Chapter 1 – Zebulon “Zeb” Blackwood #2
Just when I’m sending him my report of what all went down, another message chimes in on my phone. I could use the money, so I’m not angry about all the extra work. Carrying out hits in the desert out here is a lot more exciting than guarding warehouses filled with ammo out in the Middle East.
At least here, you can get yourself a home cooked meal with real steak and roasted potatoes.
I fucking hate the Middle East. I had to come home because I lost two fingers on my right hand along with my eye – my pinky and my forefinger.
Fucked up how it happened and I don’t remember most of it, but my buddy Weston Forbes claimed that he saw me fly thirty feet in the air.
I cracked my skull, but nothing came out and I only have a big scar on the back of my head, which covers up just fine when I grow my Blackwood blond hair out.
I would much rather be in the land of the free.
THE CULPRIT: I need you for a special job.
I respond quickly.
ZEB: How much?
I want to earn my patch, but it’s not cheap fixing your bike and keeping it tuned up enough to fly up and down Route 66 heading to club meetings and whacking people for the big boss out west.
THE CULPRIT: $5,000. It’s important. A family issue.
A family issue? Interesting. I can’t think of any family issues that would cost around $5,000. It can’t be killing anybody, but it must be something pretty big to get that much money out of it.
ZEB: How long do you need me for?
Five grand would be pretty good for a week or two of work. Even if I have to travel, I have nothing tying or holding me down.
THE CULPRIT: One night. Club meeting.
Interesting… Fve grand to handle a job at the club meeting. I wonder what it might be.
ZEB: I’m in.
Three Months Later
I fucked up big time. No way tonight ends without my body in the ground.
It’s too bad, really, but fitting considering how many men ended up on the wrong end of my gun or knife.
I wonder what Doc would have said about my screw up.
I think he would have told me that I bragged too much.
He thought everybody needed to be like his eldest son, Gideon.
Perfectly stoic. Biblical. Never indulging in too much of the vices that God put on this earth to tempt us men.
Deacon drags me out behind the casino by the arm and he’s quite bigger than me, even if I’m not the smallest of gentlemen. Also, I know which side my bread is buttered on and who butters it. Best not to piss off the man holding the pursestrings.
“If Magnum Sinclair finds out what you’re blabbing about in there, he would have your fucking head on a platter.”
“I don’t see Magnum nearby. I know my friends aren’t the type to run their mouth.”
He doesn’t like the implications buried just beneath the surface of what I’m saying. Like most rich men, Deacon is arrogant. I like him just fine, but I’m still allowed to find him arrogant.
“There’s a huge fucking mess going on because Magnum knocked up Tamiya’s sister and everybody has been up my ass to gather evidence. Tell me everything you know and maybe I’ll let you off the hook when Condom inevitably comes looking for your ass.”
Sounds to me like he should have used a condom if he really wanted to avoid pregnancy. All I did was exactly what I was asked. I didn’t question it too much and I didn’t stick around to make sure everybody involved wore protection.
“I did nothing wrong.”
“There’s footage proving that you did”
Has to be bullshit, right? I handled the cameras. I earned every dollar spent on the job. I hate to have Deacon questioning my integrity.
“Do you really believe that manipulative Indian witch?” I ask him, throwing blame at the easiest target I can think of. The sneakiest woman I know…
“Oske isn’t a witch.”
Yet he knew I was talking about her without me saying anything else.
I find that interesting. Deacon’s rage flickers across his face.
I’m sensitive to other people’s emotions in the sense that they’re easy to detect.
Even so-called stoics like Deacon have obvious tells if you observe them long enough.
It’s harder with the men in my family, although Tamiya calls our demeanor “reptilian” rather than showing any respect.
Gideon could be more firm with her.
“Witch or not, she’s a goddamn liar.”
“You bragged openly about drugging them, Zeb,” Deacon says, his voice getting lower and tighter as his anger rises and he struggles to contain it so I don’t totally shut down and keep him from the information he wants.
Deacon’s mistake is showing me how badly he wants this.
“Would you believe me if I said I was doing this for a good cause?”
“No. I would not.”
“Fine. I did it for the money.”
“Great job, dumbass,” Deacon says, releasing a sigh. “Do you know how much shit I’m going to be in if I don’t immediately tell Hawk or Steel about this?”
“They promised me nobody would get hurt and there were extensive tests done on the medications–”
Deacon’s eyes narrow, so I trail off, giving him the chance to speak. The less I say the better – one of the things you learn quickly in the military. Shut the fuck up if you want to have any sort of peace of mind. He falls for the bait.
“Those weren’t medications. You know that.”
“I know that I got paid and delivered what was asked.”
“Who put you up to this?” Deacon does his best to hide his fury, but it’s well-known that redheads have anger issues. I would feel pretty upset too if I’d been born a ginger.
“If I could tell you that, I would have done it,” I answer calmly, hoping to get my ass out of this situation before Deacon probes me further.
What does it matter who did what? What happens at the club house, stays at the club house.
