“None’a us do,” Zeus assured him. “So we got three issues to tackle. One; how the fuck do we shore up our shit so the pigs don’t find a way to end us while we’re expandin’? Two; how the hell do we get the Ventura fuckers to close up shop? And three… how do we get Honey outta that shit stat?”
“I’ve been lookin’ into some things,” I said, even though I knew before I even opened my mouth that I’d be met with protests. “Couple’a things we could do as I see it. Openin’ up a few legit weed stores now that shit’s legal just makes straight-up sense.” The murmurs of dissent started, people muttering about the government cutting into our profits, etc. I held up a hand to quiet them. “I’m sayin’ we open a few. It’s not gonna cut into our profits or your cut of those. We gotta put up some money to start this shit up, but trust me, your average housewife is blazing Mary Jane these days in Canada. We’ll get a shit ton of business, and any association with The Fallen and marijuana can prettily be tied into the new gig.”
“’S a clean idea,” Priest muttered beside me.
“It’s fuckin’ horseshit,” Skell objected loudly, as I knew he would. “I didn’t join a fuckin’ Fortune 500 company where I gotta pay into a fuckin’ 401K. I’m a bona fide member of an outlaw biker club so I can fuck the man, not blow him.”
“Fine distinction, that,” Nova said under his breath with a smirk.
“It makes sense, brother,” Axe-Man, surprisingly, pitched in. He was what I considered the Old Guard, the generation of bikers that grew up in the era of my father. The man wasn’t that old, but he’d been patched in since I was a boy, and he wasn’t the kinda guy to rock the boat.
He tipped his chin at me as if he knew what I was thinkin’, and I returned the gesture in thanks.
“No sense to me,” Skell retorted, his ugly mug screwed up with disgust. “We never done shit like that, and I don’t see no reason to start.”
“Entrance PD has never been so up in our shit before,” Nova countered, his affable smile melting clean off his face. “King’s tryin’ to protect us, you dumbass.”
“Dumbass?” Skell shoved back from the table and loomed over it with a sneer. “You wanna take this outside, and we’ll see just what this ‘dumbass’ can do to rearrange that pretty face’a yours, Casanova?”
“Fuckin’ sit down, Skell,” Zeus barked in a way that defied disobedience.
Skell didn’t even hesitate.
“That’s it, sit like a good little doggie,” Priest praised in his cold as a blade voice.
Skell made to stand again, but Zeus’s voice cut through the tension. “Enough!”
“He’s not even fully patched in,” Skell objected, pointin’ a bony finger at me. “He’s not even old enough to wipe his own ass without help from his teacher.”
It was my turn to shove back from the table. I planted my hands on the surface and leaned across it close enough to breathe the same air as the hotheaded biker. “You speak one more word against my woman, and I shit you not, Skell, brother or not, I’ll beat your face in.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
“Not eighteen anymore,” I reminded him, flexin’ the thick muscles coiled like ropes beneath the skin of my arms and chest. “Haven’t been a kid since Z went to prison, haven’t been a boy since I met the woman who made me understand what it means to be a man. Sorry you don’t have a woman to help you understand that the only type of man to be is one who listens instead’a judgin’.” I glared down at him, noting the sheen of sweat poppin’ out over his brow and the way his body hunched away from mine in instinctive fear. “You wanna fuck with me, brother? I’m down. But you fuck with my woman, I kid you not, it’ll be the last thing you fuckin’ do.”
Thick quiet followed my words, vibratin’ the air like a struck gong. No one stepped in to pull me away from Skell because no one liked the way the fucker talked about Old Ladies. His was, regrettably, a grade A bitch, but that didn’t mean the rest of us stomached it when he spewed that crap about our women.
Especially me.
And Zeus.
“And when my boy’s done beatin’ your face in, Skell,” he said, an echo of my thoughts as he stared down at his scarred hand and clenched it into a ham-sized fist. “I’ll be there to beat the leftovers.”
Skell’s beady gaze shot back and forth between Z and me for a tense moment before he scowled and leaned back in his chair to cross his arms like a petulant child.