Page 34

“ C ome in,” I call out to the person knocking on my office door.

Mickey opens it, walks through, shuts it again, and then sits down. He gets comfortable. Too comfortable in my opinion, kicking his feet up even. But the guy doesn’t put them on my desk, just the other chair’s armrest.

Unlike back home, my office is pretty big.

Not bedroom-size, but big enough for a few chairs, even a couch on the back wall.

Haven’t put one in yet, though. I’m debating if I want to have that many of these fuckers in here, and a couch is basically an open invitation for anyone to stop in and relax.

My presidency might just be a temporary thing, but I’m still figuring out how I want to run shit while I have it.

“Where’s the missus?” Mickey grins a mile wide as I glance up from doing some calculations.

Sure, the computer would be faster, but sometimes I just need to do it manually.

Not only to keep my hands and brain busy, but it’s always been easier for me to find issues while going line by line by hand than looking at a computer screen and trying to figure it out.

Besides, we keep the books in literal book format.

If we put our account information and all the deposits and transfers online, it could be hacked.

A book is easy to burn if needed; a computer file is harder to permanently delete if someone is halfway decently looking for it .

I don’t rise to the bait that I know Mickey is throwing at me.

If I say Viv ain’t my missus, he’ll spew some shit about why we’re putting so much club backing into finding a stalker if she isn’t.

Not that we don’t do this shit for random people when we see issues like the ones she’s having, but he’ll still make it a thing.

I know it. Hell, I would do the same thing if the roles were reversed.

“At the gym.”

He tilts his head and squints. “Was just there. She wasn’t.”

I shake my head. “Not ours. Hers. She wanted to get in some training and blow off some steam. She’s sparring with her friend over on 5th.”

“And you stayed here why?”

I roll my eyes and sit up straight, tossing my pencil down on the book, where it rolls to the center binding. “Had a call with the mother chapter and figured she didn’t need me hanging around if she was just going to beat the shit out of her friend.”

He looks at me and does that slow smile thing as if he’s getting an idea. And any idea Mickey gets is rarely good.

“You mean you didn’t want to get blue balls from watching but not touching your girl while she got all sweaty with another?”

I don’t dignify that with an answer. So what if it’s true?

I won’t admit it. I know what watching her fight does to me.

But I need to think beyond my dick. Which is why I sent a few brothers who seem to be clear of suspicion with her to keep tabs on her.

Sure, they might get turned on by my girl hitting another girl.

It’s only natural in my mind. But I know they won’t touch.

For one, if they do, Viv will take care of it, and then I will too.

More permanently. And two, I threatened them within an inch of their lives, and their patches, not to fuck this up.

Viv was right. It is good to be king.

“You and Rooster find anything in the limo?”

I had the boys do a full sweep of both locations where the bodies were found.

We didn’t discover either one, as they died a few days ago, but I sent Rooster and Mickey to look at the limo and Bane and Lucky to the fighter’s house.

Not much they could have gotten from the road she was hit on.

Bane called twenty minutes ago to tell me they had nothing so far.

Not sure what I expected either team to find, but looking is better than just sitting on our asses and making guesses.

“Limo was wiped down clean. We called that cop, and he says he’ll get back to us if the police find anything on either.”

“What’re your thoughts on the cop?”

He shrugs as he runs his fingers through his long red beard.

Not sure if he’s scratching his chin or just playing with it.

It’s not as long as some of the other brothers’—he can’t braid it or anything—but I bet Ruby would have bought him some ornaments to hang on it if she was still speaking to anyone in the club.

That girl always had a sense of humor I could get behind.

When there was something to laught about. Before what happened to her pops.

“Seems okay enough. Got family problems, obviously, but showed no sign of disrespect to you or the boys, even when you weren’t around. He greeted every brother on the street as if we were normal or some shit. ”

I get what he’s saying and nod. People seem to act differently around club members.

Not sure if it’s the vest that makes them do it or just some thoughts about us because of some damn made-up show about bikers.

