Page 24 of Wolf

“How are we supposed to know anything about this fucking key if we can’t even figure out what he’s after?” I snapped, forcing myself to stay in my seat so I didn’t break anything. I already had to throw out my bookshelf after I put a hole through it. It had taken me fucking forever to put that thing up when I got it, and being forced to throw it out only put me in a more pissed off mood. “What the fuck could a small-town MC like ours have for a manlikehim?”

Lamb was quiet, in thought for a long while, until he suddenly said, “What makes an MC unique?” He turned his head toward me. His pale brown eyes waited expectantly for my answer. I figured he already had an answer in mind, and yet he still wanted to hear my answer. I had to admit, this part of his personality was a bitch, always acting like he was testing me like somedamnkid.

I took a moment to think it over, but only a single obvious answer came to mind. “The members?” I thought back to the clubroom packed full of Black Angels, their noise smothered by the soundproofed walls. You’d never find another bunch quitelikethem.

Lamb didn’t tell me if I was right or not; instead, he just watched meexpectantly.

“But that would mean he’s after one of the members. More so, he believes one of them can lead them to what he wants,” I continued, wracking my brain. “But one of the brothers would have told us if they knew something. I trust each and every one of them. They wouldn’t hide shit knowing the force it's bringing down on the club. They know how much I hate doing anythingblindly.”

“Which is why we should work under the assumption that they’re as unaware of it as we are,” Lamb finally joined back in. “If the brothers begin to suspect someone of holding back, it could turn into a paranoid riot in there during lockdown. Being in close quarters would just aggravate them. We don’t want to start a shit fest if we’renotsure.”

“But, surely, they would know if they had information that important,” I argued. As much as I hated the thought of one of the brothers holding back on me, I hated the idea that they would have had to lie to my face when I had asked them if they knewanything.

“Value varies from person to person,” Lamb interrupted. “There’s no way of telling what’s valuable to one person compared to what’s valuable to another. It’s likely that whatever he’s after is of a personal valuetohim.”

“So, in other words, we have no fucking way of finding out what it is.” I sighed, my hand pinching the bridge of my nose, trying to soothe the headache beginning to formbehindit.

“My guess is, when the message was delivered, he was expecting the key to know who they are.” Lamb looked in the direction of the club to where the boys were no doubt starting to get drunk, since all the club kids would have been taken up to bed and out of the way by now. “But I don’t think they’ve realized it. And if they haven’t, I can’t imagine they would even if weaskedthem.”

“This problem just keeps getting fucking worse,” I growled, pushing my chair back and rising from it. I looked to Lamb, who didn’t move from his spot as I passed him. “I’m fucking whacked, and I’ve got a killer headache. So you better tell me now if you’ve got anything else to get off your chest, because if not, I’m grabbing myself a drink and calling it anight.”

When Lamb didn’t say anything else, I took it as my cue to leave. “Set up Church for tomorrow morning. And by morning, I mean not until after ten,” I ordered as I opened the door. I was met with a sudden blast of loud music, laughing, and the sounds of glasses being broken as I stepped out into the hallway and headed for theclubroom.

It was almost one as I moved up to the bar where Baby stood making drinks. The rest of the girls had managed to find themselves a man or two and were draped across them, keeping their boredom at bay as the girls got to play harem. “Beer,” I said, immediately stopping her from whatever she was doing to come down and place a bottle in front of me. She also reached down and tossed me a packet of painkillers from below thecounter.

I popped two in my mouth before I handed them back to her, letting her place them under the counter before she went back to doing whatever it was she was trying to do before I interrupted her. That’s what I liked most about Baby. The girl was low-maintenance, knew how to blow a man just the way they liked, and fuck them however they wanted and didn’t bitch or gossip about it afterward like most of the girls. She was there when she was needed. She also never went looking for scraps, like Georgia often did. Then again, the men liked her enough that her time was nearly always occupied, so she didn’thaveto.

Just as the thought crossed my mind, I saw Jax lean over the bar, his hand pulling Baby forward by the valley of her shirt, exposing a trove of her soft brown skin before whispering in her ear. He didn’t need to sweet talk Baby into bed, but that was just Jax’s deal. Not a moment later, the Amazonian woman disappeared up the steps, as did Sweets and Ember when he flaggedthemdown.

When the men started bitching about Jax stealing the women, long after he’d gone, I had enough of this day and figured I’d call it a night. I made my way toward my door, wondering what was waiting for me on the other side when I heard hervoice.

She wasn’tinbed.

My need to sleep was overpowered by my curiosity as I heard her howl from the pool room. My feet were moving. I took my beer along with me as I stepped intotheroom.

I found myself looking at a disaster. Pretty and Pipe both stood in nothing but their underwear as they huddled by the furthest end of the pool table—a.k.a. as far away from Anna as theycouldget.

Anna was leaning on the pool cue, checking her nails with a saccharine smile on her lips before looking back up atherprey.

Lamb, who I hadn’t noticed come up behind me, lost immediate interest in seeing the boys’ obvious loss at strip pool and went off in search of a quick bed partner to waste his time. I was tempted to tell him that he should go take one off Jax but couldn’t as Anna turned around and noticed me standing in thedoorway.

Her chest puffed out in arrogant pride as she smirkedatme.

“Prez!” Pretty called. “Shecheated!”

I didn’t know what the fuck he was telling me for. It only took one look to see that the bastards had beenplayed.

“I did not,” she scoffed. “You guys are just shit at pool. And the only person good at pool is too grumpy to play.” She pointed over at Mint, who had Georgia draped over his lap. She had a beer in her hand, sucking on it while Mint had his hand under her shirt, playing with her nipples as she gave soft whimpers. He didn’t seem to be bothered to do anything more, and Georgia looked too drunktocare.

I looked to Kay, the ex-president, Roscoe’s widow, who sat in the chair next to Mint, more than pleased to watch the outcome of the game. Bell, her daughter, sat next to her, her eyes pinned to her mobile phone as she attempted to ignore everything in the room. She had recently become more attached to that thing than reality, and he’d noticed she’d been coming to the clubhouse lessandless.

“I am pool Queen!” Anna declared, bringing my focus back to her. She lifted her cue and pointed it at the boys, looking slightly unsteady on her feet. “You have one more chance to redeemyourselves.”

They both began to whine, and just as I was thinking about walking away, I instead found myself downing the rest of my beer, setting it on one of the tables, and reaching for a cue. “Can’t call yourself Queen without first playing all thecompetition.”

Anna raised her eyebrows at me with a scoff. “You call yourselfcompetition?”

“Play me and find out,” I challenged. A sober Anna perhaps might not have taken me up on the challenge so easily, but alcohol only seemed to make her bad traits worse as her competitivenaturewon.

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