Rough Ride (Chaos #5)(4)

“Fuck,” Shy whispered.

Snapper slashed a glance through Shy but only allowed himself to do it at a slash.

Rosie had been Shy’s once. He’d scraped her off, took up with Tab before he really even ended it with Rosalie. Cut her deep.

Sent her straight to Bounty.

To Throttle.

She hadn’t wanted him at the hospital. She’d wanted him and Roscoe gone. But he’d heard. He’d heard that Throttle had delivered her ass to his brothers after he figured out Rosie was informing on Bounty’s maneuvers with an enemy of Chaos.

She’d just wanted her man clean. Clean and clear of something that had two endings, one or the other certain: it’d either get him dead or incarcerated.

It seemed Rosie had bad taste in men.

That was going to change.

“Are we ridin’ out on Bounty or what?” Hound snarled.

“They’re fucked. Half of them are out on bail and Snap says first thing she asked for when she hit emergency was the police,” Rush pointed out.

Hound took in Rush’s words and then repeated to the room at large, “Are we ridin’ out on Bounty or what?”

“We’re riding out on Bounty.”

That came quiet. Quiet and sinister.

From Tack.

Snapper moved first, yanking open the door to the Club’s meeting room and running right into Tabitha Cage.

Shy’s wife.

Tack’s daughter.

“Is it true?” she snapped.

“Get outta the way, Tab,” he said low.

Her eyes moved beyond him and she demanded, “Tell me it isn’t true.”

“Darlin’, we’re on this,” her father said.

She took a step back and declared, “Yeah, we are. And I’m ridin’ with Shy.”

“Uh, say what?” Boz muttered from behind Snap.

“We don’t have time for this shit,” Snapper hissed.

“We actually don’t, baby. We got work to do,” Shy said.

“You’re not in this either,” Tack declared.

Shy pivoted on his father-in-law.

“Come again?” he asked.

“You’re here,” Tack decreed.

Were they seriously doing this?

Now?

Rosalie was still at the goddamned hospital. They were keeping her overnight.

He had asses to kick and a woman to get back to.

“Who’s ridin’ is ridin’ and who isn’t is stayin’,” Snapper began and turned his head back to Tab, “and you are not riding.”

“Says who?’ she asked.

“Says me,” he fired back.

“Excuse me but she is a sister who put her ass on the line for the Club and I am the sister who’s gonna go kick their wuss asses in retribution. Ganging up for a beat down on a girl? Weak. Weak and lame,” Tab returned.

“Don’t you got a baby to look after?” Roscoe asked with more curiosity than refusal, and her narrowed eyes turned to him.

Then she lifted a hand, fingers clenched around a set of brass knuckles. Shy’s brass knuckles. Hound got every brother a pair when they earned their patch. The palm grip had the Chaos emblem etched in and letters above each knuckle read one of the words from the Chaos motto: Wind, Fire, Ride or Free.

Shy’s read “Wind.”

Snapper’s said “Ride.”

“Don’t you got a nose I can break?” she asked Roscoe back.

Snapper heard Hound’s grim chuckle.

“Baby, give me my brass,” Shy murmured.

“I’m riding!” she shouted.

“You’re not and Shy’s here but the rest of us are going,” Tack declared.

“Dad!” she yelled.

“Tack,” Shy clipped.

“Tabby, you wanna help, don’t hold us up, we got shit to do,” Tack growled then added, “And I’m thinkin’ you get it’s kinda important.” He turned to Shy. “To do what we gotta do, you need control. You won’t have control.”

“Yeah, like Snap has control,” Boz mumbled.

Snap felt his neck get tight, ready to take down a brother, even if that brother was Tack, to ride out on Bounty.

But Tack’s eyes just slowly came to Snapper and he rumbled, “Snap is riding.”

“Could that happen about now?” Snapper asked sarcastically.

“A statement has to be made by one of the Chaos women,” Tab announced.

“Christ,” Snapper hissed. “Can this stupid-ass shit be done?”

“Why is it stupid-ass?” Tab retorted. “’Cause I’m a girl?”

“Uh,” he leaned toward her, “yeah.”

She leaned toward him. “That’s what I call stupid-ass.”

“We’ll make your statement for you,” Hound put in.

Tab turned her gaze on Hound and even Snapper lost track of what was happening and paid attention with the look that settled on her pretty face.

“You do not take your fists to a Chaos woman,” she whispered. “You boys got an alarming trend goin’ on with your women bein’ caught up in your shit. So a Chaos woman needs to make a statement and Tyra might break a heel, Lanie might break a nail, Carissa probably doesn’t even know how to form a fist, Millie already went through her trauma, Sheila’s on the Western Slope, and Bev’s at work, so this is on me and I’m riding.”