Chapter 33 – CASH
Thirty-Three
CASH
I promise her I’ll get Avery back to make her stay.
Quin doesn’t know how much more I have hidden. The Midnight SS situation is absolutely fucked up.
Half the fucking Blackwood family dead in the goddamn desert. Doesn’t feel right. Next club meeting, we’ll have to look at our options from a pool of new recruits and choose which kids to patch in. I used to look forward to those meetings, but now it feels like we’re signing up our blood brothers to die.
We need war to end this quickly – I agree with Southpaw there – but that doesn’t make it pretty. Unlike my daddy, I never had a dream of running around this country and away from the woman I love. No thanks. I like my women like Quin. Soft. Planted in my bed. Unlikely to have the motivation to run away.
She sleeps heavily on my arm this morning. Her hair smells like the special oil she uses and she snores a little bit – denying it every time I confront her. I know she can’t be perfect – that she has a little darkness in her past. But who the fuck am I to judge a little darkness?
She doesn’t judge mine…
There’s something so fucking beautiful about her sleeping next to me like this… knowing that one day soon, I’ll get to make her my old lady. Make her my wife.
Quin stirs when my cell phone blares dramatically. I do let Southpaw call my phone at any goddamn hour of the day. Fuck me, these contraptions are annoying. She groans and paws around in an effort to silence the mysterious noise.
“There you go…” I grunt, moving her over slightly so I can grab my phone and answer it in bed. Quin groans with another complaint as she nestles into my arms while I let Southpaw ruin my morning sleep-in.
“What?”
“What’s with the fucking attitude?” Southpaw grunts.
“It’s nine in the morning.”
“I’ve been up with my son for the past seven hours ,” he says. “My sleep is far more fucked up than yours. ”
He sounds like he wants to bite me through the fucking phone. Anger issues. I don’t have those with Quin next to me. I kiss her cheek.
“Okay, okay. What?”
“I need you to go out to the rez.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No.”
“Can I bring Quin?”
“You want to bring your nanny to torture a prisoner?”
Wyatt Shaw – master of communication.
“You didn’t mention that’s what I would be doing.”
Normally, he wants me for the business end of things or wrangling a bunch of the chuckle fucks in our club into shape. I don’t know why all of a sudden he wants me involved with the Oske situation.
“You know what it’s like to have family members you didn’t ask for,” Southpaw says. “Ruger is beating the shit out of Darlene every damn day out in that trailer and if someone mentally stable doesn’t head out there and take control over the situation, we’ll lose our chance to get information about the bastards who killed our brothers.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Get him under control. Torture her… but with purpose. And not physically. I need information and I’d rather have someone smarter and calmer than Bucky on the job.”
“I can’t leave Quin here alone.”
“Then send her to Juliette,” Southpaw says, as if leaving her could ever be that easy for me. “If you get the information we need quickly… I see no reason to keep the bitch alive after she has that kid.”
“Got it.”
I’ve lost count of how many bodies we have on our hands. We may not be the ones to start any wars, but when you have a reputation like ours – money, territory, control over hundreds of miles of highway – you’re bound to attract a few enemies. I hang up and glance down at Quin, who has her brown eyes fixed on my face.
My heart jumps a little bit at the way she’s looking at me.
“How long have you been awake?”
“Are you really leaving?”
“Yes. But it’s club business. I’ll be back.”
“Right,” she says with a noticeably tense voice that instantly sends me into a panic. “And you’re sending me to Juliette.”
“She’s your friend. I’m sure she misses you.”
She scowls and throws her legs out of bed. “You don’t think about anyone but yourself, Tanner.”
I swear, women want to wake up angry. I groan and close my eyes as she throws on a robe. I glance at her through one open eyelid to see if she chooses to relax of her own accord. She doesn’t. Somehow, before having a cup of coffee, I pissed her off. I’d better get to that coffee.
“Quin, baby. I know you’re angry but I think we would feel a lot better if we had a cup of coffee.”
She flares her nostrils at me and then storms off. Slamming the door.
Was that a yes on the coffee?