WOLFE MCREEDY

I never really thought about going to Seattle before. And now I understand why. It's cold and rainy. Sure, seventy might not be considered cold for most people, but I live in Los Santos where rain is a rare occurrence and its typically in the eighties and nineties with the sun blaring down. Fifteen minutes outside of the city we literally flew into a storm. The sky changed from beautiful fluffy clouds and bright blue skies to thunderous storm clouds and a harsh beating of rain. Flying always makes me slightly nervous. Typically, I down a drink or two, but this is a short flight and I'm on club business so no drinking.

And drinking hasn't been good for me lately. I sort of went on a bender when the security systems in banks got upgraded and the club decided as a whole they weren't worth robbing anymore. I'm a hacker. When they did that, it stole my purpose in the club away from me. I got patched because of not only my loyalty, but my hacking abilities. Take that away from me, and I'm left floundering like a fish on the sandy beach. The water's right there, but no matter how hard I try, it's just out of reach.

While on the bender, I let a club secret slip and that's when the club realized how seriously off the rails I'd gone. They decided an intervention was needed along with a punishment. I deserved the punishment for what I did, and I did listen to them. I know not to get drunk when I'm around them now unless we're all getting drunk like last night. Now, I just go into my apartment and drink until I can't feel anything anymore.

I'm lost and it physically hurts when I go past a bank, my fingers itching to hack, but its out of reach. The payout is not worth the cost of the buy in to hack right now. Not being able to hack is giving me spasms. What am I supposed to do now that banks are off the table for me? Sure they all say I'm a valued member of the club and my hacking skills aren't all that make me important to them, but I feel like that was 95 percent of why I was important to them. I have no purpose now and it fucking sucks. Alcohol helps to lessen that pain. It makes me numb.

But I can't partake in it until this job is over. Barry is trusting me and I can't fuck it up. It meant so much to me what he said and it gives me a glimmer of hope that I might have a role here outside of hacking.

I nudge Liv awake when they announce we're approaching the tarmac. "Hey sleepyhead, time to wake up."

She yawns and rubs her eyes. "We're here already?"

"Yeah. You might want to wipe the drool off your chin."

She gasps and her hand comes up automatically. She shoves me hard when her hand comes away clean. I laugh at her. I can't help it. She falls for things so easily even if she is one of the most badass members of the club. She'll light you on fire without a second thought, but she believes me when I tell her she drooled all over herself. It's a little endearing truth be told.

"I'm gonna get you for that step bro." An evil grin lights up her face and I know she's serious.

Its kind of nice that she calls me step-bro. I don't have any family really, at least none that I'm close with. I already think of Liv like a sister, so every time she says that, it just makes me love her a little more.

"So what's the plan when we land?" She straightens and pulls her purse out from under the seat. I was shocked she had a purse, but since we're in civilian clothes, I guess it makes sense that she'd carry one.

"Um not sure. B gave me the address of the hotel we're supposed to check in to, but other than that, I guess we wait for them to contact us with more details."

"Can we get food or something? I'm starving. I skipped breakfast and lunch." Her dark red hair falls forward as the wheels hit the landing strip and causes the plane to bounce.

"I'm hungry too. Once we check in at the hotel, we can find someplace to eat."

It takes us a good thirty minutes to depart from the plane, get through baggage claim and then to rent a car. As much as I wanted to get something flashy, I got the most boring dark colored four door sedan they had. We don't want to call attention to ourselves while we're here.

The hotel we have reservations at is close to the airport at least. Technically, we could have used the shuttle service from the airport the hotel offered and Uber for everything else, but I don't think that's a good idea. I have a feeling we'll need a car.

"This place is generic." Liv throws her overnight bag on the first of the two queen sized beds. There's a desk, a small chest of drawers a flat screen sits on, a small kitchenette, and a bathroom. The carpet is beige, the walls an off white with a painting of objects on the wall. Generic is definitely the right word.

"I've slept in worse." To me as long as its clean, its fine.

Liv makes a noise that's neither agreement or disagreement. Her long red hair is up in a ponytail and she twists the end of it. "What do you want to eat?"

"Check online and see what kind of places are around here."

"Wolfe..."

"Yeah?" I prompt after a minute when she doesn't say anything else.

"I need to ask you about something and I don't know how to really. I thought it would be easier with just the two of us and no one else around."

Okay, now that sounds sus.

"What do you want to know?"

"Let's order something in and we'll talk while we eat."

