Page 90 of Riding the Edge

“What?”

“He’s going to sell them guns and give them a piece of the streets in exchange for immunity on Bas’ girl and her kid,” he reveals. “Two fucking decades,” he continues. “Been keeping these streets clean for two fucking decades and now, he’s going to open the floodgates.”

Reaching for his smokes, he pulls out a cigarette and shoves it between his lips.

“We’re done,” he says, lighting the end. “Fucking done. Blackie knows it, I know it, fucking Riggs knows it…even the nomads know we’re finished. The only one who doesn’t is the man executing our death.”

“Fuck that,” I growl. “Take a vote and get him out.”

“Think about what you just said,” he says. “You going to let that man go out like that?”

“Listen to me, if he’s incapacitated he would not want any of us to sit back and sign our death certificates,” I argue. “For fuck’s sake, Pipe, do you remember the promise we made to him after he took the gavel? Cain wasn’t even cold before Jack made us swear we’d step in if we found him mentally incapable of ruling.”

“Yeah, I remember,” he mutters, taking a drag of his cigarette. “I also remember him prevailing against the odds every fucking time,” he argues. “Wolf, it’s Parrish.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

That man built more than a club.

He made us a family.

He gave us all the gift of being property of Parrish.

“We owe him more than that,” Pipe rasps. “I just don’t know how to give it to him.”

Taking a step back, I run my fingers through my hair. Pacing, I lift my eyes back to his.

“What does Blackie say?”

“Truthfully?”

I look at him expectantly.

“I think he’s hitting the bottle again.”

“He’s five years sober,” I defend, shaking my head. “He’d never do that.”

“Lacey is pregnant,” he explains. “Jack is off the rails and he’s on the verge of inheriting this hell. I’d drink myself into a coma if that fucking shit was weighing on my shoulders. Don’t forget, Lacey’s on the same drugs as Jack. He’s gotta feel some kind of way watching him fall apart, knowing his woman may suffer the same fucking fate.”

He flicks the cigarette onto the ground and cracks his knuckles.

“Like I said, we’re done,” he reiterates. “It don’t matter what happens to the paramedic.”

“Shit!

“What?”

Ignoring him, I dig the phone out of my pocket and pull up Bianci’s number.

“I told Bianci to let her go.”

“What? Why the fuck would you do that?”

“When is the meeting with the cartel?”

“Does it fucking matter? That bitch is going to run straight to the cops. We don’t need that fucking heat, right now!”

No fucking kidding.

There’s no use in explaining my logic. I had no idea Parrish was orchestrating this deal with the cartel when I made the call. If that girl sings to the cops, every brother in blue will be waiting to arrest the club with those fucking guns. Anthony barely gets a chance to say a word when he answers the call before I’m shouting at him.

“Don’t fucking let the girl go! Do you hear me? Do not—”

“Wolf, she’s already gone,” he interrupts.

Shit.

“The girl hung herself.”

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