Page 43 of Ruthless Son

“We can’t let them know we’re onto them. We can’t have them shutting down and giving Whitmore more time to try and screw us over, he already has the town eating outta the palm of his hand by donating that sum of money to the elementary school,” Prez raged, his face flushed with his anger. “I wanna know if it was Rutter who put the Sinners up to taking out Nag and Margot, get me anything you can,” he growled.

“What about the sheriff?” Sonic had a good relationship with the current sheriff, and he tended to look away for a lot of things. A little bit of cash kept him sweet, but he was up for retirement soon, and his replacement wasn’t as amenable to a golden handshake. The deputy was as straight as they come, a good man, but good men didn’t help us sell drugs.

“The deputy is friends with Whitmore’s son, they’re tight. It could be a problem.” Threads had grown up here, he was the same age as the younger Whitmore, and he held a deep seated resentment toward the deputy and his friends, a reason that I wasn’t privy to, but then Threads kept a lot of his cards to his chest, he wasn’t an open fucking book. The brother was tried and true, a Street King through and through, but his past was a no-go area.

Cal leant forward, his eyebrows drawn in a frown. “We’ll deal with the deputy when the time comes, for now, we need info on Rutter and the older Whitmore. Hell, the son doesn’t even live in town anymore, he’s a non-issue. Get me everything. I want that prick brought down, I’m not having him fucking us over anymore.”

“We’re so sure it’s the mayor and not just Rutter taking things into his own hands?” Gauge chimed in, normally the listener, he sat back, watching intently.

“We’d be stupid not to assume it’s the old man controlling the strings. Rutter earns good money as a lawyer, but it’s not enough for him to bankroll this entire operation,” I said, thoughts and pieces coming together. “Unless Rutter has a contributor somewhere else… but that doesn’t make sense because he never leaves town and he’s always up the mayor’s ass. Besides, Whitmore was the one that tried to shut the funeral business down, wanting the town to use the city’s larger mortician. He kicked up a fuss when the council refused.”

The townsfolk were hard working, and they were mostly lifers, they didn’t want a stranger handling their loved ones after their death. They wanted someone they knew, someone they trusted to carry out the preparations… that wasn’t some cold asshole in Akron.

“I’ll get Sly on it… once he’s finished…” muffled laughter broke through the icy rage, we all knew what Sly was up to, or rather, what the club pussy was up to, making the poor bastard feel better.

“Keep the girls inside for now, at least until we’ve figured out what Rutter’s up to, he’s probably still looking for his money,” Prez gritted out. “Where did you stash it?” He turned to Kannon, the man had found it in a plastic wrap and buried beneath a pile of some girly shit that they used to wrap the flowers in, deep in the back of the drawer Millie had said it was in. They destroyed the interior of the shop, turning everything over to look for the missing money, but didn’t find it in one of the most obvious places, instead looking in every flower bucket and bed. Millie had spilled all to Kannon after she’d left in tears and he’d gone back when she was asleep to dig it up.

“It’s downstairs in the safe,” Kannon muttered. “Ten thousand dollars. It’s a decent amount but not worth killing someone over, or even chasing someone for it. The lawyer earns more than that a month, I’m sure.”

“You’re right, but it’s the principal, isn’t it. Rutter was cheated out of some of his money and he’ll want it back. He’s probably still chasing Mickey down not knowing the fucker is worm food.” Millie had thought Mickey was helping out by giving her that money to save, not knowing that he had willingly put her life in danger. Now, she was stuck here until we got Rutter to back off… or dead, whichever was the easiest option.

“We know where Rutter lives, right? It’s that new build development on the edge of town, those big ugly ass houses with all that glass.” Link was out of his seat, leaning on the wood to stare down at us all. “We can just go there and do what he did to Nag… to Margot. A bullet in the head, maybe one for his wife just to make it even.”

“NO,” Sonic shouted. “Sit the fuck down. No one’s killing anyone, dammit.” He raked his hand across his face, stress lined his face as he glared at Link. “We get the evidence, then we’ll decide as a club what we do next.”

