Frisco

9. Shane

9

SHANE

“H ow’s it going in Frisco?”

I was surprised Max held off as long as he had. We’d arrived two weeks ago, and since then it’d been a shitshow.

Which is what I told him, adding, “What did you expect?”

I’d taken his call outside The Bonfire, a local hangout we’d adopted with the other Red Demons already in the local Frisco charter. It was a bar just for us, and instead of being on the outskirts of town, which is what we usually chose so we could be rowdy and not get complaints, The Bonfire was smack dab on the main street that ran through Frisco.

It was a small town, barely a town at all—population of three hundred and seventy two residents. The school was gone. The local post office had one worker. Two diners. One gas station. Two bars. A small nursing home. Some volunteers made up the local fire station, and there were no cops. The neighboring towns had those, but they were a decent distance away. That’s where the nearest hospital was too.

We were twenty miles off of a major interstate that connected California to Oregon, to Washington, and all the way to the border. On the other side, we were another ten miles from a second major highway that ran east, all the way through Colorado and on to the east coast. It went right through middle America, and Max had been right. This was a prime location.

Tonight the party was in the back, gated off by two giant walls of chain, steel, and wood—pallets, to be more specific. Open that gate up, and on the other side you’d find thirty motorcycles, two RV campers, an auto repair warehouse, and the backside of The Bonfire, which lived up to its name. A big fire ring had been set up in the middle of the whole shebang, and the guys were having a good ol’ cookout, complete with beer, women, and blow.

All that was a bit noisy for my call, so I moved through The Bonfire’s interior, giving a nod to those who greeted me, and stepped outside to the front along Frisco’s main road. A line of bikes was parked out here, along with two prospects watching them. Both said hello, but saw I was on the phone and moved away to give me privacy.

It didn’t matter. I wasn’t planning to stay there. I was restless, and I didn’t know why.

No. That wasn’t true. I did know why, but there was nothing I could do about it. Not yet.

Moving past The Bonfire, I went over and sat on a bench outside Mama’s Diner. It was closed, and no one was around. It was an older building with giant windows and white paint that was half stripped off, but it had the small town charm to it. It’d become a popular eating place with the guys, and I could understand why—good-sized helpings and cheap prices, especially for California. And since there were barely any locals, it was almost like our own diner. Mama herself didn’t have any objections. She was doing real well these last couple weeks. The guys enjoyed the high school-aged servers too. There was a lot of flirting and giggling going on.

“I want to send Wraith out there,” Max told me.

“Prez…” I stopped myself, though. Respect was everything in our club. But he was wrong here. Dead fucking wrong. I took a beat. “You sent me to help with this charter. I’m here. I’m doing it. They haven’t balked too much. They enjoy the partying mostly, but I cannot help this charter get where you want us to go with your nephew coming. He’s good. He’s smart, but I can’t risk it. That could lead to unnecessary death, and then we got police involved, outside police.”

“What about Stripes?”

“He’s smart, wily. It’s an asset to have him here.”

I liked Stripes. He got the road name Stripes from inside Potomahmen and it stuck. He’d come clean about what he had to do in order to get a reduced sentence for the reason he was in. That hadn’t sat well with some of the guys, but he struck a deal after. He gave us some vital intel and since then swore his loyalty to us. We’d kept a good eye on him, but there was always a little hesitancy about him, though what he helped us with really helped the club. It was the kind of favor that saved our hides from going and being in a cell next to him. He was also young and he had a daughter. He talked about her a lot, which wasn’t a problem, but his daughter was in Florida. He’d gone to see her a few times, though it wasn’t enough. A lot of the guys understood, having kids of their own.

“That’s good. We got a charter in Florida, but I’m hoping he stays with us. I’ve been thinking about the Bennett situation. When you think you could do a meet?”

Jesus . One, it was news to me that he did want us to do a meet. And two, he wanted us to get right to it. That shit didn’t happen, not just like that. Maxwell Raith was the most intelligent and ruthless man I’d ever met, but he also tried to be fair. I respected him, but this wasn’t how things worked.

The local charter had thirteen members, and I’d showed up with twelve of us. If I moved forward too fast, they could protest. They were the charter nearest to where the Bennetts had their headquarters. We didn’t have a charter in Oregon or Washington. If I made the approach and it went bad, their charter would be the one first impacted.

