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“Loan sharking, huh?” Tyler rubbed the back of his neck.
“For one thing. Got a few other ideas.” He had Tyler on the hook. His cousin regretted not patching in with the Outlaws even if he’d have hated the life. At least he would have had some form of brotherhood.
“Where the fuck we gonna get cash to loan out? Will the other club front you?”
“I got that under control.” Though Tyler was one of the two or three people Curly trusted, he had no plans to share his financial status with him. Not yet. If he agreed to help Curly with the club and pledged an oath, eventually, but not now. That kind of money changed things. “I want you for my VP.”
Tyler’s eyes widened, “You’re shitting me.”
“Dead serious. Need someone I trust. And like I said, there ain’t many.”
Finally, Tyler’s uneasy expression gave way to a smile. “Fuck it. I’m in. Shit, cuz. I’m one hundred percent in.” He held out a hand and walked toward Curly, who sucked in a sharp breath.
Until that moment, Curly hadn’t realized just how important it was for him to have his cousin by his side and in his club. It was then he also realized just how much he wanted this to work. How badly he wanted to be a part of the Hell’s Handlers family and bring that to his hometown. “Fuck yes,” he said as he grabbed his cousin’s hand and hauled him in for a quick hug and a slap on the back.
Pressure eased in his chest. It felt like the first time he’d taken a true full breath since he sat in Copper’s office and proposed the idea.
Tyler pounded his shoulder with a booming laugh. The same way his father had. Curly would never forget him even though the man had been killed in a motorcycle accident almost two decades ago.
“You’re ol’ lady gonna be on board with this?” Curly asked of Tyler’s wife as he stepped back.
With a snort, Tyler shook his head. “Fuck that. I got shot of her about two years after you went away.”
Thank fuck. He’d never liked her. She was a whiny, manipulative shrew who’d run around on Tyler since day one.
“Guess we got a lotta work to do now, huh?”
“Damn straight,” Curly said. “I’ll catch you up on everything tonight. Sound good?”
“Hell yeah. Where you off to now?”
Curly smiled. “I’m off to get myself a best friend.”
CHAPTER FIVE
BROOKE HEFTED THE first of three fifty-pound sacks of dog food from the back of her Jeep. “God,” she muttered to herself as she staggered backward under the weight of the bag. “I swear these get heavier each time.”
With her arms wrapped around the bag, she hoisted it higher and settled it on her hip as though it were a heavy child. At least she got some use outta those hips of hers. By the time she’d sweated her way through her large yard to the kennel, her arms ached, and the thought of going through that two more times had her groaning. If she were smart, she’d get a wagon to lug the food instead of straining, but she used this chore to justify skipping the gym.
The dogs yipped and bounced around their kennels as she ripped open the bag. A huff had her peeking over her shoulder. “Hey, Ray,” she said to her German Shepherd. Most of the time, he stayed in the house while she was out, but today he’d been insistent on hanging out with the rest of the dogs. He seemed to have fallen head over paws for a little lab/boxer mix she’d rescued a few days ago. The pup had been left outside David’s clinic with her leash tied to the door.
With a shake of her head, she squashed the anger threatening to rise. If she allowed herself to get pissed every time someone abandoned a dog at the vet clinic, she’d spend most of her time in a furious state. But, over the years, she’d learned to turn that anger into motivation. Now she used it to fuel her in fostering as many dogs as possible.
David guessed this pup to be somewhere around eight or nine months. From a note tucked in her collar, Brooke had learned the puppy’s owner had passed, and no one in his family wanted the dog. She couldn’t figure that one out to save her life. The puppy was an adorable chocolate color with two white toes on a back paw and a little strip of white fur on her head. She was also smart as hell and sweet as could be. Ray certainly seemed to think so, even if she had boundless amounts of energy.
He sat outside the pup’s kennel whining as he thumped his fluffy tail. “Give me a minute,” she said as she managed to dump the contents of the bag in a food storage bin. “I’ll let your girlfriend out as soon as I get the rest of the food in here.”
