Page 33

CHAPTER 33

Toxic

N odding at Priest, I walked into church and sat down. It was the next morning, and Priest and Taz hadn’t taken off for their honeymoon yet. They were supposed to be leaving later today for Hawaii. They were taking their girls with them, so it was more of a family vacation than anything.

Most of my brothers were here already, but Butcher had run upstairs to talk to Isla, and Lock wasn’t sitting in his usual place at the head of the table. I frowned, then looked over at Idaho. “Everything alright?”

Idaho shrugged. “Not like he tells me shit most days.”

My frown deepened. Lock seemed to be taking on more and more himself. As if us finding our old ladies and starting families was making him think he had to do it all. Either that or he was just trying to distract himself from thinking about Keely. I’d managed to convince my stubborn woman to accept me, but I wasn’t sure how to convince Lock that he deserved to have his own woman, just like the rest of us.

Butcher dropped in his seat next to me with a grunt. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t know.”

Butcher cocked his head, staring at the empty seat where our president usually sat. “He’s almost always here before us.”

My brows shot up and I looked over at him with an amused look. “I’m surprised you realized that.”

He scowled at me. “I’m not a fucking idiot. I notice shit.”

That made me chuckle. He wasn’t wrong. The man had excellent situational awareness. It was a bitch to try to sneak up on him. It was more that he was recognizing that there was something off about Lock not already sitting there waiting for us.

“Hey,” Lock said, coming in, shutting the door behind him. We all sat and waited as he dropped into his seat. The strain on his face made it look like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Our world anyway.

Butcher and I exchanged glances, then I leaned forward and caught Hush’s gaze. I jerked my eyes up toward Lock. Hush nodded with a grim expression on his face. We were all in agreement. We were going to have to do something about this. It wasn’t fair for Lock to be running himself into the ground while we were all happy and content. Even if he was doing it to himself.

He never once hesitated to interfere in our personal lives when we needed a kick in the ass. He was our leader, but he was also our brother. And we loved him enough to beat it into his thick head that something had to change. First though, we needed to know why he called church.

All had been quiet on the Brently front, and he was keeping enough of a low profile that Rip wasn’t able to find him, not for long anyway. Every time he tracked Brently down, the man had moved on. Turned out he wasn’t a fucking idiot. Shame. I wanted to kill him and he was putting that on hold, which was just pissing me off more.

He was lucky that Billie was keeping me distracted right now and all the sex was calming me down. Hard to continue being a fucking raging beast when your balls were empty. Although Butcher still managed it.

“I spoke with Ruck up in Phoenix.”

Focusing back on Lockout, I crossed my arms over my chest as I listened. The Saint’s Outlaws MC in Phoenix had given us a hand more than once now, and they were starting to become good friends of ours. It was a damn good idea for us to have allies like Phoenix and Wyoming because we didn’t plan to stop protecting our city, even though we now had families. The bigger our group got, the more help we’d need to protect them while we handled our business.

“Turns out Kilo’s found himself an old lady-” Lock said.

“Looks like it’s going around,” Rip said with a grin.

“Yeah,” Lock replied, giving him a look because the grin Rip had pointed Lock’s way was knowing.

“Must be in the water,” Hellfire added. “Better watch out Lock. You’re the only one left.”

Idaho let out a snort because he knew as well as we did that his twin was only fooling himself. He’d already found her.

Lock pinned Hell with a dark look and the big fucker shut up real quick. No one wanted to get on Lock’s bad side these days. “She’s in some trouble. Has some bad people looking for her.”

Shifting in my seat, I sat up straighter. “Brently?” The odds of that slimy bastard going after more than just Billie’s ranch were pretty high.

“No. Some businessman with cartel connections,” Lock said with a shake of his head. “They’re asking us to come up and provide security for her and her family while they take this fucker out.”

“When?” Hush asked.

“Couple days.”

“Fuck yeah,” Smoke said, looking around.

“They’ve helped us with the same,” Static added. “No reason not to return the favor.”

“I already told him as much,” Lock said with a nod. “Figured you’d all agree.”

“We do,” Ricochet said. “No one touches our families.”

And that was what they were becoming, our brothers. Didn’t matter that they were in a different MC. We were friends. Family. And that was what we did for each other.

