Chapter Seventeen
Welcome Home
Anthony
I never knew driving away from a person could be so hard, but man, did I hate leaving her. I stopped in Raymond to refuel and checked the messages while I stretched my legs and smoked a cigarette on the edge of the parking lot when I finished.
She wasn’t lying about them messages. Fucking hell.
I scrolled the list of senders, surprised that she hadn’t opened all of them. I decided to start with Mak.
Apparently, he’d messaged me back ten minutes after I sent the lie about Daisy and I being in an argument.
09:16 She’s here now. It ain’t pretty.
23:00 You’re crazier than I thought you were. You better answer that man.
I squinted, swiped out of his message and returned to the list. I didn’t bother opening the messages from Daisy. It said there were fourteen of them, and they were not bold, which meant they had been opened. If it were an emergency, Crystal would have surely said so.
Easy was next in line.
13:16 What the hell did I come home to? Why is Daisy worked up?
15:45 Never mind I just talked to Mak
16:20 Yeah, she’s still going ham and cheese. I’ll be at the cabin.
21:05 Where tf you at, Ant? For real. Answer me. Call me… Mark is pissed.
07:00 Ant? Wtf?!? Are you good?
Mark messaged at nine sharp, which was probably what time the meeting started last night.
21:00 Call me when you read this.
Nah, I thought to myself as I squinted at the screen. I wasn’t in the mood to get my ass chewed and orders laid for my arrival. I still had an hour of road ahead of me, and I didn’t intend to touch down with a beat down.
They’d find me soon enough.
“Oak,” I laughed seeing three messages from him and swiped them open for the hell of it.
He rarely messaged.
21:04 Jesus Ant. Where are you?
22:00 This is not good, my friend. We needed you.
My whole face scrunched up before I flubbed my lips and closed his thread without reading the last of it.
I locked my tongue against the back of my teeth and stared at the six in parenthesis beside Big Vick’s name.
09:20 IDK why they didn’t give your auntie an enforcer patch. She can bust chops better than I do! LOL
His overuse of the emojis made me laugh, even if I was dying inside picturing the scene she probably made down at Miller’s trucking.
09:45 Why does she think someone here beat your ass?
09:50 That why our dark prince is scuffed up? You girls get into something last night?
20:45 Damn, where you at? You’re usually here by now
The fact that he had the patience to scroll long enough to find the head scratching emoji was impressive.
Big Vick hated technology more than Mark, and that was saying something.
The only gadget I ever saw bring a smile to ol’ Mark Miller’s face were the surveillance cameras that helped him figure out who was stealing the catalytic converters from the vehicles on his lot.
22:35 You have an appointment with me at midnight. Get your ass up here.
Fuck…
I slowly slid my thumb toward the top of the phone, pulling up the last two messages.
07:00 Be smart. Don’t make this worse than it will be.
07:45 Don’t make me issue an SoS over this shit, Ant. Jesus…
I flicked the cigarette out onto the street and stared at the screen. Was he fucking serious right now? He was gonna order a smash on sight… because I missed a club meeting and a few phone calls?
What the hell was going on?
The phone lit up in my hand and a new message loaded, pushing the rest up a bit.
09:42 FFS Anthony, Mark is demanding I go to your house. You really want Daisy to wake up to this shit?
“Checkmate, motherfucker. Checkmate,” I scoffed, before punching out a response.
Be there in an hour.
The phone went nuts, lighting up and buzzing in my hand to announce Big Vick’s incoming call.
“Goddamn it,” I huffed, but I knew better than to ignore it. I swiped the green button, cleared my throat and put the phone to my ear.
“Anthony, nowhere in Swanwick requires an hour to get anywhere in town. Stop the bullshit. You got fifteen min–”
“I’m in fucking Raymond,” I cut him off.
“Raymond. What the fuck is in Ray–?”
“That stupid fuck went back for her. I told you!” Mak howled in the background, making me swallow a groan.
“Are you serious right now?” Vick’s whole tone changed to one of grit and forced patience. “You missed a vote… over some snatch you met twenty-four hours ago? Brother, tell me you’re kidding.”
“He better be fucking kidding. I ain’t laughin’.
It ain’t fucking funny. I need him here in fifteen minutes.
Do you hear me? Fifteen minutes or I swear to fuck he’ll never wink at another twat for as long as he lives.
Do you hear me, Anthony?” a sharp pain shot through my ear, forcing me to jerk the phone away from my head a little bit while Mark raged.
I sighed, wet my lips and shook my head. I was forty minutes away if I hit a century and didn’t stop.
“I can’t be there in fifteen minutes. Give me an hour, Vick…”
“We don’t have an hour to give you, brother. We ride in fifteen. Get your ass to the clubhouse with Easy and Oak and don’t fucking leave until Mark and I get back.”
He hung up before I could get any details on where exactly they were going.
“Shit,” I scoffed, shoving the phone into my pocket.
He could have just told me the intended location, and I could have met up with them. My mind churned the possible causes for the club’s upset and big adventure.
