My club was never what you would call clean. We lived there. Didn’t really give a fuck about much more than that. It was a place where we drank, smoked, fucked, got high, and did anything else that made life worthwhile. This place, though, makes my nose curl every-fucking-time. I hate it. Almost as much as I hate the man who owns it. Cecil “Drummer” Crayber. My brother. I despise the asshole. I always have. He’s my older brother, who also raised me and Preacher. When we moved out we swore we’d never come back to Cecil and ask for a goddamn thing.

Yet here I am.

It’s just another reason to hate Hayden and that ugly-fuck she’s hooked herself up with. How she could let that mangled mess of flesh crawl between her legs is beyond me. Whores are all the same. Doesn’t matter whose dick they get as long as they get something more out of it.

“Drummer you have to do something,” I growl, tired of keeping my head down, begging like a damned dog asking for table scraps. He sits on some fucking throne-like chair in this damned office and looks at me like I’m some kind of annoyance—like I’m nothing more than a piece of chewing gum he stepped on, and is now stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Son of a fucking bitch, I’m tired of it. I get Beast taken care of and Hayden pays for the shit I’ve gone through, I’ll show Drummer. I’ll take over his fucking business. Maybe I’ll let him see how much better I am at it…before I kill him.

“I did something. I sent my best man after Preacher’s dime-bag snatch you say is responsible for his death.”

“Your best man? You have got to be kidding me! He couldn’t even shoot her and he had a clear fucking shot! He drove away like some frightened kid.”

“You mean like the kid you hired to hold up her store? He did so much better.”

“That was a mistake!”

“You seem to make a lot of those,” Drummer counters and God I hate him. I lied to him when I told him that Hayden belonged to Preacher. I know if he knew she was mine, he wouldn’t give a damn. He is only helping now in order to avenge Preacher’s death. Not because he gives a fuck, but because he likes to send out messages that no one touches his world without dying.

It’s all fucking ego with Drummer. It always has been. I look at him and I doubt I hide my hate for him very successfully. His office is the back of a meat packing warehouse. The fucking thing smells like rotted flesh and gasoline. I’m not sure why—it just does. There’s a lone light dangling above his used desk and it’s not anything more than a rope and exposed lightbulb. The only thing decent in this room is the high-backed, leather chair that he sits in. He’s smoking a fucking cigar which stinks even more than the fucking room. His dark hair, so different than mine and Preacher’s is oily as shit. He’d probably never get laid if it wasn’t for those fucking diamonds on his hands. Money really can buy anything. If I had any left, I sure as fuck wouldn’t be here.

“I did the best I could do with the money I had. It’s not my fault the fucking kid messed up by getting greedy and demanding the money first,” I mutter, scratching my scalp at the back of my neck and pulling my head down to get control of my nerves. I haven’t had a fucking fix in days. I’m starting to suffer withdrawals. I’d ask Drummer for a hit, but the fucker would just say no. I’ll find some later on the streets. There’s always a way to get it. I’ve learned that, if nothing else over the past few months. That’s another thing to hate Hayden for. She’s the reason I’ve been turning tricks, and forced to take it up the ass just for a small taste of what used to flow freely in my club. Fucking cunt.

“You didn’t tell me the bitch was pregnant. Alistair has one golden rule. He won’t kill a woman who is pregnant.”

“Gee, a fucking assassin with a conscience,” I mock, trying to hide the way my hand shakes.

“You’d be surprised. You still haven’t told me what happened to Preacher,” Drummer pushes.

“You know him. He always got off on running a church and seeing how many of those sainted women he could fuck on the altar. He was going after this one and her boyfriend didn’t like it when he found out she gave in,” I tell him, giving him the lie with a partial truth. Preacher did love the old Reverend con, even if this time he was doing it to keep his eye on Hayden without alerting the damned Torasani’s.

“I told him that shit was going to get him killed someday. He never listened to me though. Neither one of you did,” the bastard says. I feel a cold sweat pop out over my body and my body jerks with the hunger I feel clawing inside of me.

“Jesus are you withdrawing? You, stupid fuck! Didn’t I tell you and Preacher what happens when you mess with that shit?”

“Like you don’t,” I growl. “It’s fine. I’ll get it contained. I just need you to avenge our brother.”

“I don’t let that shit around me. Not now. My fucking ex was hooked on that shit. She almost destroyed my business. I was glad to see her go. Fucking cunt didn’t tell me she was pregnant when she left. If she were still alive, I’d wring her neck myself,” Drummer growls. “Get the fuck out of here and don’t bother coming back. I’m not helping a stupid junkie,” he orders.

He’s so high and mighty. He doesn’t realize I still have an ace up my sleeve. He’s the only reason Preacher and I decided to take the job from the Donahues. The thought of killing his daughter and woman made Preacher and me hard for days. We fucked woman after woman after that little victory. It didn’t matter that Drummer never knew—we did.

“What if I told you the man guarding Hayden is the one responsible for your daughter’s death?” I ask him, baiting my hook and waiting to reel my brother in.

“What the fuck are you talking about? My men tracked Jan down. They said she died in a freak car explosion. A gasoline leak. My daughter was with her. It still fucking upsets me that I had a daughter I had no idea existed for years. That fucking cunt deserved worse than burning alive.”

“That’s where you are wrong. I did some work for the Donahue family.”

“You don’t do shit,” he mocks.

“I did. And I happen to know they hired a hit on Beast and that the vehicle Jan was driving that night, was actually his.”

“How do you know this?”

“You’d be surprised at what I know, brother. In fact, I know Beast has moved in with this bitch. Maybe you could get revenge on the man who stole your daughter from you and Preacher’s ex. Want to know more?”

Drummer looks me over, and I do my best not to flinch. I’m sitting on a delicate house of cards. I have to be careful not to let them all fall down. It feels like an eternity, sitting here with Drummer staring down at me. Finally, he shifts in his seat, opens the side drawer of his old metal desk. He puts a square mirror on the table with a razor and straw, pushing it towards me. Then he takes out a small clear bag of coke and sways it back and forth, between his fingers.

“You get this, if I like what you have to say,” he says, his face cold. I clamp my hands into fists to fight the urge to yank the drugs out of his hand. I better make this story good. I need those drugs almost as much as I need to see Beast and Hayden dead for the life they’ve cost me.

They will pay.