A goddamn willing participant.
“You got something you wanna say?” I demand.
He shakes his head once, not saying anything, but I can feel his questioning gaze focused on me. This fucking asshole. I’m ready to demand he say something, whatever is on his mind. I’m ready to hear it.
So fucking ready.
But he doesn’t speak, and a few moments later, Bullet and Ivy join us. The others are going to be muscle, guards, but aren’t going to attend the meeting—specifically Goose, Maverick, and Lightning.
“Ready?” Bullet asks, then shifts his focus to Piggy.
We had church last night, and there wasn’t anything said about what the plan was for this meeting other than havinglookouts and hearing terms, along with talking about what we would do in the future when it came to the Front Mob Family and if we wanted to continue working with them.
Nothing was truly decided.
Just talks, and then we all kind of agreed that we would see what Lorenzo said today. So, here we fucking are, standing outside the clubhouse, ready to climb onto our bikes with no real plan in place other than to hear Lorenzo out.
And Lorenzo, for all we know, gave the go-ahead for this shit to go down and kidnap Lainey in the first place.
“I guess as ready as we’ll ever be,” Piggy grinds out.
I can see the stress clearly expressed on his face. I feel bad, but not bad enough to admit I let her walk away. At least not yet. I want to know what the fuck is going on at this meeting before I admit to a damn thing.
I fucking refuse to throw myself under the bus here if I don’t have to. And I know that sounds like a cop-out, but at the same time, I’m not a fucking idiot. I’m not going to have a whole complete breakdown with someone in my club over something that may or may not even matter.
Bullet knows what he needs to know, and he’s my president, so he’s the only one who needs to know everything anyway. We all start to head toward our bikes when I feel fingers clamp down around my shoulder, jerking back slightly and halting my movements.
Turning my head, I look behind me at Bullet. He holds me back while the rest of the guys straddle their bikes. Spinning around so I can face him, I tilt my head back slightly and look at him, waiting for whatever it is that’s on his mind.
“I know you’re pissed, but are you sure you don’t want to have a different conversation, like one that involves a claim?” he asks.
I am pissed, but mostly at myself. There are a lot of things I could and should have done, but none of that matters, so there’s no reason to dwell on it. Instead, I jerk my chin toward Bullet, then take one step backward. The sound of the dirt and loose gravel crunches beneath my feet.
“Don’t go there,” I call out before I turn around and head straight for my bike.
Thankfully, Bullet leaves it at that, because he doesn’t have a choice, seeing as how I drown his voice out with the sound of my bike’s engine. I take off, the bike roars, and the rest of the men follow behind me.
They were waiting for me.
Although this isn’t some kind of elaborate plan where I needed to map anything out. Still, being the road captain, I’m in front and leading the way. Bullet is close to me, though, and together, we all make our way straight for Lainey.
Lorenzo, always the goddamn flair for the dramatics, has us meet at a restaurant. When we arrive, I notice that there are only a few cars in the parking lot, which surprises me because the last couple of times we’ve had a meeting with him, the place was packed.
Parking my bike, I kill the engine before I disengage. Instead of running inside the way I want to, I stand beside my bike as everyone else finds parking and joins me. We don’t say anything immediately.
“This is weird,” I state when nobody makes a move to go inside or speaks.
“It is,” Bullet mutters. “No doubt they’ve got surveillance everywhere. Just be on alert for whatever is going to go down. We already know they have guns, though I assume every fucking person within a mile vicinity has a gun,” he states.
Then, without a word, he takes a step forward. Piggy, Ivy, and I follow behind him. I know that the only reason I’m allowedinside for this shit is that it was me who was in charge of her, and I let her get taken.
I’m sure there is going to be some sort of humiliation tactic when it comes to me being there. I have no doubt about that. The thing is, nobody in that room or walking up to it beside me can ever make me feel as badly as I already do about this situation.
The door to the restaurant opens before any of us can even reach for the handle. I watch as a woman wearing a short black skirt and a white button-down shirt tucked into the waist opens the door. Her high heels click on the concrete as she moves to hold it open for us.
“Please come inside. They’re waiting for you,” she murmurs.
If I weren’t focused on walking in there and what the fuck is coming next, I would look at this woman, because she’s absolutely stunning. But my focus is straight ahead, and I don’t have time to check her out.