“How many are going?” Priest asked, getting down to the logistics of it.

“As many as we can spare,” Lock said. His gaze met mine. “You have enough going on, you should probably stay here.”

“Everything’s been quiet,” I pointed out. “We could go take care of the Saint’s Outlaw’s problem, then come back and handle this. Assuming nothing’s changed?” I asked, looking at Riptide for confirmation.

He shook his head. “This fucker’s a slippery piece of shit. Every time I get close he darts away again.”

“Which means he knows we’re onto him,” Idaho said.

“I hate the assholes who won’t hold still and take what they deserve,” Butcher muttered, cracking his knuckles.

Hellfire chuckled. “That’s because he knows you two crazy bastards will kill him.”

“Pops and Warrant are still here,” I said. “I can have them watch over Billie and the ranch.” They were out at the ranch right now, watching over it.

“We’re going to be splitting up our manpower pretty heavily,” Lock told me, leaning back in his chair. “We could use your help, but I don’t want to put your old lady in danger either.”

That was the last thing I wanted. Glancing over at Rip, I asked, “Where was the last place you tracked Brently?”

“Florida.”

Lock was tapping his finger on the table. “You don’t know where he is now?”

“Not yet,” Rip answered. “I’ll let you know as soon as I do.”

“I’ll rearrange my trip,” Priest offered. “It’ll give you more manpower and Toxic can stay here.”

“Not happening,” Lock replied, glaring at him. “Your wife deserves this trip. Besides, that’s four less people we need to watch over here. Bear, Mel, Dash, Static, and Idaho will stay here to watch over the clubhouse. Ricochet, Warrant, and Daryl will be out at Cholla Summit, and everyone else will head up to Phoenix.”

Lock turned his focus back on me as everyone began nodding. “I’ll talk to Cypher about keeping Warrant for a while.”

“Warrant said shit’s been quiet and boring,” I told him with a shrug. “Cypher will probably be glad to be rid of him. Hell, he might try to toss a few more of his guys our way just so he doesn’t have to deal with them.”

Everyone laughed at that. Lock nodded. “Cypher’s got enough keeping him busy, he doesn’t need all his officers and members spread thin, too.”

“Everythin’ alright?” Hush asked.

“Yeah, just busy on the business side of shit, I guess. Running a security firm like he does is bound to keep him jumping.” Lock sighed and raked a hand back and forth through his hair. “Rip, keep as close an eye on Brently as you can over the next few days. As soon as we get the call from Ruck, we’ll decide if it’s too risky to have Toxic head over to Phoenix with us. He and Butcher can stay back if Brently’s anywhere near Arizona.”

“That leaves you short-handed when potentially dealing with some cartel fuckers,” I pointed out with a growl. “There would only be four of you.”

“Hell counts as three,” Smoke countered.

“Doesn’t fucking matter,” Butcher barked. “We’re going.”

“We’ll see how it looks,” Lock said. “We’re not leaving any of the old ladies short-handed.”

“Don’t forget Isla,” Butcher told Lock. “I’ll never hear the fucking end of it if she doesn’t get to help.”

“I’ll leave that up to you, Butcher. You want her with us in Phoenix? Or here helping to protect the families?”

“Phoenix,” Butcher replied. “As long as there’s enough help here, I’d rather have her where I can keep an eye on her.”

No one blamed him for that. The woman was an assassin, and a damn fine one at that, but she was still Butcher’s woman. Having her by his side during the fight was preferable to her fighting somewhere where he couldn’t help if she got into trouble.

“Sounds good. This is all supposed to go down Saturday. Make sure you’re ready. Priest, show Hell and Smoke which weapons are ready to go and which need to be cleaned and prepped,” Lock ordered.

Priest scowled over at Hellfire and Smokehouse. “I don’t want them going through my armory. I have it organized exactly how I want it.”

Smoke rolled his eyes. “We’re not going to fuck up your organization.”

Priest glared at him. “Yeah fucking right. I’ve seen the way you just toss shit to the side when you come back from the field.”

“Because I know you’re going to put it where you want it anyway,” Smoke argued. “What’s the point of doing anything else?”

Priest glanced over at Lock. “Anyone else, Prez.” It was a request not a demand.

