Axle's Brand (Death Chasers MC 3)

His gaze lifts and goes to Drex.

“But only for shit like this. She doesn’t get to be a part of us,” he adds.

Drex nods once, his lips firm. We’re still waiting on Jude to explode at any moment, since his eerie calm is creeping us out.

Jude simply leans back in his chair, keeping all his anger inside as his jaw tics and his eyes stay down.

“Then we’ll see if we can reach her and see if she’ll help us out with this,” Drex tells me. “But what do we offer in return? She seems to mostly just ask for favors, but you never know what that favor might be.”

“She won’t risk Jude,” I say hesitantly, watching as he stiffens. “Her favors won’t be anything too extreme.”

Jude cracks his neck to the side, blowing out a steadying breath, like he’s staving off the explosive outburst he wants to release in rebuttal to what I just said. Instead, he stays quiet.

Much to all our surprise.

He stays in the room. Also surprising.

Usually any chat about his ex has him stalking out and finding someone to hurt or drinking himself to blackout oblivion.

“Where do we start?” Dash asks Drex.

Drex smirks, leaning up on the table, eyes trained on me. “We’re already stuck in this fucking war with Phillip. No way does he not eventually come for us if he feels like we’re in the way. And I don’t particularly like any fuckwads just coming in and setting up shop without our consent.”

Rapping my fingers over the table once, I squeeze that fucking condiment bottle a little tighter in my other hand.

“I say we take out that little fucking junkie bitch just to remind us who we are,” Drex states.

“That will definitely put us in Phillip’s sights. Are we ready for that?” Jude asks, still strung tight and tense, but finally being helpful.

“We don’t do it balls-out,” I say with a smirk. “We start subtle.”

Drex and I hold each other’s gaze for a minute, both of us smirking. It’s been a while since this crew felt like we could handle shit. Things have been spiraling out of control. Somehow, in the midst of all the shitty luck, we forgot who the hell we are.

“Then we make a loud fucking statement after that,” Drex says, turning his gaze to Sledge.

Sledge’s grin is dark. “I want that pleasure. If I can’t go through with it, I’ll call one of you. But something tells me it won’t be too hard.”

I’m the first to stand and walk away from the dining room, going to get ready for bloodshed. Eve and Colleen are outside on the porch, and they both turn to look through the window at me as I head outside, moving toward the shed.

Hershel is strung up, his body resting on his knees as his arms are lifted above his head. He barely has the energy to peer over at me.

“If you want water today, you’ll tell me all of Herrin’s allies.”

His cracked lips start to move, but then he narrows his eyes and looks away.

“Fine. Tell me tomorrow,” I say with a shrug.

He whimpers as I exit the shed, and almost walk into Drake.

“No water for him today,” I say as I eye the bottle in his hand.

Shrugging, he twists the cap off and starts drinking the water himself, turning to walk back with me toward the house.

“So Maya is gone gone?” he asks. “Like gone for good?”

My hand fisting again around the ketchup bottle, I nod. “I don’t want to talk about it, Drake.”

“Want to talk about why you almost ripped my head off for a tiny mustard thing I wanted to use on my sandwich?”

“Nope,” I state flatly. “Don’t touch my shit.”

“Don’t put your shit in the kitchen if your shit is condiments.”

I barely take a calming breath, knowing I might break him if I hit him too hard.

“You should probably go get her back before you accidentally kill someone,” he finally says, and I stop walking, standing near the porch the girls have abandoned.

“You don’t know what’s going on, so you should probably keep your opinion out of it,” I bite out.

He cocks an eyebrow and smirks at me. “I know you’re not going to land a girl like that again.”

I narrow my eyes at him.

“What? You’re not. Maya is pretty damn hot—at least a seven out of ten. You’re maybe a five if you wear a bag over your head. Chances like this don’t come around too often.”

I just stare at him blankly as he continues to grin at me.

“You really do like to piss me off, don’t you?” I ask dryly.

“I prefer pissing off Drex, but when you’re brooding it’s fun to jab at you.”

Lifting a hand toward his throat, I take a step forward, then fist my hand, and just level the grinning bastard with a glare.