He stayed there just a few moments, scanning the room, taking note of what each person was doing. When he was satisfied things were going as planned, he left, and followed Henley down the hall again and stopped at the door to the lab. The lab was different from the other rooms. It had reinforced walls, a ventilation system that filtered out of the building all impurities from the cooking, and had the latest high-tech equipment he could find. Meth was where his money came from, and although he didn’t touch the stuff, he also wasn’t about to turn his back on what made him who he was. He might have gone to prison all those years ago, planning, plotting his rise, but that didn’t mean he got caught up in the toxicity of what he made and sold.
He put on a mask and hazard suit to make sure no impurities came through while his product cooked. One of the cooks was pointing to a tray of product, while the other, a man he’d had working for him for the last year, stood there with his arms crossed and shaking his head.
“What the fuck is the issue?” Wrath asked, stepping further into the room and hearing the lock latch shut behind him.
“Boss, Todd here says his product is pure, whether it’s crystal or not.”
Wrath went up to the tray of meth, looking at the slightly cloudy consistency of it. “Do you know why they call it crystal, Todd?” Wrath crossed his arms and stared at his newest cook. He could see the nervousness start to rise in the man, which was good. He should be shitting his pants if Wrath had to come here and fix this.
Todd nodded, smoothing his gloved hands on his yellow hazard suit. “I know it’s supposed to be clear, Wrath—”
Wrath shook his head, cutting off the man. “My product is crystal because the formula is clear and pure. You start changing shit around and it fucks with the product and my reputation.”
“Sir—”
“I want this shit to look transparent,” Wrath said again, not hiding the bite in his voice.
“You understand what I’m saying, Todd?”
Todd stared at him with wide eyes.
“You understand that if you can’t make what I want, your service won’t be needed?” He didn’t need to elaborate on what that meant. If Todd couldn’t live up to his end of the deal with making Wrath’s crystal, then Todd would need to be let go.
“I understand,” Todd said in a wavering voice.
Wrath stared in the man’s eyes and nodded. “Good, because we like having you on with us.” Wrath kept eye contact for longer than necessary, and saw Todd start to get uncomfortable.
Good, he needs to know who’s at the top and who he works for.
His cell went off, and he finally turned from the cooks and left the lab. After taking off the mask and suit he answered.
He took his cell out of his pocket. “What?”
“Wrath, hey, brother.”
The voice that came through was one he recognized instantly, and one that had a shitload of memories bombarding him.
“Well fuck, if it isn’t Brendan Roscoe.”
“It’s Tank now, man. I’m patched in with the Brothers of Menace MC.”
“A Patch, huh?”
Tank grunted from the other end of the line.
“Man, it’s been a long fucking time.” Wrath headed away from the lab. He passed the rest of the rooms and went into his private office, one void of people and product. Once seated behind the desk he breathed out. His entire operation was sketchy, but well run, and because he was at the top of it all he was sitting real fucking nice.
“It has been too damn long.”
Wrath grunted the words out. Talking to Brendan had memories of his past resurfacing. Images of Lila flashed through his head, but it wasn’t like talking to her brother brought this up. No, they made them more pronounced, but he’d thought about Lila Roscoe every fucking day for more years than he even cared to admit.
“Man, I hate to call you out of the blue and ask for something—”
“I’m here for you, for whatever reason. You’ve been like family to me, and the years that passed don’t change that.” Wrath was tense now, knowing Tank wanted something, and hoping like hell it didn’t have to do with Lila. But this nagging in his gut told him shit was bad if a man he’d thought of as a brother all those years ago—even now if he was being honest—wanted his help. Tank was in an MC now, so surely they could help a brother out?
Maybe not the way you can.
“You know me better than anyone, even my club. But I wouldn’t have called and asked this if it wasn’t pretty fucking serious, man.” There was a long pause after Tank spoke, but Wrath didn’t say anything, just waited for the man to get on with it. As it was images of Lila kept flashing through his head, and it was the sound of his nails digging into the wood of his desk that had him snapping out of it.