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Not to him.
The problem was it mattered to bastards like Elton, who were running the wealth of rich companies and individuals we needed support from.
I tugged at my sleeves.
One, then the other.
It had become a force of habit. Most days this suit felt like home. It gave me confidence and power. But there were times like this when it suddenly felt like some kind of costume.
I’ve never been ashamed of that part of me. I wore my colors with pride, and I’d defend my family until my last breath, and if that meant walking away from bastards like Elton, then so be it. It was disappointing, but I wasn’t about to pretend to be someone else just because some fucker didn’t like that I wore leather and rode a Harley.
It was another reason Reed and I had become such good friends. He had tattoos crawling up his throat and down over his hands, a silent ‘fuck you’ to the people who were watching, waiting for him to fail, proving to them and anyone else he could be successful through anything.
We weren’t the type of men whose enemies could use our flaws to try and defeat us because what they thought were flaws of our character were actually our biggest fucking strengths.
“Man, I’ve gotta run and get to another meeting,” Reed interrupted, looking at his watch and knowing that if he scheduled another meeting so close, it was because he’d been concerned before we walked in here that there could be a problem and knew this shit was going to be cut short.
“You knew about—”
“I’d heard rumors our buddy Elton was fucking shit up,” he answered with a shrug, and that was it. “You want a ride or you good?”
I shook my head. “You go. I’ll call the driver they hooked me up with from the hotel. I need to go do something to clear my head.”
There was apprehension in Reed as he reached for the door. “If you’re gonna do something stupid, call me first. I’ll come do it with you.”
I let out a sort of chuckle and waved him off. “Go, you fucking idiot.”
It’s good having friends here in Boston I can rely on when I’m away from the club.
It wasn’t the outcome I wanted.
My first instinct was to call Rip when I needed a pick-me-up, but with him being across the country, it wasn’t exactly ideal.
So I guess I might just have to deal with a bar somewhere, a dark corner, and a bottle of something strong.
DRAKE
“Pull over here,” I snapped, slamming my palm against the back of the driver’s seat.
The car eased over to the curbside and jerked to a stop. I grabbed the handle and shoved the door open, almost sending it through an elderly couple walking along the sidewalk.
“You want me to wait?” Simon, my driver, asked. He worked for the hotel, and they’d assigned him to drive me around for my entire stay.
“Nah,” I answered, shaking my head. My hair fell loose around my face, and I brushed my fingers through it, pulling it back out of my eyes. “The hotel is only a few blocks away. I’ll walk back when I’m done. Just need to clear my head.”
“Yes, sir,” Simon answered with a snappy salute.
I slammed the door shut and stepped back from the curb, waiting for him to pull away before I stepped out into the street, focused on the bar across the road.
The King’s Line.
It was written in fancy royal-styled writing across a rustic-and-weathered-looking old wooden sign, which hung above two large double doors. As I got closer, I could see the crown etched into the wood, the paint that would have highlighted it almost completely chipped away.
Boston never failed to surprise or impress me when I came here for business. The architecture of its buildings was often like taking a rollercoaster ride through history from the old colonial style that came straight from England to brand new skyscrapers with all glass walls.
And everything you could imagine in between.
Sometimes, it felt like I was walking through another world.
