I snorted again. “She wanted me to move into one of the trailers out by the clubhouse—can you believe that shit?”

“Yeah, do that and you’ll wake up with your throat slit,” he replied sourly. “Remind Talia that she’s your bitch, not the other way around, and she’ll do what she’s goddamned told. That means leaving your landlady out of it—she touches Tinker, she’ll pay. If that ruins things with Marsh, we’ll come in and shut down the Nighthawks early. One call is all it takes, brother. We got your back.”

“Good to know.”

“Don’t relax yet,” Picnic said. “Like I said, one call is all it takes, but a lot’s been going on while you’ve been away. Issues that impact the situation. This Friday the Bellingham and Portland chapters are making a two-week run down to Cali. We got some serious shit goin’ down with the cartel, which means we don’t have a lot of backup locally. If things fall apart on your end, we gotta call the Devil’s Jacks out of Portland.”

Fucking great. The Jacks might be our allies, but that alliance wasn’t the friendliest.

“What about the Silver Bastards?” I asked.

“They’d come, but they’re ass-deep, too. Union stuff down at the mine. It’s not a good time for them.”

“Got it.”

And I did.

Picnic was leaving the decision with me—they’d come if I needed them. But that’d require calling in some damned big favors, costing us our advantage in the relationship with the Jacks. Seeing as less than two years ago we’d been in a shooting war with them, this wasn’t something to do lightly.

“I’ll try to hold things together around here a little longer,” I told him, frustrated but resigned. “Don’t like it, but I’ll do it. Tinker gets hurt for real, though, all bets are off. You got a problem with that, you need to pull me out of here because it’s nonnegotiable.”

Pic didn’t say anything for a minute, then he gave a low chuckle.

“Yeah, have fun with that, brother. On the bright side, I do have some intel on the husband. He’s a piece of shit.”

“Kinda figured that already,” I told him. Picnic laughed again.

“Well he’s a dirty piece of shit,” Pic continued. “As in, you can pay him money and he’ll change how your case is prosecuted. Allegedly. We tried to pay him off a few years back after some trouble with one of the support clubs, but he’s also got political aspirations. By the time we got to him the case was too high profile.”

“You find out anything about his family?”

“They’re well known in Seattle. Supposed to be old money.”

“Why does a guy from a family like that need to take bribes?” I asked, thinking.

“No idea,” Pic replied, and for once he was dead serious. “Maybe they ran out of money. We’ll keep looking. You focus on covering your ass and remember—we are here for you. One call is all it takes.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Take care, brother,” he told me, hanging up. Shoving my phone into my pocket, I climbed back onto my bike, kicking it to life.

Time to put Talia in her place.

• • •

Fifteen minutes later I pulled up to her trailer, backing my bike in next to a car I’d seen parked at Tinker’s building. Belonged to Sadie’s mom.

Great. Now I got to deal with the girl posse, too.

Of course, that might not be a bad thing. Sadie needed to learn a lesson about respecting my fucking privacy. Taking the steps two at a time, I pounded on the door and then shoved it open hard enough to bang back against the wall.

“Everyone but Talia out.”

Four sets of glassy eyes blinked at me. They’d been painting their toes, the nail polish fumes so heavy I couldn’t believe they hadn’t lost consciousness. Fuckin’ ridiculous. Talia offered a cloying smile.

“Looks like someone needs to get laid,” she announced with a giggle. “They can hang out here, baby. My room’s got plenty of privacy.”

Baby. I hated it when she called me that. Not just the word, but the way she said it with a breathless little-girl voice. Made me feel like a damned pedophile.

“I said get the fuck out,” I repeated, pitching my voice low and hard as I dropped my hand to the hilt of my knife. Suddenly, the girls couldn’t stand up fast enough. Thirty seconds later it was just me and Talia. I locked the door behind them, then started walking toward Talia with slow menace.

“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded, hands on her hips. “Who the hell do you think you are, coming in here like this?”

“I’m the man who owns your ass,” I reminded her. “And usually I’m pretty easygoing. I don’t care what games you play, because I like the way you suck my dick. But this morning you fucked up, even though I warned you to stay out of my business. You went in and scared the shit out of my landlady like a jealous, insecure little bitch. Now I gotta worry about losing my place and my job. Did you think for one minute that your snatch is worth losing my apartment?”

Her mouth opened, then closed again, thoughts racing behind her eyes. God, she was transparent—I saw the exact instant she decided to pull her power play.

“You apologize or it’s over,” she said. “I won’t eat shit from you.”

“The only one who ate shit today was Tinker Garrett,” I said, cracking my knuckles slowly and deliberately. Her eyes widened. Yeah, you should be afraid, bitch. “Listen to the words coming out of my mouth, because I won’t be repeating myself. Tinker Garrett is nothing to me—we covered this already. Now promise you’ll let it go or we’re over. Period. Life is too fuckin’ short.”

Angry eyes narrowed, and for a minute I thought she’d kick me to the curb. God, that’d be a relief in its own fucked up way. Then the facade crumpled and I swear, her eyes started getting red.

“Crying changes nothing.”

“I’ll leave her alone,” she said finally. “But only because I believe you aren’t into her. I don’t trust her, though. She chases after men like you wouldn’t believe. You remember the video—”

Oh, I remembered. Vividly.

“Like I care about a goddamned video?” I asked. “You don’t get it, Talia. You’re young, you’re hot, and you suck my cock like a goddess. You wanna make this work, I’m with you. But I am not down with you fuckin’ everything that moves and then crawling up my ass just ’cause I got horny when you weren’t around.”