“I’m fine, Bear. I’ve never been better.” He paced the length of the barn, coming back to stare at the piece of shit.
The drive-by was supposed to have led him to Stones’s crew so they’d fight each other, only it hadn’t worked out like that. They’d left the garage and intended to flee when they realized their plan wasn’t working.
Five of the ten men were already dead.
The other four were strung up in the barn, most of them knocked out. Red had already taken a piss on all four men while some of Hawk’s other men had used them for punching bags.
“This is personal to him,” Red said. “Jasmine got shot, and if she’d been holding Bethany any other way, he could have taken out the girl.”
Grabbing an old wooden rake, he drew it up and slammed it against the man’s skull.
No one, fucking no one, hurt his woman and kid.
Simple as that.
By the end of the beating, no one would ever be able to recognize the Prez.
The two Prospects that had been tailing them finished dousing the barn in gasoline. Flicking his lighter on and off, he stared at the barn. All the bodies were inside. The five dead ones and the five alive ones. The four men strung up couldn’t break free, and the Prez was still alive.
This was payback because no one took from him, not like this.
Throwing his lighter onto the gasoline, he stood back and watched as the barn started to go up in flames.
He knew he’d have his revenge on the men who tried to kill him.
If it had just been him, he’d have shown them some mercy and killed them quickly.
They didn’t just put his life at risk though, so there was no mercy and it wouldn’t be fast either.
He didn’t climb on his bike and ride away. He stood there waiting, listening as the men who were still alive screamed for help.
This was why he was Prez.
He made the decisions none of the boys were willing to make.
Finally, after the screams died down and the barn was raging, he straddled his bike and headed back to the clubhouse.
He was covered in blood, and he hoped that he got to sneak in and take a quick shower before Jasmine caught sight of him. She wouldn’t exactly be thrilled to see him covered in another man’s blood.
Arriving back at the clubhouse, the night was still quite young, and he saw several of the whores dancing naked in the back yard.
A couple of old ladies were not impressed and were glaring at them.
He wasn’t interested in dealing with bitch drama. Looking at Red and Bear, he nodded to the action.
“Clean that shit up.”
This was another thing that he loved about being Prez. He didn’t have to deal with shit jobs like that.
Heading inside, no one rushed toward him, or even stopped him as he went straight toward the bedrooms. Taking them two at a time, he hoped to avoid Jasmine, only she was wrapped in a towel as he entered the room.
Shit.
“Hawk?” Her eyes widened when she took him in. “What the hell happened to you?”
“You don’t have to worry about this. It’s not my blood.” He closed the door and was about to brush past her, but she stopped him with her hands on his jacket.
“Not your blood? What happened? Whose blood is it? What is going on?”
“This is one of those moments when you don’t get to ask me questions, babe. I can’t give you an answer. Let me go and clean up.”
She nibbled her lip, and he watched as she nodded.
This was going to cause a shitstorm.
He didn’t look at his reflection as he knew it was bad.
The state he left the Prez in, it had to be bad. Removing his leather cut, he dropped it to the floor. Next, he tossed his clothes onto the floor. He’d set fire to them and clean his jacket in a moment.
Climbing into the shower, he turned the water on.
The cold hit his flesh. He didn’t try to warm it. He took the cold until it finally warmed up. Closing his eyes, he saw the pummeled face and body of the man he’d left close to death but allowed the fire to finish off.
He’d wanted that son of a bitch to suffer, and he had.
The water running down into the drain finally stopped being red and turned clear. Soaping up his body, he saw his knuckles were decorated in cuts that would heal in time.
Turning off the shower, he opened the curtain and there on the toilet sat Jasmine, his leather cut on her lap.
“You killed a man today?”
“I killed several men today.”
“Retaliation?”
“Do you really want to know this, or is this just going to make it easier for you to come up with a lame-ass excuse to not fuck me anymore?” After going on a run or doing something like this, he was used to being left alone. This was all new to him, having to deal with the fallout. Having a woman who looked so sad as she held his leather cut.