Page 14 of Hell & Back

“All right. All those in favor of Chris’s idea to convert the building out back into a rec center and for Kylie to do background checks on Tulsa’s construction crew say ‘aye.’”

All ‘ayes.’ No ‘nays.’

“Excellent. For now,” Race began, “having the old ladies hang out here during the day and the older kids coming after school for a while will have to work. Having the families here during the day means keeping your naked dicks in your rooms while they’re here.”

“Having the old ladies hang out here during the day isn’t going to go over well with some of them. Bellamy and Ginny have businesses they need to run. Calliope and Kylie can work from anywhere and Lindsey just went back to work and will be at school so she’s covered during the time she’s there.” Trick pointed out some possible issues. “She and my kids will need an escort back and forth from school whenever I can’t do it. Same for Bellamy I imagine. You’re going to want to keep someone on her while she’s at work and make sure she gets home or here when you can’t do it.”

“You’re right,” Race exhaled heavily as he wiped his hand over his face. This was yet another example of why Darren would never want to be a club president. Too much responsibility and too many people to try and make happy.

“You could always have Preacher send a couple of his guys to hang out at her shop.” Dagger hid a smile behind his hand, pretending to be rubbing at his mustache.

“Fuck you. I can take care of my old lady. I don’t need her brother sending bodyguards.” Race flipped him off.

Race had a contentious relationship with his brother-in-law. He tolerated him for his wife’s sake, but had to work hard not to throat punch him whenever the man was around. Darren had met the man and had to agree with Race, Preacher was an arrogant asshole.

“Think we could get Chance to send a few guys our way to help out?” Maverick asked.

That was a very good idea. It would be a perfect way to add more man power without Race having to deal with Preacher. Darren liked the Black Horsemen’s president. Chance was young when he stepped into the position after his old man passed away and from what they’d seen, he was doing an excellent job of running his club. He imagined, being a support club to the Sons, Chance wouldn’t have a problem sending some men their way.

“I’ll reach out today and see how many he can send.” Race leaned back in his chair and rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Got something else we need to talk about. Cutter and Miles caught a guy selling drugs down the block.”

“Down the block? From here?” Jed asked.

“Yeah. Down the block and across the street. I guess he thought being across the street was fair game. Cutter and Miles informed him, not so gently, that it’s still our patch of property and to stay the fuck off it. They worked him over a little and was told the drug is new and it’s called Euphoria. They took his stash and brought it to me. I gave a sample to Dillon to look at and got rid of the rest. He tested it and it’s some seriously bad shit. He reached out to a couple of his geek buddies and they said they’ve been hearing about some super Rohypnol-like drug on the street called Euphoria.” Race was seriously frowning when he added, “The street name that’s circulating is EZ Lay.”

“Well, shit.” Dagger about summed it up.

“Exactly. So, Tulsa and Lance, keep your eyes and ears open when you’re in Taos. We not only need to find the Phantom clubhouse, but we also need to know where they’re keeping this Euphoria shit. I want to destroy all of that, too.”

“What about the cartel? Will destroying this Euphoria bring them down on us?” Jackson asked.

“Not if we do this right. We need to think on how to go about this because that shit isnotcoming into Redemption.” Race looked around the table to make sure everyone got what he was saying. When nothing further was said, he held the gavel up, ready to call an end to the meeting. “If that’s everything?” When no one made a move to speak, he lowered his gavel with a loudbang! “Meeting adjourned. I need a fucking beer.”

Now that they had the beginnings of a plan, Darren felt like some of the weight had lifted from his shoulderss. The club would get their revenge and end the Phantom Furies once and for all. The icing on the cake would be destroying their Euphoria stash. The only thing that would make this day better was if Tuck was awake when he and Kylie went back to visit him tonight.

DARREN

Darren and Kylie returned to the hospital early in the evening, after he’d taken her home and fed her dinner. He’d made grilled pork chops with garlic mashed potatoes and green beans. After the two of them cleaned the kitchen, he’d piled her into his car, a 1970 Mustang Mach 1 Coupe. He’d bought the car when he was eighteen with his graduation money, right before he enlisted in the Navy. He’d worked on it whenever he was home for a visit,but it wasn’t until he separated from the SEAL teams that he’d finished it.

Arriving at the hospital, they stopped at the front desk to find out if he’d been moved from the ICU to a new room yet. The nice gray-haired lady behind the desk gave them his new room number and pointed them toward the elevators.

They rode the elevator up in silence, both lost in their thoughts. Darren could see Kylie chewing on her lower lip in the reflection of the elevator doors and his heart went out to her. She had such high hopes that when they walked into Tuck’s room, he’d be awake. He hoped, for her sake, that it was the case.

They exited the elevator and found his room without any trouble. Instead of walking on in, he was surprised to see her stop outside Tuck’s room. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and crossed her fingers. After she released it, she pushed the door open and entered the room. He grinned as he followed her inside. She was such a nut.

“Tuck!” she exclaimed, clearly excited to see him awake. As quickly as her smile appeared, it disappeared, replaced with tears welling in her eyes. Was it tears of joy or of fear? Maybe a little of both?

Darren closed the door behind him, grinning while he shook his head. Female hormones were a true mystery. One minute she was happy and smiling, then the next she was bawling her eyes out over something as simple as a pet food commercial. Her temper could spike in an instant and she had the sex drive of a sixteen-year-old boy. He’d probably have whiplash if his hormones did that to him.

“You’re awake.” She stood at the end of the bed with her hands clasped together against her chest. He could see it was killing her, holding back and not immediately being able to pounce on him. A sudden visual of a cat getting all excited, theirass in the air, wiggling it side to side right before they pounced on whatever they were stalking popped into his head.

He moved closer to the bed and saw that Tuck, indeed, was awake. The top of his bed was elevated so that he was sitting up at an angle, his head resting against a pillow. The white gauze that had been wrapped around his head in the ICU had been replaced with a bandage in such a way that part of his hair lay over the top of it. It looked kind of funny and he wondered how much of his hair they’d had to shave in order to stitch it. His eyes were tired and his face was pale. He looked exhausted. He wondered how long Tuck had been awake and how much they’d cut back on his medicine.

“Kylie Jo,” Tuck rasped, not moving his head from his pillow. “Please don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying.” Darren found it cute that she argued despite her blinking her eyes rapidly to keep the tears from falling. She moved to the side of the bed and clasped his hand in hers. He tugged on it until he had her sitting on the bed next to his hip. He cupped her cheek and wiped away the tears she’d denied having with his thumb. “Please stop crying, baby.”

“I told you I’m not crying,” she whispered.

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