Lock shook his head. “I’ve got shit for everyone else to do, Priest. I’ll fucking make them clean it up to your specifications once you’re home from Hawaii.”

A slow grin spread over Priest’s face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck,” Hell muttered. “He’s going to make us scrub the fucking floors with toothbrushes, Lock.”

“Then don’t mess up his fucking armory,” Lock suggested with a raise of his eyebrow. “He keeps our weapons in pristine condition. I don’t want to be going after some asshole with rust building up in my fucking rifle. Do you?”

“No,” they both muttered.

“He does that by being an OCD motherfucker about the armory,” Lock said with a shrug.

“Hey,” Priest said, sounding offended, but he knew he was a complete asshole about the weapons and where they were stored. “Fine, but he doesn’t go in there. At all,” he pointed at me.

“What?” I asked, sounding innocent. “Weren’t you just saying anyone but Smoke?”

“Not you,” he said, backtracking.

“Who would you want?” I shot back.

He looked around the table, his scowl deepening. “I’m not going.”

“Toxic, knock it the fuck off,” Lock ordered, pointing at me. Then he pointed at Priest, rising up out of his chair and leaning over the table. “You’re going. You got all of your girls, including Jenny, all worked up over this fucking vacation. If you cancel it, I’m going to have to hear all about it and that’s the last fucking thing I want.”

“What’s the first thing you want?” I asked with a shit-eating grin. “I’m guessing it’s a blonde-”

“Toxic,” he snarled, his eyes cutting back to me.

I took the warning for what it was and let my words trail off. He was inching toward that line. It didn’t take much these days to get him to lose his shit. His patience was wearing thinner and thinner by the minute.

“If I have time I’ll make sure they leave everythin’ like they found it,” Hush told Priest.

“Thanks, Man,” Priest said.

Lock sat back down as I looked around the table. Now most everyone looked irritated. Lock because he needed to get his dick wet. Smoke and Hell because there was no way they were going to be careful enough with the weapons and would catch hell from Priest. Hush, because he had to babysit those two assholes. I grinned.

“Wouldn’t think you’d be so happy to be leaving your girl behind,” Idaho said, raising a brow. He was a fucking carbon copy of Lock and I’d already gotten that same look from our president earlier and it was tripping me out.

“Warrant and Ricochet will take care of her,” I said. “And my pops.”

Ricochet nodded in agreement with my statement.

“What the fuck are you smiling at?” Smoke snapped.

“He’s finally getting pussy again. Restored his good mood,” Butcher told the room.

Everyone stared at him, then burst into laughter. They weren’t used to him being the funny one.

“I’ve had enough of you assholes,” Lock said with a shake of his head. “Church is over.”

I fell into step with Hush as we all left the meeting room. “What the fuck are we going to do about him?”

Hush looked over his shoulder to where Lock was sitting, flicking his butterfly knife open, then closed, then starting the process again. “He’s stressed.”

“No shit. He’s going to fucking snap if we don’t do something.”

“Yeah,” Hush sighed. “Let’s help out the Phoenix guys, get your shit settled, then we’ll deal with him.”

I looked over at our president again. “You think he’ll last that long?”

“Does he have a choice? Do we?”

“Yeah, he could go get his woman,” I muttered.

He chuckled. “He’s too fuckin’ stubborn. Gonna take us interferin’ to get him to do that.”

“Bet you’re looking forward to that,” I said with a grin.

His smile was all teeth. “Fuck yeah, I am. Still owe him for gettin’ in the middle of shit with me and Seek.”

“Got you your old lady, though, didn’t it?” I pointed out.

He grunted. “I coulda done that on my own.”

“Sure,” I said, with wide innocent eyes as he scowled at me.

“Fuck off, Toxic.”

“Why does everyone always say that?” I asked Butcher as Hush stalked off.

Butcher just shrugged. “We heading back out to the ranch?”

“Yup,” I said with a grin. It was time to go see my lightning again. Didn’t matter that I woke up next to her. I was ready to head back. Warrant and Dad were out there now. I’d talk to them about sticking around for a while to help out.

That worked for me. I was hoping with Billie in my life maybe Pops would stick around down here permanently.