Gypsy king

CHAPTER TWELVE

BRYCE

THE URGE TO pinch myself was overwhelming. Part of my brain was sure I’d fallen asleep on the rock-hard cot in the jail cell and this was all a dream. I couldn’t believe I was standing across from Dash in his high school’s empty parking lot as the sun faded from yellow to tangerine in the distance. The cool Montana evening breeze blew a strand of hair across Dash’s forehead. The green treetops that bordered the school rustled in the distance.

It was almost too serene. It was nearly too pretty to be real. But if this was a dream, I wasn’t ready to wake up.

Hungry for more, I stood still, watching as he sat propped against his motorcycle and told me about his former club.

This might all be a lie and another betrayal. While I was still livid at Dash for the past twenty-four hours, I wanted the story badly enough to listen and pretend that, as his eyes brightened, it was from honesty.

God, I was stupid. But did I leave? No. True or false, I licked up every one of his words. Questions popped into my head faster than a string of exploding Black Cat fireworks.

“So you think one of your club’s former enemies killed Amina?”

He nodded. “They’re the most likely. Someone is looking to take revenge against Dad. They waited until we let down our guard. Got comfortable. Took a chance to set him up for murder.”

“Who?”

“Probably another club.”

“But there is no such thing as the Tin Gypsies anymore. Unless that’s a lie.”

“No, the club is over.”

“Then without a club, you aren’t a threat anymore.”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Vengeance doesn’t care if we’re wearing patches or not. Someone wants it bad enough, they’ll wait.”

This was true. When revenge consumed people, it was amazing the incredible patience they could summon. If Draven was being set up, the person responsible was smart. They’d waited, like Dash assumed, until the Slaters were unprepared to face a threat.

“So you suspect it was another club. Which one?” I’d caught some names in my research. There were a surprising number of motorcycle gangs, or members at least, who were in Montana.

“Our biggest rivalry in recent years was with the Arrowhead Warriors. They weren’t as big as us but their president was and still is ambitious. Not afraid to pull a trigger. For a while, he made it a habit to go after our prospects, promising them money and power. He’d manipulate the weaker ones. He convinced younger guys to join his club instead of ours.”

“You probably didn’t want them anyway.”

He chuckled. “No skin off our nose to lose guys who weren’t loyal.”

“What else?”

“The Warriors ran their own drug routes but we had relationships with the bigger dealers. They did whatever they could to ambush us, hoping the dealers would see us as weak and change business partners. We’d retaliate. They would too. By the end, it was hard to know exactly what one thing had started it all.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. “Do I want to know what retaliation means?”

“No.” The hint of malice in his voice made me shiver. “But the turning point was when they went after my sister-in-law.”

“What?” I gasped. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. They tried to kidnap her but we got lucky. Local law enforcement stopped it before things turned bad. But it was a line they never should have crossed. Members were fair game. They knew the risks from day one. So did their wives and girlfriends. When shit got bad, we’d lock everyone down. But Nick, my brother, has never been in the club. Emmeline should never have been in danger.”

It was interesting how these men, these criminals, lived by a code. They had boundaries. Though I guess since Emmeline had been threatened, those boundaries weren’t exactly solid. Would this attempted kidnapping have hit the news? I made a mental note to check the archives when I went to work tomorrow.

Dash’s eyes lowered to the asphalt. “Dad was the president then. Something about Emmeline’s kidnapping flipped a switch in him. I think because he saw how much Nick loved her. He didn’t want to cost his son his wife. Not after he’d already cost us our mother.”

“Your mom?” My heart stopped. In all the news articles I’d read about the club, Draven and Dash, only a few had mentioned Dash’s mother. According to the stories, she’d been killed in a tragic accident at home. There had been no mention of the club’s involvement or the details around her death. “How?”

Dash gave me a sad smile. “That’s a story for another day.”

“Okay.” I wouldn’t push this one. Not now when it would clearly bring him pain. Or when it would risk the conversation ending.

“Timing was everything,” Dash said. “Dad approached the club after Emmeline’s threat and asked all of us if we’d consider getting out of the drug business. The year before, every person at the table would have said fuck no. But border patrol had tightened. A handful of guys had been busted and were either serving time or had just gotten out. And at the same time Emmeline was kidnapped, one of our oldest members, Emmett’s dad, was murdered.”

I tensed. “Murdered? By who?”

“The Warriors. We’d been fighting for over ten years. This wasn’t the first death, on our side or theirs. But it was the final straw. They came to The Betsy where we were drinking a beer, watching some playoff game. Stone, that was his name, got up to take a piss. A couple of Warriors were waiting. Hauled him outside and before any of us even knew he was gone, they shoved him on his knees and put a bullet between his eyes.”

I flinched, the mental image impossible to ignore. And, my God, poor Emmett. My stomach twisted into a tight knot. Did I want to know more? I knew this violence Dash spoke of wasn’t confined to only the Arrowhead Warriors. I was sure it extended to the Gypsies as well—and Dash.

Was he a killer too? I definitely didn’t want the answer to that one.

“Stone had been with the club since the begi

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” Dash blinked a few times before he looked at me again. “Anyway. Timing was on Dad’s side. Enough fucked-up things were happening to our members, our families, that we all hit pause. Saw the writing on the wall. It was time to change.”

“You disbanded.”

“Not right away, but we got the wheels moving in that direction. The first thing we did was come to an agreement with the Warriors. Their president knew they’d crossed a line. He knew if family was fair game, they’d risk losing some of their loved ones. So we agreed to a truce.”

“You and your truces,” I muttered.

He chuckled, the corner of his mouth turning up. “We sold them our drug routes. Made sure our dealers were good with it and wouldn’t retaliate. Got out of drugs all together.”

“Just like that?”

“Yep. I smile every time I spend that money.”

And I was guessing there was a lot of it. Probably stacks of cash he’d hidden under his mattress or buried in his backyard.