50
“Where’s Tania?” I asked Butler.
I’d made it back to the One-Eyed Jacks. I wanted to be gone within the hour.
Butler glared at me. “She’s with her brother,” he replied.
Before I’d left this morning to go see Lenore, I’d woken up Tania and told her to go check on her brother in his holding cell and make sure he was ready to ride home by the time I got back. I assured her I wouldn’t be getting rid of Catch, but he had to learn to keep his dick in check. We both agreed that it seemed Catch had real feelings for Nina, that she wasn’t just some joyride. Before we’d gotten to that conversation, though, she’d shot up in the bed when I told her I was going into town for a couple hours. She’d known where I was headed, that there was no way I wouldn’t go see her.
She grabbed my arm as I shoved my boots on, stopping me. “Please, be kind to her.”
“Tania, all I’ve ever wanted was the best for her.”
“I know,” she’d whispered.
I’d stayed up most of the night trying to figure out what I’d say, what I’d do. All I knew was I had to see her. Judge my reaction to her, judge hers. Feel it.
Oh, I’d felt all right. And I knew.
My blood knew. My skin knew. My heartbeat knew.
I wanted more.
I’d demanded to be with her. It was a force I couldn’t control. A base instinct, a reflex that took hold of me sitting there in her beautiful house, watching her, breathing her in. Touching her. I was glad I’d said what I had. Fuck timing, fuck all the reasons.
I wanted another chance with her. We were unfinished business. She was a river that still rushed through my veins, the source undiscovered.
I wanted her. I wanted her back, to try again. To have that life we always wanted together, or maybe to try something new.
Right now, I had to find out from Butler what the hell his intentions were by having Reich’s sister-in-law as his old lady. Was it a ploy set up by Reich? Did the two of them have a secret deal between them and were pulling my chain? I wouldn’t allow Reich access to my territory, no way in this hell or the other, and I’d freeze out the Jacks for good if Butler was double dealing me.
Butler glared at me, his pale blue eyes looking like chunks of glass in the sunlight out in the Jacks’ courtyard.
“I want to talk to you,” I told him. “Let’s take a walk down by the track.”
We walked down the side of the hill to the old go-kart track where two Jacks were testing a rat rod.
“I’ll get straight to the point,” I said.
“You always do.”
“Why are you with that girl?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your old lady. Don’t tell me you fell hard for her and dragged her all the way out here from Ohio ’cause you couldn’t live without her.”
Butler crossed his arms. “Something like that.”
“That something ain’t it.”
He didn’t say a word.
“It’s me you’re talking to, Butler, not Jump. You and me have always been able to put our cards on the table with each other.”
“I went with my gut on this one.”
Just like I thought, no heart involved. Only his strategic brain cells and maybe his dick, but not his heart.
“You went with your brain,” I shot back. “Nina is connected to Reich’s club—one of the strongest charters of my MC—which pushes product from the east into the south. He’s been looking to find his own outlet through the Plains to the west, but that’s my route, and so far, all these years, no one’s fucked with me. Reich, your old lady’s brother-in-law, has been dying to get some play out here. You hooked up with that girl and handed him access to the Jacks on a silver platter while you hooked up with me at the same time?”
“I haven’t handed anybody anything, let alone on a silver platter. And I’m not interested in fucking with you, Finger. I worked for you whenever I was allowed to while I was nomad, even did it on the sly when I shouldn’t have. I respect you, always have, for years now, and you know it.”
“I do know. But don’t tell me Jump let you back on board here at his club ’cause he missed your handsome face and witty personality.”
He let out a dry laugh. “He definitely didn’t miss me.”
“You wanted back into your club. You had to bring something to the table, and you did. That’s good. I understand that.”
Butler explained his deep-seated guilt about having let down his club with his cocaine addiction and subsequent double dealing.
“That’s a huge fuck-up,” I said. “But you do something Reich doesn’t like—let’s say, kick his sister-in-law to the curb now that she cheated on you—he’ll come after you. He’s a possessive shit on all counts—business, family, women. He doesn’t need much in the way of an excuse to drop everything and come calling.” My neck straightened. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
He returned my hard gaze with his own. “Yeah, I know a few things about Reich. A few things I shouldn’t. I did a second job for his chapter last year, a job nobody else would touch. That gave me an in with him. An in I took advantage of.”
I needed to know what Butler had found out. I’d been patiently waiting for years to hang Reich with a noose of his own making. To rally the Flames against him with solid proof. To ring that bell for all to hear—unmistakeable and clear. This was why I’d nudged Butler his way in the first place.
“And the frosting on that cake was hooking up with his old lady’s sister to keep you and him on the same page?” I asked.
“Something like that.”