“If we don’t want to have the guys digging graves out back, I’m going to need three months,” I told him. “At the least. I also need that time to do the initial job.”

“The window for our move is gonna be tight,” he countered.

I grunted because selfishly, I was okay with that.

“Gloves made his choice,” he said in a low voice. “We’ve upheld his wishes, helped the mother and one sister. We’re moving forward.”

I ground my teeth. It wasn’t right.

“What about the other sister?” Max asked.

“She wanted us gone, so we split.”

“You still think she’ll be a problem?”

The way he said that… I didn’t get a good feeling. Killing wasn’t something I second-guessed—not now, not after so long in the service and after doing this life. There was no way up if you didn’t take a life. But I didn’t want it to come to that with Kali.

“We did what she wanted so why would she be a problem?” I asked. It was the most non-answer I’ve ever given him.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

I gripped the phone tighter, hearing laughter burst out as The Bonfire’s doors opened. Some of the guys spilled onto the sidewalk, their arms around some sweet butts.

“I gotta go, Prez. There’s not a lot of privacy where I’m at.”

“You set on those three months?” he asked.

I’d stood up from my bench, but paused. “No ditches need to be dug in that timeframe.”

“Make it happen because I’m not being bitch for the fucking Estrada cartel anymore.”

With that, he hung up. He’d said his piece. I’d said mine. I got the extension I wanted, and he’d ended with a reminder of what all this was for.

Max made a call years ago and got us in business with a cartel.

That cartel had been weakened over the last year. No one knew why or how it happened, but it did. We’d voted, and all of the Red Demons wanted out from under the cartel’s thumb.

“Ghost.” Stripes came toward me, a beer in one hand. He glanced up and down the street, which was empty except for a few Frisco residents driving through. “We gotta problem with Roadie’s lay or sweetie, or whatever the fuck she is.”

I grinned. I meant what I’d said to Maxwell. Stripes was smart, and he could be an asset, but also, he was maybe too smart. He was the kind who could mastermind shit without blinking an eye. That made me think he could work something against us, and we’d never see it coming. I wasn’t sure if he had the balls, but we’d see. He was young and had caught the eye of more than a handful of women on our trip, but to my knowledge, he hadn’t taken any of them to bed.

Another weird thing about him.

“Gloves’ sister?”

He gave me a tight nod, which told me he agreed with my sentiment. Claudia Hinton was a problem. She’d followed us on our trip, driving separately with a couple of her friends, but when we set up shop here, she’d stayed put.

“What’s going on?”

“She’s throwing a fit—found Roadie balls deep in her friend. The two are catfighting.”

Well, shit. I sighed. “Get Roadie out here,” I barked, knowing Stripes would repeat it exactly that way.

He disappeared with a nod, and a few moments later, Roadie hurried his ass out here, zipping up his pants at the same time.

I gave him a look. “Your two bitches are fighting and you didn’t find the time to put your dick away?”

He gave me a lopsided grin, raking his hand through his hair. “Hey, man.”

“Hey, man, my ass. What the fuck you think you’re doing?”

His eyes widened, and he dropped a bit of that grin. Straightening up, he swallowed. “You mean the girls?”

“I mean Gloves’ sister. She’s Gloves’ sister . You forget what we’re asking him to do? And you’re what? She gonna be your old lady? A sweetie? If she’s a lay, it’s a long fucking lay. You think Gloves will be happy if she turns into a sweet butt?”

That grin was gone, and panic crept in. He blanched. “I didn’t really think it through, to be honest.”

“No shit.”

He grimaced again, rubbing a hand over his face. “Fuck. What do I do, Ghost?”

“You don’t want her to be a sweetie?” I knew he wasn’t mature enough to take on an old lady.

He considered it, regret written all over his face. He went so white he looked like Casper. This fucking idiot.

“She’s followed us the whole route,” I pointed out. “No one’s said anything because of who her brother is. Now you’ve created this situation, and you better be real fucking thoughtful in the way you’re going to fix it.”

“I don’t want a sweetie, but…”

He was considering it.

Goddamn . He’d tell her the words, she’d be over the moon, and he’d be back inside her friend by the end of the same night.

“She like anyone else?”

He gave me a weird look. “How you mean?”

“She look contemplative about spreading her legs for anyone else here?”

