Chapter 7 Diesel
DIESEL
“So, we got their help or not?” Rock asked.
“Bullshit. You know damn good and well we don’t have their help now,” Brewer said.
“You guys need to shut the fuck up,” Knox said. “Diesel’s going through some shit right now.”
“Yeah, and so are we,” Grave said. “Monroe’s three weeks away from giving birth and Everly’s turned over into her third trimester. This shit’s gotta get wrapped up.”
“If you guys are trying to whisper, you’re doing a piss poor job,” I said.
All the guys turned their eyes to me as I gazed out the window. It’d been a couple of days since we’d met with Dean and the Black Hornets. Two days since I’d figured out the love of my high school world wasn’t dead. I still couldn't believe it. Couldn't digest it.
There were so many questions I still had about the shooting. But now that I understood that Rex had assaulted Brynn, it all started to make sense. Had I been a father, it would've been the exact move I’d have made if my daughter was almost raped by a blood-lustful asshole.
“Diesel, none of us expect you to go through with that shit,” Knox said. “We can figure another way out of this mess with Rex.”
“I know,” I said. “No matter what, I will find a way to protect Brynn. But we still have the whole RICO case to worry about as well. What is the latest from Monroe on it?”
Knox let out a long sigh. I could tell even without him starting to talk that things were still moving forward with the case.
“Monroe found out that the feds have an informant. Of course, they aren’t saying who that informant is, but I think we all can agree that it was most likely Rex.”
“Fuck,” Grave said. “The second Rex ended up in jail, he probably offered up anything the feds wanted to save his own skin.”
“And, my guess is that he was using the info from Mick to point everything on our club instead of his,” I said.
Rock nodded in agreement. “With Mick meeting his maker, Rex has no more ammo for the feds. He won’t have anything new to give them.”
I let out a heavy sigh before I turned my sights to them.
“At least that is good. Monroe have any ideas on how to get the RICO case dropped?”
“Besides putting Rex in the ground?” Grave asked.
“Well she won’t come out and exactly say that,” Knox let out a slight laugh. “But yeah, we get rid of the informant, the feds have no one else for the case and it fades away. They haven’t been able to move on the shit that he has already told him, so they will probably still need more dirt.”
“Problem is, Rex still has the Black Saddles,” Brewer said. “While I don’t doubt Grave’s ability to fuck people up, we need more bodies.”
I clenched my jaw. I knew where the conversation was headed again. Our entire club hinged on this fucking deal with Dean. I either had to somehow convince Dean to alter it, or convince Brynn to go along with it.
And neither option sounded like it would work.
“You good?” Knox asked me.
“It’s been a couple of days. Brynn has had some time to think. We need protection and Dean isn’t going to back down from his deal. He is as stubborn as they come. That’s how he is,” I said.
“So, you’re really gonna marry her?” Knox said.
“Hell, none of us have even gotten married yet,” Brewer said with a grin.
“I’ve got an idea to pass by Brynn that’ll give everyone what they want,” I said. “But it’ll take some sit down time with her.”
“What plan?” Knox asked.
“With all due respect, that’s between her and I. It affects our futures,” I said. I needed to talk to Brynn first. I didn’t want to get the guys hopes up if she wasn’t on board.
“Sorry to bust your taint, but it affects us as well,” Rock said.
“It affects your protection in the moment. It affects our lives for good. If Brynn goes for it, I’ll call church and fill you guys in,” I said.
I heard grumbles of dissention as I turned to look back out the window. I mindlessly pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed Dean’s number. I needed to talk to Brynn. The phone rang in my ear, and with each ring my shoulders tensed a little more every time.
“Hello?”
I furrowed my brow at the sound of her voice.
“Brynn?” I asked.
The guys all looked at me and I could see them staring at me in the reflection of the window.
“My father is busy. He told me to pick up the phone if it was you,” she said.
“And you listened?” I asked.
“Don’t sound so shocked,” she said flatly.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean it the way it came out.”
All the guys rolled their eyes and Knox even smacked his damn forehead. Like I didn’t know how to treat women or get them on a damn date.
“We need to talk,” I said.
“We do.”
“Will you let me take you out for dinner tonight?” I asked.
“Like a date?”
“Yes,” I said. “Like a date.”
The silence on the other end of the line was treacherous.
“Where are we eating?” Brynn asked.
