Wild Like the Wind (Page 38)

The next afternoon, Hound was sitting at the bar in the Compound, Boz at his right side, Hop and Tack behind the bar, Shy and Joker both on his left, Joker sitting next to him, Shy standing, leaning into the bar.

Shy was exuding bad vibes.

Then again, their conversation wasn’t exactly cheery.

“She hangin’ in there?” Boz asked Tack, and Hound had his gaze on the beer sitting on the bar in front of him, but his attention was on Shy.

He was sure he was not the only one doing this.

“Snap’s seeing to her. She’s healing up. And Snap is also seein’ to the other kinda healin’ she’s gotta do,” Tack murmured.

Hound lifted his gaze to Tack without lifting his head and saw Tack was locked on Shy, his son-in-law, the father of Tack’s grandbaby, and his Chaos brother.

“She’s gonna be okay, Shy,” he went on. “She’s strong and she’s handling it great.”

“Shit went south,” Shy returned shortly.

“This is old ground,” Hop said carefully. “It happened. It’s done. We’ve already talked about it and we’ve already dealt with it.”

“It’s worth goin’ over since it didn’t just go south, it got totally fucked up,” Shy fired back.

“It did. And that was out of our control,” Tack returned. “You asked me, I’d never guess Bounty had that in them.”

“No, you’re wrong,” Shy bit out. “It was in our control when we used her to make our play against Bounty, against Valenzuela. And part of that control was us not doin’ that. That being somethin’ I’ll remind you I was not happy about then. Now we got a beef with Bounty, which I don’t fuckin’ blame them for the reason they first got that beef, and we got a woman who got beat to shit on our watch.”

Hound felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise.

This was true.

She was Bounty, but she had Chaos protection.

It had been Speck that fell down on that job.

And it had been Speck that felt the displeasure of his brothers. A displeasure that was extreme.

They didn’t really have to do dick, though. Speck felt like shit and when Snapper had backed him against a wall, squeezing the breath out of him with his hand at his throat, it might have taken three brothers to pull him off.

But Speck had not done one thing in his own defense.

It was like he wanted Snap to take him out.

Nope, they didn’t have to do dick.

“That’s been taken care of,” Tack said low.

“Yeah, which got us a bigger beef with Bounty,” Shy shot back.

“You don’t think we should have gone in and dealt with those assholes?” Joker asked in disbelief. “Take a hand to a Chaos woman, you get taught a lesson. And she mighta been takin’ Bounty dick, but she made that deal to back our play, and when she did, she became Chaos.”

“For fuck’s sake, no,” Shy replied. “Agreed, the lesson needed to be taught. The problem is, it was us who led it to that shit.”

“Maybe Hound didn’t have to slice that Bounty’s face. What’s his name? Throttle? Blood for blood but no one sliced Rosalie. And he played the massive dick card, but now he’s goin’ all out to atone,” Boz muttered.

Hound did not agree with Boz’s assessment.

Hound was also surprised with Boz’s assessment. It wasn’t like him.

Throttle had been Rosalie’s boyfriend. And Throttle had not only handed her ass to his club to kick the shit out of when he found she was informing to Chaos about Bounty’s security operations for Valenzuela’s drug transports, he’d been the first to land his blows.

Rosalie had just wanted her man out of that. She was in love with him. Thought he was a good man, just one messed up in bad shit. He wouldn’t listen to her so she went another route.

It wasn’t Hound’s call to make if it was the right route, or the wrong one.

It ended up bad for her, except Tack was right. They beat her down huge, but she was recovering. And now she knew her man had that in him, he wasn’t the man she thought he was, and she could move on.

And seemingly doing that with Snapper, which was good since he was into the bitch, and big.

Problematic to all these problems, Rosalie was Shy’s ex. She never got that deep in with him, but they had time together, he’d liked her, she’d fallen for him. But for Shy, it had been Tabby, Tack’s daughter. And it had been Tab for him for years. So that didn’t end real good for Rosalie and she found another biker in another club.

But Shy had been inside her and Hound could get that. Any biker babe that hung around who he’d dipped his wick in had put her ass on the line for good, for Chaos, and got it whipped, he’d go gonzo and it wouldn’t be beat-downs and sliced faces.

Bodies would pile up.

“You’d let me in on that shit, I’d have carved his face right off,” Shy clipped.

Hound’s lips curled up at his beer.

He’d always liked that kid.

Tack had made the call to keep Shy out of it.

In the end, not surprising to the woman she was—a biker princess grown up—it was actually harder to keep Tabby out it.

The woman, new mother or not, lost her motherfucking mind.

It was cute.

But she had nothing to worry about.

Hound took her blood for her.

“Blood for blood. Women in the hospital,” Shy bit out. “I’m beginning to wonder if Rush isn’t right and this shit isn’t worth the massive mindfuck, time suck and pain in the ass it is.”

He had no more to say and all the men knew it when he prowled out.

However, Hound knew they all had heavy thoughts.

Rush, Tack’s son, was not a big fan of their beef with Bounty (to say the least) or their maneuvers to push back Valenzuela.

He wanted it all turned over to the cops and to be done with it.

But Chaos had for years claimed turf around Ride, the store, garage and their Compound, which was all housed on the same lot. Once Tack guided them free and clean of the shit Crank had mired them under, they made it clear no drugs or whores anywhere on what they considered “Chaos”—a five square mile area around their property.

The brothers back then who put their asses on the line to get clean felt that turf was their due.

So they’d taken it.

Then came Benito Valenzuela.

Valenzuela pushed, Chaos pushed back. Valenzuela pushed more, Chaos pushed back. This went on for-fucking-ever. Shit went down where Tack felt they had to make a move, the brothers voted, it passed (not unanimously), and to make a statement, they pushed back—harder—and claimed ten miles around Ride.

Rush was not happy but Rush did not have a lot of support for his idea of retreating just to Chaos—meaning their store, garage and the Compound—getting out of the vigilante street-cleaning business, leaving that to the cops, and just looking out for what was legally theirs.

With the shit going down, Millie kidnapped, working with the cops to dismantle Valenzuela, Rosalie getting her ass in a sling, constant surveillance of their women so they could be sure they were safe, and more area to patrol, Rush was finding new interest in his ideas.

This had included Snapper.

It now seemed it included Shy.

“Okay, nobody open me up for this, but I’m just gonna say . . .” Boz started, and Hound’s head stayed down but his eyes slid to Boz, not liking how this was beginning. “We’re informin’ on another club to the cops. Tack, brother, that shit is not us. Half that fuckin’ MC was locked up in that takedown. It’s not the MC way to get in bed with cops, hand deliver biker brethren to them. We shoulda found another way.”