I get the feeling she's dreading asking me what she wants to and I also have a gut feeling I know what it is she wants to ask me. Frankly I'm surprised no one has asked me about it.

"Just order pizza, then. I need to go to the bathroom."

Once I empty my bladder, I turn on the water to wash my hands. I know exactly what she wants to know. How do I answer her without getting myself killed? I'm a patched member. Blood in, blood out. They beat the shit out of me when I became a member. Blood dripped from everywhere. If I leave the BBMC or am forced to leave, the only way out is a bloody death.

Well, I can't stay in here forever. Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I go back out into the room. Liv is staring out the window, looking at the city around us. She looks pensive, not a good sign for me.

"Hey, you good?"

"No, Wolfe, I'm not." She sighs and turns around. "I don't want to have this conversation with you."

"Just ask me what you want to know, Sis. I won't lie to you." And I won't. I may dance around the truth and withhold some things, but I won't outright lie to her.

"You know about the issue with the stable?"

This is exactly what I thought she wanted to talk about. The stable is another gang in the city and one I thought we were very close with. Turns out I was wrong on that account. One of their boys got caught cooking meth by the Vagos and named dropped BBMC. A no no. Doesn't matter that they know us, you don't do that. It's criminal 101. We are good with the Vagos and they asked us about it. Pissed off Colin, Barry, and Dee. The other jackets were told. There was talk about outright killing the guy.

I'm really good friends with Kirk, a member of Stable. I told him that the BBMC might want to do something to Abner for name dropping them and to be careful. I've known Kirky since my first week in the city. He's my friend and I thought he deserved to know that.

Makes me a snitch. I don't consider it snitching if it can prevent a war and senseless death. I don't want to see either club dying on the daily for a stupid mistake. And their leader is Barry's half-brother. If the two gangs war, it will cost Barry his brother. You can't come back from killing each other's members. Barry's my best friend and I don't want to see that happen to him or Mick.

"What you don't know is that Pez, Colin, Barry, and Jordan thought someone snitched to them."

I figured they would, which is why I told Kirky not to let anyone know I told him because I'd end up in the ocean right along with Abner.

"Okay, why did they think that?"

"The day of the stable wedding, Jordan got a call from Dirk asking if the BBMC was hunting them. How would he know that if someone didn't tell him and literally the only people who were there for the convo about what they might do to Abner was you, Barry, Dee, Pez, and Jordan."

"Ah, I see. They think I snitched."

Olivia nods and starts to wring her hands.

"No one's said a word to me about this, Liv."

"I know. There was a meeting between Kirk, Barry, Colin, and Jordan. Dirk told Jordan that someone had spoken to Kirk. Kirk is one of your best friends, Wolfe."

"He is."

"He told them he had no idea of what they were talking about."

"And they didn't believe him?"

"No, they didn't, but they decided to wait until Abner was back so they could have a full conversation with all the higher ups in the gang and Abner."

"That happened while I wasn't in the city."

Again, she nods.

"No one's told me what was said in that meeting."

"Abner told his side of the story and Colin explained why what he did was fucked up. He apologized and then Colin asked about who told them we were hunting them. They told them they had no idea what they were talking about. Jordan repeated his conversation with Dirk who was there."

"And what did Dirk say?"

"He said all he'd asked Jordan was if they needed to be careful, if they needed to go out expecting to be hunted. When asked why he thought that, he said that they knew BBMC and how they handled things. They shot first and asked questions later basically. No one had to tell them that because they knew BBMC hunted down people that wronged them in some way. Then Kirk shot Abner in front of all of them as punishment and left him laying."

"That had to have appeased Colin, at least."

"It did." She sits down on the bed and her hands are still torturing each other.

"What?" I ask after a few minutes of silence.

"Jordan doesn't believe them."

Ah. "Does the rest of the club not believe them?"

"Colin and Barry agreed what the stable said made sense."

"But?" I prompt.

"But Pez and Jordan don't. Some of the hang arounds know about this too and I think they're cautious around you now."

"How did the hang arounds find out?"

"They were there when I found out."

"Do you think I did something to hurt club, Olivia?"

"I don't know, Wolfe. In the past few months, you've been so withdrawn and you seem separate from the rest of us."

Liv is always spot on when it comes to her people watching and she's not wrong now.

"I admit, I have been a little standoffish, but I've felt like an outsider. Once we stopped doing banks, it made me basically useless. No one knew what to do with me. I can't drive. I'm not the best shooter. Hacking was my only real skill. It's what earned me my place in the club. When Dee and Barry stopped calling me when I woke up, I guess, that useless feeling got worse."

