Chapter 34 #2
Climbing off the bike, I kept my shades on and stood tall in front of my brothers.
I chucked my chin and gestured to the event going on behind me. “Follow me.”
And just like that, every one of them rose from their bikes, readjusted their cuts with pride, and began to step forward. An army of men with heart, souls of loyalty, all wrapped up to look like the bad guys of this sweet, little, picture-book town.
Injustice worked like that. People thought the bad guys were the loudest, the dirtiest, and the ones who cursed and killed.
They had no fucking clue. Those guys were the pure ones—the rare ones.
The men you could count on to die by your side or to save you, they were the ones who were good.
The real evil bastards were the ones who acted like angels to the world and then sinned in dark, seedy corners, manipulating every fucker to believe they were something they most definitely were not.
Their loyalty was a disposable mask, hiding their deception.
The minute they got found out, they scurried away like vermin.
The truly dangerous guys never really looked bad, they looked decent, and that’s why they got away with so much shit before someone found them out.
That all ended today.
I watched Owen as he stepped forward, not giving anything away or looking even the least bit uncomfortable. He was good at being bad. I could give him that. He was good at hiding his shit and letting people like me see what they wanted to see.
Man, I wanted to stick my fingers into the flesh of his throat, squeeze the oxygen out of him and watch him turn blue as my hands became cold from the death that was taking over him.
I imagined cutting him open, tossing his heart into the forest for the wolves of the night to gnaw on until the sun rose the next day.
I could daydream for hours about smelling his blood on my skin.
His betrayal made me thirsty for his death.
Turning away before I gave myself away, I led the men across the park, our boots hitting the grass and waiting for everyone up ahead to realize we weren’t there just to ride through Babylon. We were there to defend it.
It didn’t take long for The Mayor to look up at us with wide eyes and an open mouth, his surprise evident for just a second before he schooled his face, switching on the sleazy charm that matched Owen’s perfectly.
The small crowd of people in front of him turned in their seats to look at us as we came to a stop behind the last row. With my men gathered around me, I folded my arms over my chest, stood with my legs apart, and simply raised my chin and set my own smug smirk free.
Nobody behind me said a damn thing. They knew better than that.
I watched as The Mayor leaned to the side and whispered something in one of his men’s ears, his hands working some papers that were propped on the stand in front of him, just for something to do.
A nervous man’s energy poured into mindless tasks that way sometimes. He was trying to buy himself time.
It was at that very moment that I noticed a familiar face standing to the left of Mayor Walsh.
A face that was looking at me like she was ready to eat me alive if I’d let her get within an inch of me.
Winnie.
ATFuckingF.
I raised a brow at her and tilted my head to one side, simply watching her as she watched me, a silent standoff happening before she reached for her phone, brought it up in front of her and started tapping away on the screen.
Interesting.
Mayor Walsh coughed, bringing his hand up to nudge the perfectly positioned tie he was wearing, knocking it off center.
Even more interesting.
“Drew?” Jedd said in a whisper beside me. “Are you about to do something really fucking stupid?”
“Let’s see, shall we?”
“Fuck.”
“Do me a favor, Jedd?”
“What?” he said through a sigh.
“Don’t let anyone here out of your sight. No one leaves the pack.”
Jedd didn’t respond. There were no further questions, but I felt him tense beside me. He knew something was going on, and he suddenly knew it was big.
“So, with the proposed plans in place—” The Mayor began through a croaky voice.
“Mayor Walsh!” I called out roughly, my arms still folded in front of me.
He looked up slowly, his irritation written over his face.
“Hi.” I beamed, raising a weak hand to wiggle my leather glove-clad fingers.
“Mr. Tucker,” he all but growled.
“Sorry.” I gestured to the event going on around us, and I shook my head, my smile turning upside down. “Do you mind starting over? We missed the first part of this little speech of yours.”
The Mayor’s mouth pressed into a thin line as he glared at me.
That’s right, snake. I’m right here. Come and get me.
“All this will be a matter of public record soon enough, Mr. Tucker. I’m sure you and your… men… can catch up with it then.”
I curled my lip and reached up to remove my shades, making sure he saw the look in my eyes as I played this fucker like the greasy puppet he was. “Me and my men? What, exactly, does that mean?” I tucked my shades into the top of my cut, letting both my hands fall by my sides.
