Page 92 of Property of Chaos

I wish.What kind of biker doesn’t ache for the open road? Yeah, this one. The fucker afraid of demons and dragons. “Certainly can.” I draw on the memory of the few times I was forced to ride a long way from home with my old man. To those brief pockets of respite on the long, open stretches.

The chance to let my imagination run wild.

“King mentioned your club recently moved away from hard drugs in your state,” I say. “How are you finding that?”

He huffs, thumb picking at the edge of the label. “It ain’t easy.” Callum lifts his hand, politely refusing a bunny who strokes his shoulder. “Total elimination is a dream, so when your club decides to no longer be the devil who puts that shit into the community, you become the peacekeeper fighting those who’dreadily replace you. It’s not so much about stopping the use but limiting it, you get me?”

“Yeah.” Coercive control. “Our chapter made the move to strictly marijuana a decade ago, and it’s been a battle since.” Too many new faces year after year who see the gap in supply as an opportunity. Too much influence from out of state. “The fucked up thing is that people don’t feel compelled to work against it until they’ve been touched by the effects personally, you know?”

“True.” He takes another long pull of alcohol. “But there are many things in life like that, and the way I choose to see it is that I can either give up and choose complicity or do my part to fight back against the injustice.”

The man isn’t just talking about drugs anymore. “Sounds like you’ve got a lot on your mind.”

He huffs a laugh. “She ain’t a lot. Just important.”

“Old lady?”

“Not yet.” He rolls his jaw, tapping the base of the bottle on his knee. “How about you?” He tips his chin to the room. “Haven’t seen one of these girls make a move on you yet. You’re a good-looking rooster. What’s up with that? Got a woman somewhere, too?”

“None of them know about her.”

His lips split in a grin as he turns to look at me. “You dog.” He offers his bottle to tap against mine. “Best way to keep it.”

My phone weighs against my thigh, a veritable brick of temptation. “Excuse me for a bit, yeah?”

“Sure.” He nods and then rises to sort out a ruckus that breaks out over his prospect.

I take my leave, catching Jinx’s eye and giving him a tilt of my chin in acknowledgment as I weave my way through to the staircase. The information Callum brought us was enough to get us off the hook, but it was merely the beginning of something much bigger. The officers will get together for church in themorning so we can nut out the details of a ride south to talk more with King about what this means for us.

For him.

For relations between more than our two clubs alone going forward.

If we want to survive in this world, we can’t continue to run as alphas—alone and vulnerable. The clubs whose morals align need to run together as a pack. Watch out for one another. Work together.

It’s the perfect ideation of teamwork, yet I can’t shake the niggle that it could lead to something darker.

Something a lot like the conglomerate Vanessa spoke of.

Men are power-hungry by nature; it’s in our DNA to want to dominate and rule. Creating a massive network of one percenter clubs leaves us open to that temptation: greed, gluttony, and pride.

A destructive combination.

The music dulls to a muffled thud as I shut my bedroom door and set the bottle of Jack aside. I’m in no mood to drink. At least, not alcohol.

Give me the sweet honey of her cunt, however…

“Fuck.” I shove a hand through my hair and cross to the drawers opposite my bed.

I set the phone atop, propped against a leather cuff, and navigate to the security app.

The live feeds are idle, with only a couple of new clips from when she left for work and returned this afternoon. I set them playing and wander to the hook on the adjacent wall, sliding my cut from my shoulders to hang. Her muted chatter echoes around my room as she talks to Murphy, preparing her dinner. According to the time stamp, she ate almost three hours ago.

I turn and watch the screen from afar, tracking her curves as she crosses in and out of view of the camera.

My body heats, and I strip my T-shirt, tossing it to the floor before moving closer to the phone.

Vanessa stands in the middle of the room, a drink slung in one hand, elbow bent to hold it beside her shoulder. She frowns a little as she looks around the space, and I know she hunts out the camera. Murphy sits at her feet.

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