to keep shit on lockdown. Angelwood Farm was one of our favourite settings for interrogations, beatings, and puttin’ enemies’ bodies to rest. Havin’ a rival criminal organization as our neighbours at either location was untenable.

“What’re you thinkin’, brother?” Zeus asked, lookin’ unruffled as fuck ’cause the man’d been to prison twice, had his wife abducted, his daughter assaulted, and his son believed to be dead for more than half a year. This shit was nothin’ to him. Which didn’t mean he couldn’t care less. What made Z not only the best leader of this chapter but the whole damn Fallen empire was his ability to give a shit about everythin’ without losin’ his goddamn mind.

In this business, too much crazy and horrible shit happened. You’d patch in on a Monday and go crazy by Thursday.

“I’m thinkin’ an old acquaintance from Seven Song visited me yesterday, and we got threats against local businesses today… They’re obviously linked.”

“You got history with the triad?” Wrath spoke up for the first time, leanin’ forward on thick forearms.

“Some.”

He arched a brow. “Worked with the Red Dragons youth gang when I was a teen. The Chinese triads don’t fuck around. If they’re comin’ up to Entrance, it means they got their eye on some prize here.”

“Maybe they’ve already maxed out their potential in Vancouver,” Curtains suggested. “They use the casinos and real estate to wash their money, only the Gambling Board’s cottoned on to them recently, and housing prices are through the fuckin’ roof in the city. Makes sense for them to move up the Sea to Sky in search of new opportunities.”