Page 123 of Make or Break

He sighed. “I’ll tell you, but you should know what Volt suggested to me this morning.”

“Volt was here?”

He grinned. “Yeah, but he split before the cops left your room. He’s pulling Lark from the restaurant.”

I felt my eyes widen. “Why?”

“During church, I mentioned you had filed the trademark and were keeping up with the cease-and-desist letters.”

“It’s not like there were that many of them.”

He shook his head. “The thing is, a month ago, Lark had made a throw-away comment about how that was administrative stuff and he didn’t have time for that.”

“We were prepping for the holidays,” I said.

“Bullshit. He liked that you were handling it and it was obvious. Volt didn’t like that, but hadn’t done anything about it. Our pawn shop is doing well, and not only does Liar think it’s time to branch out, he thinks an area not far from the bar would be a good place.”

I dipped my chin. “Okay, but—”

“Volt wants Lark to take point on the new location. Says Lark gets off on the start-up, not so much once things hit a routine.”

I nodded. “That tracks, actually. He was excited about opening, and loved being able to teach me new things, but ever since late October, he’s been subdued - almost disinterested.”

Tundra took a deep breath. “Right. Volt asked if I want to take Lark’s place.”

I didn’t hide my facial expression in time.

“You don’t like that idea.”

With my eyes closed, I shook my head then focused on Tundra. “It isn’t that I don’t like the idea of working with you…it’s that I wish he had faith in me to run the bar. That’s what I thought I was working toward. Short of that, it’d be nice if he thought of my brothers to manage it because I recognize that with club money on the line the officers want a brother in charge.”

Tundra leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “Don’t worry about it right now. I told Volt I wouldn’t have an answer for him for at least a week.”

“Why a week?”

“I’m not fired up about working for the club when eight brothers were on board to strip my patch.”

My stomach lurched. “Eight? Are you sure?”

He deliberated for a beat. “Yeah. I’m sure, babe. It’s a jagged pill to swallow. I suppose an upside is that except for Lunatic, all the brothers I work with at Platinum’s voted for me to keep my patch.”

I didn’t want to know, but I also didn’t want to jump to conclusions, so I asked, “Did my brothers vote against you?”

“Sweetheart.”

I widened my eyes. “That isn’t an answer.”

“Things were intense. Far more than they would have been without the Biloxi brothers there.”

“But you shoot pool with Killian and Ryan. If either one of them voted that way, then—”

“To be clear, Volt called for those against me losing my patch to vote first.”

“That’s splitting hairs.”

He pressed his lips together. “It’s human nature to some extent. If someone doesn’t want me to lose my patch, and they don’t have the spine to stand up for that, but they see there’s enough votes to swing my way…they might not bother to raise their hand at all.”

I shot him a don’t bullshit me look. “That would be true of civilians, but with those brothers…you know that’s not the case.”