Page 29 of Outlaws of Tulsa

His face sours. “Bermuda? Bizzy?”

“She’ll walk all over Bermuda. And Bizzy is ADD as fuck. I need someone…less obvious. Someone she won’t interact with. I need you.”

He squares his shoulders and runs his palm over his buzzed head. “I can do that. I won’t take no shit talkin’ from her, though. You know that.”

“I already warned her. If she gets too mouthy, come find me. I’ll deal with it. You don’t have to take that shit, but I also don’t want you punishing her. This girl is barely eighteen, man. A runaway. Not some club whore like Stormy or her dumbass slut sister she brings around here sometimes. Just let me deal with it.”

“On it.” He cracks his neck. “Who’ll watch the gate? With Putnam slipping through our fingers, we need to be on high alert. I doubt he’s ballsy enough to come here, but you did gut his kid.”

“Nees is still on my shit list. I’ll send him out there with Katana. We’ll have our guard up. While they play defense, I’m going to find where the fuck Putnam has gone to.”

He clasps my shoulder and nods. “Ten years, Prez. We got your back. We always do. Everything’s finally coming to a head. And the moment we end that fucker, maybe you can retire.”

“Retire. I don’t think guys like us ever do.”

I find Dragon, Copper, and Halo all sitting in our boardroom with their laptops open. When I owned my own company, the guys who worked for me were geeks. Polos and khakis and twitchy awkward types. Now, they wear leather and have tattoos and cuss a lot.

“This bitch likes beating on women,” Copper says, shaking his head. “What a fucking pussy.”

“His son was a wannabe,” Dragon chimes in. “There’s a goldmine of shit on Junior.”

I sit in a chair and roll around to where Dragon is. “Hadley? She was his girlfriend. What do you find on her?”

“Nothing yet. From the looks of it, some bitch named Juicy was all over Junior. Not sure why he’d fuck that when he had PG, but it’s evident he did. She’s still a mystery.”

“Anything on the missing person reports?” I ask my brother.

“Nope. Either she gave you a fake name or one hasn’t been filed for a Hadley.”

Of course not. That’d be too easy.

“What about you, Halo?”

Halo leans back in his chair and it creaks against his solid, muscular frame. “Still hunting down my leads from before. I smell something big. Give me time to sniff it out.”

I give him a nod. “Dragon, cull through Junior’s friend list. If Hadley really was his girlfriend, she’ll be on there. Check profiles with no pictures or anything remotely vague. We’ll narrow down from there.”

“Narrow down by…” he implores.

I flash a wicked grin at him. “I have my ways.”

My ways involve diving into the code to isolate their IP addresses. Shit only I can do. I don’t have time to go through his three hundred friends on his list, but if they can get me twenty or so to work with, my hunt will be easier.

“Yo, Prez,” Gibson says, stepping in the doorway. “Got a call from my brother. He’s got brisket going. We still on for a Q tonight?”

Our monthly Qs—short for barbeque—are something I both hate and love in equal parts. It’s nice to kick back, drink a little, shoot the shit with my guys’ friends and family, but it also fucking hurts because my family is gone. I tend to get a little too fucked up sometimes and Copper has to drag my blubbering ass to my room before I do something stupid like cry.

“Yeah. Round up Hadley and make her help Stormy. I don’t trust Hadley on a grocery run, but when you guys get back, get her out of her room, even if you have to drag her.”

Gibson laughs. “You got it, man.”

Unlike Payne, Gibson won’t hurt her. Maybe try to serenade the bitch or some shit, but not hurt. Gibson, when not being a dumbass with Bizzy, is our entertainment in the literal sense. He can sing and play anything on his guitars. His room is full of them, both electric and acoustic. Some cost more than cars. I know this shit because it’s all he talks about some days. I’m pretty sure if he could figure out how to put wheels on hiscustom PRS, he’d ride that fucker around town, strumming it like it’s some sort of special pussy he has to play.

“We’ll continue this shit tomorrow,” I tell my guys. “Tonight, let’s celebrate the fact we killed everyone Putnam knows and cares about.”

Hadley

Aknock on my door has me jolting upright and fear ratcheting inside me. I’d fallen asleep on the comfortable bed, lulled into a false sense of security. I can’t forget that I’m in enemy territory. Trapped and kept like a prisoner. I glance around my “cell” and frown. It’s the nicest room I’ve ever been in and that says a lot considering what I grew up in.

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