Unbeloved (Undeniable #4)(49)
When Deuce didn’t respond, just continued to stand there, his gaze on the floor, Hawk let out a ragged sigh.
“I’ll do whatever I gotta do,” he said quietly. “Just promise me you’re gonna take care of ’em. Look after ’em. I’ve been tryin’ to give Dorothy money for years, but she never uses it, just keeps puttin’ it into an account for Christopher. I don’t want her livin’ like that anymore, I want her here, near her daughter, near you. I want her in a damn house, her own place, for once.”
Deuce’s head raised, those cold blue eyes staring Hawk down. “You ain’t gotta worry about that f*ckin’ shit, you know we always take care of our own. And you want two weeks, you got ’em. Hell, you want three weeks, you got ’em. I know you know what you gotta do, and I know you’re gonna do it. That ain’t why I’m here.”
Deuce stopped talking and took a deep breath, one that caused his chest to visibly rise, then fall and rise again. It was a rare display of emotion from his prez, one that surprised the shit out of Hawk. Other than anger, Deuce didn’t put his feelings out there for just anyone to see. None of the boys did, other than Cox, and even Cox kept his under the guise of humor most times.
“I shoulda never sent you to Vegas,” Deuce said. “I shoulda been smart enough to realize you coulda been made. Fact, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner and that’s on me. I shoulda been more careful.”
Hawk shook his head. “It wasn’t the Russians who made me. Meant to tell you before, but I figured you had enough shit to deal with.”
He had Deuce’s full attention now.
“Who?” the man growled, the look on his face telling Hawk he already knew who, but wanted to hear him say it.
“ZZ,” Hawk said. “It was ZZ who set this shit up. Shot me, beat the f*ckin’ crap outta me. He’s workin’ for Yenny. Fightin’ for him.”
The tension that gripped the room at the sound of ZZ’s name grew even thicker as several silent seconds ticked uncomfortably by. Even Ripper, who’d been feigning indifference to Hawk this entire time, had jerked his head up, his expression a mixture of shock and rage.
“Prez,” Hawk continued. “I wasn’t so sure before that takin’ him out was the best way to go, but . . . he ain’t ZZ no more. The man is cold, Prez, through and through, and a walkin’ f*ckin’ time bomb.”
Ripper stepped forward while Deuce remained frozen. But even in his stillness the man was literally vibrating with rage, his nostrils flaring as the exposed skin on his forearms rippled, his muscles twitching with barely restrained fury.
“Did he say anything?” Ripper asked, and Hawk could hear the unspoken words. After all, ZZ had assumed Ripper had stolen Danny from him. And Ripper was now married to her.
“Don’t think you gotta worry about Danny,” Hawk said. “He’s hung up on this shit, that much I could tell, but he ain’t stupid enough to come anywhere near Miles City. Not with the club and the law gunnin’ for him.”
“I’ll f*ckin’ kill him,” Ripper said darkly.
Deuce’s head swung around, Ripper’s words breaking his trance-like state. “I will f*ckin’ kill him,” Deuce gritted out. “You hear me? Me. I will f*ckin’ kill him.”
Each of Deuce’s words was fiercely punctuated with a verbal venom that Hawk had only ever heard twice before. The first, when Eva had been taken by her now-dead first husband, Frankie, and the last, when Danny had been kidnapped by Mama V, a notorious hit woman from one of the Cali gangs the Horsemen had some trouble with a while back.
But even more surprising than Deuce’s unholy anger was Ripper. Having never before openly defied Deuce’s orders, Ripper was staring his prez down, silently refusing to give up this kill.
“You wanna go runnin’ after the f*ckin’ Russians?” Deuce ground out. “You wanna end up shark meat and leave my baby girl and granddaughter without you? ’Cause that’s what’s gonna happen if you take off, guns blazin’, trying to take out an * protected by one of the biggest cartels in the f*ckin’ world.”
“If I’m protectin’ my family and the club,” Ripper said, “I don’t give a f*ck if I gotta die doin’ it.”
All at once the anger that had taken root in Deuce seemed to evaporate. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said, sighing as he turned away from Ripper. “But I ain’t gonna let you, so reel your f*ckin’ shit in before I reel it in for you.”
Ripper’s face gave Hawk the impression that shit was about to go south real quick. In order to avoid watching Ripper get a beat down from Deuce, Hawk cleared his throat, gaining the attention of both men, and addressed Deuce.
“You got your shit in place with the Russians?”
Deuce nodded briskly. “Got two clubs lined up, eager for the business. All we can do now is hope they ain’t too mad when Yenny goes down, and take what we’re offering.”
Hawk didn’t think there was going to be a problem. The Bratva might be greedy, but just like every other criminal organization out there, they didn’t like going to war. War meant losing bodies, and losing bodies meant losing money and resources. War was a lose-lose for everyone involved.
“I think for once the law is gonna be on our side,” Hawk said, feeling the weight of those words fall heavily upon him. His chest tightened, his breathing quickened, and he gripped the blanket beneath him hard enough that the soft fabric began to tear.