Chapter 95
-Logan-
The clubhouse door swung open before I killed the van. Every set of eyes tracked me as I limped inside, and it wasn’t because I wasn’t wearing pants.
“Church,” Jake’s voice rumbled from the end of the bar. He didnt need to raise it. The place
od silent. “Now.”
my underwear.
Brothers started filing into the chapel, but I veered off toward the stairs. I wasn’t about to
Hailey stopped me, gesturing at my leg. “Let me. You go grab a drink.”
I sighed. Nodded once. Then headed for the bar.
She appeared two minutes later with a pair of sweatpants. Like she read my mind.
I took another swig of whiskey and pulled them on.
A few snickers followed me as I limped into the chapel and took my usual seat. They shut the fuck up quick when I didn’t react, just leveled a flat stare in their direction.
Tonight, the chapel felt like a cage.
Jake sat at the head of the table. He looked like a sack of shit, honestly. Talon was to his left. The rest of the chairs were filled with the grim faces of our brothers.
I waited about half a second for Jake to start talking. When he didn’t, I didn’t bother with formalities.
“Burnsville was a trap,” I started, leaning forward. No point dressing it up. “Place was a ghost town. A handful of guards, lazy as fuck. It felt wrong the second we stepped inside.”
I laid it out, detail by brutal detail.
“I made the call to push deeper,” I said. My eyes swept the table. It was all on me. I wanted to know what we were dealin‘ with, and I tripped a laser wire. Alarm went off. Lights came on.”
I described the Russians that materialized from nowhere. Not from deeper in the warehouse… from behind us. Like they were waiting.
The firefight. Dex’s charges collapsing the roof. The lack of any real pursuit.
“They weren’t there to stop us,” I finished. The truth of it tasted sour. “They were there to occu while we were out there…”
Keep us busy. And
I let the sentence hang. Everyone knew how it ended. While we were out there blowing up a decoy, they were in our city. Whispering in some poor kid’s ear and making him violent.
Silence again.
Monty finally broke the quiet. “A fucking kid,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Crying. They threatened his mom.”
“It’s genius,” Link said with a level of respect that made me a little sick. “No loyalty to trace. No hit man to nail and interrogate. Just a scared civilian. It makes us look like monsters if we retaliate… makes us leery of every face we don’t know.”
“That’s the point,” I said. “This isn’t about territory. It’s not about product. It’s about humiliation. Makin‘ us doubt everything. Our security. Our intelligence. Each other. He’s not trying to win a fight. He’s trying to reprogram how we behave.”
1/3
20:39 Thu, Jan 8
Chapter 95
ค
30%
3266 vouchers
I looked around the table. Some of these guys were new, but I’d known most of them my whole life. I saw the same creeping horror in all of their eyes that I felt in my chest.
We knew how to kill. None of us had ever played fucking chess.
The silence after I laid it all out was disgusting. You could feel the club fracturing. Then Jake cleared his throat, and it sounded like a gavel dropping.
“We shut it down,” he said. “All of it. The bar, the strip club, the garage. Even Hailey’s tattoo shop send the women out west like we planned. We send the prospects home. We lock the gates and we wait this son of
He said it like it was the only option. The smart play. And part of me understood it.
But the part of me that was pure Nash recoiled. Like he had suggested we all suck Anatoly’s dick.
“Wait him out?” I said. The words came out a little too loud. “Jake, that’s not waiting him out. That’s surrendering. He pokes us, and we curl into a ball? He’ll own Riverstone by the end of the week. And what happens to the people we send away? You think he won’t follow them to Washington?”
“It’s not about surrender,” Jake muttered. “It’s about protecting what matters. Our people. This club’s heart isn’t its territory, it’s its brothers. And their ol‘ ladies. Their kids. We can’t fight a war if we’re constantly looking over our shoulder, worried about who he’s gonna threaten next.”
“So we let him dictate the terms?” Monty cut in. He was leaning forward with his eyes locked on Jake. “He’s not gonna get bored and go home. He’s gonna see us hide and he’s gonna blow this fuckin place up.”
