After Glow

by Autumn Jones Lake

  They leave without comment.

  Malik sits back and clasps his hands behind his head. “This where you give me the lecture on behaving?”

  “It’s where I remind you that anything you learn on this trip doesn’t leave the club.”

  He nods slowly. “You think I’m gonna run and tell Loco everything as soon as I get back?”

  I ignore the question because he’s baiting me. “Our organizations have gotten closer and aligned more over the last few years. But, if we ever patch you in, your loyalty can only be to this club.”

  “I gotcha.”

  “Do you? Our goals might align now. But that can easily change in the future.”

  “What’re you worried about, Rock? You think ’cause Loco’s black and I’m black, I’m gonna side with him?”

  I sigh and sit back even though I knew this would eventually come up. “Is that what I said? I don’t judge people that way. I like to think I’m colorblind.”

  Malik tips his head to the side. “Can I say something?”

  “Since when do you ask?”

  He laughs for a second, then turns dead serious. “You’re full of shit.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You’re not blind. You see color.” He taps the side of his head. “You may not think too far outta your white-man bubble, but I get that. What I think you don’t do is make assumptions based on color.”

  “I just assume everyone’s an asshole until proven otherwise.”

  He laughs even harder. “Yeah, set your expectation low. That way you’re never disappointed in people, right?”

  That pulls a chuckle from me. “Right.”

  “But,” he continues, “you don’t see a black man and say, ‘he can’t be a brother because he’s gonna rob us.’ Or, ‘I can’t let the black dude around my wife because he might rape her.’” He cracks a smile at the death glare on my face. “You understand what I’m saying?”

  “I do.”

  Malik’s not finished, and I’ve learned that once he gets going, it’s hard to stop him. But he doesn’t usually waste words, and I’m always interested in seeing things from a different perspective. “The brothers all seem to follow your example. You’ve been in this game long enough to know how rare that is.”

  “Now you understand why we’re a small charter. Why I don’t trust every biker who approaches us and says they want to patch in. And why we don’t hand a cut out to just anyone. Not even to prospects.”

  “I do. I do. I’m looking forward to earning it.”

  “Believe me, Wrath’s looking forward to making you work for it.”

  He cracks up, throwing himself against the back of the chair. “Oh man, I don’t doubt that for a hot minute. That fucker hates everyone equally.”

  “That he does.” I offer him my hand, and he shakes it. “So, you’re good?”

  “Yeah, one last thing.”

  I barely restrain myself from rolling my eyes. “Go ahead.”

  “I understand where you’re coming from on the loyalty to the club issue, but you need to understand, I ain’t gonna fuck Loco over just to prove myself to the club either.”

  “Wouldn’t respect you if you did.”

  “Figured that would be your answer, which is why I told you.”

  The atmosphere is a lot tenser at the Demons’ than it was on our last visit.

  “What’s got you so twitchy, Chaser?”

  He’s usually levelheaded and not prone to drama, so I’m unsure of how to handle him.

  “Waitin’ for my dad to get here.” He shakes his head. “Why don’t you take a room. I’ll let you know when he’s here so we can sit down at the table.”

  I grind my teeth together but follow Mallory to the back of the clubhouse where they have a bunch of guest rooms.

  She hands me the key to the room right next door to Wrath’s.

  With Wrath not understanding the concept of personal space, five seconds after I get out of the shower, he opens the connecting door and strolls through.

  “Come right in.” I glare at him. “Can I get you anything?”

  “You all right?” Wrath asks.

  “Yeah, I love the invasion of privacy.”

  Ignoring my irritation, he drops down into a chair and pulls out his phone while I slip into a pair of jeans.

  “Is it too much for you to let me get dressed?”

  He glances up and shrugs. “I’ve seen it all before, Rock.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Talk to Hope?”

  “Sent her a text. This shit better be over with fast. I don’t want to miss that doctor’s appointment.”

  “Once we know what it is, head home and let me handle it.”

  I actually consider his suggestion, something I wouldn’t have done a couple years ago. Wrath’s much better at controlling his mouth and temper these days. “Nah, Stump’ll take it as a sign of disrespect if I don’t stick around.”

  “Well, fucker should give us more details next time.”

  “Yeah, you say that to him.”

  We both laugh.

  He abruptly stops and pins his stare on me. “How are you? You wanna talk about anything?”

  “Not really.”

  He tilts his head in an are-you-really-going-to-make-me-say-it way.

  “You know, don’t you?”

  “I suspected and Hope confirmed without saying the actual words.”

  As calm as she tried to act, the news rattled her too. No surprise Wrath figured it out.

  “I can’t right now. But thanks.”

  “Whenever you need to. You know where to find me.”

  “Thanks, brother.”

  Finally, Stump gathers his crew together, and we sit down at their table about an hour later. “I’m sorry my son had to be so vague, but we couldn’t risk discussing this over the phone.” He gives Chaser a subtle nod.

  Chaser drops a newspaper in front of me.

  “Shit, I didn’t realize anyone still read those,” Wrath quips.

  Stump doesn’t laugh.

  “What am I looking at, Chaser?”

  He flips it over. I scan the articles and zero in on a small one right beneath the fold.

