“Later, Low.”

In the opened door, he looked back at her sitting behind her desk. He reached out a hand and tapped the security panel.

“Rearm, beautiful.”

She sighed but nodded and said, “I will. See you later, Snooks.”

He lifted his chin, grinned, and closed the door so he could see to hauling the single bag he had that held the rest of his shit and moving into her house.

*  *  *

High leaned against the side of the truck, watching and not liking what he was seeing.

Snap was standing on the sidewalk with Rosalie.

High remembered Rosalie. She was no less pretty now than when she was Shy’s.

She was also trouble.

They’d come in his truck. Too easy to be noticed on their bikes in their cuts.

Not that anyone had any reason to have an eye on Rosalie. The dope run had gone down that weekend just like she told them it would. That meant no one had a clue she was feeding information to Chaos.

But neither he nor Snap had their cuts on and before he’d dropped Snapper off, they’d done a drive around the upscale pizza joint where Rosalie was a waitress and they’d spotted nothing.

So the face-to-face meet, which was a face-to-face meet for a reason, a reason that was all Snapper’s, could go down.

High watched as Rosalie gave him a number of the reasons why this meeting was face to face. It was winding down and she was smiling up at Snap. She reached out and grabbed his hand, tugged on it playfully a couple of times, then said something to make him smile.

She then took off, aiming her eyes and lifting her hand to wave at High before she aimed another smile to Snapper, turned, and skip-walked, long hair swaying, tits bouncing, to the door of the restaurant.

High watched her go for a beat; then he turned his attention to Snapper and he watched his brother watch her go.

They were watching for two entirely different reasons.

Only when she was out of sight did Snapper move his way.

As his brother moved, High turned to his truck, opened the door, and angled in. He started her up as Snapper hauled his ass in the other side.

High backed out of the parking spot and took them on their way as Snap said, “They’re already planning another run.”

“You need to stop,” High replied.

He did it quiet and careful. But he also did it strong.

“Say what?” Snapper asked.

“Get a burner phone. Give her the number. Talk through that. Face-to-face meets gotta stop, Snap,” High advised.

“What the fuck are you talkin’ about?”

High slowed for a light, stopped, and looked to his brother. “She’s got a man.”

He saw the hard hit Snapper’s face.

Snap was a good-looking kid. Tall. Built. Blond. He was young but he had that look about him that all that was just gonna get better with age.

What he wasn’t was Shy. Shy was lanky. Dark. Before Tab, Shy could charm the panties off a bitch in ten minutes flat and he didn’t even have to know her before he did it. He’d been about good times. Getting off. Easy grins. Easier pussy.

High knew Rosalie’s current man. He was lanky. He was dark. He’d been a player before Rosalie. He knew what he had in her, old lady through and through who would stick by his side through thick and thin, all that on top of a great ass, long legs, good tits, thick hair, and a pretty face. So he found Rosalie, his player days disappeared, and he held on.

Snap was intense. High knew his story and he never got where that intensity came from. Before Chaos, Snap didn’t have it bad. He didn’t have it good. He just had a life.

The intensity was always there, though. The brother paid attention, nothing escaped him. It reminded High a lot of Tack back in the day.

He’d shoot the shit. Have a laugh. Unlike Tack, Snapper was serious far more often than he wasn’t and didn’t talk much. But he did read a lot. In his room at the Compound, door open, him on his bed, eyes to a book.

It wasn’t unheard of for a member of Chaos to read. But Snap did it maybe too much.

He might partake of easy pussy if the spirit moved him but he’d had a girl when he’d become a recruit. He’d split with her and got another one where fucking around became something more and it did it fast.

He’d also split with her.

He was now a free agent.

Rosalie was not.

“No reason to put your ass on the line, and more to the point, brother, hers by doin’ shit face to face. Get a burner. Every time you see her puts her out there.”

“No one knows shit about what she’s doin’ for Chaos,” Snapper replied.

“They don’t know but people talk. Could be innocent, one of the other waitresses in that joint sees her with you, sees her man, mentions you. It’s not smart, Snap, and you need to put a stop to it.”

“We’ll meet somewhere no one can see us,” Snapper returned. “She prefers face to face. Doesn’t want to get overheard or have her man see shit on her phone he shouldn’t see.”

“Then she deletes her texts and calls,” High told him.

“I hear you, High, but it’s the way she wants it done.”

“It’s the way you want it done, brother,” High returned quietly.

“She’s stickin’ her neck out for Chaos, We do it like she’s comfortable doin’ it.”

“You’re doin’ it ’cause she’s pretty, she smiles at you, and you’re into her.”

“It’s not that,” Snapper bit out.

High saw traffic moving around him, looked back to see the light was green, and moved his foot to the gas pedal, accelerating.

He did this speaking.

“Rule between brothers but that rule extends between bikers and you know it. Pussy’s claimed, pussy is claimed. You do not go there.”

“Told you it’s not about that,” Snapper replied.

“Got years on you, brother, and I’m not blind. Not sayin’ this shit to piss you off. Sayin’ it to save you a load of hurt. She’s into her man. She’s riskin’ a lot to get him clean. You’re not in that.”

“Straight up and no offense, High, but her man is weak,” Snap returned.

High’s jaw got hard at his words because they spoke to what Snap thought of High because back in the day High had once been like Rosalie’s boyfriend, riding that edge, going for the high, doing this with and without his Rosalie.

But fortunately, Snapper wasn’t done.

“The no offense part is the fact that the Bounties know Chaos history. They know the shit they’re gettin’ into is fucked up and they know just how that shit can fuck up a club because it did that to Chaos. And they’re gettin’ into it. I know a lot of those brothers don’t like it but they sit a table just like us. Gavel doesn’t drop until a decision is voted, so they’re votin’ that shit in. Rosalie doesn’t know how her man is voting. But he’s doin’ that shit and that says a lot.”

“Club goes a way, you’re a brother, you go that way,” High pointed out.

Snapper didn’t say anything and High knew why.

Because that was the straight-up truth.

High kept going.

“Tack wanted me in with you to take your back but more, to take Rosalie’s. That’s my focus. Keepin’ her safe while she does Chaos a good turn. You gotta be all in on that and you gotta be that for her. It isn’t about what she’s doin’ for the Club or what she makes you feel when you’re with her. It’s about her. And that’s the way of it, brother. She’s yours or she’s not, she’s a woman and you’re any kind of man, you look out for her every way you can.”

High turned on his signal and slowed to make a turn as Snapper kept silent.

He’d made the turn, they were cruising, and High said no more. His point had been made. Snap didn’t take it, for Rosalie, High would have no choice but to inform the brothers and Snapper would be removed from her detail.

“I’ll get a burner,” Snap muttered.

High drew in a breath and let it out slowly.

Then he just drove.

*  *  *