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JJ’s brother stepped back from the raised truck and release the trigger on the wrench. “Yeah, Prez?”
“Your brother wants to talk to me. You know why?”
Zach stared for a beat before he shook his head slightly. Eight read that as a conflict of loyalty—to his brother or his president. Zach knew, but wasn’t sure what the right play was.
“I just want to be prepared for what I’m gonna have to deal with, and he didn’t want to say right out. So I’m worried.”
“I told him not to bring it to you.”
Eight rubbed his scalp. “You are not easing my mind, kid. What is it?”
Swallowing hard, Zach said, “He thinks the penalty isn’t fair.”
“The penalty? You mean the levy for freelancing?”
Zach’s nod was as slight as his shake had been.
For fuck’s sake. They’d let the kid keep his patch and he was about to quibble with the levy they’d assigned instead? Maybe they should have stripped the little asshole. “You vouched, Zach. You sat at the table and told me you’d keep him in line. This? Is not keeping him in line.”
“I can’t glue myself to his hip, Eight. I told him he was lucky to still have his patch. I told him to shut the fuck up and take it like a man. He said okay, but …”
“But apparently he needs a more forceful lesson. Got it.”
Furious, Eight stomped out of the bay and turned to the clubhouse. Behind him, Zach yelled, “Eight! He’s not fully healed yet!”
The kid should have thought of that before he decided to complain about paying for the wrong he’d done.
~oOo~
With the exception of a couple sweetbutts cleaning the windows and mopping the floor, JJ was alone in the clubhouse. He sat at the bar with a bottle of Bud Light. When he saw Eight, he stood.
Eight had used the minute or so it took to cross the alley and come into the clubhouse to compose himself. With an expression he hoped was neutral, he said, “Office,” and walked past JJ with no particular urgency.
JJ picked up his beer and followed.
In his office, Eight sat in his desk chair and waved at the hard vinyl chair beside the desk. “Sit. Talk.”
JJ sat, and didn’t talk. He sat there peeling the label off his beer, unaware that Eight was half a second from punching him in his arrogant face.
“You got me here to talk in private. Say your piece, kid.”
Suddenly, JJ squared his shoulders and set his expression to something Eight figured he meant to be serious and manly. “I’m glad I get to keep my patch, and I mean no disrespect, but twenty percent of my take for six months is way too high.”
Eight scoffed. “You mean no disrespect. Right.”
“I don’t. I’d never disrespect the club.”
“Bullshit. You disrespected the club when you freelanced.”
“That wasn’t about the club. I needed money, so I found a gig.”
“In a fucking drug deal, you fucking moron.”
Now JJ was pissed. Eight was angry enough himself to hope the kid would say something really stupid now. “That has nothing to do with the club. We’re out of the drug business, as everybody fucking says over and over again.”
“Fucking hell, you really are unbelievably stupid, aren’t you? Nothing fucking worse than an idiot who thinks he’s got it all figured out. So let me lay the reality out for you. It doesn’t fucking matter if we’re out of drugs or not. You were messing around in somebody else’s business, and you didn’t fucking know those assholes from Adam. You ‘knew a guy who knew a guy.’ You fucking amateur.”
“That’s not—”
