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Speak of the little devil, Janice joins our merry group of misfits a few minutes later. Sway and Tawny’s daughter is thankfully the opposite of both her parents. She doesn’t do hysterical outbursts like her mother would.
Calmly, she walks up and shakes Rock’s hand, then mine. “Thank you so much for coming down, Rock. I know you’re busy. Hi, Z.”
“Hey, sweetheart. How you been? Haven’t seen you in forever.”
She flashes a quick, sad smile. “You know Dad never liked me around the clubhouse.” She sneaks a look behind her. “Which apparently was a good thing.”
Rock takes her aside, away from the rest of the people crowded in the waiting room. Wrath follows but keeps a respectable distance behind us. “Tell me what happened.”
She shakes her head and tears run down her cheeks. “I don’t know, Rock. Shadow called looking for Mom and when I told him she wasn’t home, he said someone shot Daddy in the parking lot in front of the clubhouse.” She sobs even harder.
“Jesus,” I mutter.
Rock gives me a subtle head tilt and I wrap an arm around Janice’s shoulders. “How’s Tawny handling it? Can we do anything for her?” I ask in my best casual, I’m-just-here-to-help voice.
Janice’s body stiffens immediately and her gaze darts away from us. “She’s been…out of town. I think this time she and Dad were finally going to split.”
“I can’t see that,” Rock says. “They’ve had their ups and downs, but—”
“No, this was different,” Janice insists. Her gaze darts to the side. “I think she met someone. Serious.”
“You don’t think she had anything to do with…?” I prompt.
Janice isn’t outraged by the question, which tells me all I need to know about her relationship with Tawny. After thinking it over, she shakes her head. “I asked myself the same question.” She jerks her head in Shadow’s direction. “He’s all over that theory, but I just don’t see my mother doing that to us.”
Obviously, she’s not a fan of Shadow either. Not a shock since he’s a dick and has caused Sway a lot of problems over the last few months.
“Yeah, I don’t either,” I say, even though I’m honestly not so sure.
“Try not to worry, hon. Have you called her?” Rock asks.
“I’ve left her a bunch of messages.”
“Okay. Let us know if you need anything.”
“I will.” She approaches Shadow next to give him an update on Sway’s condition—he’s still unconscious, then finds some friends and sits with them.
With nothing else to do right now, we sit and wait with our brothers, all of us wondering whether Sway will live or die.
Twenty-Nine
Z
There’s no change in Sway’s condition and eventually, we head to the clubhouse to get some sleep.
Rock and I are given rooms right across from each other and he stops in as my head’s about to hit the pillow.
“Don’t you knock?” I bitch.
“Don’t you lock your door?”
“I thought I did. Christ, this place is a shithole.”
Rock chuckles and shuts the door behind him. “See what you can find out about those security tapes tomorrow.”
“Definitely. I’ll talk to Rooster first thing in the morning.”
Morning comes way too fast.
I track Rooster down and he shows me the only footage he has, which is basically useless.
“What is that?” I sit up and point to the left bottom corner of the screen.
“Sway’s feet.”
“Christ, whoever it was either got lucky or knew exactly where the blind spots were.”
“Yup.” Rooster sits back and runs his hand over his big, bushy beard. “Thank fuck I heard the shot and went outside right away. Fucker took off in a black Caddy.”
“You track it down?”
“Not yet. Jersey plates. Probably a rental.”
“Fuck.” I want to help Sway’s club out as much as I can, but getting involved in a tristate manhunt will be a pain in the ass.
“Huck and I are gonna ride down and check it out after stopping by the hospital.”
“Good plan, brother.”
Janice and Danny are huddled together in the waiting room when we arrive at the hospital. Shadow taps the remaining brothers from last night and sends them back to the clubhouse to get some rest.
“You should go get some rest too, hon,” Shadow says to Janice.
Everyone pretty much ignores Danny, which I get since he decided not to patch-in to the club, but his dad is in the ICU for fuck’s sake.
