SEVEN

Hooch

My hand twitches over the tinderbox in my pocket. Damn, I could use a hit right now. But … no drugs in the chapel. My old man made that rule, and I’ll damn well enforce it, otherwise we’ll end up with half the men in attendance fucked off their faces in meetings like this one.

“You got anything good to say?” I look hopefully at Crackers.

He just smiles and shakes his head. “Everyone we talked to had a different story; not a single one the same. My guess is the Wingmen have got to them first and made sure they skew the facts.”

“Likely.” I slam my itching palm down on the table; contemplating ways I could possibly sneak a hit. Get it together, boy.

“Where to next?” Murphy asks. “If we got nowhere in San Antonio, then what’s the next option?”

“Let me talk with our Lincoln brothers,” Crackers offers. “Mighty up there has some contacts on the right side of the law for what we need to know. He can probably get a few people to dig around border patrol and see if somebody knows who’s pushing the kilos.”

“Yeah, but what if the person bringing it in isn’t the same one who’s moving on our territory?” I put on my best curious expression, considering I know for a fact these men will never find out who’s importing it.

The extra coke isn’t coming from Mexico. It’s not being smuggled in from Colombia either. The shit doesn’t pass a single international border to get to us. For every kilo that’s confiscated in raids, five hundred grams of it returns to the street for exactly this reason: to flush out the players and take them down in controlled circumstances. Unfortunately, in this case, I’ve become one of the DEA’s best chess pieces in an operation gone wrong.

I know who’s supplying it, but what I really need to know is who’s distributing. Are the Wingmen changing lanes? Or do we have a new idiot to contend with?

I’m going with the latter.

“You have a point; it might not be the same person.” Murphy nods. “But still, I think Crackers might be right. Can’t hurt to ask anyway.”

“Do it then.” I wave a hand dismissively at the group. “Report back in twelve hours with what he’s got for us.”

“Might take longer than that by the time the question works through the grapevine.”

“Don’t care. Make them whisper faster, skip the middleman. I’m tired of fuckin’ around with this.”

Crackers frowns, clearly pissed at my pushiness. So fucking what? He’s not the one with a government agent dangling the death penalty over his head. I slam the gavel and look each officer in the eye as they leave the room one by one, the hurt and betrayal multiplying with each set of curious yet trusting eyes.

These men look to me for the answer. Little do they know I already have half of it and this is the most fucked up game of Jeopardy I’ve ever played. I’m leading them blind into what’ll either turn out as one hell of a dodged bullet, or a life sentence for me.

Murphy remains seated after the rest have left, his hands clasped before him.

“I’m getting déjà vu, brother.”

He smirks at my comment, yet doesn’t look across the table to me. “Aye. It is a bit like that, ain’t it?”

I step away from the head of the table and shut the doors at the far end of the room. Facing Murphy with a sigh, I take a seat beside him.

“Spit it out. We’ve known each other too long to dance around subjects like this.”

His dark eyes lift, and he sucks in a deep breath. “You’ve got somethin’ up your sleeve, don’t you?”

My Adam’s apple bobs as I do my utmost to swallow away my sudden case of cottonmouth. “I’ve heard things.”

“Like?”

“Rumors.” I’m not completely lying to him; the things Donovan told me, I’ve seen no hard evidence. The only thing I know for sure is the carrot he’s dangling in front of me is one hundred percent organic.

“You can’t shut us out of this, brother. If you know something, you need to tell us.”

“I will.” When the time is right. “Just not now. You have to trust me when I say it affects me, not the club.”

“Hooch, son, you are the club. Anything harms you, it directly filters to the rest of us.” His eyes harden. “You get that, right?”

“Yeah, Murph, I do.”

He reclines in his seat, rapping the knuckles of his right hand on the table. “Your father and I knew these days would come, where the need to survive went hand in hand with riskin’ injury or death. Nobody starts an outlaw motorcycle club with the illusion it’s going to be sunshine and roses the whole way.”

“True.”

“We also knew the day would come where people would divide because of those issues. Where members would pick sides, trust would be lost, and lies would become the truth, simply because there were so many nobody could recall what was fact and what wasn’t.”

“Where you goin’ with this?” I harden my gaze on the guy, trying to get a read on the message between the lines.

“The day will come; we’re on our way down that road already. But brother, you gotta hold on. Don’t let the club fall divided on your watch.”

“You know that’s not my intention.”

“Maybe so, but best intentions never turn out how we hope, do they?”

“I guess not.”