Page 2 of Knuckles

Finally, Wild Bill raised his hands in surrender. “All right. Keep your secrets.”

“No secrets to keep.”

“Your club goes rogue while you’re in prison, traffickin’ women and children. They piss off the wrong people in Kentucky and Florida and get themselves annihilated. Then you come back, but not as president?” He snorted. “Right. Nothin’ to see here.”

With a low growl, I darted my hand out and grabbed Wild Bill by the throat, squeezing enough he got the message. His hands went immediately to my wrist. No doubt if I hadn’t had two of my men search him before he approached me he’d have gutted me. Betting he was playing my death over in his head a hundred different ways while I held his gaze with a steely one of my own.

“Kiss of Death is my club. Nothing happens there unless I allow it. Prison or not. True, Dart got things in a bad way before Slash forced his way to the top, but I made sure the kids were either returned to their families or placed with people who would protect them. I made sure as many of the women as I could had someplace safe to go.” I turned and spat; the disgust of those tasks still left a bad taste in my mouth. “I’d love to say Slash and Gremlin were necessary collateral damage, but they were both dead the moment they laid their hands on innocents and used my club to hurt them.”

“Man, you ain’t gotta explain yourself to me.” Wild Bill’s voice was tight where I was a hair’s breadth from cutting off his air.

“Yet, you made a point to question me.”

“No offense, man. I get it. I get it.”

I squeezed a little bit more. My men stood between us and everyone else in the club, and the employees here wouldn’t interfere in my business. The only thing the owner requested of me was that we not kill anyone inside her club. Wild Bill didn’t know that, though.

“You get to live because I promised Medusa no killin’ in her club. If the information you gave me regarding Beth proves accurate, I’ll forget you were tryin’ to nose in my fuckin’ business. If you’re playin’ me, I’ll make an example of you for the whole fuckin’ city underground. I don’t do subtle.” I gave Wild Bill a hard shove.

The younger man stumbled back but kept his feet. He raised his hands again and took another step backward before he stopped. “It’s accurate, Knuckles. I ain’t no diplomat. Don’t believe in sugar coatin’ anythin’. So even though I wasn’t tryin’ to give you shit, I ain’t the only one wonderin’ if you let the reins slip, or if you were behind the shit Kiss of Death got into. Either way, you look bad.”

“I make no secret things went to shit when I went to prison. I didn’t have measures in place to control the police and the DA, but I wasn’t lettin’ the men who raped and murdered my sister live even one more day. Took me a while to get things in play, but I managed. I’ll be back in charge soon enough. It’s already been worked out.”

“Then why the fuck ain’t you taken over in name? Those pricks from Somerset are too goody-two-shoes to be fuckin’ bikers.”

I inhaled for patience.You cannot kill in Medusa’s club. You cannot kill in Medusa’s club…

“Christ. You really are a dumb shit.” I grabbed the guy by the back of the head and slammed his face on the bar. Blood squirted with a sickening squish. The bartender danced back, narrowly avoiding getting splattered. He wisely didn’t say anything, bringing out a bottle of disinfectant cleaner and taking care of the mess.

Wild Bill staggered backward, one hand over his nose, the other reaching for the gun at his back. “Motherfucker! You broke my fuckin’ nose!”

“Learn when to shut the fuck up, Wild Bill. You’ll thank me later.”

I could see in his eyes Wild Bill was gonna pull his weapon and shoot me. That was his intent at that moment. Which was when Knight, one of my men, slid his arm around Wild Bill’s neck from behind, lifted his chin, and stuck the tip of his knife against the younger man’s neck. “This is the part where you take your spankin’ like a man, say ‘Thank you, sir’, and go on your merry fuckin’ way.”

“You’re rapidly approaching the point of no return, kid. My gratitude only goes so far.” I was done with this shit.

I saw the moment he realized what just happened. Yeah. Figured as much. Kid let his anger get the better of him. I nearly smiled as I remembered another man who’d had to learn to control his temper. Gunnar had turned out fine. Wild Bill had potential, but he needed a mentor and nothing short of forced confinement would make this man agree to having a fucking mentor. Kind of like Gunnar.

“Uh, yeah. I, uh…” He cleared his throat. “Sorry, man. I-I didn’t mean…”

I nodded at Knight, who kept his knife on Wild Bill but used his other hand to snag the gun at the younger man’s back. “You don’t play nice with others, do you, son?” Knight handed the gun to another one of my men, Hawk, who tucked it in the back of his jeans under his cut. “Learn to behave and you’ll get your toy back.”

If the little prick hadn’t pissed me off, I’d have told Knight not to disarm him and keep it polite. I didn’t want to antagonize Wild Bill. People tended to be more inclined to lash out when you were unnecessarily cruel. I wanted a fearful respect from the people I dealt with in and around Nashville. Business went smoother that way. I wanted them to respect me enough to not want to cross me, while being afraid enough to know if they did, I’d fuck them all the way up. But this little shit had gotten on my last fucking nerve and I was done.

“You had my respect for a hot second, Wild Bill. I thought you were the kind of man I could build an understanding with.”

“Knuckles…” Wild Bill had a couple of bar napkins he’d snagged and held them to his nose to stem the flow of blood. It wasn’t much, but he’d have a couple black eyes in the morning. Good enough for the fucker.

“You learn to control your temper, then we’ll talk. I don’t think you’re a bad guy. I think you have lofty aspirations, which I respect. Just don’t forget who you’re dealing with. Be it me or anyone else. You’re walkin’ away this time. Next time, you might not be so fuckin’ lucky.”

Wild Bill gave me a couple nods of understanding. “Yeah. I hear you.”

“Good.” I stuck out my hand to the kid, forcing the issue of a handshake, but I was making a point. “No hard feelings.” This time.

Wild Bill hesitated a moment, then took my hand. “Yeah, man. No hard feelings.”

As Wild Bill walked away, Hawk laid the gun on the bar, along with the clip and the bullet in the chamber and motioned to the bartender. The guy had been hanging out in the background and was ready. “If he comes back, make sure he gets his weapon.”

---