Frisco

17. Shane

17

SHANE

M y dick was still hard from that ride.

Riding my bike got Kali wet. That was good to know, but this was the wrong time for that realization. She was here in the middle of this, and she was pissed. What woman wouldn’t be with the way I was handling her? I just didn’t have another choice, and none of that could be fixed right now.

When I stepped out of the barn, Roadie was waiting for me, and he fell in step as I started for the main house. “Machete’s not far away,” he told me. “He texted. Thirty minutes out. What do you want us to do with Claudia?”

“I don’t want you to do anything except leave her the fuck alone.”

“Right, but you know, what do you want done with her?”

We had a possible war brewing here, and Roadie was asking me about his ex, who needed to stay his ex for our club’s sake. I growled and turned, stopping him. “You need to get this through your head. Stay away from Claudia. You don’t, and I’m sending you to Texas. For the club, you gotta be up front with me. Are you going to have an issue with her moving forward?”

His eyes widened, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. But then resignation came over him. “No, Ghost. I want to stay with you. I’ll steer clear of her, I promise.”

“You need your dick sucked, you find someone else. Got me?”

He nodded, his eyes shifting over my shoulder.

I had one guess who was there.

Turning, I already knew I was right.

Crow had his head down, but his eyes were trained on us. He must’ve come out of his house as we approached. “We got other trouble brewing I should know about?” he asked.

“No.” Right now we had church. “Let’s do this.”

My phone rang— Heckler calling . I showed Crow the screen.

He raised his chin, and I stepped aside for the call.

“What’s the latest?” I asked.

“We don’t know who did the shooting,” Heckler announced. “We’ve questioned everyone here.”

“How’s Prez?”

“He’s bad, Ghost. You need to prepare.”

Fuck.

“No one’s here, like anyone,” he added, dropping his voice low. “We’ve reached out to all our allies. We’ve reached out to enemies, and they’re all saying the same. If they knew, they’d talk. And that’s just the ones who we can find. We’re kicking in doors. We’re uprooting everyone. This was all timed perfectly—had to be or we’d know by now who got Max.”

“Was he alone? How’d it go down? Let’s go over this again.”

Last time my mind had been elsewhere. Estrada took precedent. Then I thought about Kali.

“No one was with him,” Heckler said. “None of our guys. He went for a meet alone, and then we got a call from the hospital. I told you this.”

“You don’t know who the meet was with?”

“He didn’t tell anyone, and there’s nothing on his phone.”

“Who was he with before? He must’ve gotten a call?”

“He was with Wraith, but Chris just said Max’s phone went off, and he stepped away for the call. Then nothing. They went to eat, and Chris and my niece went home. Max was supposed to be with our guys, but he wasn’t. He never put the call out for them.”

“He lied to Chris?”

“Seems he did, and I believe Chris. Kess was there.”

Kess was Wraith’s woman, but also Heckler’s niece.

“You question the hospital?”

“They’re saying he was dropped off outside the doors. We asked for the security footage, but all the cameras were down. We bribed the guards for it and looked ourselves, but it’s a shit system. Worthless. A nurse knew who he was. She told the front desk to call us.”

“Who’s the nurse?’

“She knows the world. Her cousin’s in one of the prisons here. He’s connected.”

“Can you ask her to ask her cousin? All the gangs are together down there. He’d know something.”

“I’ll ask, but she’s skittish. Doesn’t want anything to do with us.”

“We gotta know.”

“We already know. Too many coincidences.”

He was probably right, but I had to be sure. “I can’t declare war now on the cartel if the shooter had nothing to do with the cartel.”

“We voted. It was going to happen anyway.”

Yeah, but when it was planned for. Not like this. We’d approached Gloves because he was the only one who could put it into action the way we wanted. “That planning was done for a reason,” I reminded Heckler. “We got brothers inside to protect.”

“You got a plan for handling him?”

I glanced back. Crow was waiting on the porch, a few of his guys with him.

“We’re heading into church now.”

“Got it,” Heckler confirmed. “Call me when you know. The guys were on the road all night. They’ll be pulling in around early afternoon.”

“Sounds good. I’ll let them know to prepare.”

We hung up, and as I walked toward him, Crow turned and led the way into his house, down to his basement, and through to a cellar type of room large enough to fit twenty members. The rest stood in the back. I took one of the seats at the end. Crow took the head seat as the rest trailed in. Every ranking member had a specific seat—VP, sergeant at arms, secretary, treasurer, road captain.

This was Frisco’s charter, their home, their church. So their VP would call church to start.

Crow did just that once the doors were shut. The room grew quiet, and he nodded, leaning forward. There was a gavel in front of him.

“Okay. Everyone here?” he asked.

A round of yeah s sounded, and he nodded again, looked over at me. “This here is a home-away-from-home sort of place. It’s off the books. We shouldn’t be connected to it. Now, y’all have heard about our surprise guest and what happened to the national prez, so I’ll give it over to Ghost. He’s in charge during these times.”

All eyes came my way.

I nodded. “As most of you probably heard already, Prez was shot yesterday.” I filled them in on what I knew about it. “Half our guys are coming. The others stayed back to guard him, but Estrada being here warrants a threat we can’t ignore.”

“And if it’s not him?” the Frisco road captain asked. “If there’s a different threat to the Prez?”

“He’ll go into hiding. They won’t make a move until I’m back. Heckler stayed for that reason. He’ll keep him safe.”

