Although he burned to jump on his bike and hunt down Mad Dog and his men, Wolf’s proposal could secure the club’s future, and end the war against the Jacks that had already claimed too many Sinner lives. He had to protect his club at any cost.
“I’ll waive my claim against Mad Dog for the club. He’s still bound by the restriction on any Brethren coming into our town so it’s not like he can rub it in our faces. But we have to take some action to address the Brethren’s disrespect or everyone will think we’re weak. Since Mad Dog’s men will never wear our patch, I say we hunt them down and give them a taste of Sinner justice.”
“All vote.” Jagger raised his hand, and rest of the board members followed suit.
“No one will forget the sacrifice you’ve made for the club,” Jagger said quietly. “And you have my word, as soon as the Brethren are patched into our club, and subject to Sinner law, Mad Dog will die.”
Cade swallowed past the lump in his throat. This is why he had joined the Sinners. Honor. Brotherhood. Loyalty. Men who would stand up for him. Men who always had his back.
His club.
His tribe.
“If the Jacks approached the Brethren, then they must be feeling vulnerable,” Cade said. “We should take advantage of the opportunity. If we weaken them enough while you’re negotiating terms with Wolf, we won’t even need the Brethren support.”
Jagger nodded his agreement. “We should hit them hard, and hit them now.”
“We’ll need more weapons to launch an offensive.” Gunner shoved a piece of paper across the table. “I got a lead on an arms shipment coming across the border heading for that Mafia boss in Helena, Franco Rizzoli. He hired the Jacks to run protection. If we ambush them, we’ll get fifty thousand dollars worth of weapons and take out some Jacks as a bonus.”
Jagger leaned back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. A man content. He hadn’t always been that way, but Arianne had smoothed out his edges. Cade had edges, too, but he was pretty damn sure no woman could smooth them out. Some wounds just couldn’t be healed.
“Gunner can organize the Rizzoli ambush.” Jagger pointed to each man as he assigned tasks. “Cade and Zane, you go up to Whitefish with the prospect and get Wolf’s AKs. Demon Spawn is our support club in the region. They can help out.”
“Sounds like we’re in for some good times.” Tall and dark, his skin lightly tanned, and his hair just brushing his shoulders, Zane stroked the goatee he had grown during his mysterious disappearance at the end of last summer. Although Cade wasn’t a fan of facial hair, Zane’s goatee had caused such a stir among the club’s women, Cade had almost considered growing one himself.
Cade snorted a laugh. “I didn’t know ‘good time’ was in your vocabulary.”
Reserved and fiercely private, Zane was the least fun guy Cade had ever known. He rarely drank or socialized at club functions, and Cade could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Zane with a woman.
“That’s ’cause my idea of a good time doesn’t involve hot tubs, booze, and multiple women in my bed,” Zane shot back.
Cade couldn’t refute that statement, but right now there was only one woman he wanted in his bed, and he’d put her in danger. “What about Dawn? Mad Dog threatened to drag her back to his clubhouse. He’s using their kids as leverage.”
Zane gave a derisory snort. “She’s a civilian. If she needs help, she can call the police.”
“Zane’s right,” Jagger said. “We can’t get involved in a marital dispute between a Brethren member and his old lady, especially if we’re negotiating terms of a patch-over. If you want to get involved in their affairs, you’ll have to do it without your cut.”
Without my cut? Cade barely processed the rest of Jagger’s words. He hadn’t gone anywhere without his colors since the day he first put them on. Hell, sometimes he slept in them. Jagger might as well ask him to cut off his right arm. His colors were everything—a symbol of a new life where he wasn’t burdened by the past, where the only person he had to look out for was himself, and where his brothers had his back. His cut was his creed: freedom, loyalty, and brotherhood.
Life.
*
“One thousand dollars?” Dawn stared at Shelly-Ann aghast. “I don’t have one thousand dollars just sitting around the house. I’ve given you the money for this week. I have the girls for six hours.”
Maia and Tia clung to her, their fingers digging through her clothes. Tia’s soft whimpers sliced through a heart. Her girls weren’t stupid. They knew exactly what was going on and it twisted her heart that they understood blackmail at the tender age of seven.