Chapter 16 #2
“Not for a second,” I answered. “But no one else needs to know why. You’re the President you don’t need to explain any of this.”
King narrowed his eyes, but he nodded.
“Is he still on the compound?” King asked Warren, who sent a quick text letting us know he was waiting for news on that.
“I’m going to kill him,” Warren said through clenched teeth.
“What does he do for the club?” I asked, stepping closer to my father’s desk, I knew they wanted to get back at Andrew but doing it Hudson’s way wasn’t necessarily the way to hurt him the most. “He said he was working with you, and he was going to make millions?”
King rubbed his hand across his jaw. “I’m not sure about that figure but he is getting plenty of money out of us. He’s the contractor for the houses we’re building.”
“He is?” I widened my eyes. So he did stand to make a lot of money, I’d seen those houses going up. It stirred a memory of seeing the ring on his finger. “He’s married?”
“Yes. A kid too,” King answered, tilting his head, scrutinizing me.
“Why the fuck do you care about that?” Warren asked, as his phone chimed with an incoming text. He checked it and cursed. “He’s gone. Guy at the gate said he left about a half hour ago.”
I inwardly felt relieved. Everyone’s emotions were too high right now. I didn’t want anyone doing anything rash.
My mind started working, I knew what went on in the club.
Hudson had all but screamed he was a killer earlier and I knew what Ballistic was capable of, we’d all heard the stories growing up.
I wouldn’t be responsible for anyone losing their life, which didn’t mean I couldn’t get revenge for what he did to me, not now I had the club behind me.
As much as I worked to let this go and move on with my life, my family weren’t going to just sit back and let him get away with this.
“What are you thinking, Wave? I hear your brain working from here.”
Warren didn’t sound happy, likely because he knew the plan formulating in my head didn’t match his. A predator like Andrew won’t have changed. I was surprised he was married and had a kid so young.
“Reinhart always was obsessed with popularity and money. He liked to make sure everyone knew how much better he was. A bully, who taunted people all the time about being beneath him. And now he’s drooling over how much money he is making out of the club.”
“He stands to make a lot. We’ve already paid a substantial amount,” King mused, eyeing me suspiciously, but he was intrigued, no longer blinded by the rage as the other two men were.
“Again, Waverley, what are you thinking?” Warren asked.
“I’m willing to listen to what you think we ought to do to manage this,” King said to me. “Doesn’t mean I’ll follow through on it, but it’s obvious there is something on your mind.”
That admission in itself was huge. It wasn’t normal for a woman to have any say.
“I want to hit him where it hurts. I want to see him lose everything, his reputation, his money, his family. I want to see him in jail.”
“Do you think I’m going to let him get away with this by just sending him to jail? Sweetheart, that isn’t the way things work around here.”
“I know,” I snapped. “For once can you please just listen? This happened to me. If anything is going to happen about it now, I should get a say in it.”
“Didn’t just happen to you,” Hudson said, and it was if we were the only two people in the room. “That night ruined everything. He hurt you…” he ran a hand over his face, he didn’t say anything else, and we were all quiet for a moment.
But I wouldn’t be deterred, not now my mind was triggered by seeing him again.
“You just got a new tech genius patched in didn’t you?
” I looked from Warren back to my father.
“There is no doubt in my mind Andrew is screwing around on his wife, he’s that kind of sleazebag.
Given what he said to me tonight, I’d be surprised if he hasn’t taken whatever the hell he feels like when he feels like it.
“If he loses the contract with the club for building those houses, that is a problem for his company because it involves a lot of money. Is this the only job he is working on right now, all of his resources tied up in it?”
“What did he say to you before?” Hudson got stuck on that part of what I had to say.
I waved it off forgetting I hadn’t elaborated on our conversation. “He just propositioned me. Makes sense I’m not the first.”
“That cunt,” Hudson gritted his teeth.
“What about the people he employs?” Warren asked, bringing the conversation back to the matter at hand. “They have families. We don’t want them out of work to get back at this prick.”
“You could set up your own construction company,” I said. “There is a lot of money in construction. If you steal away his skilled workforce, it could be big business for the club.”
King was listening to everything with a thoughtful expression. “If we go down that route, Cassie will have to let us know about contracts with Reinhart’s company.”
“You have contracts?” I asked.
“Of course we do,” Warren said, a bit of amusement in his voice.
“You might not believe it sis, but we have a lot of legitimate dealings. Cassie deals with all the legal stuff. I could call her tomorrow about it?” he glanced at King, who nodded.
“And Ransom could let us know about investing in a contractors firm. It doesn’t need to be long term, we could always help the workers find new jobs if it came down to that, if it turned out not to be cost-effective. ”
I looked at Warren in surprise. He had always been smart, I knew he would have thrived in college, but it seemed like he hadn’t needed further education to prove he knew how to run things. Maybe being VP had a lot to do with that.
They discussed speaking with the club secretary about the type of money this would involve, and it surprised me they were as sober as they were. They had all been drinking and having a fun time until thirty minutes ago.
Yet, this idea of mine was gathering traction. Losing Andrew work wasn’t enough. He had to lose everything. I had a feeling if that wasn’t the outcome, Hudson might still try to shoot him.
And then he proved me right.
“I don’t give a fuck about construction workers, or new businesses. If you don’t want me to drive to that fucker’s house and blow a hole through his head, we need to talk about what the fuck we’re going to do to hurt him.”
I chewed on my lower lip as I watched him. It was obvious he cared. But was it just about getting back at Andrew? How did he feel about me now? Would he still hate me?