Callahan nodded in agreement. “Sonic’s right, no one does anything to the lawyer without a vote.” His phone vibrated with a text, and he read it with a pinched look on his face. “The doc’s here to check on Sly, meeting’s over.” He slammed the gavel down, finishing off our heated debate on what to do with the lawyer. I thought Link had a point, take him out and get a little payback at the same time, but we were a democracy, and we prided ourselves on being able to have a say in all major decisions.

Pushing his chair back, the prez stood and rounded the table, heading for the door. Link opened his mouth again for the second time. “Why we letting this prick in for? He didn’t show up when we needed him yesterday, we should just keep the princess, she can fix us up when we get hurt, plus Rex can just pay her in dick.” Link was really fucking chatty today, but his words pinched at the thick muscle in my chest.

As he walked past me, I slapped the back of his head, the smack on his hard skull a satisfying sound. “Ow, man, it was a joke.” Link turned affronted.

“You deserved that,” Gauge muttered as he walked past, following Cal out of the room.

He did fuckin’ deserve it for saying out loud what we were all thinking, but no one was stupid enough to say it to my face. Not after her shoot down earlier, one that some of my brother’s witnessed, and those that didn’t, knew from those that had spread it because they were big-mouthed assholes.

They were like gossiping old women and I couldn’t blame them. The infamous Rex, who could get pussy with a click of my finger, was being rejected by the one woman I’d shown any interest in throughout the whole of my 36 years on this godforsaken earth—surely this was karma.

Mia

The days were boring when you were stuck inside, no freedom, no entertainment except the club women who liked to walk around half naked and suck Wheeler off in public. But to be honest, as gross as it was to listen to him get off, I’d seen way nastier stuff on the wards.

Besides, once you’d seen one old man’s dick, you’d seen them all.

The past week without Rex had been miserable. He had ignored me as much as possible, only speaking to me when he needed to, and that was normally about Sly’s recovery. My daily dose of fresh air was letting the hounds out for their morning run in the small backyard, where I got to watch them play about and catch a ratty old ball I threw to them. I used this time to call Dad and catch up with events back home, also reassuring him that we were safe.

So far, Millie had refused to talk to them directly, instead using me as her mouthpiece, but her parents were getting extremely frustrated with her stubbornness and childishness by not acknowledging that leaving with Mickey—a guy she had known for mere weeks—probably wasn’t the best choice. But she would not accept that they were right, that she had jumped into a situation with her eyes closed, not considering the consequences.

The repercussions of Millie jetting off to Ohio, led to this… being sequestered in this chained off area with two bloodhounds, and sitting on an old bench, a small blanket wrapped around my shoulders to ward off the chill.

Night times were the worst though. The club converged on the common room, playing cards, drinking, smoking… everything you’d think a bunch of men could get up to, this included women.

Rex sat with Sly the past few nights, watching the goings on, and not participating in their antics. I continued to check in on him and change his bandages, making sure he had drugs to keep him pain free, the heavy dose of painkillers tended to make him a bit sleepy, and so his nights ended far earlier than the others. And when it was Sly’s time to turn in, Rex was there to help him, keeping him upright and leading him to his room to crash… and he never came back out.

Wendy had also decided to try and annoy the hell out of me by using this time to flirt with Rex. Every time he sat down she was leaning against his arm, touching him, laughing at his jokes that weren’t even that funny. Her exaggerated behavior was pathetic, and made her look like she was desperate for a man. But what made it even more laughable was she constantly looked over at me to see if I was watching her flirt with Rex. She was always dressed in something that I wouldn’t be caught dead in. See through outfits, tight clothes, underwear showing, the most obscene slutty clothes to try and arouse the man that—lucky for him—didn’t pay much attention to her.

It didn’t stop Wendy from trying though.

I know I wasn’t planning on staying, but whilst I was here, the man wasn’t allowed to screw other women either. I couldn’t have him, which meant that while I was stuck here, no one else could have him… I think that's fair.

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