“How long do you think this little deal you’ve got going with Reich is gonna last, bitch or no?” I let out a laugh. “Now that her and Catch have made a spectacle of themselves, you can be sure it’s going to be common knowledge that there’s a crack in your relationship, that she ain’t happy. That you two are done. Someone’s gonna try to exploit that rift. Exploit both our clubs.”
“I won’t let that happen. Nina fucked up, and she knows it. She knows what’s at stake. She’s keeping low for now.”
“Damage is already done, Butler. Add to the mix the Broken Blades, who have had it raw for you and for me since we got rid of the Calderón group. Notch needed that alliance. Now he’s like a hungry junkyard dog, desperate to keep whatever is left of his club together, desperate for a bone let alone a good meal. He’s fucking rabid, and I like him that way.”
Notch would never give in to me, and my mouth watered at the thought of his next move and my ultimate retaliation. It needed to be done right.
“And then you’ve got Jump on your back,” I continued. “How long until your Prez pulls the rug out from under your sparkly ass? I bet he loved this shit last night, huh?”
Butler brushed his boot into the dirt. “Yeah, he enjoyed it.”
“I don’t want what we have going on to be fucked with,” I said. “I’m trying to focus on patching in the Blades right now.”
“And you don’t think that’s gonna stir up trouble?”
“It sure as hell is,” I said. “But if I don’t make a play now that they’re down, someone else will, and soon. We can’t have outsiders coming in so close to our territories. Jump thinks it’s got nothing to do with him. He’s living with blinders on.”
“Jesus, you and Jump have never seen eye to eye,” said Butler. “Two of you have been like oil and water for as far back as I can remember. Hell, Dig and I’d been this close to getting shit started with you, and then the minute Dig got killed, Jump made sure to break any ties with you. I never knew what the—”
“That’s between me and Jump,” I cut him off.
The rat rod roared past. That was Tricky driving, spinning around the track, fresh from Lenore’s bed.
Fucker.
I spat on the ground. “Don’t stay comfortable, Butler. After last night, shit’s up in the air. You made a good play, but you’d better sprout eyes in the back of your head to stay above water.”
“I had an opportunity with him, and I took it.”
My eyes drilled into his. “You seem mighty confident to me. You’ve got something on Reich, don’t you?”
Butler remained silent, his eyes following the car speeding around the track.
“And it’s good, huh?” I folded my arms across my chest. “I can’t get involved. You know I’ll have to take his back over yours if it all comes crashing down on your head.”
He eyed me. “I know, but you won’t.”
Yes. He had something I wanted.
“Things just got much more interesting then. Remember, you get Reich ticked at you, don’t expect me to save you. He might just test us both.” I raised my chin. “This ain’t the eighties or the nineties no more. The landscape keeps changing, brother. Do not underestimate the players on it. Wounded dogs do desperate things to stay alive. Be prepared. If Reich sniffs an opportunity to make you squirm, he’s gonna take it.”
Which way would Butler sway? Either way, I wasn’t going to sit around and trust it would be my way. I wanted whatever he had on Reich.
Tricky raised a fist outside his open car window, a huge grin on his face as he gunned around the track again.
My jaw clenched. “I’m heading out.”
Butler shifted his weight, his tongue toying with his bottom lip. “Hey, what’s with you and Tania?”
Poor bastard, he had it bad for her. Did I seem freshly fucked after a night with Tania? I sure as hell hoped so. Butler needed to sweat. He needed to work for a good woman like her.
“What do you fucking think?” I asked, my tone perfectly pitched to the tune of irritation.
His eyes widened a few degrees. He was struggling to keep it in check. “I don’t know what to think, but—”
“But what?” I eyed him, pushing down my amusement. “What’s it to you?”
He shut the hell up and averted his gaze back to the track.
That’s what I thought.
“You worry about Reich being pissed about his girl,” I said. “You know you can’t dump Nina’s ass just yet, if that’s what you want. Reich will use it as an excuse to come gunning for you and your club, and he’ll try to rope me into the party. You got to sit tight, and you got to make her sit tight even if you gotta lock her down to do it. I don’t want trouble for Catch or my club. And I don’t want any blowback from your club on Tania because of her brother, you hear?”
“Loud and clear,” Butler’s voice clipped.
“Reich is a vengeful motherfucker. He’s good at finding ways to make it burn, make it sting.”
We trekked back toward the clubhouse.
“Shit changes fast out in the prairie, man,” I said. “You’ve been away a while now. You’ve forgotten how the glare of the sun can create figments, illusions that just ain’t there.”
“I haven’t forgotten a damn thing.”
I tipped my head forward. “That’s good, ‘cause you can never be sure what’s out there in the wild grasses, lying in wait, lurking.”