Page 8 of Bram
“Both. Mix it up. Make them think we’re half-assed. But don’t let anyone get sloppy. First man who slips, I’ll break his kneecap myself.”
They both smiled at that. It was how I showed affection.
I stood up, grabbed the surveillance layout, and folded it. “We’re on full lockdown. Nobody in or out unless I say so. Not even for a beer run.”
Trace leaned back, stretched like a man who just realized he could start a fight and not get scolded for it. “You want us to wait for them, or—”
I looked at the clock on the wall. “We’re not waiting. We hit them first. We’ll send the Colonel a message before he walks out.”
Sniper said, “You want it loud?”
“Fast and clean,” I said. “No survivors to report back. If you find a Scorpion prospect on our turf, you make sure he doesn’t leave with his tongue still attached.”
Trace’s face lit up in a way that always made me nervous. “Yes, sir.”
I let that hang, then walked to the door, stopping in the frame. “Be back here by dawn. We do the job, then we go quiet for a minute. Let them sweat it out.”
Sniper already had his phone out, texting in code I’d never bothered to learn. Trace was grinning at nothing, just holding the edge of the table like he might break it off and use it as a weapon.
“Hey,” I said, and waited until both looked up. “This is it. We get one shot, so don’t fuck it up.”
They both nodded, sharp and perfect.
“Then you go back to your chapters.”
I walked out first, past the patched men already gathering in the common room, some of them piecing together shotguns, some of them just staring at the TV, dead eyes but all ears. I could hear the engines outside, more than usual, some of them idling, some of them just winding down from a hard ride.
The sky over Barstow was still blank and bright, the only shade what you made for yourself. I stood there, the surveillance layout in one hand, and watched the world start to shift.
There would be war before the next sun came up.
“Dad,” Ryder, son number six, said. He was about to ride out to his chapter in Fort Smith, Arkansas. My sons rarely called me Dad and only did so when they were about to get soft.
“I’m not raising your allowance, Ryder,” I said, a line I used with every son. “What?”
“Kodiak was telling me about you and Julie Sparta.”
“There is no Julie Sparta and me, son.” I knew what was coming.
He moved to my side, both of us watching club members preparing the lockdown. “You’ve had a thing for her since she took the job.”
“She’s half my fucking age, Ryder.” I crossed my arms, knowing he wasn’t wrong. But Julie and I had too much going against us to have anything worth pursuing. “Besides, I don’t have time.”
“I’m just saying, maybe you should make time. Mom would understand.” He knew that would make me turn. “It’s been twenty years. She would have wanted you to start living again a long time ago.”
“I love you, Ryder. Head on out to your chapter.”
“Love you, too, Dad.”
I watched him climb on his Harley and shook my head as he left the compound. Of course he was right. I would have wanted the same for Millie if I’d been the one gunned down. But I’d also been waiting a long time for revenge. I just didn’t see the smarts in getting another woman by my side gunned down.
I took a seat on the picnic table, where a single beer had been left unopened and unattended in a bucket of ice. I uncapped the damned thing and drank, Julie Sparta conveniently entering my head.
Ryder was right. I had a thing for the young woman, but it was clear we fucking hated each other. Well, maybe she hated me. The feeling wasn’t mutual, though the first time I saw her in court and talked to the judge about insufficient evidence, I fucking hated her with a passion.
I set the beer aside and stared at the bottle. Enough of that shit. No woman wanted a drunk-ass man.
“What’s on your mind, brother?” Edge, the club’s Sergeant at Arms, asked. He was a man about my height but built like a fucking locomotive. He’d spent some time at San Quentin, overlapping a year or so with the Colonel. When I didn’t answer, he said, “It’s either pussy or the Colonel.”
