At his side is Easy. They've been friends for a long time. They served together in the Marines as battle buddies. Easy's from Fortune; Michigan isn't but they came home together. To call them a couple would be a mistake. They aren't. They're a…unit. They fight together and they fuck together. They both wear a tired but searching expression—as if they've been looking for something for a long time but haven't found it.
And this time, it clicks. They’re looking for a woman they can settle down with. Just one, because that’s their thing. Like the Bedlam Butchers Club who do everything in pairs. Finding a woman who would be into that and face public scrutiny might be damned hard in Fortune.
“Michigan. Easy.”
Michigan returns my chin nod with one of his own while Easy, our sergeant at arms, draws me in for a man hug.
“Good to see you, Wrecker.” Easy pounds me on the back and yells for Bear to get me a beer.
Bear walks the beer down instead of sliding it along the lacquered oak surface. “You here for Ellerby?” he asks.
I shouldn't be surprised. Bear is Helen's husband. No doubt she went straight home to Bear who told her to take the business to Dad. “He here?”
“Playing pool and losing money.” He tips his head toward the side room where two pool tables sit.
I follow his gaze and see the skinny shit leaning his chin against a pool cue. Money's lying on the rail—Chels's money. My hands curl into fists.
Michigan rises to his feet. He's an intimidating guy—not because of his height of six feet…I stand an inch taller—but because of the subtle air of menace he exudes. He hardly ever smiles and when he does it generally means bad things for the recipient.
“You gonna need help taking out the trash.”
“I think you're supposed to make sure I don't go to prison again,” I half joke.
“I'll hold up the bar while you two have your fun,” Easy grouses.
Since I've been gone for a while, I don't know Ellerby's opponent but he's no threat because as soon as he sees Michigan and me approaching, he lays down his pool cue and leaves. The other game ends just as abruptly and within seconds, it's just the three of us.
“We're going for a ride,” I inform Ellerby.
He shakes his head. “I don't think so. Your sister wouldn't want you here.”
His inflection isn't lost on Michigan whose brows furrow. “This pissant bothering Chelsea?”
“Well, are you, Ellerby? Are you bothering my stepsister?”
He gives me the finger and pockets the money on the table, but his attempt at nonchalance is ruined by the shaking of his hands. Impatient for this to be over so I can go home and comfort Chels, I reach over and grab the back of his shirt and twist. He yelps in surprise and then claws at his throat.
Without waiting, I start walking toward the back door. This is Death Lords territory and no one makes a move to stop me. It'd be this way in any bar in town, but particularly this one.
Why Ellerby stopped here and not at the five other liquor establishments is a mystery, but Sara definitely got the brains of the two.
“You best let me go,” Ellerby screeches as I drag him by his shirt. “Or I'm going to say something that your sister ain't going to much like.”
“Go ahead and open your mouth inside the bar and I'll cut out your tongue.” I say it so matter of factly that Ellerby shuts up. Everyone in Fortune knows I went to prison for killing someone, including Ellerby. They don't know the real reason why. He's going to find out tonight.
When we get outside and he spots the truck, he starts putting up more resistance. He tries to spin around but my grip on his shirt tightens. His feet start dragging in the dirt but I've put on a lot of muscle on the inside and it takes little effort to get him to the truck. I slam his head into the side of the passenger door. “Oops. Forgot I needed to open the door first.”
“Fuck you, murderer,” he groans holding his head. I press one hand against the back of his neck and kick his legs open. Reaching inside his jeans, I pull out his wallet and toss it to Michigan. He pulls out three hundred.
“Unlike Chels, I don’t give a fuck what you call me, asshole. Where’s the rest of the money?”
He laughs, spraying a smear of spit all over my window. I’m going to have to get this thing washed tomorrow. “Spent it.”
I shake my head and bang Ellerby’s head once again. Michigan reaches out and opens the back door and I toss him inside.
Ellerby scrambles to the opposite side and tries to get out but Michigan is there, quick as lightning to stare him into submission. He starts bargaining before my front tires clear the gravel and hit the asphalt.
