15. Voting
VOTING
CUTTER
Power emanates from everyone in the room, the atmosphere ripe with alpha ego and a sense of wariness—smart on both sides. We’ve been working with the Carnells for over four years, and have a good relationship, but in our world, things can turn bad in the blink of an eye. I’m living proof of that.
We hold a dark secret that, if it ever came to light, could shift this nice rapport into a deadly war.
“Getting the extra cargo in won’t be an issue, but it won’t be cheap to add another shipment in such a short period between the last one,” Pres informs Michael Senior at the head of the dining table, Michael Junior to his right, and their righthand man, Wescott, to his left.
We’re past trust issues, but it doesn’t keep the two security guards from standing at attention by the door or Jericho from bringing Grease and Monster along with Callan and me. More of a big dick display than anything else.
Instead of Senior’s office, we were brought into a dining room that could seat forty people.
The long table is covered in a cream tablecloth with flowers and candle centerpieces laid out every few feet down the middle.
A giant chandelier dangles above, crystals dripping from it like icicles after a snowstorm.
I half expect a maid to waltz in and start laying teacups out in front of us as a butler announces the late queen of England’s arrival. It’s pretentious.
I can’t fucking wait to get out of here. My boots have left mud prints on the cream rug beneath the table. Who the fuck decorates their dining room in white? A rich fuck who’s probably never used the room, that’s who.
Grease frowns at the large flower arrangement blocking his view, and I have to bite my fist to keep from laughing.
“Money’s not an issue. We’re expanding, and for that, we need product.” Senior’s gruff voice irritates me.
They don’t need to be in the drug game. They have more money than they’ll ever need. Hell, more than their kids’ kids’ kids will ever need. But there’s a demand, and if they’re not fulfilling it, someone else will. There’s big money in drugs. The Carnells won’t share that with an outsider.
“I heard you got approval for the new casino.” Pres pulls his lips into a smile, his brow raising, and his arms resting on the table, elbows and all. Everyone on this side of the room looks so out of place, it’s comical.
“It pays to know people in high places.” Michael Junior shrugs, amusement in his eyes.
“Or to be related to them,” Callan counters with a tip of his head. I chuckle. I like Michael but he’s never had to work for shit.
“Everyone has a price—you just need a big enough bank account to find it,” Senior grunts, wrinkles cracking around his lips and splintering out from his eyes. The fucker has gained weight over the last year, making his cheeks bloated and ruddy.
It’s not about bigger bank accounts—it’s who has the lesser morals.
He must be forgetting they get most of the information they use for bribery from the Kings.
Zoning commissions become obsolete when you have the key players on film doing shit they shouldn’t be doing with people they shouldn’t be doing it with. You’re fucking welcome, asshole.
“He who has the money has the power, and those who hold the power make the rules,” Senior adds with a smirk, twisting his watch to check the time.
His fingers look inflated, his gold rings strangling the digits.
The man should get that checked out. “I have dinner reservations. If we’re done here…
” He taps the edge of the table, and Pres pushes his chair back, getting to his feet before Senior can.
“We’re done. I’ll be in touch.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Michael Junior says. He stands, gesturing toward the double doors we came through. Blowing out a breath, I follow Pres and Callan’s lead, Monster and Grease bringing up the rear.
The portraits hanging obnoxiously throughout the halls watch us as we pass.
Callan turns his head at the painting of Nicolas in the foyer.
Unlike Michael’s portrait, Nicolas’s will remain the same, frozen in time.
It doesn’t even replicate him. It’s more a fantasy of how they wish he fucking was.
The kid was a skinny, drugged-out prick who looked like he hadn’t seen water in months.
This painting…there’s color in his cheeks, an odd smile on his too-big lips, life in his eyes, and meat on his bones.
When I sit at a table with Senior, who has the same eyes as Nicolas, I never feel an inch of guilt for killing his son.
But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about him.
I think about the little fucker all the damn time.
Not because I killed him—I’ve killed many men—but because of the cost of his death.
Michael took the bait we laid years ago, framing the Redwings for Nicolas’s disappearance, and we ended the gang for him. He always reiterates his debt to us. When the time is right, Pres will collect.