Cops are the worst, almost as if they get trained on how to be a complete dick to anyone within fifty miles of a clubhouse.

I swear they know I’m club even when I don’t wear the vest. Which is like four times in my life since I got patched in, and then it was only because we were in another club’s territory, and it’s just rude to drive through wearing your colors.

Especially when you’re trying to do it without getting noticed.

“I would say we keep him on the books, but he doesn’t seem the type that needs a bribe to realize we’re just trying to help. However, if we get into something he doesn’t agree with, I can’t say we’ll get the support we want.”

I nod again at Mickey’s assessment, in line with his thinking. “What do we think about the brother, Mack?”

This has Mickey snorting, rolling his eyes, and repositioning himself to cross his legs at the ankles while still having them propped up. “Guy’s not brother material, I can tell you that.”

“Why do you say that?”

“More the lone wolf type. He came over with nothing more than himself. Must think himself pretty high on the food chain to take on anyone by himself.”

“Maybe he didn’t have anyone to call?”

“Nah, it ain’t that.” Mickey slashes through my dispute.

“Guy’s been living in this place long enough to know people.

He runs an underground fighting ring. He’s got people.

He just doesn’t call on them. Guys like that get killed when we bring them into the club.

I’ve seen enough lone wolves to recognize the traits in him.

He might help us if we call, but he ain’t the one to pick up the phone first if you get me. ”

I think about his words as I grab my coffee. It’s not as good as the one I had earlier—I had to break down and get one from down the hall—but it works after the huge amount of cream and sugar I put in it.

I’m still tired. Need more sleep, but I won’t get some for a bit, so I need to stock up on the caffeine to get me through what I expect will be some long days ahead.

Before Mickey came into this, he was operating out of North Dakota.

The club recently turned one of the sister chapters up there into a training facility of sorts.

They’ve still got the clubhouse, but also the land to build training buildings and shit that’s needed for newer things the club is getting into: mercenaries.

We call it Operation Hell Hound, or OHH in polite company.

We’ve got enough club members from different sister chapters looking to get involved that it made sense to have the primary operation be in one place where the training for a mission can happen.

We might all be a part of the Hounds, but that doesn’t mean we know each other.

The vest has you standing next to one another, but it’s the brotherhood, the bond you form, that has you fighting for the one next to you.

The training center allows teams to be created in an environment that builds on that brotherhood before we send them out on whatever mission we accept.

Not sure what Mickey ran up there, but he was there for a while. Setting shit up, training, even doing some missions overseas with OHH. If he says a guy ain’t club material, I’m going to trust him .

“Still, might be good to keep tabs on him. He might not want us, but having him on the payroll might come in handy,” I say.

“One hundred percent.” Mickey nods once in agreement.

I grab the pencil again and turn to the books. Mickey doesn’t leave but gets out his phone for a bit. We sit in silence till I hear the buzz from his cell.

“Cop says the limo was wiped clean before they got there. And nothing strange about the fighter’s death either.”

I expected as much. In this line of business, it’s never easy. The clues are never laid out perfectly like you see in the movies.

I rest my elbow on my desk and put my head in my hand, rubbing my temples. If I wore glasses, I would throw them off right now. Maybe I should hit the gym and let off some steam myself.

“Nothing. Seems par for the course.” I’m beyond frustrated.

Casper sent me here for answers, but I keep finding nothing.

Sure, we just found out about Viv’s stalker, but I was hoping to catch a break.

For something to be an easy open-and-shut case.

But finding the moles in the club is harder than I expected.

The boys and I have gone around the bend on this.

It’s possible that we’ve already caught everyone.

Cast Off had a few boys with him who got killed in the sex club explosion.

Some died at Casper’s and Billy’s hands before that.

We got the two who were in the club when I first showed, but bubkes since then. Diddly squat.

“Your gut still saying there’s more? ”

Mickey gives me an eyebrow raise as his face remains stony.