Not a Role Model (Battle Crows MC 4)

Sheesh.

“Well, since y’all seem to know who his mom is, would you mind selling me some cat food? I need to feed my boyfriend’s cat.” I smiled.

Ten minutes later, I walked out with two large bags of cat food, for free, and headed to my truck.

I then drove home, fed Tide’s cat, then went to work.

My boss was there to greet me.

“You remember that biker that came in here?” he asked curiously.

I felt my insides seize.

There was no way in hell I was forgetting that guy.

“Yes,” I confirmed.

“He was found dead,” he said. “Cops came round here a couple of hours ago. Said they would be back to talk to you when you got in.”

My mouth fell open. “He’s dead? How?”

My boss grimaced. “Well, apparently, he was in a suspicious motorcycle wreck. The cops were at the wreck when I came by this morning. When I pulled over—because you know how I know all the bikers in this town—I got the 411 from the detective on scene. I think his name was Will Schultz. Isn’t that the same dude that married Cannel, Price’s sister?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, that’s him.”

Shit was so fishy with the Crows.

I wasn’t saying that Schultz was in on the Crow family’s obviously underhanded dealings—even if the family always seemed on the up-and-up—but I had a feeling that he knew more than he let on.

On the outside, the Crow family, as well as the Battle Crows MC seeing as there were now non-family members of it, they seemed normal. But there were a lot of little things that happened around this town that made me go hmmm.

Like the fact that months ago, a man that’d hurt Sophia, Haggard’s wife, had mysteriously died of an air embolism even though he was in the hospital at the time.

Or, the way Shine had had a problem with a man that’d intended to hurt Iris, his girl, and just like that, the problem was no more.

Anyway, there were a hundred different situations that popped up over the years that had to do with the Crows—and just FYI, with Tide being my tormentor for all those years, I paid extra close attention—that always seemed to just fade away into nothingness when they were too big of a problem to just go away unannounced. Or without flamboyance.

I always thought it was no damn coincidence that Price owned a disaster company that cleaned up after natural disasters, or man-made disasters like murders. There were plenty of times that Price’s company was called out when there was a murder scene that needed de-murdering.

“Are you listening to anything that I’m saying?” my boss asked.

I felt my face flush. “Sort of.”

He snorted, grabbed a sheet of paper, and then handed it to me.

I blinked. “What’s this?”

“My resignation,” he answered.

I opened my mouth and then closed it. “What? Why? And why are you giving it to me? You’re the owner.”

He grinned. “Actually, as of today at two in the afternoon, your pop is the owner. And he said that I’ll be answering to you. And not that I have a problem answering to a girl or anything, but I’m fuckin’ tired. I need a vacation. Which is why I plan on riding up to Idaho and checking on my kids. Spending a few weeks there.”

I had no clue what to say to that.

I mean, logically, I knew that my father’s plans were to buy this place. He purchased buildings around town and bought failing businesses. As well as prospering ones, apparently, seeing as he’d just bought the welding shop that had more business than we somehow knew what to do with. I just hadn’t realized that my father planned on buying this place so soon.

“But what about that big pipeline job we have to do soon?” I asked, feeling as if my tongue was so thick that I could barely speak.

“Looks like you need to be doing some hiring.” He paused. “I have a list of candidates on the desk that didn’t act like complete pricks. There’s one twenty-two-year-old kid, name’s Hank, I believe. Him, I’d hire ASAP—as soon as fuckin’ possible—because he just got out of welding school in that place that you graduated. Froufrou as fuck Austin. He’s got a résumé a mile long and looks like he has a good head on his shoulders. He has a friend, Bryson, who is also fairly good. But he seems like a fuck off. Probably take a few more years to mature. But I think they’ll get you settled. And I also think Hank will keep Bryson in line for the most part.”

Then, as if he didn’t just drop a bomb on me, he headed into his office to start cleaning it out.

He had it all packed up and in his truck by noon. He bought pizza, we ate it, and he said goodbye indefinitely.