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Chapter Thirty-Five

Sawyer

The executive committee was holding church, and my father, as the past president, was a guest. We’d been at it for hours, dissecting everything that had happened, now and when Dad was the president. Even back to when Grandpa Harry had founded the club.

We were no closer to figuring out what we were going to do about the Scorpions than when we’d sat down at the table. They were coming for us, and we needed to be prepared.

“So, what do you propose we do, Abner?” I was at the end of my patience.

“Willy Roundtree is a puppet. He’s doing the bidding of Brando Carrey while he sits in jail, and with his release not far off, the club needs to instill the fear of hell in them. The first thing I’d suggest, and it’s completely up to the executive committee, is that TJ and his grandfather disappear for right now. TJ will be their target for not throwing the fight as they’d insisted, and they lost an assload of money. They’ll want revenge.”

Much to our surprise, Jim Middleton was being held by the LVPD. One of Fitz’s coworkers knew a cop who was kind enough to tell him that Jim was a suspect in Ricky Marlow’s murder. Of course he hadn’t killed Marlow, but I couldn’t speak up or I’d be sitting in the cell with Jim. I needed to talk to Fitz because I wouldn’t let the old man be punished for something he didn’t do.

“What about you, Dad? Where are you going? Won’t they come after you and Mom?” I’d heard a lot from my father about what was going on behind the scenes while he was negotiating with Ricky Marlow. The calls. The threats against me that I had no idea about, and the idea that Ricky had suggested—and my father approved—the Scorpions should rob the dispensary and that we should file a claim with the insurance company to be compensated for the loss instead of retaliating.

“How did Boyd get involved?” I still wanted to kill that bastard for his part of the robbery.

“He was a fucking snitch. He’d call me about every move you made, bitching and moaning that you were queering up the club and that it wasn’t fun anymore. His whining drove me nuts. When he told me Ricky had a friend in the Scorpions and they were thinking of leaving the Cowboys and joining forces with the Scorpions against the club, I had to step in.

“I tried to talk them out of it, but they’d already talked to some of the Scorpions and were going to do something to show you that you weren’t in charge of the club. That was the plan to rob the dispensary. I said I wouldn’t warn you, and I’d work with them against you. I’m still not sure if some of the less active members are involved.

“You think you’re doing those guys a favor by not requiring them to participate in some of the shit the club does? The reason for being in a club is to be part of something . They don’t feel like they fit in because the club is changing too fast for them. You have to show them that while the membership might look different, it’s still the same brotherhood it was when I ran it.”

I was afraid my teeth were going to break I was grinding them so hard. “What, you think I’m not doing a good job running the club?”

“Look, Sawyer, I stayed out of shit when you and the executive committee decided to get involved with that Torrente kidnapping clusterfuck. I wanted to step in because I knew you were going to make more of an enemy of the Scorpions than just the usual club rivalries. Your mother and Werner Meyer told me to let you handle it because the cops were involved and by me stepping in, it would only make things worse between the clubs and put pressure on you to do shit the way I said instead of doing it your own way. I should have listened to my gut.”

Werner had been the vice president under Grandpa Harry and continued under Dad until they both decided to step down. Werner lived in Arizona at some retirement community, last I’d heard. I’d thought Mom and Dad would have moved there, but they’d chosen San Diego instead. The doctor Mom was seeing in Las Vegas recommended her doctor in San Diego because she’s a specialist in COPD.

“Were you pulling strings behind the scenes as that prick Ricky said?” That was the part that still stung.

Keller held out his arms and glanced around the table. “Did I call any of you and tell you to do shit behind Sawyer’s back?” As much as I hated it, I glanced around the table to see all my brothers shaking their heads. That was a relief.

Car tires crunched the gravel in front of the clubhouse, so I stood from the table and went to the window, peeking through the wooden shutters. It was T-Roy’s ’68 Camaro that had belonged to his father, Gordy, before he and Mae were murdered by the Scorpions. T-Roy’s expression everyday showed there would be no ending to the saga with the Scorpions until his parents were avenged.

He jogged around the front of the car and opened the passenger door. He folded the front seat down and dragged someone out by the rope he had around their booted feet. I hurried to the chapel door and out into the clubhouse. When I opened the front door, I saw who T-Roy was dragging—Boyd Townsend, who was trussed up like a hog on a spit.

“Fuck, that’s gotta hurt,” Hobie said next to me. Boyd’s head was bouncing on the gravel as the rough edges cut into his scalp. It hurt alright—the white rocks were stained with red as T-Roy continued dragging him with Boyd screaming loud enough to wake the dead.

“You motherfucking son of a bitch. It was you who got the Scorpions to kill my parents and burn down the Wheeler Pass house. I will see that you suffer as much as they did… as much as I have, you motherfucking bastard.” I hadn’t seen T-Roy as mad as he was at that moment.

He stopped and kicked Boyd in the nuts before he resumed dragging him into the clubhouse, dropping his feet in the middle of the floor before he went to the refrigerator in the corner and grabbed three bottles of Coors, opening the first on the corner of the counter and shooting it down in one long gulp.

I knelt next to Boyd’s head. “I bet that was fun, that ride from San Diego with T-Roy.”

Boyd stared at me. “He’s a crazy motherfucker. I didn’t do anything except hide. I knew the Scorpions would kill me because I saw their faces when they took me. They tortured me for two days before I was able to get away.”

I glanced up at my father, seeing that shit-eating grin of his. “Is that what happened, Abner? Boyd showed up at your house looking tortured and scared?”

My father laughed as he knelt on the other side of Boyd’s head. When Boyd saw my father, I really saw the fear.

