Page 47 of Property of Grifter
“Okay then, Scorpion, you stay here, run everything you can on those two.See if they have any connection with the War Kings lately, anything we might need to know.”
“You got it, Prez.”
My voice is small, but I ask a question that’s bothering me.“What are you going to do with Daisy?”
He looks at me and I see the cold president of the Kings of Anarchy now.If I didn’t know Griffin, I’d be scared as hell.“You don’t want the answer to that one, sweetheart.”He’s quiet, but the heavy promise in his words is as cold as a steel blade.“Just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean she’s getting a free pass.”
“Griff—” I begin, but he’s already moving, the room buzzing into motion.Men are checking weapons that apparently are hidden inside a safe—where only minutes before was a cinderblock wall.It’s all secret-passage-like and any other time, I’d be geeking out.That’s hard to do when men I care about are gearing up for a confrontation.
He bends and kisses my forehead.“I’ll be back,” he says.
I watch them load up, listen to boots on concrete, and finally the roar of pipes as the bikes fire up and disappear into the night.Scorpion stays with me, before turning away to find his computer once more.I take a breath.My hands are steady now, the shaking gone.Now, I just take a moment to pray, quietly and stupidly perhaps, since Grifter is going to kill people.It doesn’t matter, I still pray that whatever happens, my man and his brothers come back safe and sound.
26GRIFTER
As I standin front of what Cowboy said was a safe-house for our club, I get even more pissed.Cowboy gave Scorpion the kid’s phone number, and we traced it here.My enemy was hiding in a house that my club maintains.The irony of that eats at me until every nerve inside of me is on fire.I want blood and I won’t rest until I watch the life leave the motherfucker’s eyes who thought he could hurt my family.The place smells like booze and sex and whatever the hell they’ve been snorting.Cowboy takes a couple of minutes to open the lock on the front door and then, we’re in.We’ve already taken out the two guards that were lurking around outside.They couldn’t have been trained—they were too easy to take down.
Inside, the living room is a wreck of bodies and white powder, spoons and syringes.Two women lie on the floor, naked and gone to another planet, their limbs folded and slack like discarded dolls.Daisy, the bitch who tried to hurt my woman, is naked and sprawled on the couch, mascara streaked down her cheeks.The other girl is worse off, eyes half-rolled, mouth open, breath shallow.
Jesus Christ.I look over at C and say with a voice that is quiet and flat, “You know what I want done.Make sure the worst of it is pinned on Daisy.I don’t know the extent of the other’s involvement.”
C doesn’t blink.“Yeah.Alex and Ollie will handle it.Skeeter’s overseeing it all.”The men around us shift like a pack deciding who goes first.They move with the cold efficiency I admire.This club was a question mark for me in the beginning, but now, it’s home.
I told Georgia I wasn’t a man who liked killing women.I meant it.Tonight, that truth is just plain ugly to me.Daisy and this other girl have been used up.They sold out our club and they’ve hurt the people I love.They won’t be a problem for us anymore.I won’t let them be.
I push through the hallway and find Leroy passed out on a mattress — Ace’s son, who calls himself Tiger like he has claws.Two men are unconscious by the bedroom door.My men got rid of them quickly, even while I was still looking at Daisy.My gaze goes back to the man—kid really—in question.I watch the way his chest rises and falls with the stupid confidence he thinks will outlast the world.Cowboy efficiently zip ties the fucker’s feet together.Then, I slap old Leroy hard on the face to wake him up while C and Savage hold his arms behind his back.
“Time to wake up asshole,” I growl as the man’s eyes open.
“What the fuck!”he screams.
I ignore him, grabbing his chin and forcing him to look me in the face.“What the hell did you think you were doing?”I ask, my voice a blade.
He looks back at me with the stupid bravado of someone who learned to bully because nobody taught him honor.“The Kings of Anarchy should be mine,” he spits.“It’s my father’s legacy!”
“Your father would have raised from the dead and killed you himself if he thought you would try and take up his chair,” Cowboy hisses.
“You’re wrong!He’d kill you for helping the enemy!”
“Why do you think the club accepted Grifter so easily?Your father gave us the name.I stood up against him, just to test him, and Leroy, Grifter is exactly the kind of man your father would want in his seat.”
“You’re a fucking liar.The club should have been mine.Once I was in charge, I was going to make things right—make it bigger, stronger.The War Kings said if I proved myself, they’d align with me.”
“The only thing they would have done is kill you and take over the club.You have no idea what you’re doing, asshole.In a club, you earn your patch with the blood you’re willing to sacrifice for your brothers.You don’t stab them in the back and light their homes on fire.”
He tries to bargain at once.
“Let me live.I can give you names of all of the War Kings who are trying to overtake you.I can tell you their plans,” he whines.I shake my head.It doesn’t take a genius to know he’s lying, trying anything to bargain for his life.The kid is desperate.No club is going to tell him shit.They know he’d stab them in the back the first chance he got.Hell, even if I’m wrong and he knows anything, I don’t give a damn.He dies tonight.
My men laugh at his pleading.Cowboy steps closer, looking down at Leroy in disgust.“Listen to you, already selling out your allies.You can’t lead men into battle when you’d slit their throats to save your own.You’re a disgrace to your father’s bloodline.”
Leroy’s face goes white like paper.Fear is rolling off of him in waves.“You’re wrong,” he tells Cowboy, but the rebuttal is weak at best.
“Maybe you can save yourself,” I murmur.“If you can tell me where your War Kings friends are—if there truly are any—youmightsave your life.”
“They’re at their compound.My connection is a man called Rabble,” he says at once, making me laugh.
We all know that Rabble is barely patched in with the War Kings.They may have promised him shit, but it would only be to see what they could get out of the asshole.“Tell me, Leroy, did the War Kings send you on this mission?”
