Page 1 of Absinthe Dreams
PROLOGUE
A FEW YEARS PRIOR… DURING THE MUTINY.
Chainsaw…
Things were getting hot. The club had a solid schism running right up the fucking middle, and my fat ass was sweating it out big time, worrying the chips would fall on Ruth’s side of things before the guys that were over his bullshit would raise fists, or guns, or whatever the hell else they needed to make sure that we came out on top of the dog pile of infighting that was starting up fierce.
I hadn’t shown my hand yet. Yet being the operative word. Still, it didn’t matter which side I was on – Ruth was so fuckin’ paranoid and high out of his fuckin’ mind, it didn’t matter anymore. He thought you were against him? You were against him, whether you were loyal or not.
It was fucked up – and his disloyalty to his brothers with his own paranoid ravings had been the straw that’d broken my camel’s back. I’d lost all respect for the dude when he’d accused me of talking behind his back. I’d meant it when I’d told themotherfucker to his face that I hadn’t made up my mind, but his paranoid bullshit was about to fuckin’ do it for me.
I leaned against my bike and lit a cigarette. I was supposed to meet up with a couple of the guys to handle some business, but shit didn’t feel right. I’d been waiting a while now, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck the more the seconds ticked by.
I wasn’t fuckin’ disloyal – and I told him I’d do whatever it took to prove it, even if I’d had my own private thoughts that maybe, just maybe, Hex, Saint, and LaCroix were right.
Ruth was out of his fucking mind expanding like he was. Shit was getting played too fast, too loose, and it would be all our fuckin’ asses if shit went even a hair sideways with how much we were entrenched in just about every illegal activity happening in New Orleans.
The club out there in Florida, coming into town looking for one of their own, had provided an opportunity, and the muscle and the leverage to take out a bunch of the Eastern Bloc motherfuckers running a human trafficking ring around here. Of course, we hadn’t been interested inthattrade, but we’d happily step up and take over their gun and drug trade.
Taking them out had freed some shit up for us, sure, and we’d stepped up and stepped in to fill the vacuum of power, but both our existing operations and theirs? It’d been a lot. Too much. We were spread thin, but recruiting to the numbers and all willy-nilly, balls-to-the-wall like Ruth had? That wasn’t the fuckin’ answer.
That was a whole new set of problems. That shit was how you got rats in your house, and that was somethingnone of uscould afford.
Speaking of rats, it was two of the new guys that rode up – Ratfuck and Spoon.
I didn’t like either of them. When I said they were new, I meant it. Young, dumb, full of cum, and thought that since theynow wore the club colors, they were as equal as some of the long-timers in the club. Even the ones who’d been club since before they were even a sparkle in their daddy’s eye.
While that was how it wassupposedto work in club life, they ain’t prospected for more than a couple ofmonths, which isnothow that worked.
“You wanna tell me what the fuck we’re supposed to be doin’?” I asked. Ruth hadn’t seen fit to tell me – like I was just a dumb fuckin’ prospect. Which is why I was afraid that this was gonna go south quick.
My hackles were up, but I played it cool, a cigarette bobbing between my lips as I’d asked. Ratfuck and Spoon got off their bikes as I raised my lighter, flicking it to life behind my cupped hand to light my cig.
“Yeah, Ruth sent us out here to take care of business,” Ratfuck declared. I took a drag and pocketed my lighter.
“You gonna fill me in, or you gonna keep me guessing all night?” I demanded.
Ratfuck and Spoon exchanged a look, laughing, and what happened next happenedfast.
They drew down on me and fired away. I felt like I had been punched in the upper chest on the left-hand side and likewise in my hip on the lower right-hand side. I was knocked back into the corrugated steel side of the riverfront warehouse building and felt myself slide to the ground.
I gawped like a landed fish and knew I was fuckin’ done like last night’s dinner if I didn’t play this convincingly enough.
I was pretty sure neither of these two dipshits had properly killed a motherfucker before, and I was banking on the fact that if I played dead convincingly enough, they’d fuck off and I could do something about saving my own ass.
I gasped, let out a shuddering breath, and went limp against the wall I was against. I stared into space and heard Spoon ask, “Think that was enough?”
“I dunno.” Ratfuck sniffed, andboom!A shot took me in my leg.
Motherfucker!
My leg bounced from the impact, but I didn’t so much as flinch, just slid to the side in a heap and waited, staring at their legs.
“Come on, let’s go,” Spoon said.
“Yeah, he’s done.” Ratfuck snapped a few pictures of me with his burner.
I waited until the roar of their tailpipes was but a distant echo in my frantic mind, then I dug my phone out of my pocket with my right hand, gritting my teeth against a pain so profound I didn’t even fuckin’ know how to describe it.
