“If Wrench is out of the game, that leaves Kentucky where she was last spotted,” Skid says.
“I contacted the Wicked Warriors myself.” That MC controlled Kentucky, and I’d made some friends from their chapter in Italy last year when I left after Annie. “Beth hasn’t made contact with them. She’s nowhere to be seen in Kentucky, and Jesse Savage has no intention or reason to fuck with us. I say she came back here, hiding under our fucking noses in plain sight.”
“Or Wrench is helping her to make you think exactly that,” Cameron said. “Wrench might have nothing to do with the powder, but he can be the one hiding Beth. You can’t rule that out. He accepted a bribe before, even when he hated her and wanted her dead. Why wouldn’t he do it again when you already offered him something he couldn’t refuse?”
“Because he’s promised something bigger,” Owl answered.
“Exactly. Beth could be conspiring with him as we speak, promising him a permanent cut from our chapter if he, for example, gets rid of me,” she said.
Or to take over the whole chapter after killing my ol’lady, and force me to fall in line or get kicked out. I won’t be able to fight them alone without my brothers and crew, who she wouldn’t mind having them murdered, too. There’s nothing Beth wouldn’t do to stay the queen of the Night Skulls.I looked at her. “I’m assuming you have a counterplan?”
She smirked. “More raids on the rivals on the West Coast…in Detroit patches.”
Fuck.
The chin and beard scratching started around. Then all eyes darted at me.
“What do you want us to do, Prez?”
Creating feuds to cost Wrench any chance to set foot here and put pressure on him to release Beth was a great plan. Only if he was the one protecting her. But if he wasn’t, he would retaliate. Bad.
I wiped a hand over my mouth. “Give us a minute.”
“You don’t like it?” she asked the second the brothers left.
“It’s a diabolical plan that would backfire with an ugly mess if Wrench has nothing to do with Beth.”
She shrugged. “What’s the best he can do?”
“Raze Rosewood to the ground.”
“So? You don’t give a shit about Rosewood or the Night Skulls.”
“I care about you and the rest of my brothers who are loyal to me. Skid has a kid for fuck’s sake. Owl is my best friend and Big Gun would die for me. I don’t want any of you to get hurt.”
“We won’t. Let that bastard come. We’ll be ready for him and his Skulls.” She patted my shoulder. “Think about it, Dusty. It’s killing two birds with one stone. You might get what you want after all.”
I took in her face that kept changing daily. The features were the same, but the psyche underneath… “I want to leave with you and never look back, but I don’t want my men dead. I’m not Beth, and neither are you.”
She sat on my lap and gave me a kiss, scrambling my thoughts. She’d barely touched me all week without the blindfold. “It’s gonna work,Prez. I have a good feeling about it.”
I loved to hear my title with her rasp. I nodded, tasting her lips again. “How about you talk to Alfarez, and I’ll meet Cosimo before anything? Let’s find out who’s fucking our stuff first.”
CHAPTER 38
Dusty
When Cosimo showed up without his twin brother, I knew something was off. Enzio was his underboss, enforcer and sidekick. Cosimo never went anywhere without him.
I approached with Owl and Skid as Cosimo got out of his car, his bodyguards securing the woods.
“Tell me you have something,” Cosimo said.
“We don’t believe it’s Detroit. It’s something bigger. Big enough to fuck with you and the cartel, not just us,” I said, expecting a threat or an outburst in response.
Cosimo was calm, not the kind of calm that intimidated people but pensive and somber. It was as if he knew what I was going to say before I said, as if he had a pretty good idea who was the fucker we were looking for.
“If Beth was the puppeteer, you have my word I—”