“Phil! Where’s Zane?” Arsen growled as he stomped into the clubhouse, shoving past Michelle and Quinn as they stepped out of the bedroom.
“I think he’s in his office on the phone. Why?”
“Church, five minutes,” he snapped.
“What’s wrong?” Michelle asked as they followed him into the clubhouse proper.
He moved to the bar and poured a drink. “The fucking Horsemen are on the move. They…” He paused before he said too much. “We’re going to have to deal with them,” he said then tossed the clear liquid back, gritting his teeth and sneering against the burn.
When he marched away, going into the meeting room where the club conducted business, Quinn looked at Michelle. “What’s going on?”
“I…can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Club business.”
“Oh,” Quinn said. She was well aware of what that meant, and she was still an outsider.
***
Phil was the last of the three officers to step into the room and he closed the door behind him. “What’s up?”
“It’s the fucking Horsemen.”
“Are you shitting me?” Zane asked. “They never give up do they?”
“No, and I’m tired of fucking with them.” He placed his phone on the table, scrolling through contacts until he found the one he wanted. The phone purred as it dialed.
“Williams,” the voice on the phone said.
“Roger Williams?”
“Who’s this?”
“Arsen Kyle.”
“What do you want Kyle?”
“I know about your counterfeiting business. I’m calling you to tell you it’s going to stop, now. You tried this shit before and it didn’t work. It’s not going to work this time either, and if it doesn’t stop, we’re going to fuck you in the ass.”
“Who do you think you are, you arrogant prick?” Roger growled.
“I’m the fucking angel of death, you asshole!” Arsen snarled. “You think you want to make molly? Fine, give it your best shot! But you crossed the line when you started stamping your shit with our design. If that doesn’t stop, I’ll kill you and every fucking member of your club!”
“Bring it on, you cock sucker! We missed you at the cabin, but I wouldn’t mind getting another shot at you.”
Arsen sat back and stared at his phone. He finally had confirmation. He leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table as he leaned in close to the phone. He wanted to make sure Williams could hear every word. “I’ve always suspected it was you but I didn’t know. Now I do. I’ll gut you myself for what you did.”
“You want to fuck with us? I’ll have you on your knees with my cock in your mouth, just like that whore wife of yours. And your mother,” Roger sneered, trying to get inside Arsen’s head.
Arsen went incandescing with rage. “You’re good at that, aren’t you? Abusing helpless women. It’s because you, you and your entire club, are just a bunch of pussies. I know what you did with the Riders, and how you took those women. Raping women makes you feel like a big man, doesn’t it? You can’t even do that right. One of them killed your man, didn’t she? She killed him and got away clean. A starved, beaten, abused woman out smarted your entire club and is tougher than you.” He paused, breathing hard. “We’re going to do to you what you did to Quinn, Miranda and Teresa. What you did to Holly. We’re coming for you, and I’m going to kill you myself. But it won’t be quick. I’ll make it slow. I’ll keep you alive for days, until you’re begging me to kill you.”
There was a pause. “You have her?”
Arsen grinned wickedly. “Yes. There’s nothing you have that I can’t take.”
“I want her back.”
“You want her back? Okay, why don’t we meet, just me and you, and I’ll give her back,” he sneered, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Williams paused again. “Bring me the girl and we’ll talk about the molly.”
Arsen chuckled. “You mistake me for someone stupid. I don’t trust you as far as I can piss on you. How about this? We keep the girl and you stop counterfeiting our product, and we won’t cut off your dicks and give them to her in a box tied up with a bow.”
“You think your dick is big enough to take us on, then come on. Let’s dance. Then we’ll see who’s fucking who. And when it’s over, we’ll make sure we show your old ladies what real men are like.”
Arsen was seething inside but kept his voice level. “Fine. I guess we’ll see who has the bigger dicks.”
He stabbed his phone to end the call. He sat, his breath heaving, trying to reel in is rage. Now was not the time for white hot rage. He needed to be ice cold and calculating. The Chrome Horsemen were three times their size, larger than the Desert Riders and the Blacktop Blades combined. If the Blades were going to take them on, they were going to have to be smart, and careful.
“We’re going to deal with those fuckers once and for all,” Arsen snarled. “The world will be better off without them, and we’re going to make that happen. Phil, get everyone together. We need to vote this.”
Phil rose to go round up the brothers, but Zane hung back. “What can I do?”
