Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Drew
“I’m not sure I understand,” Slater said from the old sofa in my office. His ankle was resting over his knee as he ran his hand through the back of his hair and frowned at me.
“That’s because you’re a dumb fuck,” I said through a grin, my feet resting on the floor, moving my chair from side to side as I bought myself some time.
“Either that or someone slipped some strong shit in my coffee this morning, ‘cause I swear I just heard you tell us all that you want to work with Sutton.”
I gave him a sharp nod, my smile turning sarcastic as I widened my eyes.
Jedd leaned forward next to Slater, his hands clasping together in between his parted legs. “Gotta admit, brother, I never thought I’d hear those words come out of your mouth, either.”
“I like it,” Harry piped up from across the desk, his cough cutting his last word off before he brought his hand to his chest and smacked it. It didn’t stop him from grinning like I’d just told him Liz Hurley was on her way to blow him, though. He’d always had a thing for her.
Planting my feet on the floor, I turned to him and frowned. “When was the last time you saw doc?”
“About what?” he choked out, growling as he cleared his throat.
“You know what, dickhead.”
Harry rolled his eyes before resting back in his seat. “It’s just the smokes. Don’t you have a woman to save your nagging for now?”
“Quit that shit, Rogers.”
“I will.” He smirked. “When I die.”
I shook my head but held his gaze. That fat son of a bitch had no clue what he meant to me or this club, but I wasn’t about to go ahead and sing him his very own love song just to stroke his ego. “If you won’t listen to me, maybe you’ll listen to Ayda,” I threatened.
“You wouldn’t?” he gasped.
“Sure about that?”
“That’s foul play and you know it.”
I shrugged and looked back at Jedd, Slater, Kenny and Deeks. I didn’t miss the fact that Kenny was the only one with his head down and the only one showing no hint of amusement.
“Kenny,” I called out, raising my chin.
“What?”
“What’s with the wounded puppy dog look?”
Half lifting his head my way, he struggled to hide his scowl. “What?”
“You haven’t said a word about this since you walked through the door. Anyone would think you didn’t want to be here.”
The whole room fell silent as we waited for him to answer. Kenny’s tongue poked the inside of his cheek before he grabbed the edges of his cut, rolled his shoulders and straightened up on the arm of the sofa. “Sorry.”
Four sets of eyes suddenly fell my way. I didn’t have to see them all to feel Slater, Jedd, Deeks and Harry’s confused faces. My focus was all on K-Dog. “You don’t have anything to say about the plan to work with Sutton?”
Kenny shrugged, his hand rising up to rub his temple before he looked around the room. “Does Ayda know about this plan?”
“No.”
“Don’t you think she should?”
“Don’t you think Ayda’s my goddamn business?”
“Okay.” He sighed, dropping his eyes back to the floor again. “I’m good with whatever the rest of you decide. I’ll fall in line.”
I opened my mouth to reply when Jedd caught my attention from the corner of my eye, the slow, subtle shake of his head telling me to leave it.
Suddenly irritated, I pulled myself closer to the desk, facing forward and picking up the pen laid out on the surface, quickly drumming it on the top to pour my agitation out in some kind of new Bic-rhythm.
“Listen, I know this is a surprise to you all, and believe me, I hate Sutton more than anyone else in the state of Texas, but if we go around handling a bunch of snot-nosed brats, things are going to look bad on the club. With everything we’ve got going on with the Emps, imitating the Navs and already feeling like we’ve got more targets on our asses than a whore in a prison cell, we don’t need child-abuse adding to the fucking list. That’s something we can never come back from.
If we point Sutton in the right direction, anonymously contact his superiors and tell them that we’ve given him substantial evidence as to what’s going on in Babylon, he won’t have any choice but to act, regardless of whether we were the ones to hand him the info in the first place.
We back Sutton into a corner, he can’t argue the fact that we helped out.
He gets a pat on the back from his chiefs, we might get a bit of a reprieve from him, and he can forget I’ve fucked his wife for a while.
..” I trailed off, eyes scanning the room as my hands turned palm up and my pen pointed to the ceiling.
“We look good in the day, we save our blood and dirt for the night. We’re a motorcycle club trying to do the right thing for once.
That’s how they’ll see it. That’s the image we’ve got to put out there.
These kids ain’t our problem. The more we distance ourselves from them, the more the people of the town will believe that, although they might be wearing the Hounds’ patch, they have nothing to do with our brotherhood. ”
“Babylon is our problem,” Harry reminded me quietly.
“And this is the best solution for Babylon,” I answered.
“I’m with Drew,” Jedd piped up.
A rough exhale came from Slater, his foot twitching as it rested across his leg. “Can’t believe I’m fucking saying this, but I agree. This is for the Five-O. Let them do the policing for once.”
“Okay.” Harry began to nod his head, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled sharply. “Let’s go to Sutton.”
“Just one question,” Deeks spoke up. Letting my eyes drift over to where he was standing, leaning against the wall with his arms across his chest, I raised my chin to give him the go ahead to speak.
“In theory it works, but which one of us will approach Sutton? It can’t be you, Tucker.
You won’t even get through the station doors. ”
“I know where he lives.” I smirked.
“He’ll never listen to you. It needs to be someone he would give the time of day to. After everything, that ain’t gonna be you, brother. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“Ayda?” Jedd offered, not daring to look at me as my head practically spun to throw daggers his way.
“Are you fucking stupid?”
“Just an idea.” He shrugged.
