Page 34 of Phantom Riders MC: Hawk

That hadn’t surprised me.

I’d had run ins with him before. For some reason he had it out for the club, and had since he’d first transferred from Florida, almost as if he had a personal vendetta against us or all biker clubs in general. Who knew what his problem was? I didn’t give a fuck. He was strictly by the book unless Branson was around to rein him in when it was necessary, and Branson knew we’d deal with him if he didn’t.

Chief Branson walked directly up to me, invading my space. I suspected it was done on purpose, and to make a point. The fucker had warned me that he’d have to play tough when there were witnesses around, and he enjoyed every fucking minute of it. His gaze zeroed in on my arm. “Looks like you need to see a doctor. Want us to call for an ambulance?”

He was playing with me. The fucker knew I’d never go in for something as minor as a bullet graze to my arm. “Fuck no.”

He sighed heavily. “You want to tell me how it all went down here, or do I haul your ass to jail?”

“Not much to tell. We were in the club out back when the shooting started. Too dark to see who it was.”

His brows rose. “Too dark to see, huh?” He turned to another of his men. “Scout around outside and see if you can find anything.”

“Did you return fire?” Fuller asked, his smirk telling me that he already knew the answer to that.

“What do you think asshole? We were just gonna sit back and let whoever fuck with us? Let them shoot up our customers?” Rock shook his head with disgust.

I kept eye contact with Branson. We had fucking permits for our weapons, and he knew it. And we had a right to protect ourselves. I doubted they would find any bodies outside, identifying who’d attacked us. Right now all they had was our side of thestory, and no reason to believe that we weren’t being truthful.

“You want me to check out the club?” Fuller was eager to get back there, for any reason. The prick was so sure he’d find something to arrest us for.

“Naw,” Branson said. “Don’t see any reason to. We don’t find anything outside tonight, we’ll come back and have a look in the morning.”

I knew that was Branson’s warning to me to make sure that we fucking got to it first. It was all he was going to give us. His craggy eyebrows met in the middle as he gave the place a thorough search from where he stood. His laziness went hand in hand with the fucking payoffs we provided him.

“If you find out who did the shooting tonight, you be sure and let us know,” Branson finally said.

“You’ll be the first one we call,” I sneered.

His officers followed him out the door but I could tell Fuller was less than satisfied with how shit had gone down. Fuck him. Some day I’d kill the fucker. Snake shut and locked the door behind him. “Find someone to come out and replace the windows first thing in the morning. The prospects can clean up this mess and stand guard tonight.”

“Right on it, Prez.”

“We gonna head out after the Blue Knights?” Rock questioned.

“Not tonight, bro. We’ll hold church in the morning, early. Let the brothers know.”

He gave a chin lift. “You better get your arm looked at.”

Blood ran from my upper arm down to my wrist and was dripping onto the floor. I nodded a response. I’d forgotten all about it, too focused on what had just gone down. I nodded a response.

There’d be more bloodshed by the time this-whatever the fuck this was-was over.

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