Page 25 of Property of Chaos

“I’m sure you would.”

She glances down at the aforementioned device and sighs. “I need to carry on. The people buying the farm are riding my ass on the details.”

“Someone’s buying the farm?” Theresa calls from behind the counter.

“Yeah.” Marianna’s shoulders straighten as she stands a little taller. “They’re paying asking for it.”

“What the hell for?” My boss throws a dish towel over her shoulder. “That place has been abandoned for years. It needs major work.”

“They know.” She shrugs. “But I guess they don’t care. They want to make sure nobody else will get it.”

“Odd.”

Marianna offers me her hand, guiding me to my feet. “Call me—no matter what time it is—if you need me.”

“Thank you.”

She pulls me into a quick hug, aware it feels awkward for me as much as I need it. “Manifest good shit from this, babe.” She pulls back, hands on my shoulders. “Maybe this is a step closer to closure for you.”

“Maybe.” I shrug, and she drops her hands.Or maybe it’ll be a step closer for him.

TEN

CHAOS

“What’s the fucking hold up?”I thrust my arm toward the truck loaded up with vacuum-packed cannabis still sitting in the yard. “It was supposed to be on the fucking road last night.”

“Payment failed.” Crow rises from his seat pushed against the office wall, the afternoon shadows covering the six-foot-five fucker’s face. A puff of smoke clouds before him. “We’re holding it until they come up with the cash.”

Club rules. If any electronic transaction fails, you owe us the folding stuff. Mess with our trust once, you forgo any rights to doing things the easy way.

“When the fuck are they due to show up with that?” I take the rickety wooden steps onto the small porch tacked onto the front of the weathered trailer.

We inherited this yard as part of another deal gone south. I think the fuckers who gave it to us in place of payment for grade-A weed got the better end of the bargain. The two-acre lot floods in the spring, and the dirt yard cracks and ruts in the summer. The fucking so-called office is infested with rats we can’t fucking eliminate, and the trees that line the west fence house hornets.

Yeah. It’s a fucking stunning place to do business.

“Matthias said he’ll be here around four,” Crow answers, one hand absently rubbing his bare chest over the flock of black birds inked there. “After he picks his daughter up from school.”

“If he thinks we’ll go nice because he has innocent eyes on us, he’s fucking delusional.” He wouldn’t be the first or the last asshole to bring his kids along as insurance. “Why’s he so strapped?”

“Devil’s Breed have been raiding his warehouses.”

“Fuck’s sake.” The club based out of Missouri is a fucking ever-growing itch. A goddamn septic rash on our carefully balanced network of dealers and suppliers. “Why didn’t he come to us with this?”

“He did.” Crow takes a step forward, sunlight washing over his angular face.

I wince again at his latest battle scar: an angry two-inch line that runs from the outer corner of his right eye to just before his nostril. Fucker took a knife to the face and never flinched. Kept on pummeling the disrespectful asshole beneath him, cheek hanging loose in a strip, until Darko pulled him off to save the club from another murder charge.

Our treasurer has some seriously suppressed issues that need a shrink—or three—or maybe a straight-jacket. Depends on the day.

We love him anyway.

“If he did, why didn’t I hear about it?”

Crow frowns. “You did.”

“When?”

---