Especially if you use your military training to fuck with the cameras.
Deacon doesn’t agree and keeps pressing for answers to his so-called mystery. It really isn’t much of a mystery.
“Fuck, Zeb. I don’t have time for games,” Deacon growls.
“I’m not playing games, Rage. I’m saving my own fucking skin.”
“What if you didn’t tell me?”
“I like the sound of that.”
“No, you dumbass. I need you to show me who put you up to this.”
I can’t help but admire his ingenuity. Technically, setting up a meeting and doing everything in my power to stay hidden but of course, failing to account for Deacon Hollingsworth’s talent… would keep me well within the boundaries of my original contract.
You never want the reputation of a snitch.
“That might work.”
Deacon gives me a look as if to suggest it had better fucking work but I can’t control the future. I might be able to get him what he wants without losing my hide. I won’t make it free.
“Putting my ass on the line could cost me a hell of a lot,” I start, keeping my mind fully fixed on my goal of getting some money out of this considering I really am putting myself at quite a disadvantage by getting involved in all this messy business between families.
“I don’t have time for this, Zeb.”
“And I don’t have money.”
“Doesn’t the government give you like a million fucking dollars to sit on your ass siphoning my tax dollars.”
“You pay your fair share of taxes?”
Deacon snarls. “How much do you want? And hurry the fuck up, because I don’t have all night to deal with this.”
He acts like I personally interrupted him from fucking his wife.
I’m only down here looking for profitable work.
I have to get my neurological problem from the military fixed but honestly, I don’t remember or understand the medical details.
They said there might be details with remembering stuff and as for all of that medical terminology.
I was hopeless in the face of the written word since I was a kid.
I get to work properly again when the doctors clear me and so far – not clear.
I need more than my military stipend to work on my bike and travel across this country in freedom. There’s no hope of locking down an old lady in this day and age without having a fair chunk of change.
“I need $7,000.”
That would give me enough to survive a month or two on the road. I could get a pair of new tires for my bike and maybe even drive back out to my trailer out in Missouri and fix it up a bit. So long as I don’t stop to gamble anywhere along the way, I could make that money stretch.
“That’s it?” Deacon asks. “Fine. I’ll wire it over in the morning. Contact your person now, Zeb. I don’t have time for this. I need to get back to my wife.”
His wife…
Pretty lady. Nice big butt. Perfect smile.
I’ve never been in bed with a woman who had skin as dark as that but in the military, you get plenty of opportunity to fantasize.
There was this one woman I worked with very briefly during my deployment.
.. she smelled like frankincense just naturally with no perfume on.
Maybe it was her hair. Either way, I understand Deacon’s urgency. If I had a woman like that, I would never leave her alone for a second.
“I’ll send a text,” I tell Deacon. “Where should we all meet up?”
After that little meeting with Deacon, I take the money and head out to keep my ass out of trouble, doing exactly what Wyatt asks of me. When it’s all said and done, he brings me in for a little heart to heart with him and Gideon.
Based on everything, I won’t be allowed to stick around out West for the next several months.
It doesn’t make sense and considering the manipulative influence Tylee had on me, they want me within reach and they also need me to keep an eye on Isaac Sinclair as he establishes a branch of Barbarian activity out in Boston.
We’re running guns back and forth East Coast to West Coast which means a little time out West and a lot of time out in Boston…
Everything got a bit crazy out in the world and because I apologized to Wyatt, helped get the information he needed to wrangle Tylee into some type of halfway decent behavior for a woman, although she did escape from him after that.
He won’t lay down as severe a punishment as he could, so I’m grateful. I would say the biggest punishment he has for me is drawing me out of the shadows.
If you want to be a part of this club, you can’t go skulking around in the dark. Go out to Boston and use that brutality to help someone for a change.
I thought I was helping Tylee, if I’m honest. I bought all the lies she told me and frankly, she was always like a second cousin to me, and I assumed what she said about Isaac made plenty of sense since the Sinclair boys all drink too much, just like the Shaw men gamble, the Hollingsworth men have a secret mean streak and the Blackwood men.
Well… We’re the Christian side of the club and keep those boys on the straight and narrow. At least that’s the way I see it. There’s a reason we all have Biblical names, and it shows in the way we act.
Listen, I did what I did, understanding that it was wrong, but the severity of the situation didn’t quite hit me until shit hit the fan with Tylee. (And Wyatt made several threats). I trusted the wrong people in the club and frankly, my morals were a little questionable throughout.
Wyatt thinks the biggest punishment that I could endure is going out to the East Coast to learn that life isn’t all easy living and empty highways.
I had a little apartment that he made me give up the lease on, and he told me that I should stop being such a miser with my Army pension and buy a halfway decent place close to Ethan’s.
Whether I rent or buy, I don’t have a choice – I’m going to Boston to help Ethan and Isaac Sinclair run guns back and forth, then to atone for my sins towards Damara and Magnum.
I’m lucky I didn’t end up with a bullet between the eyes.
My story hasn’t started yet. So for all either of us know, I still might.