“Not Ayda,” I hissed back at him. “She stays out of our shit from now on. Besides—”
Deeks interrupted, finishing my sentence for me. “After the ass ripping she gave him last night, Ayda is about as high up on the popularity list as our president is, Jedd.”
“I’ll do it,” Kenny pushed out, his voice louder than it had been all day as he jumped to his feet, ran his thumbs around the insides of his belt and stared holes into the floor. “I’ll do it.”
“What?” Slater asked, as confused as the rest of us.
“I said I’ll do it,” Kenny hit back, lifting his head and turning it to the side to look back at Slater. “I’m good for more than guard dog and babysitting duties, you know.”
Slater burst out laughing, throwing his head back as the strong, rough bellow erupted from deep within his stomach.
Soon Jedd was following suit, his hand running over the thick, black hair around his mouth as he tried to hold in what was trying to get out, but his shoulders were bouncing too much to hide shit.
Harry was grinning as he shook his head, but my eyes soon found their way to Deeks—the one man who was seeing what I was seeing and didn’t find anything remotely funny.
“Jesus,” Slater huffed out, dropping his head to his chest as he tried to contain his laughter. “Whatever’s got your dick trapped in a vise, let us know so we can help free you up a bit, K. You’re funny as fuck this morning.”
“Screw you,” Kenny said through gritted teeth.
“In fact, screw all y’all. I don’t need this shit today.
” And with that, he took off, marching across the room before pulling the door open and slamming it shut behind him.
Before I had a chance to join in with any of the banter in the room, I pushed up from my chair and marched myself out to find him.
This was going to fucking end and it was going to end there and then.
Pulling the door closed behind me, I left my brothers and charged through the bar with my head held high and anger strewn all across my face until I eventually caught up with him outside on the porch.
Gripping the top of his arm, I spun him around, my fingers digging into the flesh under his T-shirt sleeve as I stepped closer.
“What the fuck was that?” I spat out.
Kenny tried to shrug me off, but I was unrelenting and soon losing grip on my relatively good mood. “Get off me.”
“Not until you tell me what the hell has gotten into you.”
“Does it even matter?” he said through a tired sigh. His shoulders sagged, his face turning away as he looked out at the yard.
“Clearly. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, handling you like a child and about to put you on the motherfucking naughty step, would I?”
“Right,” he huffed out, his eyes rising back up to mine and narrowing. “’Cause I am the child of the group that no one listens to unless they want something, yeah? I’m just the dumb little kid with weird eyebrows and an irrelevant opinion.”
I searched his face for some sign that he was joking, but all I saw staring back at me was a man I’d never seen before. I felt a shitty stabbing in my chest that he could think any of that was true. So much so that I couldn’t think of anything profound to say at all. “What?”
“You heard me,” he snapped, pulling himself free as soon as my grip loosened. Taking a step back, he straightened up his cut and shook his head.
“You are my brother.”
“Am I?”
“Your opinion is always relevant. Always. Don’t you dare suggest otherwise.”
“Or what? You’re gonna cut me off from my never-ending list of chores?”
“Chores?” I frowned hard, leaning closer and lowering my face to his. “I don’t ask any more of you than I do the rest of them.”
“Yeah, well that ain’t how it feels. You respect the others, Drew. Even Deeks has somehow gained more respect since Ayda came along. Let’s face it, she’s the only one any of them listen to anymore, especially you. May as well stick the pres badge on her chest and be done with it.”
“Careful,” I growled. “Be very fucking careful.”
“I’m past caring about being careful. It’s gotten me nowhere before and it’s not gonna get me anywhere anytime soon.
You go back inside and let me know when you figure out what my next order is.
I’m sure it will be filled with lots of dos and don’ts.
Do this, Kenny. Fix that, Kenny. Be here, Kenny.
Look after the kid, Kenny. But don’t you go too close to Ayda, Kenny. ”
The moment her name passed his lips a second time, my spine stiffened and my eyes narrowed. The ends of my fingers tingled with a need to knock him flat on his ass, right then and there.
“So that’s what this is about,” I muttered, the anger expressing itself by the convulsive twitching in my jaw.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he whispered, with no conviction in his words at all.
“Like fuck you don’t.” I took a step back, distancing myself from the reality of what was staring me in the face.
“Drew.”
“Don’t, Kenny.” My growl was quiet, but the threat mixed with the irony of what I’d just said to him was obvious.
“Don’t lie to either of us. I’m a man with a dick and perfect vision.
I know what she is, I know how lucky I am, and I know she doesn’t belong here with me.
She could do better, she deserves better, but that doesn’t mean I would ever give her up without a fight—and by fight, I mean until the man who tried to take her away from me wasn’t left with a single breath in his lungs.
I’m the most selfish bastard to walk this earth.
Everyone in Babylon knows that. But just because I’ve learned how to hold a girl in my arms without bending her over a table, don’t you dare make the mistake of seeing me as weak.
She is mine. Fucking mine. Do you understand me?
Mine. Make of that what you will. I won’t be having this conversation again. ”
My eyes lingered on him for a few seconds longer, but when I finally chose to turn away, I was left with an image of my brother imprinted on my eyelids.
An image of a man who saw me as both someone he loved and someone he despised, and no matter how much I tried to ignore that as I wandered back through the bar, I couldn’t.
There were certain types of problems that couldn’t be solved with any kind of strategy.
I had a feeling Kenny was going to be one of them.