Kaci

 

“You fucking did what?” Sydney screamed at me. Her eyes were wide, blood shot, and spittle flew from her lips. There we were, me and Micah both, getting reamed in the meeting room at Club Hades.

 

I hung my head in shame. There wasn't anything else I could really do. She and Micah were both right. I'd fucked up royally.

 

“What in the fucking fuck were you thinking, you fucking dipshit? You confessed to it, to a fucking cop?”

 

“I-”

 

“Shut the fuck up!” Sydney screamed, cutting me off. “Everything that's happened in my fucked up life, in your fucked up life, for the last week has been because of you! We had a chance here, and you fucked it up with him. I don't know what's fucking going on with you, but you need to pull your goddamned head out of your fucking ass before you get all of us arrested, or worse!”

 

I kept my head down. She was right, right about all of it. The hotel had been my fault, us ending up as property of the F&B MC was my fault, the truck had been all me, and now this. All of it, every bit of it.

 

Gov put a hand on her shoulder, and she paused to glance at him. She took a deep breath, tried to remain focused. But, then she was back at it, just not as loudly as before. “You dragged me away from my life,” Sydney said, her voice dripping with resentment as she ticked off the outcome of my decisions on one hand. “Sure, it wasn't a great life, but you got me fucking shot along the way, and now I might be going down for aiding and abetting your sorry ass. I don't know what the fuck happened to you, Kaci, but you're not the girl I met years ago.”

 

She was right, too. I'd survived the streets for years, practically on my own. I did it by keeping a cool head, by never going ahead half-cocked like I had been. Maybe losing Romeo had set something off in me. Like, if he wasn't around, what was the point?

 

I sighed and let my shoulders sag. “I'm . . . I'm sorry, Sydney. I'm really sorry, okay?”

 

“I know you are,” she said, her tone cutting.

 

I groaned again. I didn't know how I was going to make this right. But, luckily, I knew the first step. Change my attitude, before everyone else around me was put in deeper danger.

 

“And, you,” Sydney said, turning on the president of the God’s Hellfire MC, “what the fuck were you thinking with that bullshit story?”

 

# # #

Micah

 

“If this wasn't so goddamned awful,” Gov said, “I'd be laughing my ass off at how big of a fucking idiot you are, Don.”

 

I groaned. “I know I'm an idiot. I just thought I could pull it off somehow, you know, that I could take down Efraim and leave all you guys in the clear on it.”

 

“You thought you were going to somehow con an FBI field agent into thinking you were a mild-mannered business man, by insisting they not investigate you before or after you helped them?” he asked, slowly shaking his head.

 

Well, at least he wasn't screaming at me like Sydney had screamed at Kaci. Poor Kaci was shell-shocked from it, barely even able to mumble after her friend's verbal assault.

 

“See?” Gov asked. “That right there, that's your fucking problem, Don.”

 

“What?” I asked, blinking in surprise.

 

“That. You're fucking confident about everything, over-fucking-confident, if you ask me. You're like Evil Knievel trying to jump the goddamn Grand Canyon, but you want all of us to climb on the fucking bike with you.”

 

I almost laughed at his metaphor, but I kept it down. I'd always been bad about cracking up when I was getting yelled at, whether it was by Grandpa Quentin, or my father. Apparently, I was bad even when it was my best friend dressing me down.

 

“You got people depending on you, man,” Gov continued. “People who might go to fucking prison if you don't figure your shit out. I'm depending on you; these girls are depending on you. And, shit, look at the way you've been going after Petrov. I told you, dude, that we didn't need to go after the Bear again, but you kept right on, didn't you? And you almost got us killed then, didn't you?”

 

I sighed and sat back in my chair, crossed my legs. “My plan almost worked,” I said.

 

Gov sat back, laughing and shaking his head. “See? That's what I fucking mean. Confident to a motherfucking T, man.”

 

“Maybe I should just go, then,” I offered, my words carrying more vehemence and spite than I meant. As soon as I spoke them, I realized I sounded like a spoiled little brat.

 

“What?” Gov asked, genuinely perplexed. “You think running away is going to solve this problem? Nature abhors a void, Micah. You can't go, or someone else is going to step in to fill your space. Maybe more than one person. And, while we're fighting, the Thunder Kings roll in, and God knows what other gangs in the area. When we found the girls, you told everyone you'd never run girls. You think whoever takes over the MC after you're gone is going to have the same scruples? If someone worse comes in here, I'm not going to keep my mouth shut like I did with you in charge.”

 

I wiped a hand down my face, groaning in exasperation. “Fine,” I said, patting my leg, “what do you think we should do, since I'm apparently shit at making plans.”

 

Sydney and Gov looked to each other first, then back at me. “We've been talking,” Gov replied after a moment.

 

Sydney nodded emphatically. “We think Agent Brumfield is still the right way to go. But only with the truth.”

 

“The whole fucking truth,” Gov added, stabbing the air with his finger to punctuate each word. “And nothing fucking but.”

 

I sighed and nodded. “Fine,” I said.

 

It wasn't till Kaci and I got home a little later that I realized I'd just experienced the most polite coup of all time.