“It happened so fucking quick. One minute he was fine and the next minute he was murdering all the club whores. When he was done, he walked around muttering and then locked himself in his office. When he came back out, he acted like nothing had happened. He told the prospects to clean up the mess and he played a game of pool. It was real fucking bazaar,” Munch said.

“He killed my old lady,” Stone wailed.

I pulled on my beard and glanced over to Stone. “Chop’s been trying to go after my old lady since before she was even mine,” I admitted. “I can’t tell you I know how you feel brother, but I can tell you how it feels to be afraid of that happening every fucking second of the day.” Remembering the bloodied mess Gus had dropped off at King’s doorstep that was Ti made me grit my teeth until I thought they’d crack.

“First of all, I’m shocked as shit that you, of all fucking people, have an old lady, but we’ll talk about that shit when we have less pressing matters beating on our fucking doorstep,” Wolf said, with a small smile that reminded me of how close we used to be. The familiarity of us sitting at a table, no matter how shitty the subject was we were discussing, was a welcome feeling.

“There are nine of us. Nine who burnt off our tats the night after the BBB thing. The three of us, Gus, Chump, and a few of the others. When Chop gave the orders to come here and take you out, it was the perfect opportunity,” Munch said, looking around to make sure no one was listening. There was only one guard and he was by the gate on the other side of the yard where they had come in. Well out of earshot.

“Opportunity for what?” I asked, still unsure of why they would follow Chop’s orders to come to County if they were no longer Bastards.

“Chop wants to go to war with you,” Munch stated. He held out his open hands and stretched his arms out to his sides. “You’re gonna need an army.”

Stone looked up from his arm for the first time. “We’re your army.”

“I appreciate that, but if that war ever happens it might be in here because I got something in the works to get me out, but if it doesn’t come through I’m looking at hard fucking time,” I said, wiping the beading sweat off my forehead.

“You in here because of the girl, aren’t you?” Munch asked. “’Cause killing two civilians ain’t really your style.”

“Yeah.” I inhaled deeply, needing the nicotine more than ever. “Better me than her. Would fucking do it again in a heartbeat. I signed a confession, so it don’t look like I’m going nowhere anytime soon.”

“You leave that to us, brother,” Munch said with a slick smile. The kid could always figure his way around shit, so I wouldn’t put it past him to really be able to get me out somehow. “We already have something in the works.”

“What Munch means is that a chick he used to bang got herself a job sorting evidence for the county,” Wolf said.

“That right?”

“Yep, and it seems that the guns used in the murders have just up and disappeared,” Munch said, making a poof with his hands. It’s not like those guns had my prints on them, but it was still enough to cause a big ripple in the prosecution’s case.

“They still have my signed confession.”

Wolf laughed. “They don’t anymore. Funny thing about that too. The prosecutor assigned to the case seems to have lost all traces of it. And the judge—being old and senile and not to mention deeply in debt to us for running his daughter’s fiancé out of town—swears he never even saw it.” He winked.

Wolf shook his head and smiled. “We also think that hot shot, shady as fuck lawyer of yours had the coroner’s report altered to say a whole bunch of conflicting things about the murder. She filed for a case dismissal, so now we just wait.”

Munch cracked his knuckles and slid an unlit cigarette behind his right ear. “That bitch is shady as fuck, and I’d like to show her how much I appreciate the way she looks in those tight skirts by way of fucking her cougar ass sideways. She prosecuted a couple of cases where I wound up on the wrong side of the courtroom, and I swear I didn’t care how much time I got as long as she kept bending that fine ass over her table to sort through her papers.”

The three of us laughed and even Stone smiled briefly. It all felt normal.

Well, as normal as I’d ever known.

Somehow I had a feeling that it wouldn’t be the last time Bethany Fletcher and I would be working together.

The prospect of getting out and seeing Ti made my heart beat stronger, faster, and more powerful.

And then suddenly it hit me.

“I think I know how to get to my old man,” I said, taking a long slow drag from my smoke, my thoughts firmly on my surprise visitor from that very morning.

“How?” Munch asked, leaning in close.

“Not how. WHO,” I said.

“Okay who?” Wolf asked, also leaning in.

“You said Chop was asking the BBBs where SHE was.” I stubbed out my smoke and pulled on my beard. “I think I know who SHE is.”

In the yard of the county jail on a day where the sun relentlessly beat down on us like it was trying to punish the occupants of the earth, a broken piece of me was put back together.

“So what do you say, brother? You want some new soldiers, so we can all wear a cut again? So we can all believe in shit again?” Munch asked, stubbing out his smoke. “We can be our own club, do shit right this time.”

I cracked my knuckles. “I ain’t putting a fucking cut on again. That part of me is fucking dead. I won’t be your leader. I won’t be your Prez, but I’ll be a soldier with you. We’ll go to fucking war together, and we’ll bring that motherfucker down.”

We may not have been an official MC.

But we were officially at war.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Thia

“I THOUGHT YOU were taking me to the grove,” I said as King pulled up at a motel off the highway, halfway between Jessep and Logan’s Beach.

“I am, but Bear didn’t want you to be alone out there. He called someone to watch over you. We’re meeting here.”

“Who?” I asked, but King was already out of the truck and opening one of the motel room doors.

We waited for what seemed like hours, but in reality was probably only minutes when a knock came at the door. King placed his index finger over his lips. He slowly moved toward the curtains, peeling back the thick fabric and peering out the streaky window. Satisfied with what he saw, he removed the safety latch and unlocked the door. He opened it only a few inches and stepped aside to let whoever it was in the room.

What I saw standing there was not what I expected.

It was not who I expected.

What I was expecting was another burley biker. Someone who looked mean and was draped in skull and cross-bone tattoos. What I didn’t expect was the blonde petite thing standing before me.

I certainly never expected a girl.

“This place is a dump,” she said bluntly, pushing past King. She looked around the room as King shut the door, latched it, and took another peek out the window.

“Any possibility you were followed?” King asked. She ignored him, flitting about the room like a fly trying to find an open window.

“Do you know how many people a year contract diseases from places like this?” she asked, eyeing the bathroom with a look of pure disgust. “Statistically, given the age of the motel and approximate patronage—based, of course, on available parking spaces and number of maid carts in the hallway—there is essentially not a single spot of this room, or any of the other rooms in this building, that hasn’t at one time or another been defiled by semen or fecal matter.” It’s like she didn’t breathe between sentences.