Knight (6 page)

“She might’ve been a sweet-butt from Temple,” Grim said. “Maybe she was on the run. Maybe they were after her because she had that flash drive. Hell, maybe they gave it to her and ordered her to give it to you. They wanted you to have it so they’d get an excuse to bump you off.”

I snorted. “If Temple wanted me dead, they’d kill me. Hell, the only reason I’m sitting here is because they wanted
information
. They weren’t looking to avenge Blade. Whoever killed him caught them by surprise too.”

Vega shifted. His chair creaked under his bulk. “So what are we supposed to do?”

The only thing we could do. “First, we’re gonna get somewhere off our usual grid. Find a new safe house and make sure our women know to be smart. We’re not fucking with them. Temple is ruthless. They’re cartel. They’ll go after families.”

Vega nodded. “I’ll get the message out.”

“Good. We can’t waste a lot of time. We have to find the real murderer.”

Priest didn’t agree. He swore, bursting from the table. I couldn’t tell if it was meth or genuine impatience which made him pace the room. I didn’t trust the son of a bitch when he was sober, and I never let the bastard out of my sight when he was on a trip.

“
Fuck
.
Temple
.” Priest slammed his hand down. “We have their information. We know where their warehouses are. We know where their men live. Why the fuck are we going to
hide
?
They
should be the ones looking for cover.”

Grim laughed. “What? You want to go after them?”

“I’m not a pussy. Ain’t no one fucking me.”

I faced death once today. I wasn’t doing it again anytime soon. “We don’t have the means to go after the club like Temple.”

Priest looked younger the closer he got to freshly spilled blood. “We got all the means we need. That information the gash gave you? That still good?”

Obviously or Grim wouldn’t have found us in time. “For now. But it won’t be for much longer if they realize we got a bead on their operations.”

“All the more reason to attack it now. Burn that fucking warehouse. Send out our guys, and we’ll attack every place of interest in the Valley. Any location that might benefit Temple, we raze to the ground. And if we happen to kill some motherfuckers along the way, we’ll just light ourselves a barbeque and let the Feds sort out the ashes.”

“That’s a perfect way to get us all killed.” I didn’t expect Priest understand. He never thought beyond the range of his knife. “Temple is a
national
club. Not only that, they have ties from the West Coast to the East Coast, Canada to Mexico. We do anything to disturb their distribution line, and their mother chapter will organize every ally they have to fuck us over.”

Priest laughed. “Well if Thorne Radek can frame you for murder, we can frame them. Blame Anathema for the attacks, and we’ll watch them burn.”

“Use your goddamned head. Temple won’t care what emblem is on our cuts. The whole reason we wanted Blade was because he’s the only bastard who could reason with them. Now? They’ll kill anyone who stands in their way, Anathema or Coup.”

“Then we got to think bigger.”

I ground my teeth. “Going up against Temple isn’t retaliation. It’s
suicide
. Even if we got a good hit on them, burning their drug warehouses will lure every goddamned Fed on the West Coast to the Valley. Our ass will get RICO’d in the process.”

“So you won’t fucking do anything?”

Priest still hadn’t returned to his seat. I should have crashed the damn gavel down his throat and demanded his obedience. I hadn’t needed to smack my own men yet, but my day was rough enough. He pushed a little too hard.

“I told you the plan,” I said. “We start an investigation.”

Priest swore, a word he directed at the floor and not me. “No. You want us to
hide
.”

“If that’s what you want to call it, fine. It’ll keep us alive.”

“I want to protect this club,” Priest said. “I want to see The Coup take on these assholes, show them we’re not some fucking ragtag team of meth-head bikers they can fuck over.”

But we were.

We weren’t an army.

We weren’t organized.

We hardly had the money to buy ammunition, and half my guys were still in jail from some bullshit encounter between Priest and Anathema’s treasurer, Gold.

I inherited a nightmare for all my ideals. I imagined the club that thought about their actions. One that secured a stable future. That didn’t depend on a president who valued war over progress.

I thought I left the warlord behind to rule over Anathema. Instead, the bloodiest and most cutthroat of Anathema’s men left with me. These weren’t warriors. They were criminals. And I organized them as best I could, but men had their own ideals to follow.

Most of the time it ended in shallow graves.

“I’ll find the man who murdered Blade Darnell.” My voice silenced Priest. “I’ll bring him to Temple. I’ll offer him up in exchange for letting The Coup return to their good graces. If I give them a murderer, they might give us a job, some money, some way to make
us
benefit
them
. That keeps us alive.”

“This is bullshit.” Priest pointed a finger in my face. I’d break it, but he wouldn’t feel it. Whatever drugs he took loosened his tongue and shielded him from pain. “If I’m sitting fucking still, I might as well be getting laid. Figure your shit out, Knight. It’s time for you to do what’s right by your men.”

Silence.

It wasn’t the first time he openly questioned my judgment.

Whatever cracks fractured Anathema spread into The Coup, only this was more dangerous. These were men emboldened by our decision to leave and desperate to make a name for themselves. Everybody wanted to be president. Everybody wanted to rule the streets.

Nobody wanted to be the one before the gun, counting their regrets and lost friends.

I stood, facing a man who preferred his skin stained with blood over ink. “You will do as I say.”

No justifications. No blinking. I stared at the son of a bitch who dared to question my loyalty to these men. Was my name worth anything to them anymore?

Priest surrendered, his hands up. I expected them to hold a weapon. They didn’t.

Yet.

“Whatever. Do what you gotta do.” Priest swore. “Our time is up anyway. Either Anathema’s gonna slit our throats in our sleep, or Temple will end this war for them. I don’t want to wake up on the wrong side of the gutter.”

“You listen to me and you won’t.”