“Anywhere that gets me sat in front of you,” I said.
“Because I’ve been craving that wing place in Redding for a little while now. The one with those flavored beers?”
“I never could get you into the rundown bars I frequented.”
“Because they smell like cat piss.”
“You never told me that before,” I said with a laugh.
“I was seventeen and exploring a boy for the first time. So, sue me.”
“Not exploring boys anymore?” I asked with a grin.
“I prefer my boys as men.”
I drew in a deep breath as my eyes narrowed.
“Meet me there around eight?” I asked.
I turned around and looked at the eyes as they eyed me carefully.
“I’ll see you then, Diesel.”
I nodded my head and they all silently cheered and high-fived as a grin spread across my cheeks.
“Looking forward to it,” I said.
I drove to the bar thirty minutes early and got us a booth in the back.
I didn’t want anyone to overhear what the hell we were going to be discussing.
I especially wanted to keep an eye out for Rex or any of his men.
But luckily this place was on the other side of town, away from the Black Saddle’s normal haunts.
I ordered us some potato skins for the table and her favorite beer from the place. At least, the beer I thought she might want. When we were together, she was obsessed with everything blackberry. So, I ordered her a nice lager made with blackberries.
“Something smells good in this corner. I see you put on some cologne for me.”
I looked up and watched the most beautiful woman I could ever imagine approach.
Her legs were long and she stood tall. Almost my height, to be exact.
Brynn was all legs when we were kids, but now her curves blew me away.
Thick thighs that dipped into a slim waist before blossoming into tits I wanted to bury my face in.
I stood at a height of six-three, and she sat just under 5”10.
Her hips sashayed while she walked, and as she slid into the booth in front of me she smiled with the same smile I had memorized all the way back in high school.
It was nice to know some things hadn’t changed.
“You look good,” I said.
“So do you,” she said.
I reached out and took her hand, smoothing my thumb over her skin. Her warm, slightly tanned, pulsing skin. It heated underneath my touch and her fingers twitched at my every movement. She curled her fingers around my hand as life rushed through her veins.
She was alive.
My Brynn was actually alive.
“What the fuck did they fill your coffin with?” I blurted before I could catch myself.
She threw her head back and laughed as her hand gripped mine tighter. Clinging to me, like she always did in the stairwell of our high school.
“No, seriously. I carried your damn casket. Did they fill it with bricks?” I asked.
Her laughter slowed and she pulled her hand away from mine.
“I think they did,” She said as she dropped her eyes down to our hands. “I remember my father double checking how much I weighed at the hospital so they could put the right amount in.”
Our eyes connected, and as I gazed into her beautiful hazel stare I rewrote my version of her in my head.
She was no longer the vibrant, excited, wonder-eyed seventeen-year old girl I knew.
Instead, she had grown into a sultry, mysterious, doe-eyed woman with strength behind her fluid form and a headstrong attitude that matched any of the men I surrounded myself with on a daily basis.
“I’m sorry, Diesel.”
“Not your fault,” I said.
“I should’ve told --”
“Your father did what was best to protect his daughter. I’ll never fault him for that,” I said.
She nodded her head slowly as a waitress approached us to take our order. I wasn’t shocked when she ordered twenty hot wings and fries all to herself. I matched her order before I grinned at her, then handed our menus off to the waitress.
Then she grabbed her beer and took a long, generous pull.
“Blackberries,” she said. “You remembered.”
“How could I forget? I fed you so many times from the blackberry bushes that grew on the edge of your property,” I said. “You got sick on them once.”
“And you held back my hair while aimlessly yelling for my father like a teenage boy does,” she said with a grin.
“Your father thought I’d gotten you pregnant.”
“I’ve never seen him so close to killing someone in my life,” she said with a giggle.
So many good memories. And all of them, alive in her eyes.
It was still hard for me to process.
“Do you want to talk now? Or after we eat?” I asked.
The light in Brynn’s eyes dimmed and she leaned back into her cushioned seat.
“We can do it now,” she said. “Because once I start eating, it’s going to look like a murder scene.”
“Not one of those women that eat wings with a fork?”
Her face flattened and a chuckle fell from my lips.
“You never were dainty.”
“And don't you forget it,” she said. “But before you begin, let me start. Because I want to say to you what I said to my father.”
“I wondered where that mushroom cloud in the distance came from.”