Page 29 of Only The Strong

I shake my head. “No, I don’t know him.” I look at Mason and he looks murderous. The stranger’s eyes are so wide I can see the whites around his irises, his face pales under the dim lights in the hallway.

Mason glares at the stranger. “You chose the wrong girl, you piece of shit.” He turns back to me and looks above me at Wyatt. “I got this, you take her home. Cales gonna murder us for letting this happen to her.”

26

CALLUM

“So let me get this straight.”Reese is asleep on the couch with her head in my lap and my fingers running through her long red hair. “You,” I point to Mason, who is slouched over on one of my leather barstools that he pulled into the living room. He’s icing what is starting to turn into a pretty decent black eye with his knuckles wrapped. “Went outside to get into a fight, and you,” I shift my finger to Wyatt sitting next to him on another barstool. “Went to find him and left Reese alone to get roofied. Did I get that right?” My whole body is shaking but I'm not sure if it’s more from anger or fear of what could have happened. “What the fuck did I say about leaving her alone?”

Mason slumps over more, burying his head in his hands. “I—”

“I called him to discuss another vendor for black powder,” Ronan interjects from the tan leather armchair beside me. “He went outside to talk to me and that’s when he was jumped. He dropped his phone without hanging up and I heard the whole thing.” I look to Finn and Saint because what the fuck does Mason know about our gunpowder vendor?

“Elaborate please,” Saint says from the armchair opposite Ronan.

Ronan looks around at all of us and then down at Reese asleep on my lap. “Mason came to me a few weeks ago with a cheaper vendor for the powder. I told him if he could pull it off he would earn his top rocker.” We all sit in silence, me glaring at the two prospects and Ronan, Saint, and Finn looking at me, ready to hold me back from ripping them apart. If Red wasn't in my lap I would have done it already.

“I don’t give a fuck. Give me one good reason I shouldn't kill you both for disobeying me and putting Red’s life in danger,” I snarl. I’ve decided my anger is stronger than my fear right now.

“Cale.” Finn calmly shifts from his seat on the bay window behind Ronan, pulling my attention away from the two idiots who left my girl alone to get drugged. “Mason couldn’t have known some drunk guy was gonna try to boost his ego by jumping an Outlaw, and Wyatt did what he needed to do. He left Reese at the table surrounded by her friends. It would have been worse for her to go outside into the fight.”

I shake my head, why the fuck doesn’t anyone else see how fucked this was? “What if it was Huntley?” Low blow, I know, but I never claimed to be above it.

Finn flinches, looking down before bringing his eyes back to mine. “Then I’d be just as pissed as you, but I'd need you there to keep my head straight.”

I look back at Mason and Wyatt. They both look remorseful and they did find her before that fuck was even able to get her out of the bathroom. “Fuck.” I sigh. “You’re spared this time.” I point between them.

“Thank you, Callum.” Mason sighs, his shoulders relaxing.

“We won’t let you down.” Wyatt still looks tense, but I think that’s ‘cause he's too smart to know they’re not off of the hook that easily.

I smile, baring my teeth. “I know because no one will be able to stop me from killing you both next time.”

“Was Miles able to get the CCTV for the bar?” Ronan’s voice is calm, steering the conversation away from my murdering threats to our prospective new brothers.

I pick up my whiskey tumbler from the arm of the couch and take a drink, it burns its way down my throat and pulls me down from my rage high I was stewing in. “Yeah. Her drink doesn't look messed with from the bar to the table, but her table isn’t in the view of the camera so we lose her until she’s walking to the bathroom.” I sigh. “She was stumbling to the bathroom and then a few minutes later the guy walks in and then the guys show up when they’re walking out of the bathroom.”

“So she was drugged at her table.” Saint surmises, his foot propped on his knee.

I nod my head, taking another drink. “Yeah.”

He continues, “Do you think this was her stalker?”

I sigh. “I don’t know. It could have been, that would be the best scenario, but it could also be some low life who likes drugging girls to get laid.”

“You two can go talk to the bouncers tonight.” Ronan gestures to Mason and Wyatt, and they both nod. “Get the name of the fuck was that tried to take the Princess tonight.”

I follow up Ronan’s orders with something else because I have a better idea of how these two shitheads can get back into my good graces. “Wyatt can. I have another job for Mason.” Everyone's eyes fall back on me and Mason perks back up in his chair. “I don't want to slow Miles down with another job, so would you be able to keep tabs on Reese’s ex?” When Mason came into the club and found out we outsource a lot of our tech shit he saw an opening and decided to try to fill it. He has a degree in computer science, but he hasn't quite mastered the criminal shit we need, he’s still a little straight laced. That’s where Miles is teaching him to be a criminal mastermind.

Mason pulls the ice pack from his eye and nods. “Yeah, brother. I’ll set up some barriers for them so I get alerts and then I’ll go help Miles comb through footage from the bar.”

I nod, pleased with his efforts. “Alright, just make sure to tell him before you head over to the cave; he’s a panicky mother fucker.”

Mason’s eyebrows draw together. “He lives in a cave?”

I close my eyes and rub my finger between my brows. “No, you fucking idiot. He just has blackout curtains and never turns on any lights so it’s always dark.”

Finn doubles over laughing, his arms crossing over his stomach. “How would he have any electricity in a cave to run his computers?”

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