Page 11 of Ruthless Reign

The drone of chatter in the boxed in space quieted as the four of us entered. Hardin and I took our seats near the head of the table and everyone else began to sit down until all the chairs were full and the remaining Saints stood in rigid lines against the walls, leaving the glass wall bare for all of us to be able to see out.

Dad remained standing in front of his chair, leaning over the table with his head bent and every muscle in his arms and back tense. The silence stretched on a minute before he was ready to begin.

“We have less than two weeks,” he said, his voice betraying no trace of grief or fear. “Two weeks until those assholes expect us to drive up to the canyon with our tails between our legs and our fucking money bagged up and ready to hand over. Two weeks to figure out our next move.”

He pushed off the table, his slate gray eyes meeting the solemn gazes of several of his men before he spoke again. “Now, I may have some ideas, but right now I want to hear from all of you. This isn’t a democracy, but when that fucking filth decided to involve your wives and your children… Well, you should have a say.”

If the red tint to Hardin’s face was any indication, he was a fistful of words from detonating. If anyone of these fuckers suggested that we should actually bend the knee and do as the Irishman said, I had a feeling my brother’s finger would get hello twitchy.

At least in this case, he and I agreed. There was no way we could live with the wolf sleeping in our backyard, with the threat constantly hanging over our heads. Over Becca’s.

But we needed to be delicate about it. The mad bastard had made it clear—one wrong move and he’d spill more Saint blood.

“He needs to be put down,” Zade said plainly.

Dad nodded, and the rest of the Saints in attendance muttered their agreement, heads bobbing.

“Good,” Dad said. “Now that’s settled, we need to figure out the how of it.”

Dad looked at every Saint in the room in turn, and I wondered if he was thinking the same thing I was. One of them could be the source of the leak. Because there had to be a leak, didn’t there? How else could Séamas O’Sullivan have known so much?

“Before we get into that.” Dad snapped his fingers and Tracy from reception backed her way through the door with a tray filled with tiny glasses and a bottle of whiskey atop it. She set the tray down quietly, nodded to Dad and left.

Dad twisted the cap off the bottle of whiskey, his fallen brother’s favorite brand, and poured himself a shot. I did the same, and pushed the tray down to the others. Once everyone had one-fifth of whiskey, dad raised his shot glass and I watched his throat bob before he spoke. “To our fallen brother.”

“To Archer,” Zade said, and several others repeated the words.

Dad’s eyes met mine, and I lifted my glass, throat too damn thick to speak. I tossed the whiskey back, and the burn of it cleared away that thickness, resting in my belly that was fast becoming a pit of acid.

“Before we go any further in this meeting,” Dad said gruffly, rubbing a wide palm over the stubble on his jaw. “There’s something that needs to be said, and I’m sure a lot of you have already been thinking it. The Sons of O’Sullivan seemed to know a hell of a lot about our operations. Things they seemingly could only know if someone who’d been. In. This. Room.” He punctuated each final word with a fist slammed down on the metal table. “Had fucking told them.”

Dad leaned over the table again, that wild rage he kept leashed showing in full force in his eyes now. It woke my own sleeping demons, and my fists clenched atop the table.

“If I find out that anyone of you, no matter who, has been leaking information to our enemies, I will make Séamas O’Sullivan look like a goddamn puppy. That person will suffer more than I have made anyone suffer since I first took the title of Saint. I would hunt that person down to the ends of this godforsaken earth. There would be nowhere that person could hide from me.”

Dad let his words settle among the group for a moment before continuing.

I hoped to fucking hell that we were all wrong about there being a leak. These were all good men. Vetted. Trusted. It was possible Séamas got his information another way.

“All right.” He clapped his hands together. “Let’s go over what we know.”

“He started by taking out the police chief,” Pope offered.

“Nah, he started before then. Slowly turning the smaller gangs in the area to his side.”

“Right,” Dad said. “And he did that by using a show of brutality. The promise of more death and violence in exchange for obedience.”

“We know he took out the Warden and all of his men which means he’s now got a massive amount of firepower in his arsenal.”

Damn. I hadn’t really thought of that. But Pope was right. The Warden was our gun supplier. If the Sons of O’Sullivan took them out, they no doubt owned what was once theirs. We still had no idea if we were outmanned, but now we knew for certain that we were outgunned.

“We know he’s willing to spell innocent blood to get what he wants,” I offer in a dark tone. “He has no regard for human life and no code of honor that he lives by.”

“He has political allies,” Hardin said, and all eyes in the room turned to him, but he didn’t elaborate.

Dad nodded his agreement. “As far as we know, it’s the mayor and the senator of California himself. And we know that he wants us to bow down and kiss his feet. He wants our territory. To take what’s ours.”

Murmurings of hell no and fuck that rose from the group.

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