Free Cutter's Hope by A.J. Downey

got a scent. She isn’t going to give it up unless she gets answers.”
    “So take the bitch out.”
    Silence, almost as one the rest of the crew turned towards Tiny, incredulous. Marlin was the one who finally spoke.
    “Tiny, you dumb fuck. Have you not been listening to a word that’s been said? She works with the cops . She’d be missed and none of this would be happening if it weren’t for you in the first place. If you’d done what you were fucking told, and had taken the first bitch home. So dude, do us all a fucking favor and shut your god damn hole for the remainder of this meeting.” My VP and Tiny locked stares for several tense minutes before, as expected Tiny got up.
    “Man, fuck you!” he declared and stormed out. A collective sigh ran through the rest of my men.
    “Fine Tiny a hundred bucks for the disrespect to a senior officer.” I told Nothing, it was the heaviest fine I could assess according to our by-laws, which was unfortunate. Nothing was already writing it down on one of his little notepads he always had tucked away somewhere, nodding at what I’d said as I’d said it.
    “Anybody else got any bright ideas about doing something so monumentally stupid?” Marlin asked. As expected no one spoke up.
    “Way I see it, we can lie to her and send her chasing her tail, which I do not recommend because all she’s going to do is come back here pissed off with the fucking cops… Jesus Christ what has he gotten us into? This is a capital offense man!” Atlas scrubbed his face with his hands and sat back in his seat.
    “We tell the truth? She goes to the cops, we lie? She goes to the cops… What the fuck are we going to do?” Pyro asked no one in particular.
    “We do a little of both,” I said with a heavy heart, this sucked man. This was not what we were about. We weren’t into drugs, and we sure as fuck weren’t into killing people. Our illegal activity was more along the lines of tomb raiding some of the wrecks around here, of smuggling Cuban cigars, and if we were really strapped? Smuggling some fucking Cubans. We did not kill people, that hadn’t done any fucking thing to us, let alone young girls.
    “Captain?” someone said snapping me out of wherever I’d been.
    “Yeah?”
    “How are we going to do that?” Stoker asked.
    “We tell her we dropped the girl off in Tallahassee and I call in a favor to the SHMC.” I said. Some looks were traded.
    “I need a vote boys. Is this an amenable compromise?” I asked.
    We voted, it was decided. I texted Hossler to see where she and Hope were at and nodded. I had a place to start.
     

 
    Chapter 9
    Hope
     
    Hossler wasn’t bad company, in fact, she was pretty kick ass. I’d asked her what her function was within the club and she’d laughed.
    “I don’t know,” she’d said with a gusty sigh, “I had an Ol’ Man but he skipped town and left me taking care of our kids all on my own. I guess I was liked enough by the club. Cutter helps out when my business is down and I fool around with the guys some, I mean I’m a mother – I’m not dead!” We laughed and she went on, “The club is like a family. They look out for their own and I was a patched member’s Ol’ Lady. They ever catch up to him they’re gonna beat his ass and take his patch but they aren’t bad guys. The sins of my man didn’t rub off on me or my kids. Cutter made things clear,” she sniffed.
    “What about you? You got any kids?” she inquired. I leaned back in the passenger seat and sighed.
    “No! No, no, no. I had a tubal last year. No kids are happening here,” I said and stared out the window.
    “Why not?” It was the natural evolution of the conversation but I didn’t want to answer it so I changed the subject.
    “You said when your business was slow, Cutter helps you; what do you do?”
    Hossler laughed, “I breed snakes.”
    I gave her a flat look, the kind that said ‘please tell me you’re joking’ and she laughed a little