“This is not a problem seeing as we don’t have anything to work out.”

I watched him suck breath in through his nose at the same time watching him get control.

And I knew he had control when he whispered, “Baby,” his hand slid up to wrap around my ear, “we been through this. You don’t get to decide that.”

“Wrong again,” I whispered back, staring him straight in the eye.

Tack ignored that and went back to our earlier topic.

“What’d she say to you?”

“Step back.”

“What’d she say to you?”

“Step… back,” I hissed.

His control slipped and he bit back, “What’d that bitch f**kin’ say to you?”

Right. He wanted to know? I’d tell him.

“We enjoy a tag team with you and, seeing as I’m your old lady, I get your c**k or your mouth. In my oh-so-elevated position as a hanger-on of the Club, I get to choose.”

“Fuck, darlin’, she’s f**kin’ with your head,” he stated dismissively.

“She says you like it like that.”

His brows shot together. “Say again?”

I didn’t say again. I shared further.

“And she said she should know since she gave it to you like that.”

“She said she gave it to me like that?” he repeated after me.

“Yep.”

“She said she gave it to me like that.” This was a statement, not a question, but it was still a question, just a question that was a whole lot scarier.

Scary or not, I still answered, “Yep.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know where,” I returned. “Where do you have your threesomes?”

“No, babe, where were you when she said this shit to you?”

“Outside the Compound.”

“Standin’ on Chaos?”

His words didn’t entirely make sense but I still got the jist so I replied, “Yep.”

“Standin’ on Chaos, talkin’ to an old lady, she spewed that f**ked up shit at you,” he stated and suddenly, I didn’t know why, but the change in him penetrated my anger and I realized I’d been wrong.

Very wrong.

The dragon might have woken.

But he hadn’t yet breathed fire.

And I was about to learn that when a dragon breathed fire, it wasn’t about noise, heat and flames.

It was about quiet, control and annihilation.

“Yes,” I whispered, staring into his eyes.

He stepped back, his hands moving from me but one went to his back pocket and he pulled out his phone.

Stunned, freaked and now a little more than scared, as the heavy air in the room pressed into my skin, I stood pressed against the wall and watched him hit buttons. I then watched him put it to his ear.

I then watched him speak.

“Dog, find BeeBee. I don’t know where the f**k she is but find her. When you do, tell that bitch her ass doesn’t get near Ride or Chaos. Not again. Not ever. Make that clear in a way she does not mistake it. Then you share that shit wide, brother. BeeBee is gone. She shows her face again, you or any of the brothers, make a statement.” He paused to listen to Dog as I caught my breath at his words. “She got hold of Tyra. Filled her head with shit. Lied about what she gave me. On Chaos. To Tyra’s face.” This was an explanation that led to another pause. “Yeah, brother, on Chaos direct in the face of my old lady.” Again a pause then, “Right. Later.”

He disconnected, shoved the phone back in his pocket and locked eyes with me.

“You will not see Beebee again,” he declared and I sucked in dearly needed breath.

When I accomplished this feat, I asked, “What does ‘make a statement’ mean?”

“It means, that bitch is stupid enough to come back, shit will rain down on her and she will not be stupid again.”

Oh boy.

“What does that mean?” I whispered.

Tack did not whisper. “Whatever it needs to mean to get that message across.”

It was then I realized I was shaking.

But Tack wasn’t done. Far from it.

I knew this when he kept talking.

“Earlier, you pissed me off because you made assumptions and you hung up on me. I don’t like to get hung up on. Don’t do it again.”

I didn’t move except to keep shaking.

Tack didn’t care. He kept speaking.

“I already told you once, no good woman deserves that shit. I’ve f**ked BeeBee, you know it, we do not need to go back there and you sure as f**k are not gonna drag me back there every time something crawls up your ass. Now, with the shit she did, that will not be a problem. She didn’t corner you on Chaos without someone at your back, which, if you had someone taking your back she would not have said dick or even f**kin’ looked at you, you’d see her again. Now, you won’t. And I’ll be havin’ words with Hop about takin’ off and leavin’ you behind, knowin’ he left you open for that bitch to get at you.”

I was glad I wouldn’t be present at that conversation.

“But, bottom line,” Tack continued, “I don’t do that shit. I told you that about me right off the f**kin’ bat. You got stung when that shit went down when we started, you didn’t get over it and you took that shit out on me. Now this is twice you’ve taken that shit out on me. Don’t take that shit out on me again, Tyra. Face it, process it, deal with it, set it aside.”

He was wrong, in a way.

I didn’t inform him of that.

I just swallowed but said not a word.

Tack kept going.

“As for Hop, he don’t tell me where to put my dick, I return the favor. Mitzi can be a pain in the ass. She can also be a ball-buster. Hop does not like gettin’ his balls busted. They got problems at home. How he deals with that is not my business. It’s not yours. It’s theirs. They deal with it, we roll with it. That said, he is not the only member of Chaos who gets his rocks off when he wants with who he wants and that might not be his old lady. You workin’ at the garage, bein’ with me, you might see shit like you did today. You ignore it. You don’t share it. You can tell me, anyone else, no. That’s an absolute, babe. Never. Every woman connected to the Club knows it. This is a brotherhood and we have each other’s backs in everything. Everything. But there are boys in that Club who don’t mind bein’ claimed. Brick, when he’s got a woman, is one. Dog is another. I’m another. By that I mean, we got a woman, we don’t stray. Get that now so we don’t have to talk about this shit again.”