“You—you told us to… It was your idea to go to the Scorpions. You told us to rob the dispensary because the club could turn in a claim to the insurance company to get the money back. You said the Scorpions would protect us and we’d all make a lot of money after the Scorpions took over the Cowboy’s land and holdings.”

Suddenly, I started to doubt my father. Had he concocted all of those lies to make himself look good? Hammer stepped over from one of the pool tables and stared down at Boyd. “You’re a liar.”

Dad stood and put his foot on Boyd’s neck. “You told me all those things, Boyd. Not the other way around. You wanted me to go along with your bullshit, and you threatened Sawyer and Celine if I didn’t, so I told you I would. I even told Willy Roundtree I was on board to buy time. Did you really think I’d betray the club my father created?”

I poked Boyd. “Since you’re alive—for right now, anyway—who did the cops find in the desert?” There was that video Romero Garza showed to TJ to get him to fight in the first place, claiming it was Boyd Townsend and they’d do the same to his grandfather.

“It was someone they do business with. The Viper Kings said the guy shorted them on a delivery of After Burner, some homegrown fentanyl crap the Corsican Cartel pushes. They said he skimmed off the shipment, and they tortured him to find out where the drugs went.”

Whether Boyd was telling the truth or not, the fact remained that he was alive and working with the Scorpions to take us down. Killing Boyd was something we needed to vote on because he was a patched member, and in the spirit of the one-percenter legacy—it seemed some of the club members wanted to maintain—blood in, blood out.

I turned to my father. “Keep an eye on him. The rest of you follow me.”

We returned to the chapel and took our seats. “Cowboys, we have a decision to make. What do we want to do about Boyd? He betrayed us and brought the enemy into our camp to kill our friends and steal the money we work hard to make. I leave it to you.”

Spider stood. “I make a motion we end him. I’m sorry, Bones, but I feel like we have a case of he said, he said , and I don’t know who to believe. Is Abner innocent? I’m not so sure.”

Spider sat, and T-Roy stood. “I second the motion, but to protect our club, I propose we film Abner killing Boyd and put it in the vault. Since we don’t know the truth, if Abner ever gets linked to the Scorpions again, we turn over the video to the cops.”

I stared at T-Roy before I looked around the table to see the heads of my brothers nodding. “Show of hands who support the motion?”

All hands lifted, one that surprised the hell out of me. “Even you, Arlo? I’d have thought you’d start quoting the Bible about loving thy neighbor.” The other members chuckled.

Arlo exhaled. “ Lex Talionis . Exodus 21:23-25. ‘But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.’ I have no objections to Boyd being made to pay for his transgressions.”

That was a surprise. Someday, I’d get the full story of Arlo’s background, but at the moment, I had other fish to fry.

“Motion passes.” I banged the gavel on the block and turned to Hobie. “Don’t put it in the minutes. We all know how we voted.” He nodded.

We returned to the main room of the clubhouse and I stared at my father. “We’ve voted. It was unanimous that you are to end that bastard,” I pointed to Boyd who was whimpering in the floor, “and we’re going to film it for insurance. If you ever join forces with the Scorpions to go against the club, it goes to the cops. The members are split on whether we believe you weren’t a part of this latest attack. If you refuse our decision, you go to hell with him. I’ll do it myself.”

To my surprise, Keller nodded, followed by Boyd’s screams until T-Roy knocked him out with a punch to the temple.

I went to my house to find Fitz on the front porch in an armchair from the living room, asleep. I walked onto the porch and touched his handsome face. He stirred, and those beautiful blue eyes fluttered open.

“Why didn’t you go to bed?”

He grinned. “I was waiting for you. Everything okay?”

“Not really, but I think it will be eventually.”

He stood and kissed me, holding me tight as if he knew what I needed. Our tongues tangled and I settled my hands on his gorgeous ass until he pulled back to end the kiss. “Let’s go check out your bed.”

Before we could get down the hallway, Fitz’s phone rang. He looked at the screen and frowned. “I need to answer.”

I nodded.

“Gree, what’s up? Please don’t tell me I gotta go bail someone out?”

I heard laughter. “Well, kinda. Jim Middleton has been released from custody of the LVPD. He’s ready to be picked up at the MLK Jr. precinct. It seems the police found his prints on the gun they believe killed Ricky Marlow, but the fact he’s without sight has them stunned as to how he could have pulled it off, so they’re releasing him. Spitzer said they’re going another way with the murder investigation.”

My gut churned. Did Jim tell the cops that he’d smuggled the gun in for me? Did he tell them it was me who shot Ricky Marlow? What the fuck am I going to do?

“Okay, Gree. I’ll go get him. Thanks for the update. I’ll see you Monday.” Fitz ended the call.

My father came into the house and quietly closed the door. “I’m going to sleep for a while then your mother and I are going to clear out.” He held out his hand to offer my keys to my truck, so I took them.

I noticed his hands were stained red, though he’d tried to wipe it off. “Is it done?”

My dad smirked. “Never tell your secrets to anyone except your legal spouse. Your spouse can never be forced to testify against you.”

He walked away, and I shoved the keys in my pocket and turned to Fitz. “Let’s go get Jim.”

We walked out of the house and up the hill to Fitz’s truck. I saw T-Roy and Tiny carrying out a tarp and tossing it into the back of Tiny’s pickup. They both waved as we got into the truck. T-Roy gave me a thumbs-up before they pulled away. Without asking, I knew Dad had done as we’d voted.

At least that part was over.

I pulled my wallet out of my back pocket and found the betting slip from the fight. “Can we drive by the Ace of Spades? I need to see if I can cash this thing.” I held up the slip.

Fitz chuckled. “Yeah. I’ll drop you off, go get Jim, and then we’ll pick you up. What a fucking weekend.”

So. Damn. True.