She was off the bike and across the lot, heading toward Johnny in a flash. “You’re an asshole!”
One of the guys caught her, an arm wrapped around her waist. She had enough momentum so she was lifted in the air as her feet kept pedaling. She didn’t care. She was seeing red.
Sauce came over, his jaw hard. “Couldn’t leave your girl behind?”
“She’s Heckler’s niece.”
He turned back. His eyes were now hard. “And you brought her here?”
Yeah. I knew.
I sighed, nodding at her ex-crew member. “So, he knew the old group?”
“Looks like. He approached us, said he had money and a party he could unload everything at four times the normal rate. Some rich kid in Fallen Crest.”
“Is this relationship new?”
“With us, yes. We’ve never worked with him before. I’m assuming his usual supplier was pinched or dried up.”
He was a potential problem. I didn’t like potential problems.
Sauce went back to watching the show.
Johnny was trying to hide in the back of a cage, and Kess kept trying to get free from Rampant, her holder. Her nails were going into his arm, and I barked, “Kess! Hands off my guy.”
Rampant shot me a grin as Kess lifted her hands away, but she went back to screaming at Johnny.
“And why’d you bring her again?”
I was asking myself the same thing. “What’s the plan with him?”
“We were waiting for orders from your uncle. We’re too new. Things are too delicate right now. We don’t want to off someone, have it blow back on another charter, and we knew you were in town.”
He was right. It could get back to me.
I was his age, in his school and the authorities already knew I was here.
Well. Damn.
Sauce read my expression and grunted. “Pretty much.”
“What’d my uncle say?”
“He said to do what you decided.”
I frowned. Why would he do that?
I nodded, taking my phone out. “I gotta make a call.”
That call didn’t help.
“You clean it up how you want. Nothing can come back on us.” That’d been his response, and I didn’t like thinking I needed to be judge, executioner, and cleanup so early into my MC career. I thought I’d have a bit more time, but I was Maxwell Raith’s nephew.
I was named Wraith for a reason too.
Shit.
Shit!
I was eyeing Kess, who had quieted. Rampant wasn’t holding her anymore, but he and another were standing between her and Johnny.
This was my problem.
Johnny was her crew. That meant he’d had her back since they formed, and there was love there. Friendship love. Loyalty love. Family love. Love that was ride or die. But seeing him now, I knew he didn’t feel the same. He was a weasel, and he was on the product. My guess was that he’d been doing it for a while, and so the love that Kess felt for him, not only did he not return it, but he didn’t deserve it.
But he didn’t have anything on us.
I walked over to him. “Who’d you work with before?”
He sneered at me. “Some pig.”
Okay then. That helped with the decision.
I glanced back at Sauce. “Rough him up. Put him in the hospital for an extended stay, and you,” I leaned down and got in his face, “if I get word you’re dealing in Roussou, Fallen Crest, Frisco, or Callyspo, they will end you. Got it? I don’t like you. You’re a piece of shit.”
His face was getting redder and redder. He opened his mouth—I shut it, with a fist.
He toppled out of the truck, and for good measure, he got a boot to the ribs. Then a second.
He lay there, moaning, but my message wasn’t done.
“You don’t seem to know what you are.” I squatted down, my arms resting over my knee. “You’re a future snitch.”
He paled, his eyes then darting to the others.
“And what’s worse, you’re a junkie future snitch. Those types only die, so if you want to stay in town, you clean up. If you don’t, these guys will relocate you, six feet under. Got it?”
His eyes went to Kess.
I growled, shifting to block his view. “And you really want to stay away from her. You go near her, you get me to deal with. You don’t want to deal with me.”
He didn’t like it but he had no choice.
The guys hauled him out, given orders to drop him off in front of a hospital.
Kess went to wait by my bike, and I had another word with Sauce.
Then it was time to go back. I still had a few hours and I needed to make them memorable.
11
Kess
I was angry at Johnny, but I was more hurt.
It wasn’t just him. I was hurt by our entire crew, because we weren’t a crew. We’d just been pretending to be. And I was angry at myself for not figuring that out earlier than now. They all left, and they had gone quickly. I was hugging the back of Chris, and we were going back to his place. I didn’t know when or even if I’d see him again. And yet, all of that aside, I felt like he was more crew than Johnny ever had been.