“What do you mean?” Arsen asked, looking at him.
“I want to know what I can do to help you. I know this has to be tearing your guts open.”
“I’m good.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. You’re not good. Nobody would be good. Let Phil and me handle the details of this. You’re too close.”
“No,” Arsen said firmly. “I have to do this. I owe her, them, that much. I have to see it through.” He paused and looked at his friend and put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll do this together, but watch me. I need you to call me out if I start making bad decisions, decisions that are going to cost us brothers. I don’t want to throw away more lives just for revenge.”
Zane nodded. “Count on it.”
Arsen stepped out of church. “Quinn. I need you to do me a favor,” he said, stepping up to her.
“What?”
“I need you to go wait in the plant.” He could tell the request hurt her feelings, but it couldn’t be helped.
“Okay.”
“This won’t take long. I’ll come get you.”
“It’s about the Chrome Horsemen?”
“Yeah. We need to hold a vote. It’s club business, you understand.”
“I understand the club business, but I don’t understand what you want with the Horsemen.”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Yeah, I get it,” she said softy as she rose. “I’m still an outsider.”
He gave her a kiss on top of the head. “It’s nothing personal.”
“I know,” she muttered as she turned and walked toward the back of the clubhouse, and out the door.
The door hadn’t closed from her exit when the brothers from the plant began to file in. Church was too small of a room for them all to meet, but Arsen wanted everyone’s buy-in before he took the club to war.
When all the brothers were present, Ansen laid it all out. How the Horsemen had wiped out the Riders to take over their weed business, how they were being pushed out of the cocaine trafficking business, and how they were the ones turning out the fake Hearts and Daggers. The last bit was what really pissed everyone off, and when he called for a vote it was unanimous.
“Anyone opposed?” Arsen asked, just for formality. Silence. “Okay. Go start shutting down the plant,” he ordered, “then go get ready to take care of business. Phil, Zane, with me.”
As the other members filed out, Arsen turned and walked into church and shut the door behind them. “What do you think about bringing Quinn in on this?”
“Why?” Phil asked.
“Because she was in their clubhouse for three weeks. She may have some intel we can use.”
“I don’t know what she can tell us, but it couldn’t hurt,” Zane agreed.
“She’s going to want to know why. I think we should tell her.”
“Wait a minute,” Zane cautioned. “Are we sure about that?”
“I am. She was part of the Riders. They moved weed, we make molly. For all practical purposes, that’s the same thing. I trust her. She’s proven her worth to the club.”
“I agree, but redesigning our website to help us sell soap is a hell of a lot different than putting her in the loop on the molly,” Phil pointed out.
“I know. But she’s not stupid. If we tell her we’re going to take out the Horsemen and we want her help, she’s going to know it’s not because they’re trying to break into the bath oil business.”
“So you want to bring her into the club?” Zane asked, just to make sure Arsen understood what he was saying.
“Yes.”
“As your old lady?”
“If you want to look at it that way. Look, we need her, okay? When the Advocates dropped a dime on the Horsemen, they also told me they want to double their order size. This works because we ship enough of the legal shit to cover what we use for the molly. But if the molly orders outpace the soap by too much, then we’ll have a hard time explaining where all the stuff is going. That’s when people start crawling up our asses with microscopes. But if we can push the soap right along with the rise in molly, that keeps us under the radar.”
“You’re talking about giving her a share?”
“Two. She’d earned it, don’t you think?”
The Blades operated on a share system. The club took its cut, then what was left was divided among the members and their old ladies. If you worked for the club, you got a cut. One share for general labor, such as running the machinery in the plant, packaging the product, or maintaining the clubhouse. Two shares for skilled labor, like machine maintenance, handling the books for the club, or in Quinn’s case, marketing their legitimate business. Arsen and Alex got three shares because of their more specific skills, and the officers received an additional share for running the club.
“I don’t know about this,” Zane muttered. “I agree she earned the shares, but I think we’re taking a big risk letting her know where the money is coming from.”
Arsen nodded in understanding. “She’s going to know the shares aren’t coming from B3. I know the code, but I trust her.”
Phil looked at him. “You up for that? You’ve been pretty protective of her.”
Arsen met his eyes. “If it comes to it, I’ll take care of her myself.”
Zane and Phil looked at each other. “So long as you know this is on you if it goes tits up,” Zane said.
Arsen nodded. “It’s on me.”