Chapter 14
Fuse
I woke up with a beautiful woman sprawled over me.
Waking up with Winter was by far the best thing in my world.
There was a slight chill in the air. That meant I had zero motivation to actually get up and leave the warmth of our bed.
I’d rather spend the next hour cuddled up with her, feeling her soft hair against my bare chest.
The kittens had claimed the foot of the bed at some point in the night and were piled together in a heap.
There weren’t enough of them to form an actual puppy pile, but they were cute.
It’s strange how I used to be alone and content, a man wandering in a man’s world.
Now, my world was filled with feminine beauty and adorable kittens, and I was far more than content.
I was happy and satisfied in a way that I never was as a single man.
The sharp knock on the door was quiet but deliberate. It was Storm’s signature. It was the way he spaced the knocks that gave it away.
Winter stirred. I pressed my lips to her hair before I moved to get out of bed.
“Give me twenty minutes,” I said towards the door.
“Make it fifteen,” Storm said, as his footsteps moved back down the hall. I could vaguely hear him knocking on other doors as I hauled my ass out of bed.
I looked down at Winter. She was gazing up at me, clearly pleased with her lot in life. She loved me. I knew it because she told me so.
“Sorry, something must have popped off overnight. Storm’s calling a meeting.”
“Go and take care of business,” she told me sleepily. “I’ll feed the cats and be down shortly.”
I made short work of showering and heading downstairs.
The three presidents were already seated when I walked into the chapel. I got a coffee, took my seat, and looked around the table. Each club president had all his club officers with him. I understood immediately that whatever was going on was big.
Storm was at the head of the table with Thunder on one side and Celt on the other. They looked like they had been up for hours already. Across from him was Siege from Savage Legion, with Tank and Rider flanking him.
At the far end of the table was a man I’d seen around but had never spoken with directly.
Jasper was prez of the Sons of Rage. He was leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed.
He had the relaxed expression of a man who enjoyed a little violence in the morning.
His reputation preceded him. He was said to be a risk taker, an enjoyer of chaos, the kind of club president who made decisions with his gut and had the uncanny luck to be right most of the time.
If Storm was the strategist and Siege was the tactician, Jasper was the one who’d kick the door in just to see what was on the other side. His VP, Slate, sat beside him. They were brothers of course, as were most of the club officers, since their father, Rock, founded the club.
Three presidents and their seconds in the same room before eight in the morning probably meant someone had been attacked.
“Are we waiting on anyone else?” I asked.
“Not anymore,” Storm said glancing towards the door just as another man walked in. “Welcome Bran. Come in and close the door behind you.”
When he eased down into a chair beside the Sons of Rage brothers, Jasper spoke. “Bran is our man on the inside. We planted him as a prospect in one of the clubs Viper targeted to patch over.”
Bran was young and not wearing a cut. He was hollow-eyed and looked exhausted.
Jasper nodded at him. “Tell them what you told me.”
Bran looked around the table, making brief eye contact with each president in turn before speaking.
“The favors the Slayers were doing for Viper weren’t really favors,” he said.
“What in the hell does that mean?” Storm asked.
“Viper’s real plan from the beginning was to use the favors to bring the Dark Slayers down. The unity ride, the council vote, and your club standing down during a conflict weren’t about respect, territory or being allies.”
He paused. “He’s using each favor to dirty the Slayers’ reputation, to sow distrust and make sure no one trusts you or is willing to stick their necks out for you.
The plan is for Stolen Oath to keep expanding to the point that no club has enough manpower to take ‘em out. The three biggest and most stable clubs also have the most weapons and ammo, so Viper knows he can’t go head to head with you.
He wants to make sure the Slayers are isolated and alone because you won’t be a threat to him then. ”
The room was very quiet.
Then Bran added, “Don’t worry, he has the same plan in mind for the Savage Legion and Sons of Rage. His plan is to take down one club after another until his club is the biggest, baddest club in the region.”
I looked at Storm. His expression was colder and more focused than I’d ever seen.
“I wondered if that’s what the fucker was up to, and you’ve just confirmed it.” Storm said. His voice was completely level, which somehow made it worse.
