Page 7 of Bombshell
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Viper threw his beer across the bar, narrowly missing some pass-around slut in a skirt that didn’t cover her ass cheeks. She gasped and the glass shattered on the wall behind her, but she said nothing. Viper was in a terrifying, terrible mood and had been for the past few days, and everyone knew better than to say a single word about it.
He stormed out of the bar and down the hall to the President’s office. The girls and the MC members watched him go, then exchanged loaded glances. Still, nobody spoke, though a few of the men shook their heads. They knew that things in Denver hadn’t gone even remotely to plan, and Viper was seriously pissed about it.
They heard the office door slam, and the men cautiously sat down together at a table with their own beers. The woman in the barely-there skirt started sweeping up the broken bottle pieces, and another club pass-around got a mop to finish the cleaning.
“Fuck me,” a man with a scruffy blond beard said. “Our Prez is losing it.”
“He’s losingnothing, Bullet,” Preacher said sharply. “He’s just angry that Eyeball and Cruiser screwed it all up in that parking lot. I mean, howhardis it to run down a kid and her mother?”
“Yeah,” Bullet said morosely. “Turns out the bitch is pretty good with a gun.”
“No excuse,” Preacher said crisply. “She shouldneverhave had a chance to reach for it. Eyeball should have done it clean and simple on the first try, and if he messed it up, Cruiser should have backed him up and finished the job.”
The men fell silent again, and for one, Bullet longed to ask what had happened to Eyeball and Cruiser when they’d returned to Utah, and reported their failure to Viper. They’d gone into the President’s office and hadn’t been seen since; it was like the room had just swallowed them up. For all anyone knew – well, anyone except Preacher, who’d never say a goddamnword– they were still in there, decomposing in a closet, possibly missing their heads.
“Anyway,” Preacher continued. “Viper always has a Plan B,andC through F, so he might be angry now, but he’ll pull it together. It just takes a bit of extra time.”
“Yeah, but,” Mad Dog said. “I mean – whatwasthe whole of Plan Ain the first place? None of us really know. Any chance that Viper will clue us in any time soon?”
“If Viper hasn’t told you, then you don’tneedto know,” Preacher snapped and got to his feet. “Got it?”
The men nodded and watched their Vice-President walk outside, then they all looked at each other. Every man’s disquiet was reflected back at him, but they knew that being unhappy wouldn’t make Viper or Preacher talk to them any sooner, if at all.
“Well,” Mad Dog said reluctantly. “I mean – we still have Wolf Connor down in that bunker. That’ssomething, right? Maybe Viper hasn’t fucking lost the plot after all?”
“I’d say that’s a lot,” Bones agreed. “But…”
He broke off, peered at his MC brothers from under his wild eyebrows. The truth was that Bones Gallagher wasn’tat allsupportive of kidnapping,orrunning down five-year-olds with vans, or anything to do with minorswhatsoever. He thought, actually, that involving kids was a huge fucking mistake, if only because it meant that fury-filled parents would be after them, baying for blood. Bones had never had any interest in being a father, but he knew that if he were one, he’d go to the ends of the earth for his offspring. He’d maim and torture and kill for them… and Viper had just put The Highway Hellions smack in the path of a Road Devils MC rage storm.
It was a very uncomfortable place to be, and Bones saw no upside to it at all. In fact, he thought that Viper had brought a clusterfuck down on his club the likes of which Bones hadneverseen, not in his thirty-eight years of MC life. He’d been on the scene when The Hellions were in war after war with other Utah MCs, spilling blood for every inch of property and every dirty Kirk Jensen contract. Bones had beenthroughit, and had done for a while – and he’d never hadanythingto do with fucking kids, and there was a reason for that.Morethan one.
Bones had a bad feeling that every reason why was about to come crashing down on their heads… and he, for one, wasn’t sure that he was prepared to pay the price for his President’s actions. Maybe not this time.
“But what?” Animal asked aggressively.
“Nothing.” Bones shook his shaggy gray head. He had the respect of most of the guys, just because he was the oldest and longest-serving MC member and was due that as a matter of course, but some of the new boys like Animal were unknown quantities. They’d been brought in by Viper personally, so it had to be assumed that their loyalty to him was unwavering; italsomeant that Bones had better not voice any of his misgivings anywhere around them the way that Bullet and Mad Dog just had. “Just wondering how long Wolf Connor can be MIA before Scars Innis comes looking.”
Animal shrugged. “Viper will deal with that.”
Bones nodded affably at the brainwashed young moron, but he saw Mad Dog and Bullet looking at him speculatively. They knew him, they’d known him for almost twenty-five years, and if he was saying ‘but’ about something that his President had done, then he was worried, and probably with good reason.
They said nothing, though. Like Bones, they knew that the ground had shifted under their feet, and the three of them as old timers were on their way out. Not physically, of course, but in terms of influence, of being voices of reason or perspective. Even Crusher had asked their opinions and thoughts on things, and listened and acted on their ideas.
Viper was taking them down a path that Bones wassurewas going nowhere good – and he had to just go along with it all, just merrily and mindlessly follow even if Viper marched them over a cliff. There was nothing to be done, because doing something meant going against his President – and Bones had never done that, not once. It had never even crossed his mind, not even when bullets were flying and he was up to his old, tired eyes in the blood and bodies of his own brothers.
But as he exchanged glances with Mad Dog and Bullet, and saw their own unspoken reservations and concerns, Bones considered that there was a first time for everything.
Maybe even mutiny.
Chapter Fourteen
The next day
Ice nodded at Scars, and closed the door behind King. He stood with his back against the wall, watching the other two men warily eye each other. Ice wondered at the very unusual awkwardness, resolved to keep this mouth shut until Scars told him to do otherwise. After all, King had just shown up at Satan’s two minutes before without any warning at all, and had insisted that the three of them talk. King never lost his cool, but there was something in his expression today that was unlike him: he looked shaken. None of this boded well, but Ice wasn’t sure what he needed to be worried about. Not yet.
“So,” Scars said as they sat. “What’s up, King?”
