After the Fall (The Fallen Men 4)

Zeus snorted. “Don’t you worry about that. Priest left their lookouts a nasty little reminder right across their damned foreheads.”

Priest’s grin sliced across his face, teeth shinin’ in the light cast by the blade he twirled in his tattooed fingers. “Carved it right into their skin.”

“Buck, you’ll take Wiseguy, Heckler, and Boner to organize the new product in the Grouse warehouse tomorrow. Brace for retaliation, boys, but I’m thinkin’ the Berserker bastards have a lot on their hands right fuckin’ now, and we won’t see shit all from ’em.”

“And the fuckin’ pigs sniffin’ ’round the grow-op?” Heckler mumbled around the cigarette clamped between his teeth.

My smile was just as sharp as the knife Priest played between his hands. “Got the Porter boys up there now pourin’ concrete over the hatch in the shed. The workers can make their way outta the underground on the other side of the mountain through an old minin’ cave.”

“It’ll have time to set?” Bat asked.

Jerked my chin up. “It’s a Friday, and they got the tip this mornin’. Danner’ll still have to wrangle a warrant and dot all his fuckin’ I’s before he can get up there. It’ll dry by Monday.”

“Criminal prodigy over here,” Boner crowed, wigglin’ his fingers over me like a magician workin’ magic.

“If ya’d put it to the club, anyone could’a come up with that idea,” Buck reasoned, and I tried not to take it personally because he was an old guy mired in old ways, but I knew he still thought of me like a grandson.

“Or a better one,” Wiseguy muttered, livin’ up to his name in ways I did not fuckin’ like.

“’S a good idea and it’s rollin’ out,” Zeus said, stoppin’ the grumblin’ before it could roll into somethin’ bigger. “Keep in touch with the Porter boys and go up with Axe-Man to see it’s done right ’fore the weekend’s over, yeah?” I nodded. “Now, I got a woman keepin’ my bed warm at home, so let’s wrap it up.”

There was a rumble of agreement as everyone shifted, readyin’ to leave, but I stood before they got the chance and cleared my throat.

“Prez, want a chance to say somethin’ if it’s cool with you,” I addressed Zeus, who didn’t look even a little surprised.

He inclined his head, rings clinkin’ as he linked his hands and sank back in his chair. “Let’s ’ear it.”

“Mean no disrespect by sayin’ it, but I gotta. This was my plan tonight. Plan that landed us over three hundred pounds’a weed and a fuck ton of guns, not to mention providin’ a serious blow to those motherfuckers. Near on half of you wanted to toss it before even considerin’ the idea, and I get it. I bring some radical notions to this club. Might not make you comfortable, but I just proved sure as shit that they can work. Bein’ prospectin’ for well over a year now, and yeah, I know there’s no time limit on provin’ loyalty, but fuck me, brothers. I was born with Fallen blood, raised by a man who’d give his life for the club, and I’ve grown into a man who knows without the shadow of a fuckin’ doubt that my life is here with the club.”

I took a deep breath, fisted my hands, and leaned into them over the table so I could look each of the men in the eye. “Now, I’m thinkin’ it’s time you proved me right and patched me in as a full member.”

Priest grinned manically at me, Axe-Man crossed his arms and sat back in his seat with a small grin in his beard, Boner started slow clappin’ like the lovable idiot he was, and Nova thumped his hand on the table before hootin’, “Damn straight.”

Zeus cleared his throat, and the room went flat as they waited for him to pass judgment on my speech. It was a gutsy move, makin’ a speech like that to men who didn’t like to be told what to do or when by anyone other than their Prez, but it had to be done.

I was chafin’ at the bit, and I needed this shit sorted so I could move on with my life.

With my plans for Cress and me.

Zeus steepled his hands, eyes on his weddin’ band then up at me, the grey opaque as concrete. “You gonna marry your woman?”

Seemed like a non-sequitur, but that was the one reason he hadn’t brought me in sooner, and I respected the question.

I couldn’t keep my girl separate or shielded from my life choices. She was my partner, and she’d been my rough and tumble queen for a lot longer than I’d originally given her credit for.

Jerking my chin up, I pulled the ring box outta my pocket and tossed it over the table to him. “That pass inspection?”

Eyes on me as he scooped it up and flipped it open, then they caught on the bright shine of the massive square-cut emerald framed by two rectangular diamonds. He touched it gently with his thumb, then looked back up at me.