The truth will never come out, wrapped up tight in a little circle of trust.
My gaze drops to the wedding band on my finger, and my jaw clenches. This is what keeps me up at night, what plagues me: the ring I had to give to the wrong woman.
That fucking price was too high.
“I apologize if my father came off as dismissive.” Junior laughs, interrupting my thoughts.
He follows us out the front door and down the steps to their driveway.
Over the years, we’d gotten used to Senior’s abruptness yet he always made an excuse for his father’s behavior.
I wonder who else he had to go around offering apologies to. It must be fucking exhausting.
“We didn’t expect a dinner invite,” Callan assures him with a grin, slapping him on the shoulder.
Not one to stick around and be coddled with explanations, Pres is already mounting his bike. He, like us, knows Senior is an arrogant asshole who believes his time is more important than anyone else’s.
“It’s a charity gala—missing kids thing. He gets roped into all that shit since Nicolas…” Michael shoves his hands into the pockets of his slacks, his face twisting.
With no body to find and Senior refusing to let anyone think his son was killed by gangbangers, to the public, Nicolas is still just a missing person.
“Say no more. It was good to see you,” Callan calls out, walking toward me and nudging me as he passes. I hadn’t realized I’d been standing there staring at Michael without saying a word.
Michael frowns at me, and I offer an awkward wave . “See you around.”
“Yeah, see you around.” He turns and makes his way back inside.
“If he could just pay off the zoning commission assholes for the casino, why the fuck did I have to watch an overweight, middle-aged man fuck his drag queen piece on the side for over two hours?” Monster asks, shoving his helmet on.
“Brother, you had to set up the camera and collect it afterward. No one asked you to watch them fuck.” Callan shudders, looking over his shoulder to Pres. Who chuckles, deep and dirty.
“You misunderstand.” Monster shakes his head, straddling his bike and kicking up the kickstand. “I wanted to watch. I just don’t know why we got it on tape if money would have done the job.”
A chorus of laughter booms. “You’re a fucking pervert, and not everyone can be bought—no matter how fucking big your bank account is.” Callan scoffs.
“Anyone notice his fat fingers?” I ask, pulling on my road gloves and straddling my bike.
“He’s a heart attack waiting to happen,” Pres grunts, bringing his bike to life. The rumble makes my dick twitch.
Every. Fucking. Time.
The only thing that gives me the same buzz is fucking.
And not just anyone. Fucking a woman who isn’t wearing my ring or on the back of my bike.
A woman who cut me off and hates my guts.
The woman I can never have but want with every fiber of my being.
Fucking Kitty . Why can’t I quit that girl?
I know she’s flirting with that prospect to get back at me, and it works.
I want to take the fucker apart. Skin him and dip his flesh in acid to erase any remnants of her touch or scent.
I’m not sure if she realizes the fucker is in love with her.
I’d recognize that longing anywhere. It’s the same shit that makes my chest pound every time I look at her.
The problem is he’s not just any prospect, he’s Green’s little brother, and Pres wants to take a vote to patch him in.
It will pass too. He’s earned it. Loyal and hardworking, he has bled for the club and done his time.
Once he gets that patch, he’ll become my brother.
Rules change.
Pres better fucking warn him off. If I couldn’t be with Kitty, it will be over my dead body she ends up with another brother.
His dead body too.
“Let’s ride out,” Pres shouts over the reverberating choir of our bikes.
My fists tighten on the handlebars, a wave of anger radiating through me at the images my mind is creating of Tim with Kit. Nope. Not happening.
Callan pulls out behind Pres, and I tail him.
As soon as I hit the open road and the breeze washes over me, all that shit flees my head and I allow the fantasy of having her take over.
Soaking in the sun at my back, I cruise the winding roads beneath what seems like an endless sky imagining Kit’s legs clutching my thighs, her tits pressed into my back.
Us being free.
No Tim.
No Claire.
No one forbidding it.
No reason it can never happen.
I take my place at the table for church, my thumb stroking over my name etched into the wooden surface bordered by the names of my brothers, those that are here and those that came before— each one contributing to this sacred space, each name engraved into it like an ancient scripture.
