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"So I think my torture would fall in yer hands, Prez," Adler went on, lips tipping up at one side. "Think we both know ya have done plenty of blood spilling in yer day. But I won't let ya have yet another body on yer hands. I'll answer yer questions. Is that Johnnie?" he asked, actually moving past us all toward the bar, like it was the most normal thing, like we weren't a group of men one command away from taking his life. "Everyone has heard of ya," he said, twisting off the top of the Johnnie Red, grabbing a red Solo cup off the stack from the party. "Got the most solid arms trade in the country. I mean you don't have dick on places like Russia, the Ukraine, or Southern Nigeria, but considering the fucking heat ya got here with the ATF constantly sniffing around, you're doing pretty well for yourself. Gotta love a corrupt police force, eh?"
"Okay. So you've heard of us," Reign said through gritted teeth, clearly losing his patience. "Explain why you're here, or you'll be bleeding through your teeth in another minute or two."
The threat rolled off Adler's back as he refilled his cup, putting the bottle back on the counter, rolling the cap back on. "I was over in Boston when I heard through the wire about what went down with yer club. Fuckin' two-bit wanna be mobsters, amirite?" he asked, but no one seemed willing to play into his charm right then. "Came back to town. Got a friend here. Figured maybe I would stop in, see about bolstering you up."
Reign looked almost taken aback at that. "You want to prospect here? And you fuckin' thought the best way to go about it was to break in?"
"Showed ya I got a skill ya clearly need, didn't I?"
We couldn't exactly argue with that.
"Who is your friend?" Lo piped in, knowing it wasn't her place, but zeroing in on the thing that might be most helpful.
"Friend of yours too," Adler went on, nodding his chin at Pagan. "You like to paint his floors in red."
"Ward?" Cash asked, looking confused.
"Ward doesn't have fucking friends," Pagan shot back. "Try again."
"Call 'em up," Adler said casually, too casually for it to be a bluff, knowing Reign and Pagan would absolutely check into that.
"Alright, gotta ask," I cut in, making Adler's gaze move toward me. "Why would an international contract killer want to become a member of an MC? At your age, you doing your job, if you were any good, you'd be retired in Turks and Caicos, chasing bikinis half your age right now."
"Retired from that line of work. Too much travel, not enough roots. Got Ward here, figured this would be as good a place as any to settle in. I might be older, but I'm not fucking geriatric. I'm not ready to sit in a lawn chair and yell at kids for not using the fuckin' path just yet. Checked into the local options. Third Street is a fuckin' joke. Could use a decent leader, but drugs have never been my thing. Mallicks, well, that is too similar to what I've been doing for the past twenty some odd years. Besides, they like to keep it in-family. I'm not quite Italian enough for the Grassis. That leaves you and Lyon's former, Marco's current empire. But, like I said, I don't do drugs."
"So it's us by default?" Cash asked, looking both amused and insulted at the same time.
"Ya are an interesting group. Not so much in the past. Yer father's men were the utter cliche greasy, misogynist, bastard bikers. But the crew you've been building, this is interesting. Lifers," he said, meaning Reign Cash, Wolf, Sugar, and Virgin. "A couple nobodies with their own skill sets." That, I believed, meant Roderick, Reeve, and Cyrus. "An ex-spy and an ex... whatever he wants to call himself," he said, meaning me. "Interesting. I like interesting. I can share a drink with interesting. Won't be bored to fuckin' tears with interesting."
"We don't let just anyone in," Reign said, but there was a curiosity in his voice.
Adler wasn't wrong. Reign was carefully choosing his crew. That was why out of the twenty or so serious prospects that came to the open house a while back, he had only brought in four. He didn't want an organization like his father's. I figured he had suffered enough growing up in a place like that, and didn't want his own children to be around influences like that.
"Got time for ya to vet me," Adler graciously offered, making Reign's brow raise.
"Regardless of if I would even consider you or not, your ass needs to stay around until we can find out more about you."
"Oh, am I about to be yer prisoner?" Adler asked, almost sounding giddy at the prospect. "I haven't been held prisoner since, fuck, a small time cartel kept me in a spare room about five years back. Stupid fucks, they were. Walls were fuckin' plaster. I could literally kick my way out. Faces were fucking priceless."
