Page 86 of Unveiled Wounds

“If the shipment is a decoy, I’m okay with offering it to the Knights for a cut. It’s more free money for them, and I’m not enthusiastic about finding a buyer. There’s a lot of background checking that goes into it, and we’re running thin as it. Let them take the risk,” I said, rubbing at my eyes. “Where do we even start protecting this place?”

“You don’t want to send them away either, do you?” Sabre and I shared a look.

“Where would they go? That’s assuming they would even leave.”

He shrugged, knowing I was right.

“If we’re going to defend this place, we need to section it off into quadrants,” Op said. “Permission, Prez?”

Sabre waved him off.

Most of the military brothers looked to Op to lead when needed, and he naturally took over. “Section one is the front. Two is the side where the fire pit is. Three is the trees, and four is the back. When we get a map of the property, we can actually draw boundaries.”

“Is there a way to make them come at us from the trees?” Zook asked.

“You need to stay away from the trees.” How’s eyes widened, not realizing what he’d said until it was out in the open. The brothers had been teasing How relentlessly since the pizza dinner night, and as much as he let it roll off his back, it was getting to him. It didn’t help that it wasn’t hard to figure out what Zook and Emily had been up to in the trees during Christmas. Ransacked hair, dirty knees, and enormous smiles did that.

“They’re probably still traumatized by my piercing.” Zook smirked, waiting.

Count was the first one to throw his head back and laugh. The room exploded, and the only person not having a good time was How. His face turned a shade of green I’d never seen before. I had to hand it to him, though. He didn’t take off running for the nearest bathroom to hurl.

The laughter was dying down when Op asked about the front gate.

“Do you think they can pierce the gate, or will they need to ram it home?” Pretty couldn’t contain his chuckles, and he laid his head against the edge of the table.

“They’ll need to batter the fuck out of it.” Cyph smirked.

“What about the fence?” Op asked, trying to get everyone back on track. If they didn’t settle down soon, Sabre would step in. This was extremely important, but a few wisecracks were nothing.

“It has sensors, but it’s not strong enough to withstand an SUV,” Cyph answered again.

“Could we strengthen the stakes?” Dead asked.

“Not unless we put up poles every six feet. If this drop is going down this week, we don’t have enough time,” I said. The real problem was we didn’t have enough manpower.

“Guess what we’re doing after this?” Sabre asked, and there was a collective groan.

“There’s a shit ton more of us than them. What if we gave everyone a position to maintain? Depending on where you’re assigned, we could easily collapse the grid, trapping them in between us and the clubhouse.” Chef wasn’t normally a talker, but I couldn’t see anything flawed in that logic.

“We could make my room a command center, and I feed you information. I’ll wire up a network system with ear pieces,” Cyph offered.

“Kevlar. I’m buying it.” Count’s eyes fogged over as he calculated where the money would come from.

There were a few more suggestions tossed around, but at the end of two hours, we had a plan. It was the first time I felt like our cartel problem was going to end.

***

Sabre and I were the last two to exit the emergency church. Heading towards the main room, he slapped my shoulder in camaraderie.

“I’m not looking forward to this,” he said.

“It won’t be that bad. Even if they want to stay, they have children to protect. It’ll make it easier for them to see reason.” I wasn’t sure if I believed my line of bullshit, but it sounded good for right now. One glimpse at Sabre, and I knew he didn’t believe it either.

I walked into the main room, and one look at Meredith’s face told me I wasn’t fooling her. She might not have known what was going on, but she had an idea who it involved.Please let her see reason. Just this once, please.

I didn’t grab a beer, even though I wanted to. Instead, I whispered good luck to Sabre and headed towards my wife. Shewas sitting on one of the couches with Pumpkin in her arms. Dead was sitting on the other couch directly in front of her. He locked his hands behind his head, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.Fucker.

I said nothing as I sat next to her, reaching for Pumpkin. She was sound asleep as I leaned down to kiss her forehead. I tucked her into the crook of my arm and slung the other around Meredith. I took it as a good sign when she curled up at my side.

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