There’s nothing else in the room. Four white walls, all blank except behind the president’s seat where our club insignia is painted with pride on the stretched canvas.
Monster slides a bottle of whiskey across the table toward me then chucks back a full glass, hissing from the burn and shaking his head with his tongue out like an excited dog.
I pour two fingers’ worth and pass it down the line to Green.
The overgrown bush on Monster’s face makes it hard to tell if he’s smiling or smirking.
“What?” I snatch up the glass and take a swig, the amber warmth heating my tongue.
“Pussy,” he mocks, nodding his head to Green, who fills his glass to the brim and downs it.
Still holding my glass, I point to him then Green. “That’s savagery, you classless fucks.” The bottles reserved for church meetings are the expensive shit you’re supposed to savor. They’re downing it like tequila shots at a nightclub.
Pulling out my blade from my ankle strap, I hold it up to Monster and jerk my chin to his hand fisted on the tabletop. “Let’s see who the pussy is.”
Those crazy black orbs of his swirl with excitement. Slamming his hand down on the table, he spreads his fingers and caresses his beard with the other hand.
I slowly bring down the blade, carrying it back and forth, barely touching the slivers of wood displayed between each finger.
The fucker starts laughing, and I pick up my pace, the soft thud a rhythmic tune as the blade hits the wood.
Tap—tap—tap—tap—tap . We have everyone’s rapt attention before Green knocks over the bottle of whiskey, and I nick Monster’s skin from the distraction.
The hard bastard doesn’t even flinch as blood leaks from the slice on his index finger, and the brothers roar with laughter.
“Oops.” I retreat, slipping my blade back into its sheath. “My bad.”
“Hence your fucking name.” Monster makes a show of licking between his fingers. Asshole .
The smack around Green’s head from Grease draws a laugh from Dodger sitting beside him.
“The number of times you slap him, the dumb fuck is going to end up brain damaged.”
“End up brain damaged?” Grease snorts, leaning on the table, his massive arms straining his t-shirt. “He was born brain damaged.”
“You’re emotionally damaged,” Green retorts.
The door slams shut at Pres and Callan’s arrival, signaling church is starting.
Taking his seat, Pres grips the gavel and hits the table.
“First order of business,” Pres announces, the vein in his neck bulging. “Jennings missed a second payment and tried to go directly to the Russians to undercut us for the weapons shipment due next week.” All playful banter flees the room, and tension fills the air.
Jennings is a fucking moron. After his first missed payment, Pres gave him leniency, and what does he do?
He goes behind our backs. How dare that prick presume weakness from us.
We rarely give second chances and sure as hell never forget those who take advantage of the first one.
Jennings will pay for disrespecting the Kings.
“What’s the play?” Dodger asks.
“We can’t let him get away with the disrespect, and the Russians will be watching to see how we handle our business.” Callan nods to Pres, who mirrors him.
“Jennings is going to ground,” Pres declares, looking to Grease. “Then we raid his warehouse and take our money in merchandise.”
Every brother nods in agreement.
“I’ll find him,” Monster announces.
“No. Dodger, I want you on this. I want the cunt kept alive until you hear from me.”
“Okay.” Dodger shrugs, and Monster frowns at him.
“I can control myself,” Monster defends under his breath, and he can, but Pres must not want pain inflicted right away.
The gavel smacks the table once more, and Pres looks to Green, a smile curving his lips.
“It’s already been mentioned, but it’s time to take a vote.
” Callan opens a folder and pulls out a piece of paper with an image of Green’s brother’s face taken like a mugshot and “Prospect Tim One” written on it.
Pushing it to the center of the table, Callan unsheathes his blade and stabs it through the paper, pinning it to the table and casting his vote.
One for.
This is it.
“All those in favor…” Pres asks.
Looks go around the table as each brother stands and clutches their knife, stabbing them through the image.
My jaw tightens. My fists clench. If I stab the table, it will be for petty reasons, and I won’t have an answer for Callan or Green when they inevitably ask why.
I’m not some punk bitch either. Denying he’s earned his patch would be bullshit.
Reaching for my blade, I bring the steel down on the image.
If I’m right about him being in love with Kit, he and I will deal with it, brother to brother.