Fire Inside (Chaos #2)(15)
After this, Dog moved to their bikes and Hop moved closer to the dealer.
“You know, five miles,” he reminded the dealer. “Five miles around Ride is Chaos. You don’t sell here. What the f**k?”
“Benito’s claimin’ this block,” the dealer told him.
“Benito doesn’t get to claim this block. He knows it, you know it. So again, what the f**k?” Hop asked.
“I go where Benito says,” the dealer replied.
Dog was back with a bottle of water, pouring it over the meth dust on the sidewalk and the dealer groaned.
Hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars washed away.
Benito would be pissed and not just at the dealer.
Hop didn’t care.
“You stay off this block. You do not come back. Benito sends you back, you find a way to explain to him; you’re here, his product is in the sewer. You got this one warning. Chaos doesn’t have patience with this shit. You see me, you’re f**ked, and I don’t mean you goin’ back empty-handed to that dickhead. I mean, you’ll find it difficult to go anywhere ’cause you’ll find it difficult to move. You get me?” Hop asked.
“I don’t go where Benito sends me, I’ll find it difficult to do anything seein’ as I won’t be breathin’,” the dealer returned.
“Not my problem. You picked the wrong profession, motherf*cker,” Hop pointed out, pushing him farther into the wall, his arm sliding up to the back of the dealer’s neck, extending it unnaturally. “I gotta teach you this lesson now?” Hop asked.
The dealer, hoping for mercy, decided to get generous and shared, “Benito wants Chaos territory.”
“No shit?” Hop shot back.
“No, I mean he really wants it,” the dealer clarified.
Dog entered the conversation. “I think we get that, dealin’ with motherf*ckers like you.”
“He’s kinda determined,” the dealer went on.
“Again, man, you think we’re not in on this f**kin’ information?” Hop asked, shoving him hard against the wall before he twisted him around and then slammed him back into the wall with a hand wrapped around his neck. “What Benito has got to get is that Chaos is more determined. You feel helpful, you share that with him and try to be convincing. But don’t matter if you are. We’re happy to put in the work to convince him. What you gotta take with you when we let you walk away right now is, he sends you out of the trenches, we see your head pop up, we’re aimin’ at you. We gotta get our message across to him, we’ll use any means necessary and that means takin’ out every soldier he sends our way until we drive it back to him.”
“Chaos isn’t ready for this fight,” the dealer replied, and Hop moved so he was in the dealer’s face.
“My brothers bled to keep this pavement, f**kwad,” he ground out. “You got a brother’s blood in the sidewalks, it never goes away, you never let it out of your control, you keep what you fought and bled for. Benito needs to get that. You can’t convince him, the other dealers and whores we send back to him can’t, we will.”
The dealer pulled breath in through his nose, stared at Hop before his eyes shifted to the side and he took in Dog then he came back to Hop. What he saw on their faces must have convinced him because he nodded.
“Again, one warning. Next time, you don’t walk away,” Hop stated.
The dealer nodded again.
Hop jerked his hand up to the dealer’s jaw, yanked him away from the wall then slammed his head into it. The dealer cried out before Hop let go and stepped back.
The dealer crumpled to his knees, one hand to his throat, the other one to the back of his head. He tipped his head back, looked at Hop and Dog, got to his feet, and took off.
Hop and his brother watched until the dealer was out of sight.
Then Hop asked, “You callin’ this into Tack or you want me to do it?”
“I got it,” Dog grunted, pulling out his phone.
“Brother,” Hop called and Dog looked from his phone to Hop. “We patrol every night. Used to be, few and far between, we find this shit. This is the second night this week.”
“Escalating,” Dog agreed.
Hop turned his head to look down the sidewalk where the dealer had taken off.
Benito Valenzuela had been a minor player years ago but one Tack had heard about and intuitively kept his eye on.
Tack’s intuition, as usual, was right.
When things shifted in the underworld of Denver—big players like Darius Tucker opting out of the drug trade, Marcus Sloan downsizing operations, the Russian Mob losing its leader and reorganizing, amongst other things—Valenzuela saw his opportunity and didn’t waste time. He quickly amassed territory however he needed to do it, negotiating for it or going to war for it.
But Benito didn’t bother approaching Chaos for a piece of their island.
For over a decade it was known the five square miles around the auto supply store and custom car and bike shop the Chaos MC owned and ran was clean of drugs and whores. The brothers fought for it to be that way and went out every night to keep it that way.
Benito knew better than to ask.
So he was going to take.
Everyone who tried before Benito, and they were very few, left with a Chaos warning.
But the battle to free Chaos, inside and out, of all that shit had been fought so long ago, new players like Valenzuela didn’t know or didn’t remember how brutal it was. He didn’t know how far Chaos would go to keep their patch clean.