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I was getting really tired of the goddamned drawing board.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Brute
“This isn’t club business, boys; it’s personal… to me,” I said from the head of the table, surrounded by the eleven patched members of the Old Dogs. “None of you are on the hook. No one’s gonna blame you if you want to stay clear of this.”
“Hunting down assholes sounds like a good use of time to me, boss,” Dynamite said, cracking his knuckles.
Tate nodded. “You know I’m with you, Brute,” he said. And he was. I’d sponsored him myself, brought him in as a prospect eight years ago. He hadn’t let me down once.
The rest of the table chimed in with similar sentiments.
“I appreciate it, brothers,” I said, sitting up straighter. “According to our new friend, Fred, the two men we’re looking for are tall Latinos with shaved heads and Aztec tats. Their primary goal is to get Leeri back. If they’ve figured out where she is, they’ll be looking at how to get into the Costas’ estate—not an easy task—or looking for ways to blackmail them into handing her over.”
“You sure you don’t want to have us watching over her here, boss?” Dynamite asked, slapping both hands down on the table. He wasn’t accustomed to working with families like the Costas; he trusted them about as far as he could throw them.
Truth was, I wasn’t sure how I felt about trusting the Costas with my sister’s life. Gabe Costa was a good man, but Nico, the big boss of the family? We’d exchanged barely more than a handful of sentences.
“Leeri stays put for the moment,” I said, shaking my head. Because I did trust Greta, no matter how much of a damn fool it made me. “In the meantime, press hard on every contact we’ve got and see what you find. The sooner we find these assholes, the sooner we can send them down to hell, brothers.”
The men around the table cheered and slammed their fists down on the old wood. Sending men down to hell was always a favored pastime.
I raised a hand, and the room went quiet.
“There’s one more thing,” I said, meeting Hack’s gaze because the blond-haired, blue-eyed guy in his mid-twenties had a particularly useful skill. “I need to know what my sister’s been up to for the past fifteen years. I hit a brick wall way back then; I need you to ram right through it now.” Hack was a genius at all that techy spy shit.
He nodded and cracked his knuckles like he was getting ready for battle. “Consider it done, Pres.”
“All right, let’s get to it, boys,” I said, then banged down the gavel.
The room dispersed quickly—a good sign the men were eager to get started.
Old Mike remained seated, looking at me from the other end of the table, looking like he had something to say.
When the door closed, leaving the two of us alone, he shifted in his seat, grimacing. The arthritis was getting worse, not that it would stop him from saying his piece.
“Spit it out, Mike,” I said, already figuring I knew what was on his mind. He had a knack for honing in on the shit you didn’t want to talk about.
He cleared his throat. “I’m just surprised you didn’t bring up that pretty little thing you’ve got hanging around.”
“Greta?” I laughed. “Don’t let her hear you talking about her that way. She’ll kick your ass, old man.”
Mike smiled. “It’d be the best action I got all year, brother.” He barked out a short laugh, then his leathery face sobered. “You’re thinking about it, though, aren’t you? Making this one permanent?”
“Nothing in life is permanent.”
“That’s a piss-poor attempt at avoiding the subject,” he called me out, shaking his head.
Fair enough. “She’s still sowing her wild oats. She’s too young to be thinking about anything permanent.”
“Up until recently, you were content to be sowing oats too. Haven’t seen you doing much of that lately,” he said, looking up at me pointedly. Then he shrugged. “Girls mature faster than us—it’s a fact. Must be because they don’t have dicks to be doing all the thinking for them. So, if you’re ready, I’m betting she beat you there by a mile, Brute.”
I leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Since when were you in favor of any man settling down?” Mike was well into his sixties and still tapped any pussy he could get his hands on.
“It wasn’t the life for me. But you… you’re different. Better, maybe? Or maybe you’re the closest thing I’ve got to a kid of my own and I’m just looking for some grandbabies.”
I barked a laugh. I’m not sure which idea was crazier: me with a kid or Mike with a grandchild. Either way, I was pretty sure there were laws against men like me procreating.
