Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 36646 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 183(@200wpm)___ 147(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36646 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 183(@200wpm)___ 147(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
“You act like I’m doing you a huge favor. What’s going on?”
“This goes with you to the grave, Jo. I’m telling you because I need you to know what I’m up against so you can protect Liam if need be.” He glanced up at Mike. “You too. To the grave.”
I widened my stance and crossed my arms over my chest, lifting my chin. “Give it to us.”
“They want me to be an assassin for them.”
“Jesus, Taz.” Pops stepped forward again, putting himself between me and Taz one more time. “What the fuck?”
“If I can’t get out of this and you’re actively working against them, they will set their sights on you next. I don’t want to go up against you, Jo. No matter if I was able to get the best of you or not, I’d still lose. And that’s a mighty big if, and I’m not too proud to admit it. But these guys would never stop, even if I failed. They have one assassin over a very small group. He controls everything. And he never misses. They call him El Diablo, but I think with them it’s more a title than a name. It’s passed down from one assassin to the next.”
“Fine.” I tried to ignore Pops, but it was hard. He was head and shoulders taller than me and probably outweighed me by a hundred pounds. All of it muscle. Kind of hard to ignore when he didn’t want to be ignored. “But you have to keep your promise. No longer than three years. Not because I don’t want the responsibility or anything. Because that boy needs his father.”
“I swear. Give me three years. I’ll come back for him, no matter what it costs me.”
“And back to your brothers,” Pops said firmly. “Liam’s not the only one who needs you. What about the boys here? I saw several who looked like they’re barely more than kids.”
“All of them served in one way or another. All in Nam. Most in my unit. I promised I’d give them a home and I’m trying. But I could use some help.” He looked from Pops to me and back again. “Please. I want to make this a club with its own set of rules. Its own code. We make money, support each other, and stick to our code. If that means we have to skirt the law, we do it. If someone in our territory needs killin’, we do that too. As long as it doesn’t go against our moral code -- which means we don’t hurt innocents and we always protect women and children. It’s not about making a living so much as it’s to give these guys a sense of freedom and control over their own lives. A sense of purpose. Anything else is an added bonus and will go into a club fund.”
“Fair enough,” Pops said. “We never harm women or children.” I thought Pops repeated that last to reinforce there was a hard line there. I agreed with him about the children and mostly about the women, though I was a firm believer that some of the worst people who needed to die were women.
“Absolutely not. There’s a budding drug highway coming through this way. Coming in primarily through military channels, but it’s spreading. They’re taking it in this direction because it’s rural. Most of these guys have problems with heroin. I’d like to keep that stuff out of our territory. And bury any motherfucker who doesn’t take the fuckin’ hint so no one will find even their bones.”
“First thing we need to do is finish building the clubhouse,” Pops offered. “After that, we’ll work on what we’re gonna do with the club. You got a name for it yet?”
“Yeah.” Taz grinned. “I’m gonna call it Bones.”
Chapter Seven
Mike/Pops
A week later, I was still trying to come to terms with everything Taz had dumped on us. I knew about the Brotherhood. Or, at least, knew of them. That last was the worst part. The fact that I knew about the Brotherhood made me a marked man. No one outside the Brotherhood was supposed to know they existed. And I most decidedly wasn’t part of them. With Taz being with them now, I worried about his son, Liam. Then there was Gracie and her baby.
At any other time in my life, I might have scoffed at the idea of a family. After my first tour in Nam, I decided I never wanted to have to go through what my mother was going through. I could have a woman and companionship, but I didn’t have to bring children into the world. And, honestly, this was the first time I ever realized I could actually have people in my life closer than blood. Not having kids didn’t help me at fucking all. Alex and Gracie were definitely tugging at my heartstrings as much as they did my mama tiger’s.