“Don’t know. You wanna check it for me?” Easy turned around and planted both hands on the rear fender of the Honda, bending over and pushing his ass out. “Just be gentle.”
“Is that how you made friends last time you were in jail?” Jet asked him.
“Why d’you think we call him Easy, darlin’?”
“Officer,” Jet corrected him.
“Why d’you think we call him Easy, officer darlin’?”
She sighed and jerked up her duty belt. Rook preferred to see her hips without that bulky thing. Especially since that belt held a whole bunch of shit that could make his life miserable.
“I don’t want to catch you here again,” she ordered before turning on her boot heel and walking away.
“It’s a free country, ain’t it?” he asked Easy.
Easy answered, “Last I checked.”
“Hear that, officer darlin’? It’s a free country. We wanna have a romantic picnic together in the woods at two a.m., we’re damn well gonna have one,” he yelled at her retreating back.
Rook leaned back against the cage, crossed his arms over his chest and watched her climb into her cruiser. A few seconds later the spotlight went out. Thank fuck.
His brother whacked his arm. “Bet she’s hot as fuck in bed. All bossy and shit. Black leather corset, whip, cuffs. Fuck yeah. That makes me hard thinkin’ about it.” Easy adjusted himself. “Wouldn’t mind havin’ a taste of that.”
Unfortunately, Easy wasn’t the only one.
The fucker wasn’t dead. He wasn’t injured. It turns out Shade ghosted his brothers and his woman Chelle for two weeks without a word. Said he had shit that needed to be handled and then returned with a kid in tow. A fucking kid.
Not a little snot monkey. A twelve-year-old. Then tried to say the boy was his. Rook wasn’t sure anyone believed that bullshit.
But if Jude needed a place to belong, they’d give him one. That was just the way real family should be. Family wasn’t always blood. In fact, sometimes it was better if they weren’t.
He had no idea who or where Jude’s mother was, but Rook only hoped she wasn’t anything like Bebe.
Now that Shade had a woman and a kid, along with Chelle’s two girls, to be responsible for, Judge wasn’t sure Shade should continue going up the mountain to deal with the Shirleys. Mostly because he didn’t want to risk leaving Shade’s new family “fatherless.”
Most of the Fury members had survived shitty childhoods. It was one common bond between them. Most of them were also determined to do things differently with the next generation.
Whether that happened or not remained to be seen.
But keeping Shade off the mountain meant Easy and Rook needed to continue to do their part. Their focus turned to the rest of the male Shirleys, by grabbing one whenever it was possible, or at least doing recon. Basically, trying to keep ahead of whatever war they might be planning.
Tonight, he was alone. Now that it wasn’t a rescue mission for Shade, they figured it was easier to spy on the clan, or make a Shirley magically disappear, by going solo.
The Shirley men seemed to be staying in small groups now. Safety in numbers, Rook guessed. And all of them had some sort of high-powered rifle slung over their backs, big knives on their hips, as well as thigh holsters with some pretty large caliber handguns. Small cannons, more like it.
Yeah, they’d had enough with their fellow uncle-brothers and brother-cousins disappearing. They were protecting the few who remained.
Shade had been right, though. They’d soon have to shut down the Clan Plan for the winter. The cover was getting thin and once snow hit the mountain, anyone going up there would stand out like a flashing beacon and make an easy target.
Rook would prefer not to get shot at. About as much as he preferred not to get dragged back to jail for breaking his current parole.
Which he did about every fucking day. Especially since he was trespassing right now and had not only a loaded Beretta tucked into the back of his waistband, but a ten-inch knife on his belt. He also had a joint tucked in his wallet. But he’d left that back in the Honda where he’d parked it in their hiding spot. The same spot where they’d found the crematorium’s van the night Shade got his head bashed in by an aluminum baseball bat.
Shade had built a good hidey-hole for the van, so they kept using it. Problem was, they’d been lazy and hadn’t used it the last time when Jet Bryson came across them. They weren’t making that mistake again. Because of that fuck-up she was sure to keep an eye on the area and had probably spread the word around their pig pen.
Five-o might be on high alert for any questionable activity on Copperhead Road.
For some reason, they didn’t fuck with the Shirleys, but they didn’t want anyone else fucking with them, either. Rook guessed they didn’t want anyone poking at the sleeping bear.
He ducked behind a bush that wasn’t so bushy any longer. But the night was dark since the moon was in hiding due to the cloud cover, so he doubted he’d be spotted.
Fuck, he hoped he wouldn’t be spotted. No matter what, he wasn’t moving. He was staying right where he was so he could watch what the fuck was happening in the main clearing tonight.
It wasn’t what he expected. Normally, if the women were working late, they were either making meth or reloads, or both. The men usually took care of the moonshine stills and assembling long guns out of parts they got from wherever the fuck they got them.
Buying rifle parts on the black market and putting them together to make semi-automatic or even fully-automatic weapons probably made them untraceable. Bonus, no ID and background check required like normal citizens trying to legally purchase a firearm. The Guardians of Freedumb didn’t believe they should have any kind of government identification, that it violated their freedoms.
What-fuckin-ever.
Whenever those inbred goat fuckers got tossed in the slammer, they were given something to identify them, whether they liked it or not. A mug shot, a set of prints in the system and an inmate number. It was easier to stay off the government radar if you didn’t get caught.
Not one of the snot monkeys spawned from Shirley loins were born in a hospital, had a birth certificate or a social security number. Not one.
So, yeah, no Shirley existed until they got caught doing something dumb.
Or dangerous.
Like making and selling meth. Making and selling moonshine.
Or fucking girls younger than the legal age of consent.
However, Manning Grove PD tended to turn a blind eye as long as the Shirleys didn’t bring their fuckery to town. What a bunch of goddamn hypocrites.
If Rook knocked up a fourteen-year-old, where’d he end up? In the joint.
If he made and sold moonshine? In the slammer.
If he made and sold meth? Behind bars.
If he drove a vehicle without a license, registration or insurance?
For fuck’s sake... With a cracked-open skull and a lack of memory along an interstate before spending a couple of years in juvie.
Once he got out, his father taught him a lesson the Dietrich way about stealing cars and getting caught. That lesson was almost as bad as the lesson the State Trooper taught him along Interstate 83 late one afternoon. Not quite, since Rook hadn’t woken up in a hospital when Dutch was through with him.