Page 229 of Relentles

“I agree. I’m not going to search for them to fuck them up when they’ll come to me.”

“You ain’t fuckin’ them up yet. Get your fuckin’ shit together, son. Get back on the football team. You need to watch them and watch fuckin’ Ryan. I want weekly reports.”

“How long?”

“Until the summer. All this bullshit connected. Ain’t no other fuckin’ reason why the Gnomes suddenly started fuckin’ with us, then Bash started lurkin’, and those two fuckheads attendin’ Ridge Moore.”

“Are the Scorched Devils in with the Gnomes?” CJ’s eyes widened. “That would mean the Burning Hounds are betraying the club, too?”

Derby had always been solid, a man Christopher considered a friend.

“I ain’t too sure,” he said, the idea that Derby might be betraying him a bleak thought.

“Why are they doing this to us?”

“Us? You ain’t—”

Christopher’s reprimand died on his lips. For better or worse, CJ’s introduction into club life began with Torie.

“Also, why use Wally and Willard? He just became legal and Wallace has another two years to go.”

“That’s it right fuckin’ there,” Christopher reasoned. “Pushin’ minors to do their bullshit put them out of reach for retaliation.” As well as fucking detection. No one would suspect minors were out to harm the club.

Only motherfuckers with knowledge of Big Joe’s use of Christopher when he was a boy would use that same fucking tactic. Even the most unreasonable motherfucker wanted their children in harm’s way.

“Do you know their parents?” Christopher asked CJ.

“They are supposedly orphans, Da, uh, Outlaw.”

“Don’t risk yourself, boy. Hear me? Gather what the fuck you can without detection. I’ma get Riley to follow their fuckin’ paper trail.”

“I’ll see what I can find out,” CJ promised.

“I gotta go shower. Take Rebel and Mattie home. Tell your ma I’ll be there soon and explain.”

CJ nodded.

“I’m Dad again.”

CJ smiled. “You’re always Dad to me, ‘Law.”

Puffing out his chest, Christopher walked toward the arched doorway, where the club emblem painted on the wall smacked motherfuckers in the face the moment they focused on it.

As he passed the bar, he frowned at the blood spattered on the surface and pooled on the floor. He dialed Ryan’s number.

The fainting-at-the-sight-of-blood little motherfucker wanted to fuck with him? Then, he needed to know who the fuck he was dealing with.