“I thought he was still on the road?”
“That’s what I’ve been told, but he’s back now,” I say, as I pull in a drag off my cigarette.
I left Red back home as my eyes and ears. He has stayed at the clubhouse since the morning we headed out to Alabama, even though my father had told him to ride north on another drop. He knows he’ll get shit for his actions, but he didn’t hesitate to do as I asked. He calls regularly to give me updates on my father’s whereabouts, but as of about an hour ago, he had said that Cash was still on the road.
“Red didn’t call and let you know he was back?” He asks, his mind going in the same direction as mine.
“No, he called in about an hour ago. Cash was still MIA at that time.”
He lets out a low drawn out whistle. “Fuck, brother. He got back to Rich Hill and came to your house before he went to the clubhouse. That doesn’t sound good.”
It isn’t. The fact that he was near her scares the shit out of me. For some reason, it also has me thinking of everything else that could go wrong. Without asking myself why I’m doing it, I pick up my phone again and shoot a quick message to Lock. Everything good on your end?
He replies a second later. He’s still holding tight.
I let out a relieved breath and place the phone in my pocket. At least I don’t have to worry about Marcus’ ass showing up while I’m away. He was back home from his trip before I left Kentucky, and Lock is keeping a close eye on him. Now, all I have to worry about is Cash.
Finally, I reply to Rollo. “No, brother. It’s not good. I don’t want his ass anywhere near my woman.”
“Do you think Toke called him about the delay? I know he hasn’t said shit, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off us. He knows something ain’t right.”
I look over to where Toke is nursing a beer at a table near the corner of the bar. It took some fast thinking to explain our delay. In the end, I was forced to get our original customers to call in asking to push back the drop off. That little phone call cost me a thousand dollars, but it was the only thing I could think of to keep Toke from asking question and maybe tipping Cash off.
“I don’t think so,” In my gut, I know his visit didn’t have shit to do with this run.
Tin leans forward in his seat to look past Rollo and meet my eyes. “What did he want?”
I cock a brow at him, letting him know the answer to his question without words. My brother knows Cash as well as I do, and we both know he wants Shay because she’s mine. “I told Tag to show her the safe room. If he comes back, she’ll hide out in there.”
“I don’t like the idea of that punk knowing about our stash,” Rollo remarks, throwing back a shot of whiskey.
I don’t either, but I didn’t have a fuckin’ choice. Grandpa extended the basement, not long after he bought the house in ’72. It was a few years after he and his buddies started the Outlaws. At the time, the local boys were all over their asses, wanting to shut the club down. He wanted a safe place to store the drugs that funded the club, and his basement became that safe spot.
When he died, he left the house to me. I didn’t even know it was mine, until I came out of the Army. By that time, the club had moved everything out of the house. The basement storage had all but been forgotten when I moved in. When I realized my father was running the Outlaws into the ground, I made some improvements to the basement, turning part of it into a safe room. The old basement is now rock solid, and nothing less than dynamite can break through those walls.
A few years ago, I started taking a little off the top from our guns runs. Just a crate or two here and there, but enough to give us something to help take Cash out. We have the fire power if he decides to fight us. We also have product we can sell, to help us get our shit flush once he’s out of the President’s chair.
Shaking off the thoughts, I look to Rollo. “I can trust the kid. He’s not gonna tell shit to Cash.”
Don’t ask me how, but I know my words are true. Within a day of meeting Shay, I knew the boy would lay his life on the line for her. He’s never had a mom, and he’s sucking up every bit of the affection she throws his way.
“The boy wouldn’t do shit that would get Shay hurt,” Tin-Man adds, proving he had noticed Tag’s devotion to my woman too.
He’s about to say more, when a woman walks up to the bar. She’s one of the waitresses here, the one we are using to take Toke out of commission. The drug she put in his drink won’t kill him, but it will keep him on his ass long enough to for us to get our job done. She stops beside Tin and says, “It’s done. Give him five and he’ll be out.”