Chapter Nineteen
Chasm
Over the last two days, we had taken on five prospects, and another woman. Jenna was in her late twenties, and she was fucking stalking me. Every time I turned around, she was up my ass.
Smiling, flirting, trying to entice me to fuck her. Being nice hadn’t worked. B had talked to her; Ambush had talked to her. If she didn’t get with the fucking program soon, she’d be out on her ass.
I walked out of my room and there she was again.
Fuck!
“Hey, Chasm, is there anything I can do for you?” she asked as she tried to press up against me. I took a step to the side, and she lost her balance, almost falling on her ass on the floor.
“You can get the fuck away from me.”
I moved down the hallway, her heels clicking on the wood behind me.
“But I’m here for you,” she persisted.
“You’re here to cook, clean, and fuck the brothers.”
“You’re one of the brothers,” she whined.
I stopped short and turned. “I’m the fucking president, and I don’t fuck whores.”
Her eyes went wide and filled with tears. Jesus Christ! I turned my back on her and left her in the hallway. I had tried everything else. I could only hope that worked.
Yesterday we moved the desk back into church. I wanted transparency when it came to the club. Trust was monumental when it came to my brothers. If I couldn’t trust them, then we were fucked.
That being said, anything I needed to keep from them was in my room upstairs. My room had become my sanctuary in less than twenty-four hours. It was the one place, other than church, the club whores weren’t allowed. If they were found breaking those rules, they were gone. No second chance.
I sat behind my desk, going over the financial reports Monty had given me. We were in better shape than I’d realized. Most of the businesses were in the black, with only two in the red.
The strip club and the tattoo shop.
How the fuck did a strip club run in the red? Especially when you were laundering money through it.
The door to church opened, and B walked in.
“How the fuck is the strip club in the red?” I asked, pinning my VP with a glare.
“Uh... we lost a few dancers when Steele and Stone disappeared.”
I stared at my vice president. Club whores, prospects, and strippers. All vanished when the president and VP did.
“Something’s not adding up here, B.”
“Not much has added up since King left,” he admitted.
“What about the tattoo shop?”
“Keno is running it on his own. Flash took off with Stone. Pierce was killed almost a year ago.”
I sat back in my chair. “What happened?”
Pierce was a good brother. And a damn good artist. I’d had more than a few tattoos done by him. Though most of them had been burned off now.
“Break-in at the shop. Flash found him. But after he took off, a few of us wondered if what we’d been told was the truth.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You think Flash killed him?”
B rubbed the back of his neck; it was a stalling tactic. I knew most of these guys and their tells. More than once, Justin joked that I should have become a professional poker player with the way I could read people.
“What don’t I know, B?”
Ambush stuck his head in the door. “You tell him yet?”
“No, we got sidetracked.”
I stood up from my chair. “Tell me what?”
“You have a visitor,” Ambush said. He winced when I heard the booming voice.
“Tell that fuckin’ coward to get his ass out here!”
“Who the fuck is that?” I whispered, moving out from behind my desk. B looked at me with a concerned expression, one mixed with fear and resignation.
“Your father-in-law.”
“Fuck me.” I closed my eyes and dropped my head back.
“You want me to send him in?”
“How many are with him?” I asked, calculating my odds.
“Just one,” Ambush answered.
“I’ll come out. Send a message out and tell every fucking brother to get in the main room. Oh, and make sure they’re armed.”
I couldn’t kill Morgan’s father, but I could fucking threaten him. Hopefully make him think twice before killing me.
I stood at the door leading out of church and tipped my head side to side as I cracked the joints in my neck. I pushed the door open and came face-to-face with the fist of Braesal O’Malley.
My head snapped back and my ass hit the floor seconds before my head cracked against the floor. I heard a woman scream, assuming it was a club whore. O’Malley wouldn’t bring Morgan with him when he fucked me over. I lay there for a minute, waiting for the stars to dissipate.
“O’Malley,” I said, my eyes still closed. “I see your daughter finally told you the truth.” I struggled to sit up. B and Ambush each grabbed an arm and lifted me from the floor.
“Don’t you fuckin’ talk about my daughter, you piece of shit.”
The man who stood behind Morgan’s father grinned. It wasn’t a teasing grin. It wasn’t a ‘you fucked up now’ kind of grin. It was more a ‘wait until I get my fucking hands on you’ kind of grin.
“Does your son know you’re here?”
With any luck, King might let his father beat the shit out of me and go home to Nebraska. I knew it was a pipe dream, but a guy had to have hope. I sized up O’Malley, knowing I could take him, despite the cheap shot of catching me unaware.
“My son is the only reason you aren’t lying on the floor with a fuckin’ bullet in your head,” he snarled.
As I thought about what that meant, he raised his arm and hit me again. This time Ambush was there to catch me before I hit the ground.
