Biker’s Collar: Property of Scrap (Rebel Barbarians MC #6)

Chapter 22 – Owen

Twenty-Two

Owen

B eing alone with Wyatt in the club meeting room reminds me of getting in trouble when I was a teenager. I always wanted to impress Ethan and Wyatt. I was willing to do anything for my older brothers’ approval. Dad’s death changed all of us. Wyatt took on an impossible burden when Oske rolled into his life like a chaotic gunpowder laden tumbleweed.

The truth she confessed to him only made Wyatt’s moral burdens worse.

Is this why tragedy follows all of us? Is it what we did to the Indians? I know he’s thinking some crazy shit like that. Considering the shit that follows our family, maybe it’s not so crazy. Maybe it’s the most sane opinion to have. He reaches into his pocket for a cigarette, which means this isn’t just a serious conversation, it’s one he knows I won’t like.

Cigarettes never had that pull on me, but they can be nice enough when you need to calm down.

“Light?”

Wyatt leans over and lights my cigarette. He lit my first one. By then, Ethan was already on the run from his first bad deal with a bookie. He dropped out of high school to make it all back on horse racing and then went back to high school to be the oldest and most successful tight end our team had ever seen. So when he has it together, he has it together.

“I need you to take on a stronger leadership role.”

“Me and not Ethan?”

“Just because he’s older doesn’t mean he’s ready for more responsibility.”

“I’m just asking. I know the Waverly mess…”

“Kaylee-Marie is the mess. Not Waverly.”

I appreciate his efforts to make me see reason when it comes to my family. To my past. He has Anna to redeem him. I sense right now he’s asking me to leave Waverly behind. He must be.

“What is this about, Wyatt?”

“There are some things you can only trust with your family,” he says. “Dad did this with me in case… anything happened to him.”

He pauses for a drink. Wyatt doesn’t think he’s going to make it through this war.

“What are you doing after this?” I ask Wyatt, genuinely concerned now that his plan might be more reckless than I originally realized. He might be able to keep shit from other members of the club, but there are some things he can’t keep from me. I have the same itch that he does.

Wyatt shrugs, his green dice rolling compulsively over the tops of his fingers. I don’t ask about the strange new gnaw-marks on the dice as they roll across. He’s been doing this shit with the dice since we were kids. Mostly when he’s nervous or deep in thought. I don’t even know if he’s conscious of the hard plastic moving over his hands.

“Hunting down Midnight SS members on weekends,” he answers flatly, and without a suggestion in his tone that I have the option of changing his mind. “Keeping my mind off gambling.”

I can’t stop him from hunting down Midnight SS club members and we both know that Anna won’t accept another screw up if he doesn’t put her and his family first this time. He’s worried about going out like dad – by gunfire. I imagine his kid and the second one on the way changed his whole perspective on things. I feel like children would do that.

“You’re going to be fine.”

His body tenses.

“Anything can happen out there.”

“But it won’t happen to you.”

The dice slow down.

“I would feel better if you did this.”

“Why so secretive about it?”

“Because I’m asking you to go back to Las Vegas. We’re not just killing Midnight SS, we’re expanding our territory.”

“To Las Vegas?”

I want Wyatt to give me some wiggle room to get out of this, but I know my brother’s fierce determination when I see it.

“Yes. It’s strategic.”

“I see. Is the strategy to get me to completely lose progress on my gambling situation?”

I’m down to $10 a day most days, which is better than I was for a while. It’s a small habit at that point. Won’t get any bigger. Won’t get any worse. Unless I do something fucking stupid like run off to Las Vegas.

“No. It’s a strategy to make you stronger.”

“With all due respect, Wyatt, I don’t need you to help me with that.”

“Perhaps not. But I need to see how you handle pressure.” He turns to look at me, pleading at me with eyes that remind me painfully of our father. “Please. I’m not asking this to hurt you.”

Then why the fuck are you sending a gambling addict to Vegas?

“Who are you sending me with and what exactly do you want me to do?”

I was raised loyal to my club and my brother at the end of the day. I was raised to put trust in my family and to trust that my family would look after me. Wyatt has never let me down. But this is something more difficult for me to accept.

“Establish a business.”

I laugh at him. “Are you fucking serious?”

Because that’s exactly what you want to give a degenerate gambler. Money. Wyatt doesn’t flinch.

“Yes. I’m sending you out there with Deacon Hollingsworth. Tylee and Isaac already have a place out there ready – an apartment complex for the family – and Magnum’s heading out there too.”

Deacon and Magnum both have a head for business, but bigger heads for trouble. It’s terrifying to think that there might be people in this world that need me to keep them in line. I must have done a good job with Ruger. Ethan warned me. When you do a good job at something, people just add more work to your plate. Told me that our first jobs pushing snow out of driveways in Missouri and I never forgot his wisdom.

“Why the hell is Tylee going to be there?”

“Because she’s going to take Waverly for the first part of your job.”

“Which is?”

“There’s a kingpin in Las Vegas who goes by Hakeem…”

“Jesus Fucking Christ.”

“What?”

“I can’t kill a black guy.”

Wyatt rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to do it. Magnum wants to do it.”

“I don’t want to do it.”

Wyatt glares. “You must. And since when do you care about race…”

Okay fine. That was just an excuse. But I was hoping with the new climate and situation, it would work. I bite my lip to keep myself from saying something unproductive. My brother has a sensational glare. He could start a campfire with his mild irritation and after a few seconds, I wonder if killing one person of every race would satisfy him, because I would do it if I thought it made any sense.

I don’t want the job to end up back on my plate, so I don’t bother asking why the fuck Magnum wants to kill Hakeem. I know that motherfucker runs poker tables all over Vegas. Not just the one where I lost big all those years ago. You remember your biggest losses as much as your biggest wins in my world. I wish I could only remember the wins.

“Why can’t I have Waverly with me? I’ll work nights.”

“Because it’s not safe. Tylee will be a fortressed apartment and she’ll have tutors come in… We need control over the people in our lives. Do you see how these women act? If anything were to happen to Tamiya… how do you think that would influence Gideon? The bigger our family gets, the bigger we need to get.”

I want to disagree with him, but how the fuck can I justify that. I just think about how I would act if I lost Vickie. Losing her the first time – or whatever you call it when your woman drugs you and disappears for five years – screwed my mind up badly enough. I can’t go through some shit like that again. I don’t have the heart or the stomach for it.

“Understood. We kill Hakeem and take over Las Vegas. You know I have other responsibilities aside from Waverly?”

“So?” Wyatt snaps. “I saw how she acted before. Give her a gun. Ethan told me what happened when you met.”

“So now you’re gossiping about me?”

“Anna informed me that sharing information is very different from gossiping. Now, are we done here? Mom’s outside and she’s had more than five drinks.”

“Fuck. We’re done.”

“Good,” Wyatt says. We shake hands and I seal my fate – a gambler on his way to Vegas with the girl he met there. The girl who drugged him and ran away.