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Jennings grunted. The urge to bounce his leg and dispel some of his nerves burned, but he held still and controlled it. As the youngest brother, any tell would invite one of his brothers to start picking so it was a habit he’d learned to kick. He loved his brothers, but they could be assholes.
“Just lie low. Don’t take any risks.”
A familiar voice spoke up in the background. “That’s like telling a volcano not to erupt. TheTitanicnot to sink.”
The voice joining Lexis’s was quieter for being in the background, but Jennings heard every single word. He was obviously on speakerphone.
He pushed a heavy sigh through his nostrils. “Julius.”
“Jennings.”
“Nobody needs your input on the matter.”
“Just speaking the truth, bro. Last time you walked in here, you told us that you killed a man.”
“I was protecting a woman.” He ground the syllables through his teeth and stared at the closed bathroom door, willing said woman to stay in the shower a little longer.
“I’m muting you for a minute, Jennings.”
The line went silent. Jennings could only guess that Lexis and Julius were exchanging a few heated words that they didn’t want him to overhear.
When he came back on the line, Lexis said, “When is the next drug run?”
“No one shared the schedule with me. But based off what’s been happening for months, I’d say three, four days at most.”
“You’ve got to be on that run.”
“I plan on it.”
“We’re working on an exit strategy. In the meantime, don’t blow your cover. We need enough to take the Disciples down completely. There can be no way of rebuilding their club after this.”
“The next run, I’ll have all the evidence I need.” He still had that listening device in place at the church. Unfortunately, it wasn’t high-tech enough to transmit directly to the team. They’d learned the hard way once before that criminals were able to scan for the more advanced bugs. This cheap one flew under their radar, but it meant he had to retrieve it. Then he’d have even more evidence of what was going on.
“Can you make it three days without killing anybody else, brother?” Julius’s remark came through loud and clear—and in a blink, Jennings was locked and loaded for battle.
He jerked to his full height, phone clamped to his ear, adrenaline flowing through his veins. “If you were here right now, you’d be wearing two black eyes and fewer teeth.”
His brother’s laugh was that old teasing one he knew from their childhood. “That’s the spirit, Jennings. You know I’ve got your back, right? We might argue, but it never lasts long.”
He wasn’t feeling so warm and fuzzy. “Maybe someday I’ll hold a grudge a lot longer,” he bit off.
“Enough.” Like a father figure, Lexis put a stop to their bickering. Something that irritated Jennings even more.
A crash from beyond the bedroom walls, deeper in the club, made him grab his shirt off the floor. “I gotta go. Something’s going down.”
The commotion continued, more noises of items breaking reaching him. He’d heard enough bodies fall to know one when he heard one.
He ended the call and threw on his clothes. With the phone shoved in his back pocket, he hurried out of the room.
About ten people gathered around somebody on the floor. All Jennings could see was a set of boots sticking out from between the onlookers.
He was taller than most men in the club, and he used that to his advantage to see into the huddle. Blood pooled on the wood floor.
“Fuck, what happened here?” he asked the guy beside him.
“He’s been shot!” one of the ladies cried out.
Everyone started talking at once. Jennings pushed his way into the fray and knelt beside the victim. His pale skin was slick with sweat. The stench of blood and gunpowder clung to him.
