Page 15

Rooster

“It’s gotta be a password, right?”

“Yeah, but to what? We checked the house and his office. There was nothing there.” Bones sounded frustrated as he added, “And I already have access to his laptop, emails, and bank accounts. What else could there be?”

“I don’t know, but there’s gotta be something. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have kept repeating that Sawyer 247 bullshit.”

“Could it be one of his kids or grandkids?”

“Nope,” Bones answered. “Already checked.”

“What about an employee? Or some woman he screwed around with?”

“Maybe.”

I’d been listening to my brothers go back and forth for over an hour, and I couldn’t help but notice how much had changed over the past couple of months. I’d patched in more than ten years ago, and back then, Cotton sat at the front of the table with Guardrail and Stitch at his side. They were a force to be reckoned with.

Now, Maverick sat in Cotton’s place, and Savage and Wrath were his right-hand men. They were just as fierce and determined, but unlike their older, wiser, more mellow predecessors, Savage and Wrath were still young and quick-tempered. Most of the young ones were. I fell somewhere in between and considered myself to be a decent mix of the two.

Except when I was hungry or hung over.

And today, I just happened to be both, and I was teetering on the edge when Smokey asked, “When were we supposed to deliver the next load, or is that still on?”

“Next week, but we got no idea about the who or the where,” Prez answered. “We’ll figure it out, but you know Bruton. He only told us what he felt like we needed to know.”