Devil's Vengeance (Sydney Storm MC 3)

“Heard from Dragon this morning,” King said to Hyde and me later that day when we were out following up a lead on Marx. “Swears he knows nothing about Marx and told me he’d put the feelers out, too.”

Hyde scowled. “I don’t trust that motherfucker.”

King shook his head. “Agreed.”

I didn’t trust the president of Silver Hell either.

We were on our way to a bar where Eric Bones would be meeting us to pass on some information regarding Marx. King stopped and said, “I’ve got a feeling we’re not going to be dealing with Gambarro anytime soon.”

Hyde nodded as if he’d had the same thought. “Yeah, I don’t think so either. These fucking feds are going to be all over us until they get what they’re after.”

“Which means we need to tie up all loose ends,” King said, “Including Ghost.”

I thought about what Ghost had said when I visited him with Nitro. “You need to go see him, King. And I think you’re going to have to find a way to make peace with him. At least enough so that he has no reason to talk.”

King thought about that for a moment. “Fuck,” he muttered. “The last fucking thing I want to do is see that asshole. Let alone offer him any-fucking-thing.”

“What the hell would be enough for him to shut his mouth?” Hyde asked.

King’s gaze met Hyde’s. “I know what it is. But do I want to do

it is the question.”

King’s phone rang then, distracting him from discussing Ghost any further. “Jesus Christ, this fucking woman never stops calling me,” he said as he checked caller ID.

“Jen?” I asked. I’d been checking in with her, and she still hadn’t seen or heard from him since I mentioned it to him on Thursday.

He put the phone to his ear. When he spoke, his voice was deathly calm. “I’m coming home tonight. I hope to fuck that baby is still kicking.” He listened to her and then said, “Stop talking, Jen. Get your shit together and be ready to listen to what I have to say when I get there. And I swear to fucking God, if you push me, it’ll be the end of everything.”

After he ended the call and shoved his phone in his pocket, he glanced at the both of us, eyes wild, and barked, “First, we get this shit done with Bones. Then, we organise a visit with Ghost. After that, I need to sink my dick into some sweet pussy so I’m calm enough to go home and deal with Jen’s shit.”

Hyde and I watched for a moment as he stalked away from us. “Fucking hell,” Hyde murmured, “that bitch has him so fucking wired that even I’m concerned for her safety.”

I hadn’t seen King this crazed in a long time and hoped like hell Jen didn’t fuck with him anymore than she already had. The club needed his attention, and we hadn’t fully had it this week. Surprisingly, Hyde had stepped up when we needed him and had directed our activities during the week while King drank and screwed his way through it. The tension between the two of them had eased somewhat because of this, so at least something good had come from this whole fuck-up.

Hyde and I followed King, and ten minutes later, we were sitting with Bones in the back of a seedy bar listening to him tell us what he’d heard around the traps about Marx.

Bones leaned forward and lowered his voice, “Word is, someone’s out to wipe Storm off the map.” His gaze zeroed in on King, and he lifted his chin at him. “Someone with a grudge against you.”

Hyde grunted. “Well, fuck, that narrows it down.”

He was right; the list that held King’s enemies was long.

“Who’d you hear this off?” King asked.

Bones rested back against his seat and spread his arms along the couch. Shaking his head, he said, “Nah, I’m not giving you that, but I will tell you that it’s come from a few sources, and their info is usually reliable as fuck.”

The scowl on King’s face would usually scare most people into giving him what he wanted, but Bones had been dealing with us for long enough that he wasn’t as affected anymore. That, and the fact King had gone a little soft on him lately. King’s guilt over what happened to Nitro with his uncle mixed with the fact it was Bones who helped save him, led to King going easy on him since then.

“So what the fuck has this got to do with Marx?” King demanded. “Marx is tied up with whoever wants us gone? And they’re trying to get to us through our drug trade? That doesn’t make sense. We deal far and wide with the coke. They’d struggle to take that from us.”

“Plus we have other shit going on that gives us a nice income,” Hyde threw in. “There’s never a shortage of assholes asking for our help and paying us well for it.”

My thoughts were the same as Hyde’s. Storm was often called in to clean up the messes that people made. We were the cleaners you called when you wanted to ensure no one ever found out what you’d done. And so long as you had the cash, we took the job on.

Bones shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just telling you what I’ve heard.” Standing, he said, “I’ve gotta get back to work. I’ll call if I hear anything else.”

King rested his back against the couch and scrubbed his face.