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ChapterTwenty-Two

TATI

“Just gotword Onyx and Blue will be pulling up soon,” Ozias said, peeking into the office to deliver the news.

News I was too plugged in to not already have. Hell, I knew before he did.

But Ozias always found a reason to come talk to me, a reason to seek me out since according to him, I didn’t “fuck with him”, so he had to make sure I understood his usefulness.

As if I were going to make him disappear or something otherwise.

If I were going to do that, I would’ve gotten it over with already.

“Thank you,” I told him simply, instead of making him privy to everything rolling over in my head, shit that had nothing to do with him.

Brandon and Onyx had both, separately, let me know things were “fine”, butthatshit was so beyond relative.

Finefor other people meant everybody was cool, things were peaceful, etc.

Around here?

Finejust meant nobody had picked up any new holes.

“Ay, boss lady,” Ozias spoke up; his voice startled me at first, but I quickly realized he’d never actually left the door.

“Yes?”

“Shit’s getting a bit out of hand around here, don’t you think?” he asked, stepping into the office now. At Brandon’s insistence even before his meeting with Rojas, we were back on lockdown, so I was posted up at the clubhouse.

I raised an eyebrow. “You think it’s more than we can handle?”

“Never that,” he denied, gesturing with his hands like he was pushing that thought away from him. “Just a little more heat than usual.”

I turned away from my computer to give him my full attention, with a smile. “Ozias… how about you just tell me what’s on your mind?”

He reached up, scratching underneath the old-school Kangol he always wore, covering his almost fully-grayed ponytail. “Well, baby girl…” My breath caught in my throat. I’d beenbaby girlfor years, and years, andyearsbefore the tragedy that turned me to “boss lady”. “I’ve got that feeling like I did before… you know.”

I did.

Ozias was an OG, one of the few in our chain-of-command who’d not been caught up in the massacre. As road captain, he never stayed behind, but that day he literallycouldn’tride.

So he’d been right here in the clubhouse as so many we loved died.

It wasn’t his fault.

I knew that.

Everybodyknew that.

And yet, because of his role, I’d lowkey held it against him at first, because how could he not know?

It wasliterallyhis job to predict and perceive the threats against us, to make the battle plan, to ensure shit like thisdidn’thappen.

Thatshit, though?

It was something else.

Something he couldn’t have known.

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