A murmur of agreement came from my side of the table. Link, Mason, a few others. The younger blood.
“We hit back,” I said, my voice dropping into a growl. “Hard. Now. We trash his operations. We show him that every time he pokes us, he loses something. We take the war to him.”
Jake’s jaw went tight. “And how many more Leos do we make? How many scared kids get caught in the crossfire? This isn’t a rival MC we can beat into the ground, Logan. This could end us.”
“Only if we let it.”
The room froze. All eyes swung to my old man. Talon had been silent for so long, his presence had almost faded into the wood paneling. Now he was front and center.
He was looking at Jake, but his words were for the whole table. “Logan’s not wrong about the strategy,” he said. “The kid’s got a head for this, he always has. But Jake’s right about the cost.”
He turned his eyes on me. “I know that fire in your gut, son. I’ve lived with it my whole life. But right now, it makes you predictable. Anatoly’s counting on that fire. He’s pouring gas on it, waiting for you to burn everything down around you.”
He turned back to Jake with a silent nod. “We can’t wait it out. But we don’t charge in blind, eithe wit.”
eed to match his
Talon’s support for Jake was a verdict. The old heads had spoken. The president and his vice–president were in agreement.
I looked at the faces of my brothers. The divide was clear as day now.
On one side, the tired men who had too much to lose.
On the other, the furious ones who wanted to make someone pay.
We were stuck. And with every second we sat here arguing, Anately’s grip on our city tightened.
The silence was heavy as everyone weighed the two shitty options. Hide or hit back.
2/3
My leg throbbed.
“There’s a third way,” I said. Every head turned my way. “We stop thinkin‘ like a club.”
I leaned forward. “He wants a predictable enemy. A club that operates out of one fortress, rides in a pack. So, we break into cells. Three, four men max. We hang up the cuts. Stash the bikes. Be citizens. Blend in.”
I could see the gears turning behind their eyes.
“We don’t go for the headquarters yet. We follow the trucks goin out. The shit he needs to ke multiple things at once… fast and hard. Break his toys, maybe kidnap a few of his drivers, and
running. We hit
Monty was nodding. “Keep him guessing. Never let him know where the next hit is coming from.” “Exactly,” I said. “We show him we can play games, too. Make him doubt his own control. We become the ghost.”
I looked at Jake, then at my father. “The big hit, the one on a real target… that still happens. Later. When he’s looking everywhere at once. And it happens because we’ve earned the intel ourselves, not because we bought it from someone else.”
Most of the guys were nodding now.
“Who leads the main op, when it’s time?” Dex asked, cutting to the heart of it. “You’re out for a week, Logan. At least.”
Yeah, asshole. Thanks for the fuckin‘ reminder.
He was right. I was a liability.
“I will,” Talon muttered.
He pushed back from the table slightly. “The main operation needs experience. Calm. It can’t look like a revenge hit.” His eyes met mine. “And it gets you off the front line. Where he’ll be expecting you to be.”
It was the closest thing to praise I’d ever get from him. An acknowledgment that my plan had merit. And I had every faith in my old man. If he was leading the charge, I knew it would run smooth.
Jake looked from Talon to me, and I saw the resistance bleed out of him.
“Alright,” he said. “We do it Logan’s way. Cells. Harassment ops. Talon, Ledger, you and I will plan the primary target. Everyone else in groups of four.”
“First,” Talon added, standing up. “We gotta reinforce the door to the gun range. We can’t get the women out of here without ‘em being seen. The range is soundproof and fortified. They’ll be safest in there. With Logan and the prospects.”
Jake nodded and brought the gavel down. The meeting was over. Brothers left the chapel, already planning. Pairing off.
I stayed sitting for a minute and watched them go. The plan was in motion. My plan. And it felt goo
But I had just reshaped my club for a new kind of war. And I had no idea if we’d survive the transformation.
AD
