Page 31 of Crusher

I waved at the man at the gate and thenturned on the main road into town. As I drove past Soft Tails Inoticed the parking lot was full, which meant Church was still inprogress. If I hurried, I would make it back in plenty of time.

Sue was outside when I pulled up, putting afew things in her car. “Hey, Sue, you going to the cookout?” Iyelled to her.

“Yeah, Stroker called and invited me. Ihaven’t spent a lot of time there since Wolf passed. Even Shakesand a few other of the old ladies I’m friends with called to tellme to come. Aren’t you going to be there? I can’t believe that manof yours would let you skip it.” It seemed news had traveled fastthrough the club.

“Just grabbing a few things from inside thenI’m heading back. They were still at Soft Tails when I passed by.”I unlocked the door and opened it, then turned back to Sue. “I’lltalk with you some more at the club.”

“Sure thing, I’m heading there now. Got someof the things they’re going need to setup before that hungry bunchshows up. Good to see you’re getting back to yourself.” Sue wavedand got in her car and I walked into the house, shutting the doorbehind me.

After I got upstairs, I grabbed a couplesmall tote bags and gathered a few articles of clothing and shovedthem in the bags. Next I took my service revolver and placed thebox on top in one of them. I looked around the bathroom foranything I might need until my stuff was packed once again andmoved to Crusher’s.

I walked down the stairs and then set thebags by the door and headed to the kitchen. I didn’t know if anyoneelse drank wine but I had a few bottles I kept around for when Iwanted a glass. Which wasn’t often considering I preferredbeer.

When I retrieved the bottles from the topshelve of the cabinet, I turned, and then stopped dead in mytracks.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Hello,daughter,” Stone sneered.

ChapterSixteen

Crusher

When we pulled up to Soft Tails the lot wasalready full. I knew we weren’t early but we weren’t late either.Fuck this was not going to be good.

“Shit, when Roscoe beats us here you knowyou’re late.” Speed shook his head and walked toward the door. “Nowwe are probably going to have to listen while the dads bitch us outin front of the whole club.”

“Bullshit, I’m not getting yelled at,Crusher, because you were too busy getting your dick wet thismorning,” Flirt followed behind Speed, griping.

“I didn’t ask you fuckers to wait on me. Youcould have left. I’m a big boy, could have found my way here on myown. Besides, we are on fucking time, assholes. Unless the time waschanged and no one told us.” I walked beside Devil as we were thelast to get off our bikes.

“I haven’t seen Dad for a couple days. They’dbeen holed up in the office working on what, I have no idea. Iasked and he told me not to worry about it, that they had ithandle,” Devil said.

“I got told the same shit by Prez,” I saidand as Speed pulled opened the door, Tank and Dare were standingthere.

“Hey, brothers,” Speed said and held out ishand. We all watched as Dare and Tank both looked down at his handbut neither extended theirs. The look on their faces were blank anddetached. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Prez will tell you, boys. Go take a seat,you are the last to get here.” Tank stepped between us and threwthe lock on the door. I looked around the room that now held chairsfacing a long table where the leadership sat. At the table satStroker, Preacher, Romeo, Flyboy, and even Cruz, Coast’s dad, whousually stood off to the side since he was an Enforcer.

We walked to the front to take a seat. Speedwent to sit with the dads since he’d already taken Cutter’sposition.

“Speed, you can sit with the others,” Strokerlooked at Speed when he spoke and motioned to the empty sit besideme. It didn’t escape me how quiet the room was. Speed stood besidethe table where the dads were sitting and looked at each one. Theonly one that looked back at him was Stroker.

Stroker cocked his eyebrow at Speed, “You gota problem with what I said, Speed?”

Speed’s lips thinned and he glared back, afew seconds passed with the stare down until finally Speed was theone to break it as he turned toward me and the others, “Nah, Prez,your meeting, you run how you like.” Speed sat down beside me. Ilooked back at the Prez and the others and they were looking at us.Their faces were the same as Tank’s and Dare’s: blank, distant.

Fuck me, Jag was right, not calling themuntil after we had things handled with Carly had pissed them off. Ididn’t want to have a yelling match in front of the entire club butthe way we were getting treated pissed me off.

“Anybody else feel as though we went back intime like twenty years?” Flirt leaned over and said and Romeo’shead snapped in his direction.

“Watch your mouth and show respect in here orget out,” Romeo said as he looked at Flirt. If this meeting didn’tstart soon there was going to be a fight. I could feel the tensionin the room and the only sound was that of members shifting intheir seats behind us.

Flirt was right though, it did feel like wewent back twenty years to us sitting in that office at Black Hawkbecause of some dumbass shit young boys do, waiting to get yelledat and to find out what our punishment would be.

“Okay, let’s get this meeting underway, wegot a lot of shit that needs to be covered. Romeo, you start withthe financials.”

At Stroker’s words Romeo opened the folder infront of him. “As of today, every business owned and run by BlackHawk members shows a profit. With the exception of Custom Rides.The profit margin is showing a steady increase every month, if thiscontinues at the end of next year Black Hawk will have doubledacross the board.” Romeo, treasurer of the club, continued on witheach individual businesses’ profit. This whole meeting was strangebecause the profit and lost sheets were something the club onlywent over at the end of each year. We weren’t even halfway throughthe current year.

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