Page 55 of Doozer

“Then you’d better find a way to grind it to a halt within the next forty-eight hours or I’ll turn you into the police myself.”

My father stared at me in disbelief.

“I told you, Pop. My business is legit, and I have nothing to hide. Can you say the same?”

“I just wanted us to be a family again,” he said softly.

“Kill the deal, Pop,” I said. “’Cause if you don’t, I will, and I’ll make sure you go down with the Snodgrasses, the Beast, and everyone else who thought it was a good idea to fuck with my club.”

* * *

By the time I rode back to the Sanctuary, my eyeballs ached, and my head was pounding. Of all the shitty things I could imagine my father doing, I never could have imagined him becoming a criminal and joining forces with my enemy in order to destroy my club.

Angry and exhausted I made it to my room, slumped onto my bed in a heap, pulled out my phone, and called Minus.

“How’d it go?” he asked, picking up immediately.

“Okay, I guess.”

“Were you able to find out anything more?”

“I’m not sure how much he knows,” I said. “It appears I may know a lot more than he did. He actually seemed surprised by some of the shit I told him.”

“You could have blind spots, though. Him being your old man and all.”

“Trust me. I’m the last person who’s gonna come to my father’s defense. He knows enough to be guilty in my eyes, but I think the Beast and Judge Snodgrass played him.”

“Where does that leave us?”

“I told my father he had forty-eight hours to kill the deal with the judge. Without Pop’s cooperation and the use of his offshore account, the deal can’t proceed.”

“Do you think he’ll listen to you?”

“I told him he either parts ways with judge Snodgrass or with his freedom. The choice is his.”

“Could you really turn him in to the cops?”

“My father’s too proud to face a scandal. He’ll do what’s right and kill the deal.”

“The Beast will figure out another way to come at us, but at least this buys us some time. Good job, Doozer. I’ll see you when you get back from your trip.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Trouble

IWANTED TO take it back. All of it. I wanted to retract my letter and start again, hit the backspace on the computer of my life, but I couldn’t. It was gone, and now that I’d had a full night’s sleep, I had a feeling Doozer was going to lose his shit, assume I’d dumped him, and fuck some club whore to feel better. If I could just get access to a phone, maybe I could explain.

But that was a no-go. Taxi had taken our phones when we’d gotten here, and the only calls we could make were pre-approved and monitored. A couple of the recruits had attempted to sneak in burners, but Taxi seemed to know all the tricks and they were confiscated quickly, so a call with Doozer wasn’t in the cards.

It had been a week since I’d sent my rambling thoughts to Doozer and I’d heard nothing back. This didn’t bode well for me, considering he was the communicator in our relationship.

“Trouble!” Taxi bellowed from outside my dorm room.

I pulled open the door with a huff. “What? You said we had the weekend off.”

“You got a visitor.”

“Who?”