“You wanted time with your wife and kids, you should’ve thought twice before murdering again,” Robson snapped before the other guy shoved him against the wall and wrenched his hand back.
I lunged forward, but Buck held me back, and whispered, “Calm the fuck down. We’ll get ’im out, and we don’t need to be splittin’ resource on you.”
“Dad, no,” Harleigh Rose cried, tryin’ to hug Zeus as he reluctantly let them cuff his hands.
He made eye contact with me as they turned him around and started to frog march him down the hall, expression blank but eyes grey fire. “Call White. Meet me at the station. I’ll be home with my woman and my babies by tonight. You tell them that.”
“I will. No way you’re goin’ back there,” I promised, and I felt it take root in my fuckin’ soul. He had almost lost himself to prison before. No way I’d let that happen again.
King
* * *
“It was the fuckin’ pigs,” Skell shouted, leanin’ over the table in The Fallen Chapel, yellin’ like everyone had been yellin’ since Church commenced an hour ago.
It was two days after my baby bro and sister had been born, and Zeus was still in custody.
White had been down there for hours, tryin’ to get him out on bail, but because he was an ex-con with one murder charge already on his rap sheet, the judge wouldn’t set bail.
It was like a bomb had gone off in that hospital, a landmine explodin’ underfoot just when we’d thought we were safe, blowin’ off limbs and tearing us to bloody pieces.
The women went to work instantly, led by Cress and Maja, to be there for Lou and the babies. Loulou, needless to fuckin’ say, was not doin’ so good. She was pissed as a caged wild cat, unable to do anythin’ but care for those babies and wait. There were a lotta tears and shoutin’, a vase thrown against a wall, but through the meltdown, she was still a new mum and a good one. Walker and Angel were never far from her, always tended to with a gentleness that was so at odds with the fire in her eyes that wouldn’t die, not until Z was free.
And the men, we were tryin’ to get our shit tight, because our Prez had just been incarcerated for the second fuckin’ time, and there was a fuck ton of crap that needed to be worked through. But goddamn, it was like herdin’ cats.
Everyone was alpha, everyone was mad as a hatter at the injustice of it all, and the meetin’ had gone to hell because of it.
“Of course, it’s the goddamn cops,” I growled, shoving back from my chair so violently, it tipped over. The brothers’ eyes went to me, shocked because I wasn’t one for shoutin’ or outbursts. “We know the why of it, brothers. Staff Sergeant Danner got tired of waitin’ for a legit reason to take us down, so he created one. He had to know Gibson’d been helpin’ us out, and that he’d been at the party that night. Only answer to the fuckin’ question. So, let’s be smart enough to move on and ask another. What the hell are we gonna do about it?”
Short silence came outta habit because normally, Zeus would be the one to stand up and say somethin’.
Finally, Buck leaned forward and slammed a meaty fist on the table. “First things first. We gotta vote.”
My skin itched, too hot and tight. It was the anger barely contained in me but also the desire to step up into the vacant place and be interim Prez while my dad was in the clink. No way would it happen. I’d been fully patched in for a hot fuckin’ second, and there was a hierarchy to the club. It was the way it’d always worked.
Buck was VP, so naturally, we’d vote him in as leader.
“Before we vote, what’s the plan exactly?” Nova asked, eyein’ down Buck.
“Drive-by shootin’, scare that motherfucker outta his skin with fear. Show them The Fallen won’t be fucked with or intimidated.”
“They’ll arrest some of us on reasonable suspicion,” I pointed out even though I’d known he’d say it.
“So fuckin’ be it,” he declared, slappin’ the table again.
I hesitated, but the rage had blown the lid off my reservations. “My mind, we don’t need more brothers behind bars. We need to be smart about this, or they’ll pick us off one by one. Might be better to let ’em think we’re crushed by the blow and need time to lick our wounds. Instead, we get a plan to take that fucker down.”
“Kill him? Yeah, fuck yeah, I’m down,” Lab-Rat growled.
“Can’t kill him,” I said and watched every single brother scowl. “You want Zeus outta jail, we can’t kill the man who knows how Gibson was done in or maybe who even did the deed himself. We figure this out, then we fuck him.”