Page 202 of Fury

“Welcome.”

“What do you got?” Taz, my National President said. “This is serious shit, man, these allegations. You fucking killed him? Just mowed him down?”

“I stopped him from killing someone in my own house. And first of all, due to his obsession with his sister-in-law, he ended up killing the president of a friendly MC right next door to us. Set off a bomb on their property. That kind of crazy is not good for business or our reputation. But at the center of it all is this—”

I raised my chin at Den, and he went at his keyboard. Up on the television monitor streamed the evidence of Reich’s great subterfuge. Accounting spreadsheets tallying up all his expenses, his profits. And what profits they were. At the end of the day, over seven figures.

Taz drummed a hand on the oak table, his concentration focused on the screen. Watts, the Treasurer was on the edge of his seat, his eyes jogging over each set of figures presented, his lips moving. Lenox, the Sergeant at Arms shook his head, gripping his beer bottle tighter, rapping it against the table in a steady rhythm.

“The documents go back to over twelve years ago,” I said.

“How did you break this?” asked Watts, his attention fixed back on the figures marching down the screen.

“I’ve been keeping my eye on him since our big general convention in Atlanta, about ten years ago, back when the Mexicans started blockading and the Demon Seeds from the west were playing hardball. He didn’t seem too uptight about cash flow like the rest of us were. He’d put on a good show of brainstorming colorful ideas, but none of them amounted to anything, he’d dropped every single ball. I smelled distraction. Set a course for getting hold of the evidence, and I got it.

“In front of my whole club yesterday, he admitted it, declared it was all his. He was actually annoyed with me for finding out and threatening to put a stop to it. But what Reich never got about me is that I don’t threaten. I make shit happen. The question is, what are you all going to do about it?”

They stared at me, chewing on all my evidence like dogs with a single thick bone between them.

“I’m putting seventy-five per cent of these assets in National’s coffers,” I said.

Watts let out a gust of air, pressing his back into his chair. “Can’t beat that.”

“Twelve years is a damn long time,” I said. “All those years, none of you—and you’ve all been in office that long, re-elected over and over again—never noticed a thing? It was just business as usual? Trust Reich with the reigns, with making decisions. Trust him with all our worldly goods and possessions.”

Watts leaned his weight forward on the table, a ringed hand brushing over his long mustache. “He was always flush. Even when times were shit. I’d seen his wife driving around in a new car, taking trips. He always had a quick explanation for everything. Never a straight answer though, always a different story.”

My pulse picked up at the row of stiff faces around me.

“How could you not know?” I asked Taz. “Did you look the other way? Or were you on the take too? Temptation just too great. Did you get a cut of the slaves and the snuff films?” I gestured at the screen. I fed the thick anxiety and dread at all the possible outcomes that hovered over our table like the heavy odor of frying grease. I was the one doing the frying.

“I looked for you on here,” I continued. “Didn’t find you though, but I did find a recurring monthly fee. And plenty of miscellaneous expenses. Maybe you were one of those, huh, Taz? That vacation to Cancun last year? Pretty fancy. But you didn’t take your old lady or your kids or one of your local bitches. No. Maybe you had a girl chained to your side the whole time specially trained just for you?”

All eyes were on Taz.

Taz rolled his shoulders, twisting his neck, his mouth opened.

“Don’t you fucking lie to me. This is selling out,” I said. “A Flame does not sell out his brothers, does not undercut his brothers. Used to be a Flame was the finest there was. He stood for something. This? Crawling for pennies. It may be a mighty pile of pennies, but your allegiance, your loyalty went from the Flames of Hell to pennies? You’ve trashed what we stand for. Yeah, back in the day, that trade was good, easy money, but it ain’t us no more.”

“Listen, I—”

My fist slammed on the great wooden table. “What is this, huh? Right here, right now? You tell us.”

Taz glared at me. “Flames of Hell.”

“Yes. Who’s the national president?”

Taz’s eyes narrowed at me. “I am.”

“Yes, you are. Shouldn’t you have noticed what your own vice president was up to? You and Reich have been buds for years. Came up together. A well-oiled machine ruling the roost the past decade and a half.”

“Ah shit, man,” Lenox groaned.

Taz jolted in his chair. “You accusing me of—”

“Reich was always a resourceful thinker, an instigator. He produced all this fine tailor-made product by himself and maintained this network of contacts and delivery. Generated big bucks. He had Led as his gopher, yeah, but he had to have used your Ohio money laundering machine to help with the extra. I imagine there was always lots of cream left on the sides of that big milkshake glass.”

His back rigid, Taz planted his hands on the table. “Who the fuck do you think—”

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