Page 58 of Devil's Due

A shadow falls over the prez’s face. “No one. Anyone inside was dead. They’d used silencers and picked a quiet time. If anyone did see anything, they haven’t come forward as a witness.”

Probably wouldn’t. The Warped Jokers are not a crew you’d want to get on the wrong side of. And if anyone had, they’d be suffering the same fate as Stevie—moved away from everything they’d ever known.

“What are we going to do, Prez?” Rusty asks the direct question I wanted to. My eyes shoot to Demon to see how he’s going to handle it.

Demon’s head is moving side to side. “Fuck knows,” he responds after a moment. “Here’s the situation. The dominant,ourdominant, wants the feds’ attention off MC clubs in LA and beyond.”

“Fat fuckin’ chance,” I scoff. “They’re always looking to bring us down.”

“I agree. But the heat has intensified with the Jokers’ recent caper.”

“They’re fuckin’ criminals,” Hellfire says scornfully. “They might call themselves an MC and ride bikes, but they’re way out the other end of the spectrum to us. Satan’s Devils, even the Wretched Soulz, would never be so crass as to rob banks and certainly wouldn’t gun down innocent citizens if there was any way to avoid it.”

“But,” Demon plays devil’s advocate, “they are an MC. Do we want a reputation of turning rat on our biker brothers?”

I want to vomit at the thought of calling any man who wants Stevie dead my brother, but technically, that’s what they are. My fingers tap on the table, my head spinning. “As long as clubs have existed,” I start, “we’ve been fighting each other.”

“Sure have,” Rusty agrees. He nudges Ink who gets out his cigarettes and passes him one. “Big clubs fought it out in Denver back in the day.”

Demon’s eyes have narrowed. “You’re suggesting we go head-to-head with the Warped Jokers?”

“With half of them inside that wouldn’t be hard.” Bomber’s got a gleam in his eyes as Pyro nudges him appreciatively.

“You’re forgetting something,” Thunder observes. “They’re in LA.”

I hold up my hand. “Not suggesting we get physical, just that we help bring them down by keeping Stevie out of their way. Let her turn up in court and see where the cards fall.”

In a move reminiscent of Drummer, for a second making me homesick, knowing there’d be a different vibe if we were talking around the table in Tucson, Demon runs his hand over his short beard. “So let’s start there. We refuse the request of the Wretched Soulz, pitting us against the dominant club.”

“We’re not here to do their bidding, Prez,” Sparky interjects.

“You’re right,” Demon says calmly, “but we’ve always co-existed with the dominant. Couldn’t be here without their approval to set up the club.”

That’s spot on. Any club wanting to establish themselves in the dominant’s territory has got to jump through a number of hoops. Technically we don’t need approval, but if we hadn’t allowed them to review our charter and regs, then, well, ride with a patch not recognised by the Wretched Soulz? Any biker who does that is facing a severe beatdown, or even death. Satan’s Devils have done it right. Have given our support to the Wretched Soulz a time or two as well, and sometimes, they’ve helped us out. What none of us want is an out-and-out war. We’d have no chance of winning.

“Beef’s a nomad. Yet he’s brought this bitch to our door and landed us in this shit. Why don’t we just leave it to him to sort out? We can wash our hands of him.”

There’s quiet as Mace lays out the cold facts. He’s completely right. Trouble is, if Stevie’s and my presence is bringing trouble to this club, it would follow to any other chapter who took us in. I’m not going to leave her unprotected, whatever they decide. I’d be out on my own with a blind woman to protect. Hate thinking of her as disabled, but I have to face facts. There are things a fully sighted woman can do which she can’t. The main one being, she can’t see trouble coming.

I hold my breath, waiting for the answer. “I vote to dismiss that,” Skull, unusually pipes up. “That’s signing both her death warrant and our brother’s. I know he’s not of this chapter, but he’s a Satan’s Devil all the same.”

“Drummer would never agree to it,” Ink observes.

It’s Demon’s reaction I’m interested in, inwardly squirming during the moment he takes to voice his opinion. “While Beef’s here, he’s one of ours.” His tone is final.

Grateful for that, I’m still aware my actions are bringing down heat on a chapter I don’t even belong to. Now Demon’s given me support, I can’t suggest I take the problem back to Tucson and Drummer, as that would be disrespecting my new prez, however temporary that situation is. But there is another solution.

“I go it alone,” I find myself suggesting. “Sure, I’m staying at the cabin owned by the club, but you needn’t know who I’ve got with me. Could be I just needed time to decompress. I’ll get more out of Stevie now that I can tell her I know most of it anyway. Cad?”

Cad glances up from his tablet.

“If I find out who she’s dealing with, her handler and stuff, can you dig up the info? Now we know the facts, there’s no need for her to keep things quiet.” When he nods, I continue, “We try to find out where the leak came from, then locate someone who isn’t going to rat on her. When Max is back on his feet, we pass her back to the marshals and they can take over her protection. At that point, the club’s clean.”

“In the meantime, I lie to the Wretched Soulz.” Demon’s brow furrows.

“Plan’s a good one, Prez,” Thunder observes. “And it’s not lying, just concealing the truth. You just need to be inventive. They don’t know we’ve got the girl. Sure, they know we had contact, but we could let them assume we washed our hands of her.”

Slowly Demon grins. “I can make that work. I just omit some of what’s pertinent.” He picks up the gavel, turning it over in his hands. “We continue to help Beef in his sojourn at the cabin. That’s the motion on the table. If he’s got a bitch there, well, it’s none of our business.”

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