  Man who slaughtered two people under influence of PCP-laced marijuana.

  Tension coils my body tight. I glance at the paper again and try to remember exactly how much territory the Demons run.

  “This happened just over the Canadian border?”

  “Yeah,” Stump answer slowly, watching my reaction.

  “That your territory?”

  “We share it with DeLova’s crew.”

  I shift my gaze to Chaser, whose jaw tightens. “We used to run the whole thing.”

  I’m not in the mood for a history lesson. It’s not important.

  We have a much bigger problem.

  “You trying to tell me this was our supply?” I slap my hand on the paper. “Who the fuck you got distributing for you?”

  “Some newer players. Young crew.”

  “So they decided to pad their supply? To what? Make more money or claim they had some crazy new strain?”

  “We’re not completely sure what happened yet.”

  Fuck me fucking sideways. Sparky will have an absolute fit if he finds out someone tampered with his work.

  “Jesus Christ, you realize Sparky actively cultivates for the highest THC content he can. Lacing it with anything is fucking stupid and unnecessary.” Granted, this crop hadn’t been up to Sparky’s standards. It was still way better quality than any of the shit Stump could get his hands on from anyone else.

  “Shit.” Wrath grabs the paper from me and quickly scans the article. “They’re going to be looking for the dealer and work their way back up the chain.”

  “That’s why we called you as soon as we found out.” Chaser glances at his father in a way that suggests that it wasn’t a unanimous decision to inform us of this fuckup. “At least five other people. Two on our side and three in C
anada have been hospitalized for violent hallucinations or seizures.”

  “Fucking great. How much did you sell to him?”

  Please don’t say the entire shipment.

  “About half of what we bought from you. The other half went to recreational use around here and to different crew south of us who we trust.”

  So six people. Means there’s probably still a lot more wet weed out on the streets waiting to cause more problems.

  “We need to find the rest of it and get rid of it before the Feds start looking at this more closely,” I warn him. I don’t bother adding ‘and take care of the person responsible,’ because no doubt Stump’s gonna blow the unfortunate asshole’s head off as soon as we find him.

  “We have our guy here.” Chaser and Stump share a look that says whoever the guy is, he wasn’t offered the same warm, comfy accommodations we were offered. “He swears he knows which one of the dealers he sells it to probably did it.”

  “How many does he sell to?”

  “Two regulars. They distribute to other people, but because this happened here and over the border, it had to be tampered with between level one and two.”

  “You’re sure it had to be one of them who laced it and not your guy?”

  “Our guy’s been doing this for a while. Got no reason to do something that stupid. And honestly, I think we’d be seeing a lot more incidents if that whole supply had been tainted.”

  Someone young, dumb, and new to the game would try something like this, thinking it would give their customer a stronger psychoactive effect, not realizing it could turn them just straight-up psycho.

  “PCP isn’t cheap, and it’s not that easy to get your hands on right now,” Wrath says. “Seems more deliberate. Like someone trying to introduce a new product to their market.” He taps his finger on the newspaper. “This was a college kid. You know if the others went to the same school?”

  “We think so.” Stump answers. “We were planning to start with a few known dealers around the campus if Jeff didn’t give up his guys.”

  I sit forward and nail Stump with a stare. “I’m getting tired of having to pull every fucking detail out of you, Stump.”

  “Rock, work with me here,” Chaser says, trying to defuse the situation. “I’m telling you everything I know as it comes up in our discussion. We have more to lose here than you do. You know we don’t rat.”

  I stare at Chaser for a few beats where no one moves.

  Sure, I’ve known him for a long time. His father too. We’ve buried a few bodies together—literally. So there’s a high level of trust between our clubs. Do I want to bet my freedom on them keeping their mouths shut if they’re feeling pinched? Not so much.

  I don’t want to burn this relationship to the fucking ground either.

  I sit back and regard both of them carefully. “How are we handling this?”

  “We’ve got one name from our guy. I’m not hiding anything from you, Rock. You’re more than welcome to question him to get the second one.” Chaser glances at his SAA, a bruiser of a man I’ve only ever heard referred to as Grudge. The shrug he gets in return isn’t all that reassuring.

  I nod at Wrath to go with the other SAA to do the questioning, then point at Rav to go with them.

  Wrath puts on his friendly everything’s-cool face for Stump’s guy, but the tension in his stance is clear to me.

  Confident he can handle that without killing anyone, I turn back to Chaser. “What else?”

  “My father-in-law’s coming in tomorrow to help us run this guy down.”

  “How’s he planning to do that?”

  “He’s bringing a few guys.”

  Oh, Chaser must love that.

  Shit, I want to be fucking home tomorrow. Not sitting around waiting for that old fuck to show up.

  “We’re starting tonight, though, right?”

  Chaser nods. “Soon as you’re ready to go.” He claps his hand on his father’s shoulder. “Pop’s staying here in case my father-in-law arrives early.”

  The sideways death glare Stump returns says maybe that’s not what he had planned. Chaser ignores it. “If I can get a handle on this before he gets here, that would be best.”

  Yeah, I bet it would.