"I remember your binger that got your eyebrows singed off."

"Let's not talk about that." I don't want her to know I still get drunk off my ass in my apartment almost every night thinking about my lack of usefulness to the club.

She laughs and some of her tension eases.

"The thing is, I didn't want to come back to the city anymore. I didn't want to board the train there, knowing I would have nothing to do but run oxy, or take up the boring career in hunting just to eat. If it wasn't for you, Stevie, and Jordan, I probably never would have come back."

"Wolfe, don't think like that. We all love you."

"Apparently not if you think I'd do something to actually hurt the BBMC."

"I..."

"When I came to Los Santos, I was a lone wolf, not caring if I had close ties to anyone. Then one night I met Barry and Dundee. Barry took me under his wing, showed me how being part of a family was important. Hell, Barry is the reason I decided to try to be a hang around. He's the reason I decided to prospect. He's my mentor, my friend, and he's like a true brother to me. I love the big goldfish. Dee too, but Barry is the one who took a chance on me, who told Dee to let me try hacking, who believed I could do it. I owe everything to Barry. Do you honestly believe I'd ever hurt him?"

"No."

"Then I met you and Stevie and you guys introduced me to Jordan and Jessie. They became my friends. You and Stevie are family to me and I thought Jordan was becoming family too. If he doesn't trust me, I don't think that'll ever happen, though. Hell, if Colin and Pez feel the same, they should just tell me and blood me out. If they honestly think I'd do something to harm them or the club, then maybe I shouldn't be here."

"No, Barry put you on this job because he trusts you, Wolfe."

"But if others don't, can I effectively do my job and be part of this club?" I look her in the eyes. "Do you trust me, Olivia, or do you think I'd ever do something to put you in danger or hurt you?"

"Did you talk to Kirk at the wedding about the situation?"

"Yes, I did. I asked him if he knew about it and he told me he did. I asked him if he knew when Abner would be awake because the club was looking for him and they wanted to discuss the situation. He told me Abner was on vacation for four days which I told to Barry. If getting relevant information is snitching, I guess I did, but what I learned I passed on to Barry. If anyone had just flat out asked me, I'd have told them, but no one did. Instead, they ran around discussing conspiracy theories."

"Barry never thought you snitched. Colin said you shouted something about time to hunt the stable at the wedding and I thought they probably overheard that."

"Fuck, I did say that. I forgot about that." Thank God I said something stupid. "No one has mentioned that to me either. I deserve a beating for saying something stupid."

"Were you drinking at the wedding, Wolfe?"

"I may have had a bottle or two."

She glares at me.

"Or three or maybe five."

"You have to stop getting drunk and saying stupid shit. You let it slip to Barry's dad who Pez was while you were drinking. You're lucky they didn't kill you."

"To be fair everyone in the city knew Pez was a member of BBMC."

"But no one could prove it. He was still a "secret" member at that point."

"Fair point."

She sighs and bumps my shoulder with hers. She knows I hate hugging. "I love you like my own brother, Wolfe. Stevie loves you too. Barry loves you as much as he does his own son. We can't lose you, so promise me, no more drinking at events."

"I promise, Olives." Colin gave her that nickname and most of the club uses it, but I don't. I like her own name, but using it now might alleviate some of her stress.

"So do you trust me?"

"I trust you, Wolfe. I think deep down I always did, but there were too many questions left unanswered."

"And if anyone had bothered to just ask me outright, then I would have answered them. Communication in this club is shit."

"God's truth, that. When we get home, we need to call a meeting and talk it out with everyone."

"Yeah, we do. Let everyone ask their questions and decide if they still trust me. Working within a club that doesn't trust you isn't going to work."

"I'll be there with you. So will Stevie and Barry."

He hoped to God they would be, but if there was proof out there, Pez would find it. And then it would be over. He'd be dead and buried within hours.

There's a knock on the door and she jumps up, a grin lighting up her face. She loves pizza as much as I do. "I'll get it."

Crisis averted and I didn't lie. I just left out a few details. I hate lying and the truth is I didn't do what I did to hurt anyone. I was trying to do the right thing for both clubs. I am Bondi 'til I die as our motto goes, but the club might not agree. No matter what they think of me, I won't ever hurt the people in it, especially Barry, Olivia, and Stevie.

The smell of gooey mozzarella and pepperoni fills the air and I push my thoughts aside to feed the beat that is my stomach.