“You.” He paused. “Don’t suppose you’d—”

“No.” Wrong sister. “Give me another name.”

“Uh, she was looking at Stripes earlier today.”

Fucking hell. “Another name.”

“I caught her eyeing Machete the first day we hooked up.” He hitched his pants with a jerk and adjusted his junk. “Didn’t think of it till now. He was eyeing her back.”

Machete was quiet, and he wasn’t known for making the first move on a sweet butt. He liked to stay in the corner and see who came to him. But he didn’t seem too picky about who he sunk his dick into. Roadie was the opposite in almost every way, except the picky part.

I gave a grunt and nodded. “Go get him. Grab your two girls. Put Gloves’ sister in a room, and get that other one out of here. I don’t want her around the club for a month.”

“But—”

“Fucking now, Roadie!”

He shut up real quick and gave me a nod before making a hasty exit. The prospects gave me uneasy looks.

I didn’t usually bark commands or roar like I just had.

I gave orders, and I killed. Those were my two main functions. This was unusual, so them being uneasy made sense. I was uneasy myself, hoping not to do something that’d put the club in a bad spot. But goddammit, my patience was wearing really thin.

Machete came out a moment later, looking for me, and his eyes flickered before he headed my way. Like me, Machete was quiet when he walked anywhere. I didn’t know why, but I could tell there were a lot of haunts inside him. I knew to respect him, and if he shared, we’d be here if he needed us. Till then, we let him be quiet.

“VP.” He was one of the few who addressed me that way in our smaller group.

“We got a problem.”

“Gloves’ sister.”

I gave a nod, short and tight. “You guessing where I’m going?”

“You’d have to be deaf, blind, and in a whole other building not to know what’s going down in there. Roadie fucked up.”

“Right.”

He gave me a knowing look, but there was something else there I couldn’t quite decipher. Anticipation? I wasn’t sure. Wasn’t sure I wanted to know either.

“She’d be open to me,” he said after a moment.

“You’d do that?”

“For you.”

“The club?”

“For you .” He glanced back at The Bonfire. “In my forties. Not a bad time to take a woman.”

I cursed under my breath. “You think you can handle her?”

He flashed me a smile, and I was struck dumb for a beat. Machete didn’t like to smile, but when he did, everyone smiled with him. He gave a nod. “I can handle her just fine.”

The front door shoved open and someone screeched. The other girl, I assumed, huffed her way out, jerking her shirt to cover her stomach as she did. One of the prospects walked her to his bike.

He waved to us. “Giving her a ride home.”

The girl did not look over. She avoided everyone’s eyes, brushing her hair back.

Couldn’t say I blamed her.

Machete sighed. “The girl likes Roadie a whole lot, but she’s intrigued by me. Don’t know if it’s ’cause I’m quiet or ’cause I’m Black.”

“You sure about her? We can figure something else—”

He held a hand up, stopping me. “Ain’t no problem. I know what we’re asking Gloves to do. That means something. We ain’t all stupid like Roadie.”

“She might want to go back to him.”

“It’s not about that, though, is it?” He turned to go, but paused and looked at me. “It’s about holding her off until Gloves does what he’s gotta do.”

Right . We were assholes.

“Thanks, Machete.”

He gave another nod, then turned and went back into The Bonfire. He’d do what he needed to do, and Roadie would probably have her back in his bed within a week. No . I made a decision. Roadie and I would have a talk. Leadership didn’t weigh into who our members took to bed unless it affected the club. This would affect the club, and one of our own. That shit wouldn’t go over with anyone.

I would make sure Roadie was aware of that fact.

“Prospect.”

Another one had come out to replace the one giving the girl a ride home. Both looked over when I called, but I only needed one to do my bidding.

“Call Stripes out here.”

One of them disappeared, and Stripes came back out thirty seconds later.

“What’s up, VP?” He gave me a wary look. He was the other member who referred to me by that title.

“Take Roadie out to the T. I’ll meet you there. We need to have a talk away from the others.”

Understanding flashed in his gaze, along with satisfaction.

That gave me more pause about this guy.

He nodded. “Sounds good. Should I tell him I saw some fine tits out there to get him away or tell him you’ll be waiting for him?”

“Tell him about the tits.”

A hint of a grin showed before he schooled his features. “Tits it is.”

He went inside, and I finished my beer before I went to my bike.