We continue walking, picking up the pace to catch up with our group. He gives me a short handful of minutes for the coke to settle before harassing me again. “Words,” he insists. “Talk to me.”
After doing a quick scan of the area and making sure Kal is nowhere near, I rush out as much as I can in as few words as possible. The baby. Vee spazzing. Lace, Coty, and Kal showing up, and what unraveled after.
Hearing that Lace showed up at an assignment when tensions were high definitely trips Chaz up; the swagger in his step drags.
“Vee and I had no idea the guy had any ties to Lace. She came out of fucking nowhere right when Vee was about to pull the trigger. He could have shot her, Cash. I think he almost did, and that is partly why he is so fucked in the head about it all. It was either Kal or Coty who pulled the trigger, though. Kal made us clock out. The gun popped off as soon as we were out of the house.”
“I am so damn tired of him treating us all like we are prospects. Like he is the only one who has killed and maimed.” Each word comes out of Chaz as a muttered hiss.
I nod but side with Kal, too logical for my own good sometimes. Having my ADHD meds and the coke kicking in helps. “None of us have the damn numbers under our belts to even come close to appearing like giants. Kal was killing and maiming under Stoney’s rule while still on the tit. What he is doing, taking us all on, snubbing his nose at all the trad etiquette and trusting us with these responsibilities, is a seismic fucking shift in the motorcycle club world.”
Chaz groans. “Yeah, well, we have only really just started getting established and are already falling apart. Looks ugly.”
I stop dead in my tracks and turn wide eyes on him. “You think whoever changed the answers on the contestant interview had anything to do with the assignment swap?”
Chaz considers it for a moment, but then shakes his head. “It was fucked up but actually put her in a position of more protection. I have been agonizing over this all night and morning. People, Rolling Stones included, are less likely to fuck with her knowing she now has some sort of commitment to us as a group, opposed to just the public display of her shooting the shit with Coty. I think whoever did it was trying to help her, not hurt her. Organizing a hit on her father only made her vulnerable again. The two moves contradict each other.”
My unfocused, floating gaze sharpens back on Lace, Vee, Bay, Zane, and the crowd again. “Lace is getting looks. We gotta do something about that before the law spots her and she gets taken in for public indecency. I also still need to know what other drugs she has used today.”
The human barricade around her helps block her partially bare ass, only slightly obscured by the lace skirt thing attached to her leather top, and is likely one of many reasons why Vee, Baylor, and Zane took positions around her to begin with.
Her posture has changed, too. Both Chaz and I notice it at the same time — the clenching of her free hand and how she is now alternating between tapping and lightly brushing her thumb over the back of Vee’s grip.
The biggest tell, though, is that she is looking down, trying to focus on her steps so as not to capture any visuals that might make her even more needy.
Lace seldom looks down. She is fucking hungry. Whatever med cocktail she is on is not doing what she hoped it would, and now she is aching for the next best thing.
Chaz is always better at getting this stuff right where she is concerned, though, so I check in with him: “You getting the same read on her as I am?”
“Yeah. I swear she is perpetually horny. Plus, Lace fucking reels over the brooding damaged guys, and she just so happens to be sandwiched between that right now. Add in the fact that she often uses sex as both a release and a goddamn weapon. By the end of the night, we will all likely be screwed. Literally and figuratively. None of us are strong enough to stop her either. Especially not now that we are all desperate to win her favor.”