“Again, not the same.”

She was right about that.

“Babe.” He gave her a squeeze.

She squeezed back harder.

“I’ll think about it,” she whispered.

Rush closed his eyes.

Thank fuck.

Beck

Eleven forty-five that morning . . .

Pissed about whatever “emergency” meeting Web had called when Beck knew these men had nothing urgent to discuss, outside arguing by-laws and whatever ridiculous name they thought the club should be called because they thought it was badass, Beck put his hand up to push the door open to their meeting room.

The only reason he was just pissed and not furious was because Janna had to work that day. Production was halted for some reason one day that week, they were using that day to make it up.

If she was home, and he could be with her, eating her food, fucking her in her bed, sitting on her gray velvet sofa with her watching TV, finding some way to get her to share about her dream, he’d be really freaking ticked.

On this thought, he pushed through and was instantly pulled to the side with a hand wrapped around his biceps, the door slammed shut behind him, and he heard the lock go.

He angrily shrugged off Eightball’s mitt with a kill look then turned his attention to the table.

All the men were standing around it, knives resting on the table in front of them, except Eightball, who’d pulled him in, and Griller, who’d shut and locked the door.

Jesus, Digger and Pacino had shared they’d been pulled in by the cops.

Well then . . .

It was showtime.

His eyes went directly to Digger.

“Appears you were hauled in by the cops, brother,” he declared.

Hostile shifting of bodies from everyone, but it was Pacino who spoke, “Yeah, you’d know all about that. You were fucking big-mouth snatch, must have worn off on you, brother.”

He kept his shit, he did not know how, at the reference to Rosalie and locked eyes with Pacino.

“You get pulled in too, Pacino?” he asked quietly.

“I’m sure you know I did,” he sneered.

“I don’t know, got first-hand knowledge Pickle likes to chat, can’t know who he likes to chat with. Do you know, Digger?” he asked the sick fuck.

Digger didn’t quite hide his flinch before he responded, “I know he said you came sniffin’ around.”

“Yeah, you see,” Beck started, moving toward the table, “I’m in this club. I got brothers in this club. And somehow, we got messed up with some big deal asshole who promised us easy money. Now I know, my old lady fucked that shit for us. I also know Valenzuela let us swing. All his money. His hotshot attorneys. We still got boys sittin’ behind bars. Where was Valenzuela then, he was gonna take such good care of us? We’re partners? The big man promises he’ll see to our brothers, promises opportunities of payback and jobs that’ll make life sweet, then he disappears. When he comes back, though, we don’t fuckin’ exist.”

He paused, no one said dick, so he kept going.

“So I had a think about it. Thought on it a long time. How’d we get messed up with this big deal asshole who left us swinging? This club, good club but no experience, never done shit like that, how suddenly is he all good to come to us and offer us lots of cake for taking care of an important part of his business? How did we earn that nod?”

No one said anything.

Beck did.

“Out of the blue, Valenzuela comes to us? It didn’t jive. So, like I said, I had a long think about it because, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I wanted to know. Delivered my old lady for a beatdown. Got my face carved up after. We got a beef with Chaos. Brothers in the joint. Lost our charter. I wanted to know. I give a shit about my club. So I asked around. Wanna know what I found out?”

Pacino looked to Digger.

Digger’s mouth was working, and it wouldn’t have surprised Beck if he’d pissed his pants.

Beck took the last steps to stand at his place at the table and kept his eyes locked on Digger.

“Seen Chew Lannigan recently, brother?” he asked.

More shifting, it was even more hostile, and he knew Digger had everyone’s attention.

“What’s this shit?” Web growled.

“We weren’t called on by the great and fucked-up Benito Valenzuela because he saw promise in our club and wanted to cut us in on his empire,” Beck announced, still staring at Digger.

He turned his attention to Web.

“Digger ran with Chew Lannigan back in the day. They’re still tight. Chew has a beef with Chaos and he allied with Valenzuela to work that beef out. And to firm up his position with Valenzuela, offer him an army, he offered us up,” he told Web and looked again to Digger. “Am I right?”

You could actually see the wheels turning in the motherfucker’s eyes before he spat, “It was a good opportunity, until your gash fucked it all up.”

Beck slammed his fist on the table and shouted, “This club is about honesty! Brotherhood! Loyalty! You thought this was a good opportunity, why didn’t you share how we got that opportunity?”

“You’re tryin’ to put this shit on me when it’s your fucked-up cunt who put us where we are,” Digger sneered.

“I think I handled that situation, asshole,” Beck fired back. “I found that shit out. I told my club. I went and got her ass. I brought her to my brothers to be taught a lesson.” He tasted bile in his throat, but he had no choice but to keep going. “And it was me who landed the first blows.”

Christ, was he gonna be able to get through this shit without throwing up?

He had to try.

“Half the pigs in the DPD are after Lannigan. Chaos wants him. Valenzuela is panting for him. We’re vulnerable, we got a link to that crazy fuck we don’t even know about, and you don’t share he’s the reason why we’re caught up in this shit in the first place?”

“I couldn’t know your bitch was gonna give us up,” Digger returned.

“Well she did. And when shit happens you deal. But you can’t deal if you don’t have all the info. And now we got brothers bein’ pulled in by the cops because they want Lannigan’s ass in the joint before Chaos or Valenzuela tear him to shreds, and we’re even more vulnerable. No charter. No backup. No allies. No money. Not dick,” Beck shot back.

Pacino looked to Digger, confused, mostly because he hadn’t been pulled in about Lannigan.

He’d been pulled in about being a bogus alibi for a murder.

“Why they just bring in Digger and Pacino?” Rainman asked.

Beck threw an arm their way. “You gotta ask that?”

Spiderweb, Muzzle, Griller, Eightball, Spartan, Rainman, Hardcore, if he wasn’t done with this club, if they hadn’t put the hurt on Rosalie, called it, demanded it (though Pacino was the one behind that, rabid about pushing it through), he might stick with those brothers.

Muzzle, Eightball, Hardcore and Griller were decent-looking, built guys Beck’s age or a little older. They had brains in their heads, but they used them mostly to find ways to get laid. If he’d been asked before all this started to go down, he’d have said all four of them, as well as Beck, just wanted someone to ride with, drink beer with, raise some hell with and have wingmen to find pussy with.

Rainman and Spartan were in their forties, Web in his fifties, softer, but even mostly clueless, wannabe outlaws who were that basically because they didn’t live large by any stretch of the imagination and they wanted to give more to their families but had zero opportunities to do that, they were still solid.

Pacino was a weasel, weak of body and mind, and that was written all over him, but it got verified any time he talked.

Digger was just a deviant.

So Beck didn’t have to explain further.

“You in with Chew Lannigan?” Web asked Digger.

“Don’t eat his shit,” Digger answered Web. “He knows we all think he’s a dumbfuck pussywhip for gettin’ us fucked over.”

“I don’t think that,” Hardcore said. “Rosalie was cherry. I’d be a dumbfuck I was dippin’ my wick into that regular.”

Beck’s torso swung back, and it did in shock not jealousy Core would want a go at Rosalie. She was gorgeous. Any man with a dick would.