The dancer on the pole did a Hands-Free Marley to M?tley Crüe’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” and the dudes in perverts’ row at the front clapped. Clearly there had trouble in the bar before. Cade had never seen a more brazen performance of “the show must go on.”
Once upon a time, Dawn had been that girl on the pole. She’d danced, not because she wanted to dance, but because she had been given no choice. She would have finished her show and then gone down to perverts’ row for the lap dances that were a dancer’s bread and butter. Men would have touched her. Maybe more. And all the while Mad Dog would have watched and done nothing to protect her. Cade clenched his hand by his side, pushing the thoughts away as he tried to focus on the task at hand. As if he weren’t wound up tight already.
His phone buzzed again. Zane, Gunner, and T-Rex disarmed the Demon Spawn brothers and tossed their weapons into the prospect’s backpack. They wouldn’t have been quite as bold if there hadn’t been twenty more Sinners waiting on their bikes outside.
Cade threw a wad of money on the table and forced Skid Mark up at gunpoint. “Let’s go for a walk. I’ll leave your mouth alone so you can apologize and tell me which of your members are Black Jack puppets.”
Skid Mark paled and Cade snorted a laugh. “Yeah, we know about the Jacks, and you’re gonna give us a list of the puppet members. If your list doesn’t match the one we got from Matchstick, you get to make up the difference.” He yanked Matchstick’s cut from his pack and threw it at Skid Mark. “Congrats, by the way. Looks like you got a promotion. Matchstick won’t be needing that anymore. Wear it while you can, ’cause it won’t be for long.”
His phone buzzed again—probably Jagger wanting an update. Damn irritating. He nodded at Gunner and Zane to take his hostage, and then he turned off his phone. Punishment time. Jagger would damn well have to wait.
He headed outside where his Sinner brothers had herded the rest of the Demon Spawn members into a field behind the strip club. The local sheriff and his deputies were hog-tied in the police station, and the roads were blocked. No one was coming to help Demon Spawn now.
Cade handed Skid Mark a piece of paper and a pen. Skid Mark shuffled over to a patch of grass, silver in the moonlight, and wrote down a list of names that matched the one Dax had given to Cade. The traitors, including Skid Mark, were culled from the rest of the herd, and Gunner ushered the remaining Demon Spawn members away. Cade held a gun to Skid Mark’s head.
“Bad fucking decision.”
“Yeah. We should never have listened to Mad Dog, but Matchstick trusted him. They were friends going way back. He told us the Jacks were the stronger club. He said they’d been making up puppet members all over the state, hiding their numbers so they could take you down when you weren’t expecting it. He said we should join the winning team before it was too late.”
Cade didn’t know what Mad Dog had to do with the Black Jack puppets in Demon Spawn, because Matchstick had kicked the bucket before he could share that information. Usually Zane kept Dax under control during torture sessions, but he’d been busy gathering intel on the Jacks and Dax got carried away. He loved his work, but sometimes the sadist in him got a little too greedy.
He kicked the gravel underfoot, struggling between offing the bastard now and pumping him for more information. “Mad Dog didn’t think his own club was the winning team? Demon Spawn and the Devil’s Brethren would have been a good fit.”
Skid Mark cast a worried glance at his brothers and Cade cuffed him on the head. “Don’t look at them. Look at me. I’m the one who chooses whether you live or die. If you’re cooperative, you might wind up in the hospital instead of the grave the brothers are digging just outside of town. I’m interested in Mad Dog and why he’s sniffing around.
“Mad Dog is a Black Jack puppet in the Brethren, like some of his men. The Jacks are backing him to win the Brethren election on the condition he patches the entire club over to the Jacks. He’s been paying off Wolf’s supporters to vote for him ’cause the Jacks made him all sorts of promises if he can get the job done.”
Good information. Cade shared a glance with Zane who nodded in silent agreement. If they’d picked up Skid Mark instead of Matchstick, Dax wouldn’t have had any fun. They hadn’t even had to break a finger. “You shoulda called us.”