“I needed a hit,” he whines. “I wasn't going to bother her for more money.”
“This piece of shit blackmailing Chelsea?” Michigan asks in disbelief, quickly catching on.
I nod, but watch the road carefully. I don’t want to get picked up and Schmidt has a hard-on for club members, me especially. It was a real coup for him to get me charged and sent away. Word is that he’s none too happy with my early release and he’d love to find a way to throw me back inside. But I’m not going to sit on my ass while this shit-stain threatens Chels.
Michigan turns around. “You’re a dumb motherfucker. You don’t mess with Chels. She’s club property.”
“She’s a sick pervert.”
The truck weaves as I turn around to introduce my fist into Ellerby’s face. Michigan grabs the wheel while pulling me forward at the same time. Ellerby ducks and cowers in the far corner of the backseat where I can’t reach him while I’m driving.
“Pay attention to the road,” Michigan barks. “I’m not planning to be a statistic tonight.” Under his breath, he mutters, “Rein it in. Revenge is cold. Blah-blah-blah.”
“Blah-blah-blah? Is that some kind of secret enforcer code?”
“Yeah, the kind that allows you to do your job and not get dead.”
It takes forty minutes to get to the quarry. Behind the gravel pit is a copse of trees, old oak trees with sturdy trunks. I stop the truck behind a hill of gravel. No one will be able to see us back here. Michigan hands me a pair of rubber gloves.
“Extra large,” he says and jerks his head slightly toward the backseat. “Junkies have bad blood. Better be safe than sorry.”
“Another tool of the trade?”
“You pick up things here and there,” he says.
I can see why Dad wanted me to bring Michigan. I pull on the gloves and Michigan hefts a Magnum 45 and points it at Ellerby’s head. “Don’t run off, boy,” he says. “I don’t feel like chasing you.”
Ellerby’s hand falls away from the door.
“Don’t scare him too bad,” I warn. “I don’t want to be cleaning piss off my floors.”
“You need to carry plastic. Helps in the cleanup.”
“Fuck you two,” Ellerby spits out but he doesn’t move.
I hop out and grab my kit of supplies that I threw together. One spike, a length of rope, a sledgehammer and some zip ties. I stick the zip ties in my back pocket. Michigan is out, lighting up a cigarette.
“Those things will kill you.”
He blows out a stream of smoke. “You assume I’m trying to avoid that.”
Okay then.
I yank open the car door and Ellerby inches back, as if he thinks we’re going to leave him in the truck while Michigan smokes and I scratch my ass.
“Don’t make this harder on yourself. Get out here.”
“If you kill me, you’ll be going back to prison for a long time. It’s not self-defense now, is it?”
“Who’s going to care if you’re gone?”
“My ma and sister. Although I don’t have to fuck them to get them to care about me.”
Thanks to Michigan’s early warning, I don’t dive into the backseat and pummel Ellerby as is my first inclination. But hearing his statements voiced out loud makes me furious. This is everything that is keeping me and Chels apart and I want to punish him
for everyone else’s narrow-mindedness.
I glance at Michigan but his face is closed down tighter than Fort Knox. If he disapproves, he wouldn’t say a word in front of someone who ain’t part of the club. After though? He might give me a piece of his mind and he might start treating Chels differently.
“I’m not going to kill you, Ellerby. I promise you’ll be walking out of here on your own. We need to renegotiate the terms of your deal with Chels, is all.”
He studies me and then capitulates because he’s killed all but one functioning brain cell. When he’s on his feet, I zip-tie his hands and then lead him into the blackness of the woods.
“You think you’re going to scare me?” he scoffs. “I’ve watched children’s movies that are more frightening than you.”
I say nothing and haul him about twelve feet deeper into the woods and throw him against the trunk of a thick tree. He struggles and yells at me the whole way, cursing my mother, my father and all our ancestors.
“So, you sick fuck, you thought you could terrorize Chelsea and get away with it?”
“I’m the sick fuck?” he screams at me. “I’m not the one boning my sister. You’re the fucking perversion.”