“Hey, don’t look now,” smirked Saint, “but I believe that’s Stephanie dancing with one of the Comeaux brothers.” Brax jerked his head toward the dance floor, frowning at the entire scene.

“Jesus, was she born with no common sense!” he growled. “Those guys are animals.”

“Yeah, well, it looks like Marilisa is dancing with one as well. I always hated those guys. Besides, they’re too old for them.”

“They’re the same age as we are,” mumbled Brax. He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned, a pretty brunette smiling at him.

“Hi, Brax, wanna dance, baby?” she asked.

“Not now, Leanne.”

“Why not? You’re lookin’ miserable. A nice dance on the floor could make you real happy.”

“I said not now,” he growled.

She scoffed in his direction and walked away, sitting at a table with four other women. When the music was done, Marilisa and Stephanie sat with a few others from Belle Fleur. Although it didn’t make them happy, Saint and Brax were at least relieved that they weren’t there alone.

“I’m ready to leave,” said Saint.

“Yeah, me too.” As they wound their way through the throngs of people, the manager came running toward them.

“I’m glad I caught you,” he said. “I need your help. Someone is real sick inside, vomiting blood!”

“How much have they had to drink, Robey?” asked Saint, following him inside. Brax turned to the team at the table and waved them over.

“That’s just it. The bartender said he asked for water, then a ginger ale. Said his stomach was botherin’ him. I ain’t never seen him drink more than a few beers.”

When they got to the man, he was on all fours, howling in pain as he vomited up blood and water.

“Call 911, Robey. He needs outta here fast,” said Saint. “Hey, mister. I’m gonna try to help you. Can you tell me what’s hurting?”

“M-my stomach, my whole body,” he said, coughing and shaking.

“He’s yellow,” said Marilisa quietly to Saint. He looked up at her and nodded.

“He is. Are you on any medications for iron deficiency, jaundice, anything like that?” he asked the man.

“I’m not on nothin’,” he said. “I don’t take drugs. I drink a bit now and then, but not to excess.”

Brax, Saint, and the others tried to make him comfortable until the ambulance arrived. The problem was that getting to The Well from the roads was rough but taking him through the bayous would take too long.

As they loaded him onto the ambulance, the EMT looked at Saint and shook his head.

“This is the third one this week. Something weird is going on. Their livers are destroyed, stomach lining is completely gone. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Let us know if you hear anything,” said Saint. As the ambulance left, the bar began closing down, and Saint and Brax realized that the others had left with Stephanie and Marilisa.

“I think we need to tell the leadership team about this,” said Brax. Saint was off in space, thinking about letting Marilisa go. “Saint?”

“Yeah. Yeah. The leadership team. Let’s go.”

“Okay, we’re slammed at the bike shop right now. There’s a huge show coming up in a few months, and the guys need to focus on the bikes. Let’s make sure we cover for them where we can. We’ve also heard some whisperings of a group of bikers that want our bikes exclusively. Problem is, we’re not sure we want their business,” said Ghost.

“Lovely,” frowned Miller. “Let us know how we can help with that when the time comes.”

“You know we will,” nodded Ghost.

“We’ve got some security details working with Pork, Kegger, and Vince. Eight new security systems were installed in the last five weeks, which is keeping everyone busy,” said Nine. “But we’ve got something else we think we need to take on.”

“This sounds like something we won’t want to take on,” said Wilson.

“Hear me out first. There have been about a dozen cases of people coming into the emergency room with bleeding from the rectum, vomiting blood, iron deficiencies, all sorts of things. One of those has died, and his spouse asked us for help.”

“I thought we weren’t going to take these kind of cases, murders, that sort of thing,” said Angel, staring at the other seniors.

“We thought so, too,” said Nine. “But this one is personal. Most of you know Maggie, who works at the General Store. She and her husband are good people and have worked for us for years now. Maggie is always there when we need her, and Duckie does odd jobs around the store and our other businesses. They’re both in their seventies, or they were.”

“What do you mean?” asked Miller. “I saw them a few days ago.”

“Maggie said Duckie started to feel sick two days ago. She said he’d had a few drinks the night before, but nothing excessive. He woke up in the middle of the night with excruciating abdominal pain. She wanted to bring him to the clinic here, but he refused.”

“Why?” asked Wilson. “I’ve known Duckie for years. I would have handled him.”

“He didn’t want us to know he’d been drinking,” said Nine. “And we’re pretty damn sure he was drinking something he shouldn’t have been.”

“Why do you think that?” asked Rafe.

“He died from a formaldehyde overdose that started as methanol,” said Nine, staring at the room of men.

“Shit. He drank from a still,” said Baptiste.

“Yep. And we already know it was an illegal one because there are no legal stills in the state of Louisiana. We’re doing this for Maggie,” said Gaspar. “Everyone cool with that?” The entire room echoed the response at the same time with the same sentiment.

“Cool.”

“Hey, can we come in?” asked Brax. They waved Brax and Saint into the room, and the two men stood at the front of the conference room.

“What can we do for you two, other than give love advice,” smirked Gaspar.

“Now is not the time,” frowned Saint. “I don’t know if you heard from anyone else, but a few of us were at The Well last night, and a customer started vomiting blood. He was jaundiced, or at least yellow to me. He was having horrible abdominal pains and was bleeding from his rectum as well.”

“We asked the EMT to let us know the outcome, and he called a while ago to say the guy died,” said Brax.

“Let me guess, formaldehyde poisoning,” said Miller.

“How did you know that?” frowned Brax.

“Lucky guess. That’s two,” he said, looking at the others. “Two that we know of.”

“Two?” frowned Saint.

“Duckie died from the same thing,” said Ghost.

“Damn,” muttered Saint. “The EMT said there had been several brought in the last few weeks. Are you guys gonna take this on?”

“Definitely. For Duckie.”