“Yes,” Bran replied. “And it looks like it’s working. There are clubs in the region that have already decided the Slayers were the architects of Vulture’s takedown. Viper’s been careful not to confirm it or deny it. He just lets people assume what they want and acts surprised when they tell him.”
Siege leaned forward. “What about my men? The ones Viper’s crew put in the hospital?”
Bran shifted his attention. “As you already know, the ambushes on the Savage Legion were Stolen Oath.” He held Siege’s gaze.
“They’ve done it to three other clubs as well.
Molten Horse lost two men to what they believed was a Sons of Rage splinter group.
An independent club out of the valley thinks the Ironbound hit their fuel depot. ”
Jasper sat up slowly. “Molten Horse thinks we hit them?”
“A faction from your club,” Bran replied. “That’s the story Viper’s men seeded after the attack. They were very believable.”
Jasper looked at Slate. Something passed between them that looked a lot like they planned to sort that right away.
“Viper has been doing this with smaller clubs as well,” Bran continued.
“After each attack, Viper or one of his officers would approach the club they just attacked the night before and act sympathetic and concerned for their safety. He would offer protection by patching their club over.” He paused for a few seconds before continuing.
“Most of them took it. Because they believed they were under attack by an enemy and here was a club offering to stand with them. They didn’t know the attack came from the same hand that was now offering them help. ”
“Recruitment through terror,” Siege said quietly. “What a sick, twisted fuck Viper can be.”
“That’s exactly what he is,” Bran agreed.
“He creates a threat and then presents himself as the solution. All he wants is as many warm bodies doing his bidding as possible. He doesn’t care how he gets them.
He’s been running the same game on everyone, and so far, no one has realized he’s manipulating them. ”
Storm finally said, “This is his way of building an army.”
“He’s already built one,” Bran countered.
“Right now, he’s working on a way to keep them together by creating shared enemies and shared threats.
Clubs that believe they owe him their safety are the most likely to stay loyal.
” He paused. “By my count he’s got close to eighty brothers now. Maybe more.”
Siege’s voice became even tighter, “And he’s making everyone else think they’re under attack from each other so no one considers it might be him. If my men hadn’t seen their tattoos, we might have fallen for their fuckin’ lies too.”
Jasper leaned back again, but he was more tense than before. His expression was cold and serious. “That’s bold as hell,” he said. “That fucker has balls of solid brass.”
Nobody disagreed. There was something unsettling about admitting Viper was bold because the thing we were all thinking but no one wanted to say was that he was fuckin’ smart too.
He was doing enough shit behind our backs to do real damage to our clubs.
This asshole was all over the board making moves none of us even suspected.
Our club presidents were big brains, but Viper of all people was outsmarting us all.
Because he presents like a fuckin’ amateur, we underestimated him.
We’d have to join forces and tighten our game to outmaneuver this man we’d all written off as nobody, a wannabe club leader with delusions of grandeur.
Until this point, the assumption had been that he was reaching too far, climbing too fast, luring fuck ups, and welcoming them into his ranks just to have extra manpower.
Now, I didn’t know what to think. Maybe his whole scrappy badass image was just bullshit so we wouldn’t take him too seriously.
Storm leaned forward again, breaking the silence. “We can’t hit him directly. If we did, it would look like we got him to burn down Vulture’s clubhouse, cast the deciding vote for him to get Vulture’s territory and then killed him when he outlived his usefulness.”
I interjected grimly, “Or maybe it would look like we just smoked him to get the old man’s territory.”
Storm glanced from me to Siege, and then Jasper. “Fuse ain’t wrong about that. We need to expose all his bullshit. He’s fuckin’ double crossing a lot of clubs. If we play our cards right, one of them might take him down and save us the trouble.”
Jasper drummed his fingers on the table once. “I got no problem taking the little fucker down. Killin’ an asshole who’s in the process of getting a lot of brothers killed won’t keep me up at night.”
Siege spoke up, “Jasper is right on this one. We need to stop messin’ around and come up with a plan to take Viper down once and for all. Whether or not we kill him is immaterial.”
Jasper jerked his chin towards Bran. “Tell them the rest.”