Had we been robbed? It had only happened once before. Some out-of-town bikers broke into the shed on Mark’s old farmhouse and stole ten pounds of weed.
One time a handful of high school punks had set fire to a delivery truck at the clubhouse that had a bunch of fireworks in it from Indiana, but even that hadn’t caused this type of explosive backlash.
What the hell had I missed?
I was still asking myself the question when I parked my bike next to my little brother’s and made my way toward the front door of the clubhouse.
I had a habit of leaning into the door, rather than grabbing the handle and pushing.
I leaned in to do just that, while checking my phone and cursing myself for not giving Crystal my number, when Oak jerked the damn thing wide open.
I fell into his broad chest like somebody’s damsel-ass bitch.
He belly laughed and tried bear hugging me, while I shoved at his shoulder. “Asshole!”
“I missed you, too, Ant.”
I squinted back at him.
His baby-blue eyes scanned my face like he was searching for something.
“What?”
“Nothing.” His brows shot up and he shrugged, before casually adding, “…just making sure I can remember later on what that razor jawline looked like before my brother got ahold of it.”
He reached out and playfully tried to brush his knuckles against my jaw, only to cackle when I slapped his arm away with a vicious pop.
“Fuck you. Get away from me,” I scoffed, marching past him.
Eric was sitting at the bar, not having bothered to raise his lanky ass from the stool for my benefit.
“Bout time you got home.”
“Don’t start. I’m already hearing it from Mark and Vick. Not to mention, Daisy has messaged enough it wouldn’t surprise me if she has early arthritis or some shit.”
“Is that a thing?” Oak shot Easy a bewildered look.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose, already over the pair of them. They were annoying as hell on their own, but together? Fuck my life.
“Where the fuck is George?” I asked, realizing the bartender was missing.
“They took everyone they could.” Oak winced when he said it, which was the only thing that kept me from making cracks about the pair of them being left behind.
I ran the edge of my nails along the stubble of my jaw and stared at them until I was forced to throw both hands out in front of me.
“Do I need to pay one of you to spit it the fuck out? Where the fuck are they?”
“Meeting with the mafia,” Easy announced, with all the simpleness of saying someone had gone to mass.
I squinted, silently conveying a need for more details while he tipped his beer bottle, holding my gaze while his Adam's apple bobbed.
The malice in his eyes glistened as my patience wore thin watching that leisurely swallow a second time.
When it happened a third time and it was clear he was trying to make me beg, I lost it.
I shot forward, prepared to shove that bottle down his narrow throat just to help him empty the motherfucker a little quicker.
We’d been brothers for more than twenty years, he knew better than to stand there sucking that glass like I wouldn’t put a knot upside his head. His dumbass threw the bottle between us, shot off the stool and put up his fists.
Even as he braced for impact, and my legs were baptized in a shower of brown glass shards, he was smiling like a fool.
“I told you. Didn’t I fuckin’ tell you.” He giddily boasted to Oak.
“Tell him what?” I roared, “Where is the club? What the fuck is going on?” I reached out to tap his cheek with the left hand.
He confidently took the bait, swatting my left hand away.
The moment he did, I blessed his opposite cheek as hard as I could.
“Stop giggling like a bitch and be serious, damn it!”
Oak, who had been coming to us with glistening eyes and a broad grin, lost control of his face when he heard the impact.
Easy was such a show off. He couldn’t just box me like a fucking man.
No, no.
He hugged my waist and hefted me up, over the stool and onto the counter. I had to make a snap decision to defend myself or catch the edge of the counter.
If it hadn’t happened as fast as it did, I might have been embarrassed that I locked both legs around his waist and balled up with both arms in front of my face.
He might have been a marine, but he was a mean fucker and fought to win, not for honor or glory.
When he couldn’t land what he wanted to my face, and I actually swung back, he punched me high on the inner thigh.
He didn’t catch anything precious, but it still took my breath away, leaving me gaping just like that big dummy he called a bestie.
I shot my legs open and he headbutted me, sending me sprawling over the counter to the hard floor beyond. I was seeing stars before my ass left the counter, the way my head snapped off the floor, and the hard wood caught my tailbone was just an insult to injury.
“Told him you didn’t fuck Crystal Nance. Who could and still come in here with all that inside of ‘em.” Easy shit talked, while I clutched my face, and marveled over the lack of blood.
“Mark and the guys went to Chicago. Some assholes from the mob showed up at Mark’s house yesterday morning. They made an offer and it was voted in last night. He was counting on you to back C.C. on the ride up.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Congrats. We’re coke dealers now.”
“What?” My eyes shot open and I shoved myself to a sitting position, only to be met with little flashes and sparkles in my field of vision.
I groaned and held my temple. The distinct sound of a bottle being opened nearby and then the cap shot past me at what sounded like bullet speed.
“Goddamn it,” I snapped at my brother, landing a glare on him.
He blew me a kiss and returned to his beer.
“Yeah. Welcome home, asshole.” I groaned.