Page 61 of Jasper
Onyx speaks up. “I’m with Jasper on this one. The feds get paid to deal with shit like this. Let ‘em do their fuckin’ job for once.”
“I agree,” Mica says. “If all else fails, we’ll drop them all, but if we can funnel information to the feds then hell yeah, let them lock up whoever they can, and we’ll come along behind them and mop up the rest. It cuts our job in half at the very least.”
I glance at Onyx. “Time to weigh in, brother.”
“I don’t particularly like putting my club brothers in life-or-death fucking situations if we can avoid it. So, yeah—if we can get the feds to use RICO on the lot of them, that’s clearly the go-to plan. If not, we’ll solve this problem the hard way.”
“Then it’s unanimous,” I say. “We keep gathering intel and step in when the moment is ripe. This is our job as club officers—to protect the club, our club brothers, and old ladies. And keep this town from slipping into the hands of bastards who think chaos is a shortcut to power. If the Hyenas want to test how far our club will go to stop them, they’re gonna be fuckin’ shocked at the lengths we’ll go to. They picked the wrong crew to mess with. Right now, they’re fucking around. The ‘find out’ stage is where the real lessons begin.”
After the meeting breaks, the table clears out one by one, each going off to do our part. Onyx leaves first, heading towards his own office. Mica nods once and heads off towards the garage. Slate heads out last, muttering something about tightening patrols.
Rock stays behind for another minute, his arms still folded. “You trust the mayor?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Stupid fucker’s got two whole-ass families. By and large, I don’t like cheaters. Cheaters are by definition liars, and who in their right mind would trust a liar?”
“I agree with that assessment.”
“We don’t know enough about the situation to make showing our hand logical at this stage. For all we know, the mayor is in cahoots with these stupid fuckers. It wouldn’t be the first time a bad guy tried to blackmail his partner in crime. I don’t want to risk my club brothers’ lives without a better understanding of what’s going on.”
He gives a grunt that could be agreement. Hard to tell with my old man. He’s not a fan of taking unnecessary risks. He likes to know the road, the route, and the potential dangers he might face. We’re alike that way. The Hyenas are clearly aggressive, ignorant, unhinged fuckers that are highly unpredictable.
He slaps me on the back. “Good call, son.” Since he’s a man of few words, that feels like generous praise. He leaves almost immediately to take care of the invoice for the IT crew.
Once I’m alone, I take a minute at the table. I run through the whole situation in my head again, making sure I’m covering all my bases.
We’ll need more than footage. If the Hyenas are building leverage on the mayor, they’ve got backups. Digital copies. Maybe physical ones. And if they’re smart, they’re not keeping it all in one place. That means devices, safe houses, handlers. We’ve got to trace that line without spooking them.
I pull out my phone and open the secure channel we use for inside club recon. I type out the ask:
Pull property records around Redman’s place, look for any unusual surveillance installs, maybe land that changed hands in the past six months.
I add one more thing:
Keep Tessa out of it.
She’s not part of this op. I trust my men. But all it takes is one voice slipping in the wrong room, and someone could decide she could be used as leverage against me. I’ll keep her safe, but there can’t be anything linking her to this.
Killing the screen, I head towards the stairs. I go at an unhurried pace. There is no rush now, because we’re all doing our part to gather the intel we need.
Right before I hit the landing leading up the stairs, Silver approaches me, trying to look pathetic and forlorn.
“Whatever it is, Silver, my answer is no.”
“I don’t want anything from you, Jasper. I just want to apologize for the way I’ve acted towards you. I honestly thought you and I were dancing around each other, doing our own version of flirting, and that you were interested in me.”
She pauses, like I’m supposed to buy the load of horse shit she’s shoveling my way.
“I’ve never heard of a relationship where the woman insulted, degraded, and disrespected the man into falling in love with her. How the fuck does that work in your own messed-up head?”
She gestures with one hand. “You know, lots of people start off on the wrong foot. There are a lot of misunderstandingsand miscommunication, but they figure it out and fall in love. I thought that’s what we were doing.”
“Did you or did you not help a woman abduct my niece?”
“Well, now, I didn’t mean to do that. I was confused and—”
“Just shut it, Silver. I have disliked you since the day I set eyes on you.” Slapping myself in the chest, I add, “I advocated for giving you a dirt nap, but my ma wanted to give you a fighting chance. That should tell you exactly how I feel about us getting together one day.”
She opens her mouth to argue the point, but I grit out, “Close your mouth if you want to stay with our club. It wouldn’t take much right now to give you a permaban.”
