Chapter 39: SCRAP

Chapter Thirty-Nine

SCRAP

D eacon Hollingsworth is out of his fucking mind. He didn’t mention that a major part of this poker game is that the buy-in for the table isn’t just a thousand dollars – it’s a human life. I don’t know what the hell Rage told the girl running this table, because I don’t have a human life that I’m willing to gamble. I’m not as crazy as my brother. The other men at this table are different and they’re too fucking calm about it. Midnight SS. They’re the motherfuckers who killed our brothers.

They don’t think we know…

Last I heard, Deb Hollingsworth has Avery’s mother imprisoned at some lakehouse out in the Ozarks. Ruger has Darlene at Oske’s trailer beating the fuck out of her – if he hasn’t killed her yet. And I’m here…

Southpaw must have known this was coming, but I know how my brother thinks. Commanding me to gamble would be encouraging vice. Leaving the choice in my hands somehow makes it better. He knows how Shaw men are around a card table. Or slot machines. Or sports betting apps. My brother is a fucking fox. He lets that good woman he keeps around protect his image and project something far more harmless.

But I know Wyatt. He’s darkened to his core and nothing will change him. If anything, that family of his has made him worse. More protective. More willing to go to war. Whatever the fuck he’s planning tonight, Wyatt has to know that it could go wrong. That we could end up having to put a bunch of Neo-Nazi bikers in the ground.

We could end up in prison doing that without much of a plan.

I peel open a peppermint Zyn container and pop one out, sticking it in behind my top lip. Instantly, I’m more awake and glance over at the Indian girl running the table. She reminds me of Oske. Maybe the same tribe, maybe just another Indian girl.

The girls hardly look at us. I don’t know if I should be more focused on the game, or more focused on figuring out why the fuck my brother dropped me into this mess like a stone without a single fucking clue what the hell might be going on. I understand the choice we all made. War.

War means trusting your general, which is easy to do in my case. Wyatt might be crazy but he’s still my brother, and the losses out there in the desert affected him as much as they affected all of us, if not more. He takes responsibility for everything — far more than Owen and definitely more than me. I can’t help but try to get a good look at the Indian girls’ tits, even if I have bigger concerns. Not much to see, but the expended effort reminds me of how damn hard it is to find a woman when you live most of the fucking year on the road.

And when the fuck does it end if we start a war now.

The Indian girl starts talking, which takes my mind off the adrenaline coursing through me.

“Good evening, gentlemen. My name is Nina and I will be the host of the poker game this evening. Tonight, you are here for a very special reason and a very special prize. The girls tonight are all kept in a separate location and all property disbursed to the winner will be thoroughly inspected by a third party before you sign release forms and documents. Please direct any concerns to my floor manager, Mr. Rage.”

Nobody gives her any verbal or physical acknowledgement, except the neo-nazi biker with the name Biter on his patch, who reaches over and touches her ass. She doesn’t respond negatively or positively to his advances, but his buddy gives him a dirty look.

Slitlicker cuts the deck and deals out the first hand of cards. This must be a set-up of some kind. Not for me — for the Midnight SS. Wyatt’s crazy ass must have thought it would be better for me not to know what was coming. Make it seem more real. I know how my brother thinks.

He doesn’t give a fuck what type of situations he puts me in as long as he thinks I can handle it. Like I said, he’s more like our father than he thinks. My cards aren’t great, but I stand a chance at winning the hand. Don’t know how long I’ll have to play and win to get the entire pot.

Is that what Wyatt even wants me to do?

Can’t imagine he would want me to sit at a poker table and throw the fucking game. I scrutinize the other players. This could all go tits up in a goddamn second.

“Fold,” Horse Cock says. More cards. Another fold. The hand gets down to me and Biter. His gaze flickers over. I pretend to be thoroughly distracted by my hand of cards. High cards, but not enough to win if he has any of the aces.

I raise the stakes, throwing in a few more chips.

What the hell does it matter? If Wyatt wants a war with these motherfuckers, chances are they’ll end up dead. He looks at me with an expression on his face that’s downright gleeful, matching my bet. I keep looking at my cards. Situations like this, it helps to be wired different. To get the same fucking high from winning or losing.

The Indian girl flips the card. The biker slams his on the table with a self-satisfied grunt.

Straight flush.

It’s a good hand. One that very, very nearly beat mine.

I spread my cards. Immediately, Biter rises, one hand on his holster. His buddy shoves his chair back, joining him. But it’s too late. I was right about my brother and his winner combination of a lack of ethics paired with balls of steel.

“Sit down,” the second Indian girl says, pressing what must be a small revolver into his back. “One wrong move, and I’ll put a hole in your kidney.”

I have my gun out, pointed at Slitlicker. Don’t have to know what the fuck is going on to know who counts as blood and who doesn’t.

“You heard the woman,” I say to him. “Hands off your weapons.”

The room is so damn quiet you could hear a spider fart.

The tense silence doesn’t last. The door sealing us away from the rest of Deacon Hollingsworth’s motel creaks open loudly and the door slams against the wall as Deacon and three other Barbarians storm into the room with semi-automatic weapons.

“Gentlemen,” Deacon says. “I apologize for the deceptive behavior…”

THE END.