“And if I die?” Priest sneered at me. “You’re the first bastard I’m coming after in hell.”

If he could find me. From what I heard, I’d be in a special ring, lined with traitors and other damned men. It wouldn’t be good company, so I planned to last as long as I could on earth before taking that seat.

Priest slammed the door on his way out. Vega and Grim followed. They’d keep an eye on him, let me know exactly what he was planning and when he’d pull the trigger. I was sure I’d know that instant. He’d aim the slug for me.

I didn’t have much time. My men turned on me so quick they were practically revolving.

Finding the murderer was just a delay. I’d grab the bastard who killed Blade and offer my services for the future. It’d buy us time, but it wouldn’t solve our problems. Nothing we did would stop Temple. Hunkering down only worked until they set fire to enough holes and smoked us out.

We had to be ready for when they came, for when they made a move on our streets.

I didn’t have a choice. Neither club was strong enough to survive an assault—not unless we were together and unified against a common enemy.

I didn’t know how to do it, or how many men would die in the process, but it had to be done.

If we wanted to survive, I had to reunite The Coup and the Anathema MC.

I’d never admit I was afraid to go home.

Fortunately, Sorceress’s greatest parties—and biggest messes—started after eleven o’clock. I had reason to stay.

And I felt safer in the club than in my pretty little penthouse. I exchanged five thousand square feet of trust-fund luxury for a pulse-pounding, headache-inducing club. But I needed to do payroll and reconcile my books anyway. I couldn’t leave it to my other girls, and I didn’t trust a bookkeeper from Anathema. The devil only knew when I’d be kidnapped next, so it was prudent to be responsible. Too many of the girls depended on me not dying on a desert highway.

A shot of whiskey eased my nerves, though it burned the slice on my lip. In the dim light, no one noticed the piss-poor makeup job. It was easier plastering concealer on the other girls. Easier to judge them for getting battered despite their insistence that it
wasn’t their man’s fault
.

Humility was as bitter as my drink.

“Lyn.” Roxie sat on the bar and flirted with a man buying her a third beer. “Think you can dance tonight?”

My ears rang from the gunfire. I couldn’t smile without my cheek aching. No way.

“I danced on Saturday.”

She twisted a finger in her pixie cut. “I know, but—”

“Come on, Roxie. You know my reputation. I’m not a regular. I’m a
commodity
. Men come specifically to watch me dance.”

Even with a bruise and puffy lip, I winked at the man at the bar. He shifted, adjusting his erection.

At least that boosted some self-esteem after a kidnapping.

“But Lyn, someone’s asking for you—”

Roxie didn’t finish. The front doors crashed open. Thorne Radek stormed inside, a blitz of self-righteous anger and testosterone-fueled vengeance.

His usual blend of heroism.

The music didn’t end. The DJ looked at me for a signal. I hated that we devised the hand gesture to warn of problems—most of them caused by Anathema. I created the signal to alert my employees to danger. It wasn’t reasonable, but it was a good safety precaution between kidnappings and shootouts.

I didn’t give the sign, and my girls on the poles powered through their dances only because they needed the money and took the risk. What troopers.

Fortunately, Thorne surrounded himself with only prospects. There wouldn’t be a war today—at least, none of his invention. That was good. I had more than enough guns pointed at my head. I didn’t need him wagging his cock and starting shit too.

He pointed to my office. I wasn’t in the mood to be bossed around.

“My time isn’t cheap.” I tossed a shot of whiskey that tasted about as good as a bullet to the head. “You better have a roll of hundreds in your pocket.”

Thorne scowled. He unzipped his jacket to reveal the president’s patch over his thick chest. His hand ran through windswept, black hair. Everything about him was dark tonight, including his gunmetal gray eyes and frown.

“You better have some ice for your goddamned lip,” he said.

“Pouty lips are sexy. Some of my girls pay good money to look like this.”

“You ain’t making tips if you look like a goddamned charity case.”

One step too far. “Go to hell.”

“Get in your office.”

“Don’t fuck with me tonight, Thorne.”

I grabbed the whiskey. If he pressed his luck, he’d get a complimentary taste of it poured over his head. That wouldn’t make our arrangement any easier, especially since it was the end of the month. He probably came to collect the five grand I paid him for protection.

Money he was no longer entitled to earn.

Thorne encroached on me. My girls stopped dancing. Not good. If I wasn’t in the spotlight, I didn’t need the attention. “Well, you’re still alive. Means you didn’t mouth off too much to whoever clocked you. You saved that attitude for me.”

“After the day I’ve had, you’ll be lucky if all I do is bitch you out.”

“Unbunch your thong, Lyn. I came to check on you.”

“You’re about twelve hours too late.”

“What the fuck happened?”

“Not now, Thorne.”

He reached for my wrist. Mistake. His eyes narrowed over the bruises. I yanked away.

“Who the fuck did this to you?” He growled.

More eyes on me. Roxie ran after her customer. Scared away.

I gritted my teeth. Thorne squeezed too hard, and I wasn’t about to deal with a second MC president acting over-protective.

“Leave,” I said. “You’re causing a scene.”

“Like fucking hell. What happened to you?”

“Not tonight.”

“No one touches you, Lyn.
No
one.”

A twenty-thousand dollar bounty existed on Thorne’s head, and times like this I was tempted to collect that prize. Since Anathema and The Coup started the war, Sorceress had been ground fucking zero for every major conflict, battle, mediation, and notable death. It hadn’t been by choice. Men like Thorne didn’t think of anything beyond their 1%.  I spent nearly fifty grand after the insanity between Thorne and Exorcist, and that was only for the reconstruction. I also owed legal fees, insurances, bribes.

I paid Anathema to protect me in my own club, but I paid ten times over to clean up their messes.

And now Temple thought I had something to do with Blade’s murder?