  “Who’s your new guy out there?” Stump asks in his gruff voice. “He a prospect?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Can he be trusted?”

  When I decided on bringing Malik, it was because I was worried Teller might be in trouble and extra muscle seemed like a good idea.

  This situation hadn’t occurred to me. Bringing Malik in is a bad idea for a lot of reasons. Near the top of my list is him finding out I sold any product to the Demons.

  Since I already planned to ask Stash to stay here, it shouldn’t be an issue to bench Malik as well.

  “Yeah, I trust him. He works for us and one of my associates from time to time.”

  “You don’t seem sure,” Stump says. Apparently he’s holding a grudge.

  “I trust him as much as I trust any prospect. So, no I probably won’t ask him to join us on this particular mayhem spree, but you got nothing to worry about.”

  “All right.”

  Who I’d really like to have right now is Teller and Murphy. I’m even more fucking pissed at Teller for taking off now.

  Wrath returns cocky and with a smirk in place, so I guess his interrogation went well. He tosses a piece of paper with an address in front of me.

  “He gave up his second guy.”

  “That it?”

  “That’s it,” Grudge says. “We got everything we need to start cleaning up this mess.”

  I stand. “Let’s do it.”

  “You happen to bring your passport?” Wrath asks on our way back to our rooms.

  “Yeah, ’cause I fully expected to make a trip across the border.”

  “We got a long night ahead of us.”

  “I know.” I stop at my door and glance over at him. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  Earlier, I sent Hope a text to let her know we got here safe. Now I pull out my phone and actually call her.

  “Hey, everything okay?” she answers.

  “Were you asleep?”

  She yawns and laughs softly. “A little.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, I wanted to hear your voice.”

  I drop down on the bed and close my eyes, wishing she was next to me. “Miss you already.”

  “Me too.”

  “You feel okay?”

  “I’m fine. Feeling lazy actually. I just sat around and read most of the day.”

  “Good. You need to relax more.”

  “Everything okay out there?”

  “Some issues came up.”

  “Teller’s okay, though, right?”

  “As far as I know. Still haven’t heard from him.”

  She sighs. “Give him time. I don’t think he’s mad at you. He’s probably feeling a little lost right now.”

  “Trust me, that’s the only reason I haven’t hunted him down and kicked his ass.”

  Her soft laughter sounds so far away. Then she yawns again.

  “Get some sleep, baby doll.”

  “Be careful, Rock.”

  I get myself together, collect what I need for the long night ahead of me, and meet Wrath in the hallway.

  “You talk to Hope?”

  “Yeah, she could barely keep her eyes open.”

  “Let’s get this done.”

  I follow Chaser’s lead. He and Grudge ride ahead of us. Ravage and the rest of the Demons fall in line behind us.

  Our first stop’s a run-down house in the middle of nowhere. It’s impossible to hide the rumbling of over a dozen Harleys pulling up in front of the house. The owner meets us out front with a shotgun.

  “Jesus Christ. Here we go,” Wrath mutters.

  “You don’t want to go there, Danny,” Chaser calls out. “I’m just here to talk to you.”

  Danny doesn’t seem to be i
n the mood for a chat. He swings the shotgun in our direction and Wrath edges in front of me.

  “Who are they?” Danny yells. “Why you bringing in more people?”

  “You know my dad’s not well. They’re friends. Came here to help me out.”

  I’m not sure if something’s actually wrong with Stump or that’s a story Chaser wants to use as cover. Not really my biggest concern at the moment.

  “Danny, be reasonable. It’s late. I’m fuckin’ tired. I got two more people to track down. Let’s get this over with.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You hear about those people losing their minds? It’s coming from wet weed.”

  Danny finally sets the shotgun down. “You think I’m that fucking stupid?”

  “You did just pull a shotgun on us,” Grudge says, snapping up the gun and slamming it into Danny’s gut.

  Danny doubles up and wheezes. “What the fuck, man?”

  “Don’t ever fuckin’ pull a gun on me again,” Chaser warns as he stomps past Danny and into the house.

  Wrath glances at me, waiting for my next move.

  “Rav, stay here and help Grudge,” I order.

  “You got it.”

  “Let’s go.” I motion for Wrath to follow me, but he insists on going into the house first, gun drawn.

  “Where is it?” Chaser’s angry voice echoes from further inside the house. There’s a crash and breaking glass to accompany the yelling.

  “There! There!” A female’s voice shrieks.

  Chaser’s not usually one to run around terrorizing women. Wrath and I make our way into the kitchen. The girl’s maybe twenty and extremely pissed.

  Although when she takes a look at us, fear clouds her eyes. She shakes her head at Chaser. “I didn’t. We didn’t do anything, Chaser. I swear.”

  “I’m not asking again, Helen. Where’s the shit he bought from my club?”

  Tears spill down her cheeks, and she points to a long wooden bench against the window. “In there.”

  “How much is left?”

  “Almost all of it.”

  Wrath moves over to the bench and flips the lid. He reaches in and pulls out a couple vacuum-sealed bags about the size of a brick. I recognize Sparky’s handiwork. Wrath sets the bags back and pulls out a couple glass mason jars full of green buds.