Page 3 of Devil’s Disciples

“What the fuck, Baker? It was an accident.”

“You expect me to believe you fired that weapon on accident?” I narrowed my gaze. “You left a bullet buried in the cabinet beside that bank manager’s shoulder.”

“I don’t care if you believe it or not,” he snapped back. “That’s what happened. It was an accident.”

“If you’re prone to discharging your weapon on accident, maybe this club isn’t the best place for you. I can’t put the rest of the men at risk, Cash.”

He looked me over as if sizing me up. “What are you saying?”

“I just said it. I can’t put the men at risk. You know the rules. Only point where you intend to shoot, and only shoot who you intend to kill. No women, no children, and no old people unless it’s self-defense. It’s a pretty simple set of rules. You’re lucky you didn’t kill her. If you had, we’d all be facing murder charges.”

“It was a fucking accident,” he insisted. “It won’t happen again.”

Our club was a close-knit group of men who were friends long before we chose to prove our alliance to one another by donning leather jackets and getting matching tattoos. My friendship with Cash began in kindergarten. He made the mistake of challenging me on the playground. An ass whipping ensued.

As much a kindergartner could administer, anyway.

We’d been friends ever since. Friendship didn’t afford him a pass for putting the club at risk, though. We had a strict set of rules we followed, one of which was training monthly as a group at the firing range. It provided assurance that we were as fast – or faster – at reacting when we faced a threat.

Another was indexing our weapons when we were on the job. Indexing – or carrying the weapon with the index finger out of the trigger guard – was a crucial step in preventing gun related accidents from happening.

I gestured at his right hand. “If you were indexing your weapon, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Accident, motherfucker. It was a fucking ac-ci-den-t. I’m done talking about it.” He folded his arms over his chest. “She was a mouthy bitch, anyway.”

“She was doing her job.”

“She was mouthy.”

“She was trying to protect the bank’s interest.”

“Fuck her,” he hissed. “It’s insured by the feds.”

“Sounds like she got under your skin.”

“I was sick of listening to her.”

“It wasn’t an accident, was it?”

He glared. “If I wanted to shoot her, I would have shot her. Right in her shit-talking mouth.”

“It wasn’t an accident, was it?” I asked mockingly.

He chuckled a dry laugh, and then cut it short. “Yes, it was.”

I turned toward the window. Three stories down, the street was lined with parked cars, most of which disappeared at five o’clock when the workday ended. I scanned the block while Ben Harper’s Burn One Down played. When the song was over, I turned to face him.

He’d done little to convince me it was an accident. The bank manager in question had directed some pretty choice expletive-laced threats at Cash, and I suspected his temper got in the way of him doing his job.

“Your cut will be reflective of that accident,” I said in a dry tone. “Mistake. Poor judgement. Temper tantrum. Whatever you want to call it.”

He scooped the hair away from his eyes and shot me a glare. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I’m not.”

“How much you gonna cut me?”

“Enough that we don’t have this conversation again. No matter how much someone gets under your skin.”