Mayor Walsh glanced at the man next to him before he looked down at Winnie. She hadn’t taken her eyes off me once. I could feel her stare burning into my skin, studying me like a little science project she couldn’t quite understand.
“Either take a seat, Tucker or leave,” Mayor Walsh called out, failing to hide his irritation.
“I’ll take my chances standing. Me and my men are citizens of Babylon. Over the last few months, more than ever, the welfare and safety of our fellow townsfolk is a major concern of ours.”
“A concern of yours?” he scoffed in response, raising his brow. “You? The very men who are the concerns of this town? The ones who treat it and its residents like sub characters in some crazy world they’ve created that brings criminals, dishonesty, violence, and even death to our streets?”
“Why don’t you tell us how you really feel, Mayor?” I smirked.
His nostrils twitched—his top lip, too—as he fought to remain professional.
“Probably best you don’t do that in front of these people, though, right? We wouldn’t want them seeing a side of you they couldn’t even imagine exists.”
The man next to Mayor Walsh leaned forward, whispering something and reaching for a radio that was attached to the waistband of his trousers, but the Mayor simply held a hand up in his face, never looking away from me, and the man stepped down again, quietly removing himself and his opinions from the situation.
“Ah,” I sighed happily, spinning on the heels of my boots and turning to look at all my brothers behind me. “I don’t think our Mayor thinks too highly of us, boys.”
“Shame,” Slater muttered, his amusement clear.
Jedd was stony-faced, watching the Mayor like he had a target on his forehead already. Which, he kind of did.
Deeks looked calm, Kenny confused. Rubin was at the back, and I wasn’t even sure Walsh had seen him yet. As much as I hated to do this to the kid, I knew when to play my hand and when to hold it back. Now was the time to play.
Stepping through my men, I began to call back to the small crowd.
“Nobody cares about this town more than I do, Mayor, I can assure you of that. Every single one of these men would die to save Babylon’s honor.
They’d lay down their lives if someone tried to hurt this place.
We don’t just ride motorcycles, do we, brothers? ”
They responded in low grunts of no, their heads shaking as they looked up at the enemy.
“We are so much more than bikes, repos, buying and selling gold, and keeping our own little slice of Heaven away from the main streets of this place, Mayor Walsh.” I spun back around, now at the end of a line that the men had parted to create in my honor.
To my left was Rubin. To my right was Owen.
Both of them hidden behind other brothers as I stared up at Mayor Walsh and waited to strike.
“We love our town. We wear it on our leather, and we wear it on our skin. We’re not The Hounds of Navarro or The Hounds of Silver City.
We are The Hounds of Babylon. We’re the eyes in the shadows, protecting the borders we love so much.
We protect the land that belongs to all of us.
We keep it safe when others sleep, but we do it silently, without causing anyone in this town any harm. ”
“Jacob would argue against that.”
“Jacob didn’t like the fact that we knew he was dealing drugs in our safe space,” I hit back. “Perhaps you knew about that before we did.”
The small crowd of people gasped, each one looking at the other, their mouths moving as they asked if it could be true.
Walsh cricked his neck, the heat rising in his cheeks as he reached for his tie again.
“But we probably shouldn’t talk about that publicly, should we?” I smiled flatly, both brows rising. “Not many of Babylon’s issues are discussed in public, are they, Mayor?”
“You need to leave, Mr. Tucker. This is a public announcement concerning—”
“The land over on thirty-one fifty and thirty-one sixty. Yeah. I know. And we’re here to say we’re never going to let that land be sold.”
The irritation I let creep into my voice was like a small nugget of a victory for Mayor Walsh, his back straightening and his smile rising as he looked down the aisle at me.
“You have less power than you think you do, I’m afraid.
You may be more than just a motorcycle club, but you are nothing to this town and the decisions it makes. ”
At once, a few heads snapped up to look at him, the residents of Babylon scowling at him as he showed a side of himself they hadn’t seen before. We’d grown closer to the people since the night of the warehouse, and it seems our little mayor had forgotten that, if only for a moment.
“We don’t get a say at all?” I asked sarcastically. “Nothing?”
His jaw twitched as he looked down at everyone in front of him.