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five
With a bowed head,Ice sat across from Edmund “Preacher” Goodwin, with his high school quarterback blond hair and innocent face that belied the history of who the man really was. To the club, he was their wise man, a counsel for deeper matters beyond the vote of what runs to take or who needs to be dealt with. The man turned to the Good Book and tried to bring a balance between good and evil between all the men. It might have been penance for his past or a belief that sin-eating would in some way help him in the next life. No matter his motives, Ice needed another perspective.
“She has a point,” the man said, finally breaking the silence because Ice couldn’t run any more circles around his argument. “Where are they now?”
“Playing in the parking lot by my trailer with her,” he said.
Preacher flipped his wrist to check the time, then scowled at him. “I know you Vegas borns are part reptile with no fear of the sun, but even they scurry under rocks to get cool.”
“I’ll take them to Paris or the Lux and let them jump in the pool for a bit.”
If nothing else, Las Vegas had all of the world’s big cities on a smaller and kitschier scale. Each one had a handful of employees that ran for the Sinners, concierges without the title, able to pass on the high to the guests and create another layer or two to keep the MC under the radar—and giving the men places to disappear into the crowd on the Strip when necessary.
“To her point, then what?” he challenged, and the question wasn’t any less brutal coming from a brother than it had been Bree. The only difference was Preacher understood Ice not walking away from the club and starting fresh. That didn’t happen. Too much blood had been spilt between the men to abandon them. He’d rather go out eighty miles an hour into the grill of a semi than walk away from those who’d taken him in when everyone else had given up.
“What should I do, pass them over to their stepfather or some random woman who they call Auntie?”
“No, they’re your blood,” he said, bringing his hands together. “A good father can make a man, or in this case a man and a woman.”
“I need time, time to sort it all out, and Bree’s acting like I should have had a bunker and five-point plan of attack ready.”
“In a way, you should have. It’s what you do for us,” Preacher pointed out.
“Rides happen. Me getting my kids was a high-dollar long shot,” he said. “I’d have better odds tossing fifty grand on nine and watching the ball bounce.”
“Yeah, but if you would have won, what would you do with close to two million?”
“I guess Uncle Sam would know about it, so there goes half. The rest I’d split up between—”
Preacher held up his hand to silence him. “And that was less than three seconds.”
“But that’s money being spent,” he reasoned. “Not kids.”
“You weren’t going to spend it,” he said, “outside of a good fifty to seventy grand going to a chromed-out soft tail.”
“I ride Indian only.”
“Fine, a matte black Dark Horse, like I care. The rest you’ve already figured out the way you’d split it up,” Preacher said. “Now, we voted last night to make the run to LA to check out the overage with the Hellcats. What route or routes are we taking?”
“I get your damn point,” he grumbled, because he’d planned out contingencies, safe harbors, and stops if shit went left. It was a run that had him nervous only because they were going up with another club, and he had to review borders, not between the states, but other clubs, avoiding land where the patches on their backs might as well be targets.
He wasn’t a damn parent-teacher club member. It wasn’t innate and genuine, and right now, as much as he loved his children, he couldn’t help the itch on the back of his neck from the idea Misty was a message to him. Ice had to get back with Detective Nunez and see the crime scene photos. Then he’d know, because it wasn’t a simple break-in, or his kids would have been alerted. There was more to this, and a reason why he was the prime suspect and not the conveniently out-of-town husband.
“The club has your kids,” Preacher said. “You know this.”
“Yes,” Ice said, standing as the man grasped his hand and pulled him tight to his chest. “Sinners all.”
“Sinners all,” Preacher repeated, and Ice headed back out of the clubhouse and garage they ran.
“Tell me I’m not going to be having you handcuffed by law enforcement again anytime soon,” Claye “Aries” Holland, their VP, called from a corner table where he sat cutting up a quarter of a cow someone had lied about and said was a rib eye. Not quite that big, but the man loved a good, thick piece of meat. “Makes the girls jealous when it ain’t their cuffs on you.”
“One time I let Star lock me to the pole, and I’ve never lived it down,” Ice joked. “It was my birthday.”
“Not yesterday,” Aries said, his focus on the steak in front of him as he swirled the overcooked medium cut in a bit of sauce on the plate. “We’re about to move a shit ton of weight in here, can’t have some cop sniffing around. Heard it was a murder charge.”
“Misty, my kids’ mom, she was killed.”
“Not an overdose then?” he asked, a legitimate question because the girl had a past with drugs and the like, but from the little he’d gleaned, damage was done, and not the fall-down-drunk type of damage. “And you’re prime suspect number one for dropping a few seeds in the woman, got it. We can put the Hellcats off for few days, but not more. If you need to pass your duties on to Shadow—”
