Permanently fucking angry and no end in sight.
The phone rang, and I reluctantly picked it up.
“Yeah?”
“Fuck, man. I can’t get you out of it.”
I sighed. “I know. It’s fine. I’m going.”
“Sorry again,” Black muttered. “I have a lot of people on my ass right now, and it’ll look weird if I get you out of it.”
“No problem,” I lied.
It was a problem.
Mostly because I hated fucking people now.
I hated the world and myself, too.
There was no preferential treatment in my hate.
“Sorry,” he grumbled. “Hopefully you don’t get chosen.”
I fuckin’ hoped so, too.
“They’ll hopefully see my face and decide that they don’t want permanently angry people on their jury.”
“One can hope.” Black laughed.
Black was actually Black Adkins, Jesper County Sheriff.
He was probably my only close friend, and only because he was just as standoffish and angry as I was.
He was the reason I’d joined the Dixie Wardens Motorcycle Club, too.
A year and a half ago, when me and seven other men had arrived freshly broken out of jail, Apollo had built a pseudo-life for us. He’d given us jobs, bought us houses, planned our lives out, and pretty much dropped us right smack dab into someone else’s life. Even though, technically, it hadn’t been anyone else’s life before Apollo had created it.
With that already made-up life had come the Dixie Wardens MC—Montana Chapter.
Denver, the club president, as well as several other of the club members, had taken us under their wing and given us prospect cuts and pretended like we’d been in Bear Pass/Sawtooth/Jaw Bone all along.
The three tight-knit cities had housed a massive chapter for the Dixie Wardens, and they’d vouched for us.
They gave us a back story when we had none.
And now we were all a part of them.
Well, all of us but one.
Romeo hadn’t joined the club.
He’d been content in his life and had dropped out of “prospecting” as soon as it was believable.
Plus, Romeo was Apollo’s brother-in-law.
He had a backup plan if his life didn’t pan out the way he wanted it to—or he got caught.
The rest of us? We had Apollo, but we didn’t have as tight of a connection.
