“Not even close to all of it.”

“Just fucking tell me already,” I said, thinking about how Chop roughed up Ti made my own stomach start to churn. It could have been her. He could have killed her.

“He didn’t just kill Em,” Wolf said, looking back at Stone who was face down between his elbows.

“He killed another one?” I asked, wondering why the fuck Chop would kill two BBBs.

Wolf shook his head. “No, brother…he killed them all.”

“Holy Fuck,” I said, taking a seat on the bench. Wolf sat next to me.

“We took off our cuts and burnt the fuck out of our skin because a Prez, a real Prez, wouldn’t do that kind of shit. He wouldn’t kill people you love,” Wolf said, looking me square in the eye so I could see he was telling the truth. “And I get it now. Why you left. ’Cause he asked you to chose between the club and people you think of as family and that shit ain’t right.” He shook his head. “It ain’t fucking right.”

“Executed,” Munch piped in. “In the court yard, one by fucking one. We tried to stop him. He shot a prospect in the leg and told us to mind our own fucking business while he took care of his.”

“Why the fuck would he kill BBBs?” I asked, thinking of the innocent fucking girls whose only crime was wanting to be part of a world they shouldn’t have wanted to be a part of.

“We got no clue. All we know is that he called them all out into the courtyard and put a gun to their heads. He kept yelling at them, asking them where she was, and when they would ask who he was talking about or tell them that they didn’t know, he’d lay them out and kick their bleeding bodies into the pool.”

I held my face in my hands. “He didn’t stop until they were all gone,” Wolf said, lighting another cigarette with the one in his hand.

“It happened so fucking quick. One minute he was fine and the next minute he was murdering all the club whores. When he was done, he walked around muttering and then locked himself in his office. When he came back out, he acted like nothing had happened. He told the prospects to clean up the mess and he played a game of pool. It was real fucking bazaar,” Munch said.

“He killed my old lady,” Stone wailed.

I pulled on my beard and glanced over to Stone. “Chop’s been trying to go after my old lady since before she was even mine,” I admitted. “I can’t tell you I know how you feel brother, but I can tell you how it feels to be afraid of that happening every fucking second of the day.” Remembering the bloodied mess Gus had dropped off at King’s doorstep that was Ti made me grit my teeth until I thought they’d crack.

“First of all, I’m shocked as shit that you, of all fucking people, have an old lady, but we’ll talk about that shit when we have less pressing matters beating on our fucking doorstep,” Wolf said, with a small smile that reminded me of how close we used to be. The familiarity of us sitting at a table, no matter how shitty the subject was we were discussing, was a welcome feeling.

“There are nine of us. Nine who burnt off our tats the night after the BBB thing. The three of us, Gus, Chump, and a few of the others. When Chop gave the orders to come here and take you out, it was the perfect opportunity,” Munch said, looking around to make sure no one was listening. There was only one guard and he was by the gate on the other side of the yard where they had come in. Well out of earshot.

“Opportunity for what?” I asked, still unsure of why they would follow Chop’s orders to come to County if they were no longer Bastards.

“Chop wants to go to war with you,” Munch stated. He held out his open hands and stretched his arms out to his sides. “You’re gonna need an army.”

Stone looked up from his arm for the first time. “We’re your army.”

“I appreciate that, but if that war ever happens it might be in here because I got something in the works to get me out, but if it doesn’t come through I’m looking at hard fucking time,” I said, wiping the beading sweat off my forehead.

“You in here because of the girl, aren’t you?” Munch asked. “’Cause killing two civilians ain’t really your style.”

“Yeah.” I inhaled deeply, needing the nicotine more than ever. “Better me than her. Would fucking do it again in a heartbeat. I signed a confession, so it don’t look like I’m going nowhere anytime soon.”

“You leave that to us, brother,” Munch said with a slick smile. The kid could always figure his way around shit, so I wouldn’t put it past him to really be able to get me out somehow. “We already have something in the works.”

“What Munch means is that a chick he used to bang got herself a job sorting evidence for the county,” Wolf said.

“That right?”

“Yep, and it seems that the guns used in the murders have just up and disappeared,” Munch said, making a poof with his hands. It’s not like those guns had my prints on them, but it was still enough to cause a big ripple in the prosecution’s case.

“They still have my signed confession.”

Wolf laughed. “They don’t anymore. Funny thing about that too. The prosecutor assigned to the case seems to have lost all traces of it. And the judge—being old and senile and not to mention deeply in debt to us for running his daughter’s fiancé out of town—swears he never even saw it.” He winked.

Wolf shook his head and smiled. “We also think that hot shot, shady as fuck lawyer of yours had the coroner’s report altered to say a whole bunch of conflicting things about the murder. She filed for a case dismissal, so now we just wait.”

Munch cracked his knuckles and slid an unlit cigarette behind his right ear. “That bitch is shady as fuck, and I’d like to show her how much I appreciate the way she looks in those tight skirts by way of fucking her cougar ass sideways. She prosecuted a couple of cases where I wound up on the wrong side of the courtroom, and I swear I didn’t care how much time I got as long as she kept bending that fine ass over her table to sort through her papers.”

The three of us laughed and even Stone smiled briefly. It all felt normal.

Well, as normal as I’d ever known.

Somehow I had a feeling that it wouldn’t be the last time Bethany Fletcher and I would be working together.