Rough Justice (Sinner's Tribe Motorcycle Club #1)(69)
“I like it,” Cade said. “Especially the part about thirty girls who may or may not all be lays.”
Sparky’s eyebrows furrowed. “I thought you were banging Arianne’s friend.”
“She’s just interested in keeping it casual.”
Gunner clutched his chest. “No. Say it isn’t so. Casual? When everyone knows you’re a one-woman kind of man?”
“Anyone got a gun?” Cade scowled. “Care to shut Gunner the f*ck up?”
Sparky leaned back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. “So, Jag. You gonna make her your old lady? You two were going at it so hard last night, I couldn’t get any sleep.”
“I’m not looking for an old lady. She’s property of the Sinners, but she belongs exclusively to me.”
He caught Gunner and Sparky sharing a puzzled glance and tipped his head back to stare at the cracked plaster on the ceiling and the dusty chandelier. “Like a sweet butt.”
Everyone nodded. Sweet butts helped the club and the brothers in exchange for protection and a place to stay. Occasionally, a brother would claim a sweet butt for his own, with a view to making her an old lady. In those cases, although the “keep off” rule for old ladies didn’t apply, the brothers respected the claim and stayed away.
Zane leaned over and whispered. “Can I be there when you tell her you’ve given her sweet butt status? You’ll need someone to handle the funeral arrangements.”
“Fuck you.”
He laughed. “You’re the one who’s f*cked.”
Jagger dug his nails into his palm under the table. He was more than aware that he was walking a very fine line between duty and desire. Zane, who knew him best, saw as much. He wondered if the others saw it, too. Making her his old lady would solve the problem, but he simply wasn’t prepared to go down that road. Not after Christel. And not with a woman who was still talking about leaving Conundrum. Declaring an old lady was like announcing a marriage in the civilian world. Both people had to want it. And they had to want it forever.
When no one spoke, he flipped through his agenda, searching for the next order of business, his body shaking with an emotion he couldn’t even begin to understand.
“Here’s how it’s gonna be.” He placed his hands, palm down, on the table. “I’m not interested in another long feud with the Jacks. We’re the dominant club in Montana and we’re gonna stay that way. I don’t care that they think they have dominant status. We need to bring them to heel.”
The chorus of assent from around the table pleased him, and he relaxed back in his chair.
“We’ve just hit them a hard blow. Next I want to launch an assault closer to home. We’re gonna pick off Viper’s senior officers one by one, starting with Leo and Bear. Find them. Bring them in. Alive. Then we’ll have some fun.” A plausible reason for bringing them in. No one needed to know his real motive for getting Leo under his fists. And if Leo didn’t survive the interrogation, the world would be a safer place.
“Damn right, we will.” Zane thumped his fist on the table, and the rest of the executive board murmured their approval.
“Any news on Axle?”
“He’s outta the hospital,” Cade said. “Sherry went to see him. Apparently, he’s even more pissed than before. Sherry thinks he’s gone crazy and he’s obsessed with revenge.”
“Makes sense,” Zane said. “Most animals are more dangerous when they’re wounded. Makes them fearless.”
What the f*ck? Jagger slammed a fist on the table. “Sherry went to see him? Even though he’s out of the club on bad terms? And no one saw that as a problem?”
The room went quiet and Jagger contemplated his next move. He’d warned Sherry to stay away from Axle. No one in the club was allowed contact with any member who was kicked out on bad terms and that included house mamas and sweet butts.
“What do you wanna do?” Cade raised his brows. “He treated her like shit, but she had feelings for him. She’s a sweet girl and I’m damn sure she went to see him out of compassion, and not with any intent to betray the club. Jill said—”
Jagger cut him off with a sharp gesture, the burden of leadership lying heavy within his chest. “She knows the rules. She’s out of the club. I want—”
“I didn’t get to finish,” Cade interrupted, his voice uncharacteristically sharp. “Jill said she showed up after her meeting with Axle with a black eye, and her arm in a sling.”
Fuck. He had to kick her out of the club. It was the right thing to do. But if Axle was abusing her, Jagger couldn’t just leave her out on her own. She’d had a rough life before joining the Sinners, which meant she’d put up with a lot more than most women would, and he didn’t want her winding up with Axle because she had no place else to go. “Cade, send Wheels to find her. After I speak to her, she can stay in the safe house until she gets herself sorted.”
More surprised murmurs around the table. Everyone had assumed he was keeping Arianne at the safe house. But the last few nights, he’d had her in his bed at the clubhouse, and he didn’t want her anywhere else.
Changing the topic before he changed his mind, he looked over at Gunner. “Any luck on sniffing out our rat?”
Gunner shook his head. “I went back to the ice house and checked our position from every road. You were right. No way could anyone have known where we were unless they’d been told. And I’m wondering if the same rat called the cops at the vacant lot. Did anyone notice the cops came just as we started winning the fight?”