Page 2 of Porter (Dirty Misfits MC 2)
How much does Chops know about what we know?
Chops turned around as I peeked at Brooks behind me. I shot him a look that told him to shut the fuck up, then I stepped off to the side. Chops’ eyes ran down my body before he turned his back on us, gazing out toward the rest of the crew.
Who looked like they were two seconds away from imploding on themselves.
“All right, this is gonna be quick so I want you to listen up. I don’t give a shit what the hell happened with those Black Flag fuckers this past weekend. Your job is to not make shit harder with them than we already have it. All right?”
Brooks scoffed behind me. “What a crock of shit.”
Chops whipped around. “What was that?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. He was just talking to me.”
Chops nodded slowly. “Well, why don’t you share with the rest of the class?”
Brooks and Chops stared one another down and I honestly thought I was going to have to kill one of them to keep them from fighting each other. But Brooks kept his composure and I was honestly proud of him.
“What do you suggest we do then, Chops?” Brooks asked.
Maybe a bit too harshly, but at least he asked.
Chops chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I’m in the process of working with them to get new contracts for us to work on. You can’t deny that they’ve got a corner of the marketplace that we want.”
Cole shook his head. “I thought we decided no prostitution, though.”
Chops rolled his eyes. “Not that, you imbecile. Car parts.”
I blinked. “Since when do the Black Flags deal with cars?”
Chops looked at me with a dumbfounded look on his face. “Ever since they wanted to steal our territory. Didn’t you ever wonder why they wanted our zones in the first place?”
Archer clicked his tongue. “It makes sense, but I haven’t heard of any deals they’ve been doing lately.”
Chops turned his back to me to face him. “That’s because they aren’t stealing cars off the streets. They’ve tapped into the local mechanics shops. Chop yards. Shit like that. They’re undercutting our prices selling bullshit parts to our clients, and I don’t like it.”
I shrugged. “We could just kill them.”
Chops slowly turned back around and stared me dead in my eye. “Despite how Hyde ran things at one point, I don’t always want to resort to violence with shit like this. If we can do a deal with the Black Flags, we can negotiate keeping them out of our fucking territory and we can get them to stop undercutting us and stealing our damn clients.”
Finn finally piped up for the first time since I’d gotten there. “I mean you did bring up the idea of prostitution, so it’s not a far stretch to think that taking out an entire MC is okay.”
The room fell silent and I thought Chops’ head was going to blow through the fucking roof. That prospect had some serious balls, and I liked that. I respected balls.
It was the one thing Chops didn’t have.
“He’s got a point,” Brooks said.
Chops turned his anger toward him and away from Finn, which I assumed was Brooks’ point. He’d always been the cavalier one. The one to put himself in harm’s way to save someone else’s ass. That was the kind of man that needed to be President of a crew like this. A crew like ours needed a president with a heart.
Not a president without one.
“Anyway,” Chops said as he turned back toward the other guys, “I’m meeting with the head of the Black Flags this afternoon to work out the basis of the deal. Once I have it, I’ll call another meeting and we can discuss it before moving forward.”
Archer stepped into the circle. “Need some back-up?”
Chops shook his head. “Nah, I got it this time. Maybe next time, though, if this starts to get heated.”
Figures, fucking two-faced dickweed.
After the church meeting came to a close, I stormed out of the clubhouse. I didn’t know what pissed me off more—the fact that Chops was openly advertising the fact that he was meeting up with the gang he was conspiring against us with, or the fact that he thought he could lie to us. He wasn’t meeting up with them about fucking car parts and them undercutting our prices. Oh, no. I knew exactly what that slimy snake was up to.
And I didn’t want to stand in the same zip code with him, much less the same room.
I didn’t bother with my helmet as I threw my leg over my bike. I pulled my engraved flask out of the breast pocket of my leather jacket and took a swig from it. The whiskey burned going down and it made me shake my head, but damn it, the stuff woke me up.
