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“You’re right. We’ll handle this how we handled it before. We’ll reach out and see if we can find out who accepted the hit, and I’ll arrange additional security for the clubhouse. But it’s business as usual, you hear me? I refuse to let that fucker have any influence over the Kings and how we conduct business moving forward.” I brought down the gavel, and the snap of wood against wood vibrated through the room.
As our brothers slowly dispersed and made their way out to the bar, Cade put his hand on my shoulder to stop me. “You know you’re going to have to take some necessary steps here.”
“Relax, this isn’t the first time I’ve had a hit out on me. I know the drill.”
“And I know you. The last time you didn’t take this seriously.”
He’s right. The last time involved a backwater crime family and a hillbilly mobster-wannabe. To teach them a lesson, we’d destroyed their moonshine racket until it was nothing but a steaming pile of ash, while the would-be assassin was fermenting in the mosquito-ridden soil of Crawdad Bayou, just a few miles over the border.
“You have to admit, it was hard to take any of them seriously,” I said.
“But you have to take this seriously, Bull. This is Gimmel Martel we’re talking about. Not some hillbilly moonshine cartel.” He fixed his bright blue eyes on me. “You’ll have to tell Taylor.”
My eyes shot to his. “You know about that?”
He raised an eyebrow. “About you and Taylor? You’re kidding me, right? I’m sure they know about it in fucking Australia.”
“It’s not public knowledge.”
“Yeah, that’s where you’re wrong.” His mild amusement vanished and he looked serious. “She deserves to know what she’s getting herself into.”
Fuck.
“No, not until I know what I’m dealing with.”
I didn’t want to scare her.
Hell, I didn’t want her to run away.
I knew it was fucking selfish of me. But I wasn’t ready to destroy the best thing to happen to me in years based on second-hand information.
Informants got things wrong.
Hell, Spider got things wrong.
And I wasn’t going to lose Taylor because he got fed incorrect information.
Cade shook his head. “Martel has a hit out on you, Bull. I don’t need to tell you that you’re going to have to make some changes. At least until we get this figured out.”
“I already have this figured out.”
“Yeah? What are you planning?”
“I’m going to find out who the assassin is and I’m going to kill him.”
“How you figure on doing that?”
“I’m going to go straight to the horse’s mouth.”
“You’re going to ask Martel?”
“Yes. Right before I put a bullet between his eyes.”
BULL
Later that afternoon, I headed north to Sunflower County to meet my contact at the FBI, Special Agent Guy Everett.
Everett was your quintessential special agent. Black suit. Crisp shirt. Tidy hair and cleanly shaven. Somewhere in his early forties, he looked like he’d stepped out of the pages of a goddamn fashion magazine.
Surprisingly, after twenty years chasing down the bad guys, he wasn’t jaded. Because Special Agent Guy Everett made his own rules. He bent the law only to the point of not actually breaking it.
From time to time, that was where I came in.
Over the years we’d helped each other out. If something I needed fell into his jurisdiction, he fed me intel on it, and nine times out of ten, the result meant his case ended before he had the responsibility of closing it.
Other times, if I had information that was valuable to him, I shared it. But only if it was in my best interests, of course.
We met just out of Coldwater, on a roadside next to a sweeping field of corn crops.
“We have eyes and ears on the ground in Chicago,” he said, unwrapping a stick of gum and bending it into his mouth.
“Chicago?”
“That’s where Martel’s been hiding out.”
“Been hiding out?”
“As of two days ago, he’s holed up in a small town just out of Jackson.” He reached into his breast pocket. “It will require a quiet visit. Not ten Harley Davidsons riding into town, do you understand me?”
He handed me a piece of paper with an address on it.
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re giving him to me?”
“I’m giving you time. What you do with that is up to you.” Everett couldn’t come out and say it. I had to read between the lines. “We have to secure a warrant first.”
“But you’re hoping I’ll get to him first?”
“Would save a lot of paperwork.”
I nodded. “How long have I got?”
“I’ll wait to file for the warrant this afternoon. You’ve got twenty-four hours.”
As soon as I left him, I called chapel and filled in the rest of the club. We spent a couple of hours formulating a plan. As we were finishing up, I was surprised to see Ruger walk in. I’d told him to take some time off with Chastity and his son.
