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“That was low, Ruger”
“That was true, Sophie You wanna be all high and ettin’ saved by me, and behind me stands the club If you ith the Reapers, Noah’d be surrounded by adults who care about hiet wild, but lemme tell you—somethin’ like this happened in Coeur d’Alene to one of our kids, I’d have to fight uy That’s family, Sophie And Noah could use some of that family around him”
“I don’t want to talk about this”
“Then don’t talk,” he replied “But listen up I get that you don’t want to be part of club life Don’t worry I’onna be a stuck-up bitch I wouldn’t want you around them anyway”
“Stop it!”
“Shut the fk up and listen,” he snapped “This is important Love the club, hate the club, you need to be aware of a few things, because they’re part of your reality now The assle that hurt Noah, you saw the ink on his back, right?”
“Yes,” I replied, wishing hiht to hell
“Called a back patch,” he continued “It’s his club colors, right on his skin Club colors are ear on our cuts—our vests, call ’es, too—and they say a lot about a man In this case, those colors said he was part of the Devil’s Jacks Lotta MCs out there, good and bad, but the Jacks are one of the worst Reapers and Jacks are eneuy with colors like that again, you need to tell o after hi it all worked out Next tier growled in frustration
“I don’t think you get me, Soph,” he said “Let me tell you a little story Got a brother naot a niece named Gracie—his old lady’s sister’s kid She had jack shit to do with the Reapers, by the way So Gracie went off to college down in northern Cali three years ago and started dating a guy who turned out to be a hangaround with the Jacks”
I looked over at hirim
“So little Gracie went to a party with hiht after the next,” he said “You ever heard of a train?”
I stared at him and sed
“Believe it or not, some women are doith that,” he continued “Gracie isn’t one of theentle They tore her up so bad she’ll never have kids Then they carved a ‘DJ’ into her forehead and dumped her in a ditch Deke found out when they sent him pictures they took of her with her own fkin’ phone Tried to kill herself She’s doin’ better now, engaged to one of the brothers in the Portland chapter Did I ht about the two men I’d met earlier, Hunter and Skid
“What happened to the uys you were talking to …?”
“It was four hangarounds and two Jacks,” he told irls Hunter and Skid weren’t part of that particular s So let otsick