Page 130 of Lone Star

“I know it.”

“Good. Bring no more than five of your men.” The call disconnected.

Candy switched the line off from his end and set the phone down on the table beside him. He heard cigarettes being lit; the muted thump of a coffee cup setting down.

It was Fox who broke the silence; he’d known it would be. “Well. You’re an idiot.”

Candy snapped his chair around. Everyone but Fox was staring down at the table, or into their cups. Everyone but Blue, whose gaze moved between the two of them, like he was about to watch a tennis match.

Fox sat leaning sideways, one hand braced on the arm of his chair, expression still bored, eyes shooting sparks.

“I’m an idiot?” he asked, pleasantly, but Blue’s brows jumped once.

“You made the first move.”

“The conversation wasn’t going anywhere. He’s one of those assholes who likes to talk in circles and brag about himself.”

“You invited him to kill us.”

Candy arched a single brow. “And you wouldn’t have?”

Fox’s blank-faced refusal to answer was a small victory.

“If he’s going to pull something,” Candy said, “then he’s going to do it no matter what I say. And he needs the reminder: he can’t wipe out the whole club. Nobody can. He needs to consider the bigger picture. Let him think I’m a blowhard. We’ve got until tomorrow morning to nail down a plan of attack. Now, we can all sit around here second-guessing our president,” he said, dry, and earned a few squirms for it. “Or we can get to work.”

He heard the sound of bikes pulling into the front lot, and got to his feet. “That’ll be our reinforcements.”

~*~

Russell Ward had earned the club name Jackal when he was still just a prospect. Candy had always thought of him as a window into what Mercy could have turned out to be if he hadn’t had Ava to act as lodestone. If there was a tragic backstory there, and Candy had his doubts, no one had managed to suss it out yet. No president would have made him an officer, and he wasn’t one, but he was the sort of man you were glad to have on your side in situations like these.

“Candyman!” he crowed, when Candy stepped out of the clubhouse, bare arms flung nearly as wide as his smile. He looked the same: shaggy, sun-bleached hair, polarized sunglasses, white-white teeth, golden tan. A Jimmy Buffett concert tee with the sleeves cut off was all he wore beneath his cut, the front of which was sewn with a half-dozen patches marking the brutal things he’d done for his club.

He looked delighted.

Candy smiled back, and stepped into the offered hug, a tight, back-slapping, unapologetically warm and glad affair. “Hey, Jack. Good trip?”

“Aw, yeah, man, easy. Smooth sailing once we got outta LA traffic.” He pushed back, hands gripping Candy’s biceps. “Shit, dude, did you get bigger?” He squeezed the muscles until Candy laughed and shook him off.

“Nah.”

“No, you definitely did. You been lifting.” He tipped his head and grinned, gaze mischievous over the rims of his shades. “Trying to impress your little woman? Or just trying to keep up? Ha! She’s a lot younger than you.”

“So they tell me.” Candy felt his own smile fading. “Thanks for coming.”

“Hey, no problem, man, I live for this shit. If something’s going down, I want in.”

“Who’d you bring?”

“Only the best.” He stepped back and made a grand, sweeping gesture toward his fellow Cali Dogs.

Candy was pleased to note Loco, and Victor, and Tee, along with four unfamiliar faces who were appropriately muscled and threatening-looking.

“What’ll it be, boss?” Jackal said. “Point me at whoever I gotta kill.” His smile bordered on gleeful.

Candy snorted. “Let’s go in and I’ll give you the rundown.”

Thirty-Nine

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