Chapter 4 Cash
Chapter four
Cash
It’s been two days since Red, the president of the Bone Breakers, texted Ozzy and threatened the club.
There is no way he knows that we had anything to do with the death of his brothers.
Not when they came to the clubhouse a couple years ago and tried to take Lucy, or when they were here six weeks ago in a failed attempt to use Maizie, Wyatt’s old lady, to spy on the club.
But even though Red is a fucking tweaker in the Arizona desert, he’s not dumb enough to miss the fact that every time he sends a couple of his guys to Shine, they don’t make it back.
Since the night of the kidnapping—when that dumb fuck Nolan got impatient and decided kidnapping Colby and Cece would get him what he wanted faster—we’ve all been on edge. Red wants a fight. Maybe retribution.
The fight is something we’re more than willing to give.
Retribution? He won’t find that.
Add in the shit with Cece showing up at Elaine’s, drunk off her ass, and the fight we had yesterday—my brain is fried.
But we need to figure out this Bone Breakers shit before they come after anyone else in our club.
Seems those assholes like to go after those they deem weaker.
Though they certainly missed the mark when they went after Lucy.
Even if Jude hadn’t shown up in the middle of the attack, we probably would’ve still been clearing her house of the three dead Bone Breakers.
Me and the rest of my brothers file into church.
Ozzy called early this morning and was on the same page as the rest of us.
We need to get a plan together. It’s not enough to pick off those assholes a few at a time.
We need to take out that whole damn club.
They’ve decided to make us enemy number one, so the way we see it, turnabout is fair play.
Ozzy bangs the gavel, and we all quiet down, turning our attention to our president.
“Time to come up with a plan. Red has decided he doesn’t need proof that we were involved with his brothers’ deaths a couple years ago. He seems to want an all-out war, and I want a strategic attack.”
“Like what we did in Nevada?” Jude asks.
“That’s what I was thinking. We go in and don’t leave a trace of any of those assholes behind,” Ozzy replies.
“My brother said he and his guys will take care of the Bone Breakers. Free of charge, even. Little Bit is family, after all,” Jude starts, shooting Ozzy a grin.
Liam likes to think Ozzy owes him favors.
What Liam should be thankful for is the fact that Ozzy hasn’t fed Liam to the pigs. “Told him I would bring it to you.”
“Absolutely not,” I say. “This is our business, and we’ll handle it.”
Like hell am I going to give Liam the opportunity to act out my revenge. Cece—or Little Bit, as Jude and Liam like to call her—may be their family, but it doesn’t sit right to let him take care of this for us—for me. I’ll call dibs if I fucking have to.
“I had no problem with his assistance when we got Lucy from that cult, or for him helping with the Nolan situation, but Cash is right. This is MC business, and we’ll take the lead on it. Everyone agree?” Ozzy looks around the room, and every single one of my brothers nods their head—even Jude.
“I told the wanker as much, but he made me promise to make the offer.”
“Now if he feels so inclined to give us a helping hand, I don’t think any of us would say no,” Ozzy says.
“He and his team are out of the country for about another month,” Jude says. “But I know he wants to be a part of this. Cece is his little sister. Well, sort of. It would be weird if she actually were.”
Linc, who is sitting next to him, rolls his eyes. “We get what you’re saying, numbnuts.”
Lucy is as good as Jude’s wife, at least in our world, though I anticipate they’ll officially tie the knot at some point. Or maybe not. Who the hell knows with those two. But that means Lucy is family to Liam, and by extension, so is Cece.
“Which government are they overthrowing this week?” Barrett, our road captain, jokes, and we all chuckle.
Jude’s brother, Liam, runs a company with several other former military and paramilitary friends he’s met through his years of service in the Royal Marines.
Even Jude served for several years before following his brother to the States and meeting Ozzy in a bar in Boston.
No one knows everything Liam and his team have been involved in, but that man has toys we could only dream of and is owed favors by some of the most powerful people in the world.
“He didn’t specify. Just said Don’t believe everything you see on the news,” Jude replies.
Jesus Christ.
“I, for one, would be perfectly happy waiting for Liam to get back. It gives us time to prepare. But I don’t want to wait too long. It gives the Bone Breakers the opportunity to make their way out here again,” Wyatt says.
