Page 79 of Property of Chaos

I glance at my Vice, the shared suspicion passing between us.

“You want me to talk to my old man about it?” Jinx frowns.

I shrug. “He’d know best why the fuck they accepted the place without doing their due diligence, but it could raise questions about what’s going on here.”

“You don’t trust him either?” He lifts an eyebrow.

“He sat at the same table as my father, man. He was part of the fucking decisions that almost handed the Kings to the goddamn DEA. He had to have some idea shit wasn’t straight at the time, and this,” I say, gesturing to the spread of papers, “should have been a giant fucking red flag.”

Mouth twisted, my oldest friend glares at the incriminating evidence of corruption. I hate hurting his pride—he’s still tight with his old man—but it must be said.

I’m not the only member who was born into this role.

“Let’s see what comes from Taylor before you’ve gotta have that conversation with him, yeah?”

Jinx nods, fingertips drumming the edge of the table. “Sure.” He sighs out his nose, shaking his head. “It’s gotta be a shitty coincidence. Men too busy trying to hold this place together to do a thorough job before agreeing to the trade. I can’t imagine the DEA going to this much trouble to stitch them up for something, especially if they never did.”

“Not that any of it matters.” My ass hits the chair with a whoosh as air escapes the leather cushion. “It’s our fucking issue now.”

“Any noise from Matthias?” He lowers himself into the seat adjacent to mine, an elbow on the table.

“Nothing. But I gave him two weeks.” I rest my head against my right hand, elbow propped on the arm of the chair. “We’refucking drowning, man. Gasping for air since that fucking bill passed.”

“That’s the problem when a business doesn’t diversify.” He taps his fingers on the table, focusing on the movement. “We’ve got the right idea, but we started too little, too late.”

“I ain’t returning the club to peddling hard drugs, man.” I draw the line there. Seen firsthand too many times the rot and heartache it causes. “We’re fighting the effects enough as it is.” Zombies, we call them. The fuckers who show up glazed and high, struggling to control their bodies as they seek out their next hit. “I won’t have that shit on our streets.”

“It’s already here,” he says somberly. “You can’t avoid it. Not when we’re this close to the trade routes.”

Like pushing shit uphill.I lean forward and prop both arms on the table, burying my face in my hands. I need a break from this shit.

I need Vanessa.

She didn’t answer any of my fucking messages. I sat glued to that fucking feed for fifteen minutes before I got off my goddamn bike and came inside the clubhouse, fucking certain it’d be curtains for us when Marianna spilled the tea.

“Is this a bad time?”

I jerk back and draw a deep breath. “What’s up?”

Selena enters the room; her footsteps quiet on the polished concrete as she crosses behind Jinx. “I need this signed for school.” She slides a form onto the table beside me.

I shove the rest of the paperwork aside with my forearm, Jinx reaching to assemble it in some semblance of order out of view of innocent eyes. “What is it?”

“Field trip.” She points to the bullet point details. “We’re doing a study for geography, and they want to incorporate actual time outdoors, putting the theory into practice.”

“Fair enough.” I scribble my signature in the required space and hand it back. “When?”

Selena frowns. “Do you even read these things?”

“Why, when you do such a great job telling me what’s in them?” I smirk, noting Jinx hiding a grin in my periphery.

My baby sister rolls her eyes. “Friday.”

“Put it in the shared calendar, yeah?” The only way I can keep track of shit around here.

“It costs twenty-five dollars.”

Fuck’s sake.I probably should start reading the fucking things. “Wallet’s on the top of my dresser.” I narrow my eyes. “Don’t think about taking tax; I know how much is in there.”

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