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“The priest took a bullet in the arm. He’ll survive. And a couple of members. Nothing fatal.”
Nick led the way, settling me on the back of his bike and sitting astride. He kicked the engine to life and followed the narrow track through the cemetery and out onto the road.
Chapter 27
Nick
After makingsure Alex was settled in the bar with all the other families, I joined the rest of my brothers in Church. By some fucking miracle, nobody had gotten seriously injured at the cemetery. Beckitt had caught a ricochet off a nearby gravestone—grazing his ribs—and Jaxon had a split lip and a broken nose from the slugging match he got into with one of the shooters.
“I’m coming,” Beckitt said, leaning up against the wall, cupping his side like he could cover up the bloody evidence of his injury.
“You’re staying,” Kaash replied in a hard voice. “End of story.”
My gaze shifted to Rixon as he sat at the head of the table. He looked wrecked. Completely destroyed. And whether that was from Molly’s death, the funeral itself, or the shoot-out, he looked nothing like the man I knew. The title of president was hollow at this point. He was physically in the room, but mentally withdrawn. Kaash, as VP, had stepped up as everyone would expect. But as I stared at him, at the gleam in his eye, Eli’s words from last night rattled in my head.
A position of weakness.
War.
Have we played right into his plans?
“Where’s the shooter now?” our VP asked.
“Got him stashed at a warehouse,” Maverick said, the diamonds on his ring glinting on his finger as he folded his hands on the table in front of him. “Just waiting for Gunnar to make him talk.”
I looked at Gunnar across the other side of the table. Since he was the club’s enforcer, he was the one who did the interrogating when it was needed. A glint of anticipation edged his eyes at the prospect of torture.
“While Gunnar gets as much information from the shooter, I need everyone else ready to start hitting known Devils’ homes.”
A position of weakness.
War.
Grunts of ascent rose up around the room, the Kentucky, Ohio, and Florida chapter members lending their voices to our cause.
“Once we’ve decimated the safety of their homes, that fuck, La Croix, will circle the fucking wagons and bring everyone into lockdown.” Kaash thumped the table with his index finger. “That’s when we take out the rest of the motherfuckers. We strike fast and we strike hard. Those motherfucking cunts took shots at us in broad fucking daylight. Inourterritory. They shot our president’s old lady at her front door. The Devil’s Chaos will be extinct by the end of the day!”
A chorus of agreement went up, everyone slapping their palms against the tabletop or banging the walls they were leaning against. From a tactical point of view, there really was no better time to strike at them. We had the fire power. We had the manpower. We had the fucking infernos of revenge burning in our bellies.
But did we have the right target?
“We leave in two hours.”
As the men shuffled out, I rose last, waiting until Eli had finished talking to Kaash before approaching Rixon. He barely registered my presence, his brown eyes focused on some point in the middle ground. I could feel Kaash’s glare on my back as I helped Rixon from his chair and out the door.
“He’s a fucking liability, Nick,” my VP said just loud enough for me to hear as Rixon walked down the hall and into the bedroom he’d started sleeping in after Molly’s death.
A position of weakness.
Waiting until Rixon shut the door behind him, I said in a low voice, “He’s our president, too. Or have you forgotten that?”
His answering laugh was cold. “Oh, no, I remember,” he replied. “But if he doesn’t get his shit together, the old bastard will find himself buried in the ground next to Molly soon enough.”
War.
I rounded on him, getting into his face. “Is that a fucking threat?”
With his hand planted on my chest, he shoved me backward a step. “All I’m saying is if he wasn’t being such a little cocksucker crying over his dead bi?—”