I sit down next to Danny and pat his shoulder. “You doing all right?”
“Been better.”
We talk about small shit. Passing time, really.
Wrath’s muffled “fuck me,” is the only warning we’re given before Priest’s booming voice fills up the place. Rock blows out a long breath and braces himself for a lengthy rap session with our national president.
Priest ignores Shadow as if he isn’t even in the joint and comes straight for us.
Bad sign.
“Rock, Zero, Wrath.” He nods at the three of us and shakes our hands. His SAA, Blink, is also with him. Another bad sign.
“Priest, this is Sway’s son, Danny, and his daughter, Janice,” I say.
Priest’s a family man, I’ll give him that. Lots of brothers talk a good game about how much they love their wives and children. They brag about being ‘family men’ without taking any actions to prove it. Priest’s never been that way. And that concern extends to his brothers’ families as well.
He talks to Sway’s kids for a few minutes and asks them to contact him if they need anything.
When he’s finished, he turns toward Rock and me. “Can we have a word outside?”
“Thank you for making the long trip, brother,” Rock says once we clear the waiting room.
“One of our own was shot. Nothing could stop me from being here.”
I do my best to force down the bullshit threatening to fly out of my mouth. Teller was run off the road by another MC and almost fuckin’ died and Priest never made an appearance. You could argue he’s our treasurer, not the president, but still.
“We haven’t gotten much info yet,” I say, hoping he’ll go quiz Shadow instead.
Priest’s frosty glare sweeps over the room, briefly passing over Shadow before returning to us. “Can we step outside into the parking lot?”
As if we’re going to say no.
Rock and I follow Priest into the blinding mid-morning sunshine. As I’m slipping on my shades, I glance behind us to find Wrath and Blink on the sidewalk outside the hospital, keeping an eye on us.
Abruptly, Priest stops between two SUVs with Mississippi plates. Seems they drove instead of riding up here. Interesting.
“How bad is he?” Priest asks.
“Like Z sai
d, we don’t have a lot of information. We were waiting for news…” Rock leaves off the ‘before you joined us’ I’m sure he’s dying to say.
“Good. Good. Keep working that angle. Press those kids. I want to know if this is MC business or personal.”
“So do we,” I answer.
Priest glances at me, then Rock. “You know I hinted at National—”
“You never hint, Priest.” Rock says.
“While Sway’s recovering, I think it’s best if your charter takes over downstate.”
Boom. There it is.
Fuck me.
Priest holds up his hands in a let-me-do-you-a-favor gesture. “It won’t be easy with your own crew short on brothers right now, so I’m going to leave a few of my men to help you out,” Priest oh-so-helpfully adds.
And it keeps getting better.
Rock’s rigid with irritation, so I step up. “Rock and I already discussed this possibility. I’m ready to help out down here.”
Priest nods approvingly and Rock gives me a subtle eyebrow lift.
“Excellent.” Priest slaps Rock’s shoulder, then mine. “I knew I could count on you. I’ll discuss the situation with Shadow now.”
By ‘discuss’, I think it’s safe to say Priest’s going to order and if Shadow disagrees, he can expect a fist to the throat.
We wait and watch Priest walk back inside before turning toward each other. “What. The. Fuck?” I breathe out.
“I might shoot Sway myself when he recovers,” Rock growls. “How is he laid up with a bullet in the head and still causing me so much damn grief?”
“You all right with this, Prez?”
“No, I’m not all right with it at all.” His shoulders drop. “I’m not happy about losing you. Even if it’s only temporary. But the alternatives are letting Sway’s crew of clowns run their charter into the ground—”
“Which we both know Priest ain’t gonna tolerate.”
“Or,” Rock continues, “having Priest send more of his guys into our area to ‘help’ us out.”
Yeah, we may technically all be part of the same organization, but Rock prefers—and our whole club agrees—we want to stay as independent as possible. For more than ten years, we’ve maintained our dominance over our territory through a combination of diplomacy, business sense, and bloodshed when necessary.
