It shocked the shit outta me that Bat moved first, standin’ up and crossin’ around the back of Buck at the head of the table to stand by me, startin’ a domino effect that included Boner, Curtains, Priest, Cyclops, Lab-Rat, Kodiak, Axe-Man, and finally, Nova, who hopped his ass up on the table and swung over the other side. My side.
It meant I had the majority by two votes, and only then because Skell’d gone and gotten himself locked up.
“Not feelin’ too hot today,” Smoke rasped from the far corner where he sat with his oxygen machine. “But I’d move if I could.”
“Fuck,” Buc grumbled, scrubbin’ a hand over his face. “Hope you’re prepared to carry the full weight’a this responsibility, boy.”
I tipped my chin. “Watch Z do it my whole life and I only intend to fill his fuckin’ mammoth shoes while he’s gone.”
“Now what?” Boner asked, scratchin’ his balls noisily through his jeans. “I mean that was an epic stand-off and I hate to ruin the affect, but we good to roll out like this? Club divided.”
“Family are the ones you love, and the people you’d die for,” Nova said, surprisingly somber. “Fallen’s a family tighter than most. We got this, brothers. King’s at the head of the hydra, but we got a fuck-ton of talkin’ heads to put together to figure somethin’ out.”
“Let’s get to it,” I suggested as everyone re-took their seats and even the Old Guard quit their grumblin’.
* * *
In the days followin’, it became obvious every brother had a tail. The Entrance PD wasn’t huge, but it seemed most’ve them were corrupt because whenever any of the guys left the compound, a cop sittin’ in plain sight in a vehicle emblazoned with “Entrance PD” would tear out after them, another one in its place within the hour.
The brothers could shake a tail and laugh doin’ it, but when Ormand, McDougal, and Peters made it their mission to follow Loulou, H.R., and Cressida, not to mention a handful of the other Old Ladies, we knew somethin’ had to change and immediately.
So, even though Cress and me were supposed to spend the night at Donovan’s steak house celebratin’ a week until we said ‘I do,’ we were at Entrance’s resident strip club, The Wet Lotus.
Wasn’t there to eye fuck the ladies, could barely tear my eyes off my own woman, decked out in biker babe finery. She sat beside me on the black velvet booth, leather pants up to her belly button and slicked to every inch of her curves while the little top, just an overlarge red bandana she’d found in the depths of my sock drawer, practically begged to be tugged off. She has the dark eyes, big hair, red lips that made me want to drag her to the floor and take her right there and then, but we had business to take care of before I could take care of her.
The Lotus was Fallen owned, and we had a history with the place, given Zeus had met and been seduced by Lou there, but I hadn’t been through the lacquered black doors in years, and I was surprised again by what a classy joint it was.
The only black spot on the club was the fact it was frequented often and drunkenly, by a large contingent of the Entrance Police force. Includin’ but not limited to, Staff Sergeant Harold Danner.
He sat in the back booth, dead center like some kinda kingpin wantin’ to be seen and revered. There were two plainclothes cops at the table, their buzz cuts and posture givin’ them away as coppers, and about four barely clothed women.
One’a those bein’ Paula.
It was hard not to think back on all my interactions with the man over the years and wondered how he’d turned out this way. He’d be such a taciturn stickler for the rules in my youth and devoted to his wife, even if he’d been hard on his son.
Where did a greed like his stem from? Was it inherent to his DNA, an extra chromosome, a genetic disease? Didn’t think so, given the way Lion was the exact opposite of that.
Was evil, like Shakespeare hypothesized about greatness, born, breed, or earned?
He’d noticed us, Cress and me at one table ostensibly on a date, Nova, Kodiak, Boner, and Cyclops at another drinkin’ beers loudly and generally makin’ enough of a ruckus that eyes would go to them.
“Got no reservations about takin’ part in this?” I said low to my woman.
Cress smiled around the rim of her bourbon sour and winked. “Are you kidding? Paula and Cressida cat fight take two? I should be selling tickets.”
I laughed, rememberin’ how my woman had once cut off Paula and her bitchiness at the knee for the entire clubhouse to see. If any’a the brothers had doubted my choice to date an older woman, and my teacher at that, they’d said dick all about it after that.