I scrunch my brows at him. What the fuck is going on here?
“If we were here to fuck you over, you’d be dead already.” He nods to the ginger-haired man with the gun still pointed at me. “Take their weapons.”
As soon as Ginger comes within reach, I grab his gun, twisting it out of his fist. By the time he realizes what’s happened, I have it pointed at Gunner’s mug.
“What the fuck?” Ginger sputters.
I hear my men muttering in praise and surprise.
“Jesus Christ.” Gunner’s protective detail backpedals until he’s two steps behind him and raises his hands. Unfortunately, Gunner has his own pistol drawn and pointed at me.
“Drop it,” Gunner orders.
“You first, asshole,” I say.
“Neat trick. Where’d you learn that?” His casual tone is at odds with the anger in his eyes. He doesn’t lower his pistol.
I smirk. “Trade secret. Unless you want to see who can fire first, I’d drop the piece.”
No idea if I could fire first. If I can’t, I’ll be six feet under before the day is out, but I have to do something to shake him.
Gunner starts around the island toward me, his pistol aimed for the spot between my eyes. Anger wells up, but I channel it into the floor, where the energy disperses. I keep my Glock trained on his head.
Before I can fire, I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. I fire at it, and Gunner’s bodyguard twitches and drops.
It’s all the distraction I need.
Gunner’s aim falters, and his gaze darts toward the dead man. I fire a second shot, catching Gunner in the temple. He convulses once and drops.
Another shot goes off, and by the time I turn around, Ginger is sprawled on the floor. A spot of crimson pools on the chest of his white shirt and soaks his cut while he gasps for air. Striker lowers his firearm. There’s a pistol lying beside Ginger, one he must have drawn before Striker took him out.
I can always count on Striker to have my back. I clap him on the shoulder.
“Trust a Bastard to turn traitor,” Reaper mutters, kicking Ginger’s pistol away.
I stride over and aim my gun at the redhead, watching him gasp like a fish too long out of water. His eyes lock on me, huge with fear.
“No one points a gun at me.” I squeeze off two shots. Holes appear in his forehead. He twitches, and goes still.
“You think Gunner was telling the truth about not killing us, Spidy?” Striker asks, nodding to Gunner, who’s lying on his stomach in a pool of blood.
“If he wasn’t fucking us over, then what was this all about?” Reaper adds. “He was lying. He—”
The door to the kitchen bursts open and a young man with peach fuzz for a beard strides in. “Gunner, I hope I brought enough tarps to—” He cuts short and the rolls of black tarp in his arms drop to the floor. “Aw shit.”
Striker is on him in an instant. He grabs the kid, spins him around, and slams him up against the wall by the door so that his back is to us. He yanks one hand behind the young man’s back, pinning it up high.
“Hey, take it easy, man!” His voice shakes with the kind of high-pitched fear only a prospect would show. The bottom rocker on the back of his cut is a prospect patch. He bucks uselessly in Striker’s grip while Reaper pats him down for weapons.
My men know the drill.
“Little late to the party, aren’t you, boy?” I ask the prospect while I take the two pistols Reaper hands me, one from inside the kid’s cut, and another from the pockets of jeans, pants that are halfway down his ass and so baggy that he’s swimming in them.
“Fuck you,” he spits.
Ah, the impetuousness of youth. He hasn’t been in his club long enough to learn not to poke the bear. He isn’t completely stupid though. He won’t rat on his brothers.
I set his guns down on the island.
“He only had those two,” Reaper reports, glancing at me over his shoulder.
“Good. Striker, get these crates open. Make sure all the hardware is there.”
Striker walks around the island and hunts through Gunner’s pockets for the keys to the crates while I focus on the boy.
At a signal from me, Reaper releases him, and I take over, holding both his arms behind his back and pinning him against the wall with my frame.
I saw his face for a second before Striker had taken hold of him. He’s probably no older than twenty, close to Stephanie’s age. I mentally kick myself for letting the stray thought seep in and keep his back to me.
There’s no way the kid can be allowed to leave here alive. If I don’t look at his face, I won’t have to think about it. About the fact that he’s no more than five years older than I was when my dad put his gun to my head. That he’s the same age as Pip. That he looks about as young and innocent as the thief waiting in my bed.
The kid knew what he signed on for when he chose this life. Anyone who’s been in a club long enough to act as part of a cleanup crew would know he’s got a good chance at meeting an early end with a bullet. And his wearing a cut means he isn’t innocent.
He struggles violently, but I don’t give him an inch.
“Tell me how this was supposed to go down,” I order.
He licks his lips. “I’m no rat, old man.”
It would be easy enough to put my gun to the back of his skull. Instead, I wrench his arm up higher on his back until I feel the muscles stretch to their limits. He hisses in pain, and I pull a little harder.
One more tug from me and his shoulder will pop out.
“Ah, fuck. What kind of a fucking animal are you?” he cries out.
“You’re a dead man walking,” I tell him, adopting a fatherly tone, pausing while he goes still as if letting that sink in. “You won’t be getting out of here alive, son. Be smart, tell me what I want to know, and I’ll make it quick. Fuck with me, and I’ll break your limbs one at a time until you spill. Understand?”
“He’ll do it,” Striker tells him while he and Reaper check over the guns behind me. “I’ve seen him shatter a man’s kneecaps.”
The kid’s frame is stiff, but he doesn’t fight. “Yeah, I got it.” It’s a begrudging surrender.
“Good boy. Tell me why I had a gun in my face.”
“The cops showed up at The Red Crow.” The boy huffs as if the pain in his arm is making it hard to breathe. “I heard Gunner say that jerkoff Briggs was there before he messaged you to meet here. He thinks you called Briggs in so that he and his pigs could bust in in the middle of the deal and take us down.”
Briggs. My fists clench at the name. He’s the same cop Dragon’s predecessor had in his pocket for years. The same cop he’d once called years ago, resulting in the arrest of five Satan’s Bastards while the feud between our clubs still raged, and the death of one of them while in lock up. In that bust, Bones had a deal with Briggs that he’d still get his guns, while the Bastards rotted in cells.
There is an unspoken law that no self-respecting member of an MC would deal with police, but the truth is, few outlaw MCs can do business for long without having a badge in their pocket. I have one, but it isn’t that shithead. And even if it was, I wouldn’t have done anything to jeopardize the truce between us. Shame I can’t say the same for Gunner.