“They’re fucked. Half of them are out on bail and Snap says first thing she asked for when she hit emergency was the police,” Rush pointed out.
Hound took in Rush’s words and then repeated to the room at large, “Are we ridin’ out on Bounty or what?”
“We’re riding out on Bounty.”
That came quiet. Quiet and sinister.
From Tack.
Snapper moved first, yanking open the door to the Club’s meeting room and running right into Tabitha Cage.
Shy’s wife.
Tack’s daughter.
“Is it true?” she snapped.
“Get outta the way, Tab,” he said low.
Her eyes moved beyond him and she demanded, “Tell me it isn’t true.”
“Darlin’, we’re on this,” her father said.
She took a step back and declared, “Yeah, we are. And I’m ridin’ with Shy.”
“Uh, say what?” Boz muttered from behind Snap.
“We don’t have time for this shit,” Snapper hissed.
“We actually don’t, baby. We got work to do,” Shy said.
“You’re not in this either,” Tack declared.
Shy pivoted on his father-in-law.
“Come again?” he asked.
“You’re here,” Tack decreed.
Were they seriously doing this?
Now?
Rosalie was still at the goddamned hospital. They were keeping her overnight.
He had asses to kick and a woman to get back to.
“Who’s ridin’ is ridin’ and who isn’t is stayin’,” Snapper began and turned his head back to Tab, “and you are not riding.”
“Says who?’ she asked.
“Says me,” he fired back.
“Excuse me but she is a sister who put her ass on the line for the Club and I am the sister who’s gonna go kick their wuss asses in retribution. Ganging up for a beat down on a girl? Weak. Weak and lame,” Tab returned.
“Don’t you got a baby to look after?” Roscoe asked with more curiosity than refusal, and her narrowed eyes turned to him.
Then she lifted a hand, fingers clenched around a set of brass knuckles. Shy’s brass knuckles. Hound got every brother a pair when they earned their patch. The palm grip had the Chaos emblem etched in and letters above each knuckle read one of the words from the Chaos motto: Wind, Fire, Ride or Free.
Shy’s read “Wind.”
Snapper’s said “Ride.”
“Don’t you got a nose I can break?” she asked Roscoe back.
Snapper heard Hound’s grim chuckle.
“Baby, give me my brass,” Shy murmured.
“I’m riding!” she shouted.
“You’re not and Shy’s here but the rest of us are going,” Tack declared.
“Dad!” she yelled.
“Tack,” Shy clipped.
“Tabby, you wanna help, don’t hold us up, we got shit to do,” Tack growled then added, “And I’m thinkin’ you get it’s kinda important.” He turned to Shy. “To do what we gotta do, you need control. You won’t have control.”
“Yeah, like Snap has control,” Boz mumbled.
Snap felt his neck get tight, ready to take down a brother, even if that brother was Tack, to ride out on Bounty.
But Tack’s eyes just slowly came to Snapper and he rumbled, “Snap is riding.”
“Could that happen about now?” Snapper asked sarcastically.
“A statement has to be made by one of the Chaos women,” Tab announced.
“Christ,” Snapper hissed. “Can this stupid-ass shit be done?”
“Why is it stupid-ass?” Tab retorted. “’Cause I’m a girl?”
“Uh,” he leaned toward her, “yeah.”
She leaned toward him. “That’s what I call stupid-ass.”
“We’ll make your statement for you,” Hound put in.
Tab turned her gaze on Hound and even Snapper lost track of what was happening and paid attention with the look that settled on her pretty face.
“You do not take your fists to a Chaos woman,” she whispered. “You boys got an alarming trend goin’ on with your women bein’ caught up in your shit. So a Chaos woman needs to make a statement and Tyra might break a heel, Lanie might break a nail, Carissa probably doesn’t even know how to form a fist, Millie already went through her trauma, Sheila’s on the Western Slope, and Bev’s at work, so this is on me and I’m riding.”
Tack was done.
So was Snap.
Tack got there before him.
“Deal with your woman,” he ordered Shy. “Rosalie has reported the incident, we gotta get to them before the cops do. We don’t have time for this. We need bail, you and Pete are on that.” He finished with Shy and looked over his shoulder to his brothers. “The rest of you, let’s ride.”
“Dad!” Tab shouted, but Shy clamped an arm around her while the rest of the brothers rolled out.
They marched through the common room of the Compound to their bikes lined up at the front outside.
When they rode out, Tack was lead, Hop behind him with High riding next to Hop where Shy, as one of Tack’s lieutenants (with Hop) and as the Club’s Sergeant at Arms normally rode. But High made a motion to Hop and fell back. He then made a motion to Snap, who rode forward.
Of all of them, not that he’d left much in question bearing down on Speck like he had, High knew where his head was at with Rosalie.
It was a huge solid to take that place in formation.
It was late winter. Cold. Dark. Night had long fallen.
But Bounty would know they were coming.
They’d be prepared.
They’d be ready.
They’d be waiting.
And they were.
* * * *
Snapper sensed her waking up and looked over the top of his book to her.
He beat it back, the tight, hot feeling that welled up inside.
They’d laid Bounty out.
There was a lot of anger on both sides.
But Chaos had experience and skill. Joke used to be an underground fighter. Hound, Snap suspected, drank blood for breakfast and ate nails for dinner and outside that was all-around a lunatic. Boz was half-lunatic, but it was the good half when it came to a fight. High and Tack had had women they cared about messed up in bad shit, High recently, Tack not so much, but that shit never went away, so they were skilled as well at working out issues. Rush was all about the brotherhood and when the brotherhood had a mission, even if he didn’t agree with it, he was always all in to carry out the mission. Hop had always been their hand-to-hand man. He used to play in a rock band but straight up, the way the man used his fists, he could have been a contender. Roscoe had seen Rosalie. Speck had making up to do.
And Snapper had incentive.
That incentive was right there, lying on the hospital pillow.
Her beautiful face was blown up, eyes swollen shut, lips inflamed, nose huge, broken, so taped. Red and mottled had given way to deep raisin-purple black, mostly around the eyes. There were livid scrapes and deep cuts that shared some of Bounty didn’t bother taking off rings. There was flesh stitched together above and through her left eyebrow, along that side’s jaw, and he knew, under the bandage at her nose, down the left side of the bridge.