As the men file out, there’s a general slapping of backs, chest bumping, and chanting of “Steel Bones!” They’re already planning how drunk they’re gonna get tonight. At 06:00, I’m gonna have to go after half these numbskulls with a hose.
After Boots rolls out, only Heavy, Harper, and I are left. Harper finishes up with her phone and joins us at the big table.
“Well, that went easier than I expected.” She drums her long nails on the granite. It’s irritating as hell.
“I know we have to enlist Smoke and Steel to work security, but the optics are shit,” she complains. Heavy glares at her drumming. She gives it one last, spiteful tap and primly folds her hands in her lap. “Premeditation will be easy to prove.”
“I already talked to Deb,” Heavy says. “We did some creative invoicing so it looks like we’re reallocating staffing for a project.”
“Nice. That’ll work.” She leans back in her chair and crosses her long legs. “You know what I can’t figure? How come no one asked why go for Rab and not Knocker? We’re not a curious bunch, are we?”
“We got lucky.” Honestly, I thought Grinder would bring it up. Or Big George. Ultimately, it doesn’t make sense to go for the VP. The war flared up when Knocker got released. Everyone knows he’s behind the attacks.
We’re blessed no one asked. Truth is, we don’t want to catch Knocker. Not yet. And that information is on a need-to-know basis. Right now? Only Heavy, Harper, and I need to know.
The real plan is not to get Rab to flip on Knocker. We’re going to use Rab as collateral to get Knocker to ease off until we’re ready to parlay and end this thing, once and for all. The end game isn’t to destroy the Rebel Raiders. The end game is to bring them back and make our club whole.
Speaking of ending this thing.
“Where are we on Des Wade?” I ask.
Harper groans and drops her head back to stare at the ceiling. “We? Haven’t seen you sucking his dick lately.”
Heavy swallows a weird, guttural growl. He’s never been a hundred percent on board with this part of the plan, but there’s no other way. Until the truth comes out about the blown job, there will be no peace for the club, the body count will keep racking up, and the wrong people will be dying. And we will never end this until Knocker Johnson knows and believes what really happened that day.
Slip Ruth had no idea there were guns were under the cigarettes. He was setup. We were all set up.
Des Wade—upstanding citizen, business leader, philanthropist, and scion of western Pennsylvania’s most illustrious family dynasty—setup a small-town biker gang to go down for gun trafficking.
It wasn’t personal. Steel Bones was convenient. A bunch of ex-cons, dropouts, and vets down on their luck, the well-known criminal element, not much beloved by the locals at that time.
No one was surprised when Sheriff Anderson Watts busted us running guns, and the pictures in the paper were sure impressive.
Sheriff Watts won the election for county executive handily the next month. Not too long after, Des Wade’s contracting company received exclusive rights to develop the downtown waterfront, a deal worth millions that elevated Des from the Wade family kiddie table to carving the Thanksgiving Day turkey.
How do we know?
‘Cause Heavy Ruth has spent his every waking moment on three things since his dad Slip died. The club. The businesses. And unraveling what happened that day twenty years ago when Stones and Knocker were pulled over on Route 29.
He’s got one of those murder boards on the wall in his suite upstairs. Red string and everything.
But Knocker isn’t gonna drop a decades long grudge ‘cause we tell him he’s got it wrong. We need hard evidence. Which is where Harper comes in. She’s our Mata Hari.
Several months ago, she caught Des’ eye at a charity gala in Pyle. She saw an opening, and she took it. She ended up doing Charge dirty. They were together at the time, and she didn’t get the timing quite right between breaking things off with Charge and getting Des on the line, but I guess all’s fair in love and war. And this is war.
“Well?” Heavy raises his eyebrows. “How are things with Des? If you’re not getting anywhere, let’s pull you out.”
Harper rolls her eyes. “I’m getting somewhere. I just need one of those James Bond doohickeys. Like from Die Hard. A thing that can figure out his password.”
“We need a tech guy?” I’ve been arguing that we need to bring in outside help since I came back and took over as VP.
Harper sighs. “Yeah. I’ve searched everywhere. Des doesn’t have his passwords written down.”
“Did you look under his keyboard?” Heavy asks.
“Did you look here?” Harper flips him off.
“Some of the guys I worked with at Fort Meade, before I applied for the Rangers? They’d have what we need within an hour.” I know exactly who I’d call. All I need is the go ahead.
“No outsiders.” Heavy folds his hands over his wide stomach and pins Harper with a stare. “You’ve been trying to guess? Try birthdays, pet names, whatever he calls his dick?”
“As often as I can without triggering a lockout. I say it’s time to do it my way.” Harper cracks her neck.
Harper wants to haul Des in and beat a confession out of him. There’s a simplicity to the plan that I appreciate, but there’s no guarantee Knocker would believe a confession made under duress.
“Des Wade isn’t some piece of trash we can gank off the street,” Heavy argues. “He’d be missed. You should come home. We haven’t seriously considered going after Watts.”
“Senator Anderson Watts?” Harper scoffs. “That’s a shit plan, and you know it. I’m in this. I’m not coming home until it’s time to bury pieces of Des Wade’s body under a baby oak tree up on Half-Stack Mountain.”
“You’re wasting time, sister.”
“Oh, brother, ’Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if you do not lose heart.’” Harper blinks and flashes him a small, wry smile.
Heavy snorts. My jaw drops a little.
“What? You thought Heavy’s the only one who picked up a little King James listening to Mom piss and moan about Dad all those years?” She smiles wider and runs her tongue along her bright red lips, her eyes icy and calculating. “I’m going to stay. Des has been hinting around about the future. Maybe he’s gonna put a ring on it.”
“Sometimes I think you’re enjoying this too much.” Heavy gauges her with his own cold eyes. “Don’t get too accustomed to the lifestyle. It might be a month or a year, but that man is marked.”
Her shark’s smile drops in an instant. “Make no mistake, brother. When the time comes, I’m going to cave his skull in with a baseball bat and slip-slide around in his mashed brains.”
Neither Heavy nor I speak for a long moment. No doubt, we’re both picturing it. Harper’s a manipulative, duplicitous witch, but she never makes idle threats.
Harper’s the first to break the silence, homicidal madness gone, all fake smiles and sunshine again. “In the meantime, how about I work off my extra energy by running Nevaeh Ellis out of town? I was thinking with all this arson, it’d be easy enough to pin something on her. She’s definitely the type who would fire bomb a man’s bike.”