Page 59 of What He Wants
“Selling?”
“Using.”
“Fox, see if you can find out anything about him just to be sure.”
“Will do, Prez.”
“I think that covers the Trouble Makers,” Hawk said, reaching for his beer. “Now what about this shooting out at Daisy’s place? Any leads on who it was?”
“One possibility is her ex,” Rock responded. “Fox is investigating.”
“Damn glad their aim was off, brother.” He looked at me. “Or we’d be voting for a new enforcer this church.” Snorts of laughter went around the room.
I joined in before saying, “With all due respect, Prez, fuck you.”
There was a grin on his mouth as he took a long chug of his beer. In the old days, before Audra had come onto the scene and tamed his ass, he would have punched me out cold for saying that. Hell, he might have killed me. But she’d brought peace and calm to our prez. They weren’t exactly good traits for the president of an outlaw MC to have, but Hawk had needed it to survive. Having an old lady was good for some men.
“What do we know about him?”
“He’s a prick,” I snarled, clenching my fists, wondering how much of her past I wanted to divulge to my brothers. But the answer was, they needed to know, needed to understand who we were dealing with. “He beat her and used sex as punishment.” I could see their frowns and understood their confusion.
“Rape?” Hawk barked. I clenched my jaw and nodded. “Fuck, brother.”
“Why are we looking at him for the shooting?” Snake asked.
“He got in touch with her a couple of days ago, threatened to kill her and any man he caught her with.” It still infuriated me that Daisy hadn’t immediately told me about the contact he’d made.
“Well that’s fucking clear enough,” said Snake as he settled back in his chair.
“I didn’t get a look at the shooter, but I’ve seen the black Cadillac near her house twice now.”
“I pulled up his information. He owns some fancy, exclusive restaurant in Boston, has friends in high places. When they divorced, she got a third of their assets because of some pre-nup. He fought her every step of the way, too, didn’t want her walking away with anything. It wasn’t an amicable divorce.”
“What divorce is?” Painter laughed.
Fox continued. “I called the restaurant just to see if I could talk to Singleton, her ex, but someone there said he wasn’t available. When I explained it had to do with business and asked when he would be available, they put some bitch on who said he was taking some personal time off, and would I leave a number where he could call me.” He snorted. “Hung up on the bitch. By the way, he doesn’t own a caddy.”
“That don’t mean shit,” Rock barked.
“Drives a Mercedes. If he rented a caddy he did it under a different name.”
“What kind of person drives a caddy when they go to off their ex anyway?” Painter joked. “Not exactly covert.”
“A narcissistic, entitled fucker. Asshole,” I sneered.
“This could all be moot, we don’t even know if he’s the shooter.”
The room broke out in laughter. “Moot!” Clay exploded, laughing so hard he doubled over with it. “What the hell kind of word is that?”
“You need to watch your language, brother, or we’ll have to wash your mouth out with soap,” Jumper joined in, leaning back in his chair. “We have reputations to protect.”
Snake just sat there glaring at everyone. “Goddamnit!” he swore after a while. “Heard Robin use that fuckin’ word the other day with one of the kids. Sounded damned cute coming out of her mouth.”
“It loses something coming out of yours,” Ned snorted.
“Snake’s right, brothers.” The room quieted down as our president’s tone demanded. “We don’t know who the shooter is, or who he was after. We can’t afford to assume it’s Daisy’s ex just because it’s convenient and makes sense. What in our world makes sense?”
“We need to assume the shooter is after Big John and Daisy until we know for sure,” Rock said after Hawk. “The Trouble Makers aren’t our only enemies out there.” Murmurs and head nods of agreement rippled around the room as brothers responded. “What’s your gut telling you, Big John?”