Savage Love (Back Down Devil MC #7)(80)

“Yeah, baby,” Blaine whispered in his rough voice. A cigarette hung from his mouth and he had his eyes closed. “Make my ear feel better, baby.”

Gaige took the smoke from Blaine’s lips, dropped it, and stepped on it.

“Hey, bro,” Blaine said. He opened his eyes and they were bloodshot and wild.

“You’re high as a f*cking kite,” Gaige said.

“Make that a jumbo jet, brother,” Blaine said.

“You two,” Gaige said, nodding to the relievers, “take a f*cking break.”

“Oh, come on…” the blondie said. She gripped Blaine tighter. “He’s so close.”

Gaige wasn’t in the mood. He grabbed the blondie by the hair and threw her from the table. “Did I f*cking stutter?”

She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “I’m sorry.”

“Get the f*ck out of here,” Gaige ordered.

The two women hurried away.

“Wait for me,” Blaine called out and laughed.

“Christ, Blaine, you can’t wait a minute, can you?”

“What? I’m relaxing. Unwinding. It was a rough workday today, brother. And you stole my smoke.”

“Here,” Gaige said and gave Blaine his smoke.

Blaine inhaled deep and laughed as he exhaled.

“What the f*ck is so funny?”

“Your girl, man,” Blaine said. “She ripped that f*cking ring right outta my ear. Fuck. She’s wild, bro.”

“She’s hurting right now. Because of us.”

Blaine slapped Gaige in the face. “It’s all good. It’ll all be good. Now can I go f*ck those women?”

“Yeah, go,” Gaige said. “I’ll need your proxy vote though.”

Blaine nodded. “I’m all in on this. We find the *s that pulled the triggers and f*cking gut them. No questions asked.”

“You realize it was retaliation because of something Nate and I did, right?”

“I don’t care,” Blaine said. “Nobody takes a shot at one of us. And nobody kills * I planned on f*cking.”

“You’re f*cking sick,” Gaige said.

Blaine jumped from the pool table. “Yeah, I am. So sick, bro.”

Blaine walked away, and a second later, Nate whistled and motioned for Gaige. He pointed to the hallway. It was time for the meeting to begin.

Only the members of Back Down Devil MC could vote at the meetings. The actual MC had hundreds of members spread across dozens of charters. From California up through Washington state and even into Canada. Spread south and east, the MC had charters in Arizona and up through Colorado. There was even a few lost men charters in the Dakotas. They were inhibited by guys who were ousted, voted out, or voluntarily left the main MC charters to survive on their own. They were still bound by the laws of the MC, but they weren’t given the same resources.

Down the hall and to the left, there was a steel door. Nate opened the door and Gaige walked in. The musky scent of cigarettes and weed filtered throughout the air. Each member had a beer and a shot glass in front of them. Handguns were placed on the table, facing the middle of the table where the ashes of the founding member of Back Down Devil MC sat. All the guns were pointed to the urn as a symbol of protection. To honor the club. To honor the purpose. To honor each other.

As Gaige walked along the table, he patted shoulders and shook hands with the crew that sat at the table. At the head of the table sat the president, Miller. He had the gavel as long as Gaige could remember. He was secretive yet loud. He could be a father figure and a dictator at the same time. His connections were deep and spanned many years, which is how the MC had a lot of the relationships it had.

Gaige hugged Miller and then took his seat directly to the left of Miller.

Next to Gaige sat Griffin. He was the brains and money behind the MC. An accountant who was caught stealing and then busted for insider trading, Griffin came to the table wearing a tie and traded it in for the open road and a leather cut to match. Then there was Landon. The opposite to the head of the table sat Nate and Shay. The last three seats were for Erik, Jace, and Blaine. The only empty seat was Blaine’s.

Gaige lit a fresh smoke and deferred to Miller.

“Where’s Blaine?”

“Three knuckles deep in *,” Nate said.

The table broke out in laughter.

“He gave me his proxy vote,” Gaige said.

“Fuck,” Miller said and shook his head. “He’s lucky he’s f*cked enough in the head that we need him.”

“Hear, hear,” Shay called out and lifted his shot glass.

“Yeah,” Miller said. “Lift ‘em.”

Everyone at the table lifted their shot glass. Gaige lifted his beer bottle.

“I’m not going to say shit,” Miller said. “Let’s drink and let’s figure this out.”

Everyone drank and the shot glasses slammed against the table. Everyone kept smoking, staring at Miller, waiting for the next orders to come.

“What happened out there?” Miller asked.

He didn’t need to look at Gaige for Gaige to know the question was meant for him.

Gaige said, “I sent a message. My call to do it.”

“Message?” Miller said. “Thought the message would be the dead bodies they’d find in the morning.”