Order (Tattoos and Ties 2)

Fox sat in his normal seat at the head of the table with a stack of papers in front of him, seemingly not paying any attention to Keyes’s entrance. Keyes leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest and waited.

“Thanks for comin’ in early,” Fox said, not lifting his head from the pages he worked with.

Keyes didn’t respond. He was growing too freaked out and tightened the cross of his arms at his chest. He stared at the top of Fox’s head as he diligently kept working and ignoring him. Maybe as much as five minutes passed before Fox placed his pen on the table. The prez still didn’t look at him, but did scoot a wrapped bundle across the table toward him before gathering his paperwork and stuffing it inside a well-used file folder. Keyes knew what the envelope held and reached for it, stuffing it in the front pocket of his cut.

“I wanna talk to you privately about your old man,” Fox said, and for the first time, his weary gaze lifted, looking Keyes straight in the eyes. Okay, that wasn’t the worst thing Fox could have said but still terrible in its own right. “I know shit’s real fucked up with you two, and I know it’s the reason you’re stayin’ away. I also know I haven’t handled this shit right with you and him and the club, but it’s just so fucked up. Your old man never fuckin’ quits. And there’s no fuckin’ common ground between you two, and that’s completely Smoke’s fault.”

Huge understatement, but Keyes kept that to himself for now. Fox reclined in his chair, scrubbing his hands over his face. He looked tired, haggard, and old. That was a mind-blower. Keyes had never thought of Fox as old until right this minute.

“We’ve got some shit goin’ down. Real fuckin’ problems. The Serpent club’s growin’, doubling in size, while we’re fuckin’ stagnant because of that bitch DA. Our prospect pool is shit, and your goddamn father’s recruitin’ is a fuckin’ joke. He’s bringin’ in trash.”

Keyes didn’t need to respond to those statements either. He agreed completely. The Serpent motorcycle club was their oldest rival. The beef between the two clubs was legendary. Of course, it wouldn’t sit well with any of his brothers that those sorry sons of bitches were building so quickly. Keyes also agreed that, since they’d named his father head of recruiting—an honorary title to give him something to do after his motorcycle accident—his old man had brought in nothing but shitty trash as potential prospects. A bunch of sorry thugs whose vision was to take the club back thirty years to their outlaw roots. Keyes would never vote any of those guys in as prospects much less for their full member patch.

“Here’s my problem right now,” Fox said, shifting his chair to a sitting position, leaning forward to where he rested his elbows on his knees. “Mack and I decided to keep shit from you. I don’t know if it was the right thing to do or not, but I heard about yesterday. Your old man threatened you, and I don’t fuckin’ like it at all. And I don’t like the revenge you’ll be forced to take if he tries to follow through.”

Fox went silent as he cocked his head, staring at Keyes with disgust written all over his weathered face. Keyes said nothing because Fox was correct—there had been a clear threat when his old man made of show of pretending to shoot him in the side mirror. Keyes’s chest swelled again with the indignation of it all. His old man would get one fucking shot before Keyes would wipe the floor with him, most likely spending the rest of his life in prison for killing his father.

“Your old man’s dyin’.”

Good. Of course, he was dying a slow miserable death. A person couldn’t ram their motorcycle into a moving pickup truck in a fit of road rage anger and walk away unscathed. The bigger problem seemed that his old man hadn’t died fast enough from his stupidity.

Fox’s weary gaze stayed glued on him, and Keyes had no idea what he wanted from him.

“You don’t care,” Fox finally said with a certain single nod before he sat up, placing his elbows on the table, threading his fingers together. “Here’s our official take—we don’t consider this your problem anymore. I appreciate what you did for him after the accident, we all do, and he was a thankless bastard to you. He’s got stage four lung cancer and won’t make the year. He’s in denial, actin’ tough and badass. You don’t need to worry. He can’t act on his threats. We’re tellin’ the brothers tonight, but I wanted you to know first.”

Keyes’s body went numb. He clamped his mouth together to keep from asking for any details. He didn’t give a shit about that old man. How could he? His father was the fucking devil and needed to get his ass back to hell where he belonged.