“I don’t want the girls hurt,” he says.
“Shit, man. We’ve trained our women in hand-to-hand so good they can take down any man. Plus, they can fire any gun on and off the market with pinpoint precision. Clara helped train them. Let her handpick the ones we should use,” I answer.
The men around me seemingly grunt in approval. It wasn’t an exaggeration. The first thing we do when we agree to take a woman on is to train her so she can take care of herself. If a john tries to rough her up, we’ll send our own message, but she damn sure will make certain he doesn’t take what she isn’t willing to give.
“How many are we going to need?” T-Rex asks.
“Manny is their supplier. He usually brings seven girls.”
“Fucking Manny. Does Diesel know Manny’s tramping around in his territory?” I ask Torch.
“He does now. He wasn’t exactly happy.”
I nod in agreement. Diesel will nail his ass to the wall. Manny won’t be an issue.
“Okay. Let’s set it up. I want enough firepower to light up Afghanistan on a cloudy night,” I order.
“How many men we talking?” Beast asks.
“Me, you, T-Rex, Latch, and Shaft.”
“Boss,” Sabre starts at about the same time Torch interjects.
“No fucking way!” Everything in him is ready for a fight.
Shit, why can’t my men just listen to fucking orders?
My nerves pick up as the meeting starts. It’s so hard to even watch Skull, let alone hear his voice. I stand behind Katie and try to calm my nerves. I know what I’m planning on doing is crazy in the eyes of some. I don’t care. I need to do this. Redmond and my grandfather took so much from me and Katie. I may have lived in hell for a little while, but Katie lived in it a lot longer. I need to do this for me, for Katie, and especially for Gabby. I owe it to all of us. They took so much from me and Katie, but Gabby? They took her chance to grow up in a happy home with both her parents, and I never want her to be used as a pawn in the family. They must be destroyed. Even as I’m justifying my reasons, I know the real truth. I know why I want to destroy Matthew and Colin. I rub my upper arms in memory… in just one memory of hundreds. If anyone needed to die, it would be my stepbrothers.
My attention is brought back to the meeting we’re watching on Katie’s phone when Skull starts talking. When he orders Torch to call the club doctor out here to check me out, I nearly lose it.
“What the fuck is he thinking? If that skank comes within two feet of me,” I growl. I stop, however when the men start going over who they think will win in a fight. When Sabre brings up Annie, I laugh.
“Darn tootin’ I would! No one is touching what’s mine!” she says with a blush, and we all laugh. I stop when Torch thinks that whore Teena would take me.
“I’ll kill him,” Katie growls. “Kill him dead.”
“I might help you,” I tell her because that kind of hurts. None of the other members know me quite that well, but I expected Torch at least to have faith in me.
“Well, to be fair, he doesn’t realize the training we’ve had,” says Katie. “I haven’t ever told him, or showed him for that matter… though that might change tonight, the damn bastard.” That last part makes me smile.
As they continue the meeting, I’m still smarting over being discussed in the same breath as Teena. The only part that makes me feel marginally better is when Skull denies having a girlfriend. That’s short-lived, however, when I remember back all those years when Skull told me he didn’t have girlfriends. I guess old dogs keep the same old fucking tricks.
As they reveal more and more, my mind goes into planning mode. Nothing about this is going to be easy, but it can be done. The hardest part will be getting away from the club to attack. Plus, Skull is planning on attacking Friday, which only leaves us tomorrow to do it before he gets the chance. Not much breathing time for sure.
“I know where the lake is,” Candy pipes up.
“I have a small john-boat we can load in the back of Briar’s old truck. I’ve been on the Green River. It’s pretty lazy, not a lot of current. We can put a trolling motor on there and be across the lake in no time,” Sacks says.
“We need a diversion, really,” Annie puts in. “Someone who can distract them and get all eyes on her while the rest of us make our move.”
“Damsel in distress,” Louise says, grabbing our attention.
“What do you mean?” asks Annie.
“She’s saying one of us can pretend to be stranded and distract them and get inside while the rest of us come up from the river,” I answer, seeing the plan unfold in my mind. This could really work.
“Especially if the woman who’s distracting has big boobs and a ready smile,” Katie joins in with a wry grin.