Buck felt a muscle jump in his cheek, seeing as Clara was that “personal member of the family.”

“Redhot has dick to do with any a’ Esposito’s shit,” Chap clipped.

“She’s just saying, you might be in a position to remind them of that,” Tucker pointed out.

No one had a response.

Sylvie kept talking.

“And Imran Babić is a very poor loser.”

This was what Buck wanted to talk about.

And this was why Buck had called the meet.

Pinky had left work the night before, went to her car, and found a note under her wiper blade that said, I don’t get her, I want you.

It had freaked her, she’d told Cruise about it, Cruise told Ink about it within earshot of Lorie, and Lorie had shared she’d had the same thing. She thought it was a mistake, or some crazy marketing thing, so she’d thrown it away.

Commence Ink tagging Buck, and Buck hauling everyone in for this meet.

They knew it was Imran because Lynch and Slate went to the bar where Pinky worked, demanded to see their security tapes, and they saw one of Babić’s boys place the note.

Those boys knew those cameras were there. They weren’t acting sneaky.

That meant Babić wanted them to know who was communicating.

The other old ladies were asked, none of them had received one, but now, they were on high alert.

It didn’t take much to jump from I don’t get her, the “her” being Clara, I want you, that Babić, like Babić could do, was going to start playing with them.

And Babić was a lunatic.

So that was a problem.

And he was already a problem, kidnapping Clara at all, much less the way he had.

So now, he was a big problem.

“Your last problem is that Eleanor Moynihan is one serious liability,” Sylvie finished. “Because a woman who’s convinced herself she was wronged is a helluva wildcard.”

Buck looked to Gash.

Eleanor Moynihan was Nails.

And since Buck had turned her out in a way she would never get back in, she’d been fucking with them.

It started with a “pregnancy scare” that ended up nothing.

But that didn’t mean she didn’t rope Gash and Cruise into that situation, sharing it could be either of their kid.

And she did this by telling both Minnie and Pinky that she might be carrying one of their men’s baby.

Pinky had been devastated.

Cruise had lost his mind, pissed at Nails, but even so, he’d focused since he was more concerned with the thought of losing Pinky.

Buck had given the man some time because he was a brother, a friend, and a good man who had occasion to do something seriously stupid.

Chap, however, turned him out.

Some things Chap was willing to counsel you about.

Others, he figured you should just know. And if you didn’t, he wasn’t going to waste his time educating you.

Cruise talked Pinky into trying to work it out.

They were trying.

From what Clara said, it wasn’t really working.

But they were still trying.

Minnie had scraped Gash off.

Done.

The end.

Which put Buck in a tough position because—on threat of having access to Clara’s body being denied “for an appropriate time of punishment, you’ve got your brother code, I’ve got my sister one” (her words)—he couldn’t tell Gash that Minnie was in his living room with his woman, crying her eyes out about the man she loved cheating on her, losing him and her family.

But there was no turning her back.

Not that Clara had tried.

She’d just explained to Buck, “She knew, or figured it was a possibility. I think it’s more about him acting like he was innocent and throwing you under the bus. Being a man like that and taking a good man down to be able to keep doing it. I also think she’s embarrassed that cast aspersions on her Professor Higginsing. She was pretty proud of being my biker babe mentor.”

For Buck’s part, it went against the brother code, but he’d shared with Clara that Gash had not been a stranger to the liquor stock in the Dive and was making it his mission to down as much of it as he could in order to drown his guilt and loss.

An endeavor which appeared to be failing.

And after sharing this, Buck had not denied Clara the option of giving this to Minnie.

She had, and Minnie might have been affected by it, but not enough to give Gash a shot at redemption.

So now Buck had this issue both ways, Gash as a brother, Minnie as his woman’s sister, and they’d had to declare boundaries.

Minnie got their house, and Gash wasn’t allowed there if there was something happening where people could be invited, occasions where Minnie always showed.

Obviously, Gash got Ace.

But Nails wasn’t done.

A week ago, in the store, she’d pretended to slip and fall and hit her head on a display.

Bitch didn’t consider they had cameras everywhere.

And while she was moaning and threatening lawsuits, Jimbo pulled up the video on an iPad of her sitting her own self down and then starting to shout and showed it to her.

They now had pictures of her everywhere, in the store, warehouse, even in the Dive (but that was just a joke), put up by Driver, that said, If you see this woman, report her to management immediately.

Unfortunately, someone had told Nails about this.

Which meant yesterday, she’d come in, trying to tear all of them down, and so no one was in danger of having her claim shit if they laid hands on her, they’d had to call the cops.

But she wasn’t done.

They knew this because, under escort of the police to her vehicle, she got in her car, shrieking, “I’m not done with all y’all in the Aces High MC!”

“So, to sum up,” Sylvie said, “you got possible issues with a drug cartel, whatever Babić is, but all he is, is no good, and a skank bent on vengeance. Over to you, Scott.”

She ended with her gaze on Scott.

“I cannot say Tia, or Aces, is not in deep shit,” Scott said like he really did not want to. “We’re gonna have to turn over the evidence to the defense. So they’ll know how much we got, where it came from, and this could cause some uncomfortable questions to be asked. And those won’t be uncomfortable for the DA. They’ll be uncomfortable for Tia and maybe Aces. Tia was followed. Enrique’s boys knew what she had. We don’t know, but they could also know she was going to go on the run with Clara. Which is another link between them and to this shit that’s not good.”

No, it wasn’t.

“Thought those boys were neutralized,” Sylvie noted.

“I am not here for this part of the discussion,” Scott said, but he didn’t move.

Shit.

Buck might have to start liking this guy.

“Don’t know if they reported in. Don’t know if the threat of her havin’ that shit was passed up the chain. Don’t know if Enrique talked before they axed him,” Damian put in, still unhappy. “So Tia is a ghost come December twenty-sixth.”

Fuck.

Damian looked at Buck. “And the men who went down, they’re middle management. Important, but not too important. Though, they know the drill. They’ll keep their mouths shut. And if they do, and it ends with them, this will blow over. If they don’t, and other dominoes fall, she may be a ghost forever, man.”