That seemed to appease the guys, and most looked Crow’s way.

He asked the question. “What’s the plan then?”

“We need to gather information, as much as possible. I want to know who Estrada was visiting near here. I want to know where his men are. I want to know everything we can get. Did you know he’s got local connections here?”

“Not at all, but it’s not that surprising,” Crow said. “They move through Tijuana.”

I nodded. Yeah. That was the problem.

“We need a plan for tonight,” Stripes piped up. “Just in case.” He was standing at my side, and he spoke to me, not Crow.

The rest of our guys nodded their agreement.

“We’ll leave guys here,” I told him. “The rest will come with us. No drinking. Alcohol should only be served to our guests. And everyone keep your guns ready.” I looked at Stripes. “I want half our guys outside, keeping watch.”

He nodded.

I focused on Crow. “You’re thinking the roast will be at The Bonfire?”

“Yeah. If he doesn’t know our other locations, why introduce a new place?”

“He might not even know about that, though. What about where we were before? The parking lot where we met him? It’s flat around there, for the most part. We could keep guys behind the building and outside the town.”

Crow lifted a shoulder. “Makes sense, but it won’t take them much work to find out about The Bonfire. Everyone around here knows that’s where we operate from.”

I paused to consider that.

Crow was right, keeping Estrada to the areas he knew already or could know easily made sense. “Let’s do it at The Bonfire, otherwise we gotta leave more men behind to guard that place. Empty it out except for whoever needs to be there to play a part.”

“Ghost.”

I looked back, and Roadie leaned forward, his eyebrows pulled together tight. “We really doing this? Pretending?”

“We voted, and we can’t throw everything away by making a move when we don’t know for sure. I want him to play his hand, and then we can play ours. I’ll pick the guys who’ll keep watch.” I turned to Crow. “Your charter have any ex-military?”

A few of their guys raised their hands.

Crow motioned to them. “Two Marines and a Ranger, like yourself.”

I gave each a study, and all three looked steadily back with knowing eyes. They knew why I was asking for them. “How’s our stock?”

“We’re loaded,” Crow said. “Guns. Rifles. We keep ourselves stocked no matter what.”

“You up on sharing some of that with my guys? We were traveling, so we’re not as strapped.”

“Of course.”

Then we moved to specifics. The codes. The signals. The plan if things went bad, the plan if things went fine. We mapped every option I could think of. An hour into the meeting, we could hear a set of boots coming down the stairs, and someone pounded on the door before it opened. A prospect leaned inside, finding me. “Machete’s here. Wants to know what to do with the girl.”

Right. Claudia.

“Put her in a shed. I want to talk to her before anything else.”

“Got it.” He disappeared.

“Care to fill us in on that situation?” Crow asked.

Everyone knew our decision to break from working with the cartel. But not everyone knew the specifics, and they couldn’t. I pushed up from the table. “It’s delicate, but has to do with our exit strategy. She and my woman are connected to someone on the inside who’s helping us. I don’t want them to know anything, or even hear anything.” I looked around the room, waiting for each guy to give me a nod in response.

“My guys know how to shut their mouths,” Crow confirmed.

“Good. I should handle that situation next.”

“All right.” Crow leaned forward, grabbed the gavel, and banged it down. “Church is adjourned. Everyone knows their role.”

Stripes moved in close, lowering his voice. “You want me in there?”

I shook my head, as Crow approached. Stripes stepped back.

Crow looked between us as the rest of the guys filed out. Besides preparing, most needed shut-eye before tonight. “I’ve asked my old lady to put together the food, but I don’t like the idea of having the women there.”

“Think the sweet butts could serve in their place?”

Crow grinned. “I can ask, but they’re not exactly actresses.”

I nodded with a smile. That was true. “Just ask a couple of the smarter ones. Keep the old ladies back here.”

“And speaking of your woman, you want me to ask some of the old ladies to take her under their wing?” he added. “I mentioned it to Shelly, Rash’s sister.”

Right . “She’s in the room so far. I’m hoping she’ll stay there, but she’ll need food.” I hesitated, but he needed to know. “About Machete’s woman… well, just expect trouble from her.”

He barked out a laugh before realizing I meant what I’d said. He sobered, his smile fading. “Right. Okay. We got some smart old ladies here. I’ll maybe share that tidbit too.”

I nodded. Any warning would be good.

Machete came in and headed over as Crow stepped away. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

“Thank you.”

Machete took his place, shifting to watch him leave since the rest of the room had emptied by now. “That looked productive.”

I grunted. I liked Machete. “How is she?”

“Pissed. Knows she got handed off to me, but she went along. Now’s she even more pissed because she’s been taken to a shed, on your orders. What’s going on?”

“I don’t have time to waste. I need to know if she knows anything.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Kali’s here,” I added. “They’ll cross paths.”

His eyebrows shot up higher. “How’d that happen?”

“Estrada.” I gave him a look.

He mirrored it. “Right. What do you want me to do?”

“For now, look the other way because I gotta handle your woman.”

“She’s my woman.”

That was the problem. It was club protocol to leave each other’s women alone, the old ladies or the girlfriends.

He sighed. “I gotta be there. You know that.”

I gave a nod. “Then let’s both go and handle this.”

He groaned. “I’d rather go in for a colonoscopy than do what we’re about to do.”

Same, brother. Same.