Page 74 of Eagle

“The half who wanted to continue doing things Butch’s way are the fuckers that left after Evil became president,” his road captain, Hammer, said. “They’re still involved with trafficking and drugs.”

Lynx snorted. “As if that’s all your fucking club was involved in.”

Luther spoke up. “Those fuckers you had to deal with left the club before we could take their cuts. By continuing to wear our club colors, they sent mixed signals.”

“You can fucking bet that from here on out, anyone you encounter other than guys you see here who are wearing our cuts are no longer associated with us. And speaking of cuts, what happened to theirs?”

“Burned them,” Wolfe said in response to Evil’s question.

“Denim burns good,” Bear smirked.

Evil leaned back with a heavy exhale, and I got the impression that he wanted to say something, but was thinking it over first, as if he wasn’t sure he could trust us. He pulled on his beard before admitting, “We took the garbage out.”

The fuck!?

Was he saying what I thought he was saying? Was he admitting that he’d gotten rid of the bodies that we’d left behind?

Apparently, my brothers were all thinking the same thing that I was, as an array of emotions crossed their features—shock, surprise, disbelief—because none of us had been expecting that admission.

“Contacted a cleaning crew,” his enforcer, Lucky, added, confirming that they had indeed dealt with the bodies that we’d left in the chicken house.

But why? I narrowed my eyes on Evil, trying to figure him out. Why would he remove the bodies? We’d taken all their IDs and cuts so that if they were discovered it would have been difficult to identify them.

“As a show of good faith,” Luther said. “We don’t want brothers in the club who hurt women and children, and we sure as shit don’t want men who aren’t in the club wearing our cuts.”

Wolfe, Bear, and I exchanged a suspicious look.

Brew spoke for the first time. “Again, explain why we’re here?”

Evil directed his response to Wolfe. “A truce. We’ll stay out of your town and leave you alone if you do the same for us. If we do need to cross over the border, we show respect by communicating our intentions first.”

Bear exhaled loudly and growled, “That might be a fucking problem if you continue doing business with the Jackson family and supplying dogs to some fucker named Mitch.”

The Jackson family—Brody and Aaron, father and son. Brody, the father, was still in prison. They had a huge place in upstate New York and were well known in the dog fighting circuit. They were untouchable because they ran a legitimate Pitbull breeding program that hid what their actual business was. Their reputation had been built by selling champion dogs to legitimate buyers, but their real business was breeding bait dogs and fighters. Everyone knew what they were involved in, but proving it was another matter. The Maniacs had been on their payroll for a long time.

Evil grunted. “We’ve broken off with the Jacksons.” He glanced past Wolfe, and I turned to see the server returning with a full tray. “Got enough to deal with.”

“Refills are compliments of the owners,” the server smiled, setting the tray down in the center of the table. “Need anything else?” All she got in response were head shakes and some negative mutterings.

“Tell the owners ‘thank you,’” Bear said as he grabbed a cold one enthusiastically. Several others followed suit.

We kept quiet until the server was beyond earshot.

“So can you tell us anything about this Mitch we’ve been hearing about?” I asked the group.

“Heard he’s from Texas and is involved in a few questionable endeavors,” Evil’s VP answered right before lighting up a thick-ass cigar. Thick clouds of smoke billowed upwards as he puffed until the tip glowed red.

Questionable endeavors. Like blood-sport, for one.

“We’re not interested in dog fighting,” Evil said after taking a drink.

His comment revealed that he knew enough about Mitch to know that he was.

Wolfe snorted. “What are you interested in?”

It grew quiet for a minute as the two presidents sized each other up. I wondered if Evil would answer Wolfe’s question or if he would skirt around it. He didn’t owe us an answer. Until recently, the Maniacs had been known for trading in weapons and drug trafficking, mistreating women, getting into fights, stealing, murder, you name it. They were outlaws, and when one was sent to prison, he rarely got out. Whatever plans Evil had, it was going to take some time and a lot of work to turn their reputation around.

Finally, Evil responded. “We’ve tossed a few ideas around.”

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