OUTLAW KING(42)

I had to get to the Reap.

I had to get real revenge now.



I WALKED to the head of the table and put the paper down. I held my finger to Uncle Jakey’s name and looked him dead in the eyes. The rest of the room knew something big was brewing.

“Tell me right now. Everything. Right f*cking now.”

Uncle Jakey looked at the paper then up at me. “Where did you get that?”

“Anderson,” I said. “He’s worried I’m going to flip on my deal with him. He’s been f*cking with me since I met him about the truth of my brother.”

“Jesus Christ,” Knox said. “What the hell is this?”

“Everyone clear the table,” Slam said. “Let them hash this out.”

“No,” I said. “He can speak for himself.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Uncle Jakey said. He grabbed the paper from the table. “I’ll talk to my table. I have nothing to f*cking hide. But can you handle it, King?”

“All I’ve f*cking been through,” I said. “For this club. For my family. Sitting in prison, rotting away. I’m willing to accept death, but before I do that, I want the truth. All of it.”

“Then sit,” Uncle Jakey said. “Let’s all talk.”

I didn’t want to f*cking sit but I did. I felt both Knox and Slam burning at me. Shit, if I went after Uncle Jakey and hurt him… I’d lose my cut and I’d probably get killed.

“There was a street war,” Uncle Jakey said. “I was caught in the middle. We had guys from up north pushing down into town. It was a f*cking mess. Hammer still had the gavel. We knew what we were up against. The town getting overrun with thug bullshit.”

“My brother?” I asked.

“Him and his entire crew,” Uncle Jakey said. “You knew what he was doing, King. The shit he was selling. The shit he was snorting and injecting. The guy was a mess. They all were. The dealers became the users. And when they become users… f*cking junkies have no straight mind.”

“What are you getting at with this?” Knox asked.

“We took a vote to push back,” Uncle Jakey said. “We couldn’t let the thing escalate. The plan was to muscle them out of our way. Push them somewhere else. Drive them into another town and let them all get busted.” Uncle Jakey looked at me. “For Tito… we wanted to save him. I promise you that, King. We wanted to pull him out of that and get him cleaned up. In fact, your mother even met with Hammer one time to talk. We all knew what he meant to you and we all wanted him to be under the protection of the Reap.”

I felt the anger rising inside me, knowing that the story wasn’t going to end well because I already knew the ending. The ending was with Tito taking a f*cking bullet and dying.

“That didn’t happen,” I said. “What happened…”

“Was that your brother organized a small group to take down the Reap,” Uncle Jakey said.

The entire room fell silent.

All eyes were then on me, waiting for my reaction.

“What?” I asked.

“You heard me,” Uncle Jakey said. “Your brother set up a group to attack us. He wanted to take out Hammer. He knew about your mother meeting Hammer. He hated that you were so far into the Reap. And he knew we weren’t going to allow their drugs and violence to keep pushing into town. The big players were already moving away. So the junkies started to scramble. I’m sorry, King, but when you take out a hit on the President of this club…”

“Shit,” Slam said. “You guys took out his brother.”

“How did that other guy get involved then?” Knox asked. “The one King murdered?”

Uncle Jakey shook his head. “We tried to stop that too. That night the bullets started to fly easily. But back on track for the story.” Uncle Jakey stood up. He ran a hand across his face. “I’m well connected all around. My push, pull, power is everywhere. The Reap wasn’t in a position to just start tagging people. So we called in a favor. The plan was to scare Tito. Make it well known we were all over him. Then we wanted to pull you out of that house, King. Show you everything. Christ, I still have information somewhere I can show you. Your brother was deep. He was using more than selling. What he sold he f*cking used the money to buy more. He never made his payments. The goddamn connection wanted us to take out Tito. They were willing to pay. But we refused. Hammer said no. I said no. We weren’t in the business of that. The big players still wanted Tito dead. Our guy was going to rough up Tito. Then we were going to come and make sure the message was sent. Simple as that. Except the guy was on the payroll for someone else. The second he saw Tito, he pulled the trigger. He took off and it took us a while to figure out what to do next.”

I gritted my teeth and rubbed my jaw. I knew the truth of Tito. Fuck, I knew it. I knew my hero brother was a reckless junkie. Did that mean I should love him less? Fuck no. I wanted him in the Reap. I wanted to protect him.

“King,” Knox said. “Say something, brother.”

“Keep talking,” I whispered.

Uncle Jakey put his hands to the table. “The night you wanted to take down the guy that killed Tito… we got the same intel. That’s why there was so much traffic. So many bullets. You hurried and confessed, pushing yourself into prison. Wanting to prove your point and swing your big cock. All before we had a chance to talk to you. Next thing I knew, you were out, eyes were on the Reap, and shit started to crumble. It was a collapse like I never thought possible.”