O’Malley stepped forward and got in my face. “You stay the fuck away from my daughter or not even my son will save your ass.”
He got in one more cheap shot to my gut that had me doubled over. I couldn’t help but smile; at least now I knew who had taught Morgan how to hit.
O’Malley glared at my VP and then turned to the other guy. He stood cracking his knuckles, his eyes on me. When he stepped forward, I tried not to wince. I deserved this beatdown for what I’d done to Morgan, but I still wondered why my men hadn’t stepped in.
The man stared me down, and I wondered when he would take his shot. When he smiled and took a step back, my shoulders relaxed, and I let down my guard.
That was a fucking mistake!
The man was smart; he waited until I let my guard down, and then he struck. My head snapped back; I felt my nose crack for the third time in three fucking days. Then my ass hit the floor.
I heard the front door slam shut, but I didn’t try to move. I wouldn’t try to sit until my head stopped pounding and my ears stopped ringing. Maybe I’d just sleep on this fucking floor tonight.
“You okay, Prez?”
I opened one eye and found B and Ambush staring down at me. I slid my hand to the back of my head, then brought it to my face, looking for blood. It was a miracle my head hadn’t busted open.
“You need help getting up?” B asked, and I glared at him.
“Now you want to fucking help me?!”
B and Ambush both grabbed my arms a second time and lifted me to my feet. They helped me over to the bar, and I sat on a stool. Brian was there waiting with an ice pack.
I placed the bag of ice against the back of my head and leaned my elbows on the bar.
“Where the fuck was everyone?” I looked around at the few men present. “I said to make sure they were fucking armed,” I ground out low, trying not to aggravate the pounding in my head.
I looked at B when no one answered. He rubbed the back of his neck, and I turned to Ambush, who stood beside him with his arms crossed over his wide chest.
“Well?”
“King called me. He gave me a heads-up that O’Malley was on his way here and told us not to interfere,” B explained quickly.
“And if he fucking killed me?” I asked, not believing what I was hearing.
“King promised that wouldn’t happen.” Ambush shrugged as if whatever the fuck King said was written in fucking stone.
I stood from the stool and shouted, “I AM YOUR FUCKING PRESIDENT!” I winced and fell back onto my seat, replacing the ice against the back of my head.
“King is the national president now,” B explained as if I didn’t fucking know that. As if that was all he needed to say about why my men didn’t have my fucking back.
“Your fucking job is to protect me.”
“Not when you’re an asshole,” Smokey said as he walked into the main room. “What you did to that girl was bullshit and you know it. You deserved everything you just got. If she’d been my daughter, I would have put a bullet in your head.”
He sat at his regular spot at the bar and called out, “Prospect, get me a beer.”
“That’s what O’Malley threatened, too,” Crater cackled.
“Why didn’t he?” Smokey asked, looking right at me.
When I didn’t answer, B did. “King wouldn’t let him.”
“Pussy is so concerned about getting on his son’s good side, he screwed the pooch with his daughter.”
“You go ahead and tell him that, Smokey,” I taunted. “Besides, Morgan would hate him if he killed me. She’d never forgive him.”
“You sure about that?” Ambush mumbled.
The truth was, I wasn’t sure about anything anymore.
“O. M. G,” Jenna cried, rushing into the main room. “Chasm, are you okay, baby?”
For fuck’s sake, she still didn’t get the hint. She reached her hands toward my head, and I leaned back. The pain thumping through my skull made me nauseous, and I knew I had a concussion.
“Don’t fucking touch me.”
Jenna pouted as if that shit worked on me. I could admit, at least to myself, that if Morgan was the one doing it, it would fucking work.
“I need to go lie down. I think I have a fucking concussion. I swear getting blown up didn’t hurt this fucking bad.”
I looked at B and Ambush who were both glaring at me.
“Too soon?”
“How about fucking never?” B barked.
Smokey threw his head back and laughed, the sound echoing around the room and piercing my ears. It felt like my head was in a fucking vise.
“I’ll come with you and watch over you,” Jenna said quickly, trying to take my hand.
“Bitch, I told you to back the fuck off!” I looked at B. “Where the fuck did she come from?”
“Come on, Jenna. Chasm is off-limits. He’s married,” Crater said, grabbing her elbow and dragging her away amid her protests.
“I’m not fucking married,” I argued.
When I saw the gleam return to Jenna’s eye, I groaned. I should have kept my mouth shut. If she thought for a second I was single, she might never stop. I wasn’t sure she’d last long around here.
I slowly made my way upstairs, grimacing with every step. I wasn’t as young as I used to be, and the fact that O’Malley was almost twenty years older than me didn’t help. The man had a hell of a punch.
I let myself into my room, being sure to lock it behind me. Then I fell onto my bed and closed my eyes. I thought about calling King to chew his ass out, but instead, I let the darkness close around me.