Page 84 of Hendrix

“What would you do if it was Freya?” I demanded. “Listen to Hannigan, or deal?”

“I’m an FBI agent, Hendrix,” he stated. “But my loyalties lie with you. If you gotta bad feeling, we’ll go in and burn his house down, but we have to do it quiet ‘cause you’ll be prime suspect number one, even if we fix the scene of the crime. The problem with working with the Feds is that they know how we do things and are familiar with our tricks of the trade. My advice is to leave it alone for now and see how it plays out. With any luck, it’ll settle down; if it doesn’t, we move in, but only as a last resort.”

My shoulders tensed.

I wanted Anna free and clear of the Lis family, but Colt had a point. The issue we had was that the Feds knew we wanted to go and eliminate Adrian Lis. It stood to reason we’d be prime suspects if anything happened to him.

My brothers would stand at my side; I knew it without question, but if I ordered them to do this, I may as well have been ordering them straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.

We had men like Bones and Colt who had careers outside the club. Compromising them wouldn’t be fair. If anything had to happen, it would be me who’d go in alone.

“Still think Adrian Lis is bad news, Prez?” Diablo muttered.

“Goes without sayin’,” Blade interjected. “But Colt speaks sense. We’d be fools not to listen. Not saying we can’t plan our course of attack, but maybe we should hold off implementing it until we have no choice.”

Colt nodded. “Lis controls all the narcotics across three states. He’d sell his mother down the river if it meant saving his own skin. I’m not sure he cares about what happened to Leon and Antoni. He’s probably glad it was them and not him who got dead, but if he suspects any wrongdoing on Anna’s part, he would’ve asked around about us, and no doubt put safeguards in place to protect himself.” He turned to Diablo. “Any of your informants talkin’?”

“Nah,” the SAA replied. “Got a guy who’s got a guy on the streets of Philly. The place is buzzing with how the Lis brothers got taken out, but nobody suspects it was us, seein’ as we’re unknown entities there. Some are even sayin’ that Adrian ordered the hit on those fuckers himself ‘cause they were stupid and fucking with the business. It was no secret that Leon was a coke head, and as we all know, a coke head dealing coke isn’t a good career move. Adrian’s got a reputation for not putting up with bullshit, so it would’ve only taken one wrong move on Leon’s part before his boss went searching for retribution, even if they were related.”

“I’m not mad at that narrative,” I muttered.

“Neither am I,” Diablo agreed. “But Colt does have a point. We’ve got away with this one so far, even though it was a high-risk operation. If we go after Adrian, it’ll only be a matter of time before we get the spotlight shone our way, especially now we’ve got Anna with us. And if Lis has put safeguards in place in case he has any”—he lifted his fingers and bent them into speech marks—“unexpected accidents, we’ve gotta be clean as a whistle to not get any fingers pointed at us.”

“They’re right, Son. Who’ll protect Anna and the boy if we’re all in the clink?” Dad asked.

“Don’t forget Freya, Carrie, and Gigi, too,” Blade added.

The men murmured their agreement.

I sat back in my chair, the men’s concerns pinging through my brain.

The club wasn’t a democracy. It wasn’t the way I ran things, purely because too many people fighting for their ideas would result in anarchy. However, I did take everybody’s thoughts on board and decided the best way forward according to what was right for the club.

My men were right on ths one; taking Adrian Lis out would be too risky and ultimately would put Anna and the other women in more danger. They were safer with us by their sides than in fucking prison.

“But how do we get Lis to back off?” I demanded. “He’s making her more stressed with every call. I’ve stopped telling her about them ‘cause I see her get more worried, and it’s bad for the baby.”

“I’ve got an idea, but you won’t like it,” Colt murmured.

I raised my hand to rub at the tension in my neck because I reckoned I knew what he was about to say.

“Let her talk to him, Prez,” he suggested. “Anna’s smart. We can gauge Lis’s intentions and find out what the fuck he wants with her. Knowledge is power, and we can plan for a favorable outcome if we have something concrete to go on.”

My elbows hit the table, and I held my head in my hands.

Colt was right in what he said about Anna, except for one thing. My woman wore her heart on her sleeve. She wasn’t a cloak-and-dagger type of girl. The problem was, I couldn’t think of any way around it.

My eyes lifted onto Blade. “What do you think?”

He ran a hand across his beard. “We could put it to a vote.”

Slowly, I nodded, resigned to what was about to come next. “Those in favor of Colt’s suggestion, raise your hands.”

All hands went up except for Dad’s and Diablo’s.

No surprise there.

My eyes drifted to Pop. “Say your piece.”

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