“Taking away his business and his family isn’t enough, I agree. It’s his reputation that would hurt him the most.”
“A bullet would hurt him the most.”
“Hustle, pipe down for a second. Believe me, I want nothing more than to put this motherfucker in the ground, but Waverley is right,” King said.
“Someone like him disappearing would bring scrutiny down on us. He might be working for us now, but his dad hated the club and I’m certain he’s rolling in his grave knowing his son is doing this,” his lip tilted in a smile at that.
“Reinhart has friends in the mayor’s office too. Taking him out isn’t the right option.”
“I can’t believe this,” Hudson shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re even considering this after what he did. I’m not just going to sit here an-”
“You can and you will,” King shouted. “And that is an order, Hustle. You stay away from him. We’ll manage this. Waverley is right. I’m not above maiming the little fuck, which will come eventually, maybe when he’s in lock up, we have favours we can use to pull in there if necessary.”
“Fuck this,” Hudson stormed for the door.
“I’m warning you,” King said in a deep voice. “You disobey me we’ll have trouble.”
Hudson paused at the door, but he didn’t look back. I watched his shoulders rise with tension, but he nodded his head before he stormed out, slamming the door hard behind him. King sighed, and I looked back at him.
“We do this my way?” I asked, holding my breath while I waited for his answer.
“I can speak to Cassie tomorrow,” Warren said, even though his own jaw was tight. “I know we have enough going on with the Kingsmen but I’m not sitting on this. He hurt her,” he paused a moment. “And Hud, and given he approached her tonight, I’m not convinced he won’t try something again, soon.”
“He won’t be allowed back in the compound,” King said. “Let everyone know. Now get the fuck out of here. Waverley,” he got to his feet, looking a little awkward. “Get some sleep yeah and don’t worry about this.”
“Okay,” I said, not sure how else to respond.
Warren ushered me out of the office walked me back to the house. There was no sign of Hudson, I could only hope he wasn’t going against King’s orders, I hated to think of him off on his own.
We needed to talk about this. But I wasn’t sure how to broach it with him or if I had the strength to go through with it. Telling him before was more than I could handle. Warren put his hand on the small of my back, pushing me towards the door.
“Is Connor okay?” I asked, another thing playing on my mind, as we walked back to the house.
Warren blew out a heavy breath. “He won’t speak to me.”
“Where is he?” I asked, concerned.
“He went to the annex with a couple of club girls.”
I widened my eyes in shock.
“Don’t worry, he wouldn’t do anything like that. Neither of us would. And he isn’t doing it to get back at me. They mother him and he gets off on that. I know he is safe when he’s with them.”
In the brief time I’d been here, I was realizing how hard things were for him and Connor.
It seemed like there was always something going on.
If they just came out, would it make life easier or is most of this to do with his thought processes since his attack?
It might make things easier for him and Connor’s relationship, but not with the club, it was messed up.
“Don’t worry about me and Con,” Warren put his arm around my neck and pulled me to him as we climbed the steps to the porch. “Wish you’d told me,” he said quietly, his breath stirring my hair. “If you hadn’t left, we could have fixed this. I could have helped you.”
“I didn’t know how,” I whispered back. “And things got messy that night. I was messed up, Warren. All I could think about was getting out of here. I went about it all wrong, I know that.”
He nodded, hugged me harder, then stepped back, staring down at me.
“Never think you can’t come to me, Wave.
I can’t go another five years without seeing this face,” he touched my chin with the pad of his thumb, and I could see he had a lot more he wanted to say to me.
I waited. “Don’t tell Connor,” was what he said.
I looked at my brother with sad eyes.
“He’ll be worse than Hud wanting to kill him. We wouldn’t be able to stop him. And if we did, well, things could go sideways for… us, you know.”
I nodded. The trauma and pain I’d gone through five years ago was on the back burner. I was more worried about Warren and Connor, wanting to take his pain away.
“Warren, talk to dad. He might listen, he’s surprised me since I got back. I could go with-”
“Don’t, Wave. Please.” He cut me off.
I pressed my lips together to stop me arguing. The stark pain in his eyes was too much for me to handle. Not after everything else tonight. Warren kissed my cheek and told me to go to sleep, then he left.
It was mostly quiet inside the house, people still at the party, used to fights and uproar at these type of things, they wouldn’t have let Hudson flipping out stop them.
I heard groans and feminine giggles from one of the downstairs rooms, so I hurried up to my room.
I could feel an early onset hangover coming on, and the inside of my mouth tasted vile.
I went in the bathroom and looked at my reflection.
It wasn’t pretty, there was makeup running down my face, my hair bedraggled.
As tired as I felt, I couldn’t go to bed like this.
So I reached in and turned on the shower.
Once I was clean, I’d hopefully be able to get some sleep.
I walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around me. So much had cracked open, and I was so confused about being here, wanting to go home. That brought up thoughts of Declan.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do about Declan right now.
I wouldn’t be going back home any time soon.
Was it right to continue lying to him? He didn’t deserve that.
A part of me wanted to call and tell him the truth, let him know I’d been lying about who I am the whole time I’d known him.
It was something he deserved to hear in person, not over the phone.
I looked at the clock, it was close to midnight, which was early by Declan’s standards. I should wait until tomorrow, when I wasn’t so tired, or reeling from everything that happened.
Who was I kidding? The part of me looking for comfort, for something familiar made me want to hear the voice of someone I cared about, who knew nothing about what was going on in my fucked-up life.
I picked up the phone it rang three times.
And a breathy, sleepy female voice answered.