When we found his boy and Cece in that dingy motel, he made sure Colby’s biological father didn’t make it out alive.
It’s really something what a man in love will do for his woman and the son he took on.
It was a thing of beauty, if I’m honest. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind giving Red, or any of those other fucks, the same treatment.
Not that Cece is mine. But it’s also not like I’ve wondered what would’ve happened if I met her under normal circumstances.
If we weren’t who we are. She would still be far too young for me, but I don’t know that it would be enough to stop me.
There’s a softness to her that I’ve never had before.
A sweetness. Or there used to be. Not as much anymore, at least not toward me.
But honestly, I don’t hate it. Sure, I wish she wasn’t shutting me out, but that girl needed to get mad, and I respect her for it.
No one can walk through life with the rage she felt weighing on her and not be somehow affected.
“I thought of that when he brought it up,” Jude starts.
“Sawyer has someone working under him now, and Liam has tasked him with making his full-time job keeping an eye on the Bone Breakers. Basically, that means he’s hacked into everyone’s phone and transmitted location software onto their devices without them knowing anything or being able to tell, not that they have a tech guy who is able to catch that shit anyways.
He gets an alert sent to his phone if any of those fucks walk outside of a fifty-mile radius of their clubhouse. ”
My eyebrows shoot up in surprise right along with the rest of my brothers. Sawyer is Liam’s tech guy, and if I thought about it too much, knowing what that guy can do with a few computer keystrokes would keep me up at night.
“Not gonna lie, Jude. Your brother terrifies me a little,” Knox jokes.
“At least he’s on our side,” Jude says with a smile.
“We still have the problem of not knowing who the hell Red’s been working with to get info on us,” Braxton says.
“They can’t possibly know anything useful, otherwise Nolan wouldn’t have pulled his shit,” I say.
Ozzy nods. “I’ve put out a few feelers around town, and Finn has been quietly asking around Boston since Nolan mentioned the Monaghans.
So far, we haven’t come up with anything.
” He looks around the room at all of us sitting at the table where his grandfather used to sit with his closest brothers and have these same discussions.
“Look, we’ve had plenty of other clubs and organizations try to weasel their way into Shine throughout the years.
But none of them have made it very far. You know why?
Because while they’re fighting for money and greed, we fight for family.
They have limits. When someone threatens our family or our people, we have none.
I don’t love some unknown threat lurking around, but until they scurry out of the dark like the cockroaches they are, we sit tight and handle our most pressing problem, which is the Bone Breakers. ”
“We’ll have them buried in no time, Prez,” Braxton says across from me. Like the rest of us, our sergeant at arms isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty any time it’s needed. Especially when it comes to assholes who threaten our people.
“Let’s put it to a vote. All those in favor of waiting until Liam gets back then heading out to Arizona to put those bastards six feet under where they belong, say aye.”
Every brother yells the word while pounding their fists on the table.
“Ayes have it,” Knox says with a wide smile.
Ozzy pounds the gavel, and we all get up from our seats to head out to the main room now that church is over.
“Cash, hold up,” Ozzy says as the guys file out.
He waits for the room to clear before sitting back down, and I take a seat next to him.
“Heard you went to talk to Cece the other day. How’s she doing?” he asks.
I frown. “Why aren’t you asking Jude? He lives with her.”
“Because I’m asking you, asshole. I’ve seen how close you two have become over the last couple of years. I don’t think she talks with Jude like she talks with you. And vice versa.”
I scrub a hand over my face. Fuck, I hate being asked about Cece. But this is my prez, and it’s not like I can deflect his questions, even though I want to brush it off with a joke.
“She’s not doing great. She’s shutting everyone out, including me. I was hoping if I got her alone, she would be honest with me, but she shot me down.”
“The Thomas sisters aren’t exactly known for being open and communicative,” Ozzy says.
“True. But we were different. Cece was different with me.”
“How different?” Ozzy raises a brow, obviously thinking there are things I’m not telling him.
“Not like that. I would never—”
“Treat her how she deserves to be treated? Listen to her with an open mind? Be a calming presence in her life when she feels nothing but chaos?” Ozzy’s eyebrows are raised in question, though it seems as though he already knows the answer.
I stare at him wide-eyed, finally allowing my eyes to blink after a few silent moments.