Chapter Twenty-Five #2
I could put the scrawny little shit on his ass and force him to take back the firing, but that isn’t going to help. Too many people are watching, and they continue as I head back to Cassie’s office.
Her assistant is there asking what the hell happened as Cassie gathers up her coat and purse. She asks her to bag up her personal items and says she will call her later. The assistant isn’t looking at me the same way she did before, her face is full of contempt.
Cassie walks past me, her head held high as she gets to the elevator.
Okay, I fucked up.
“It’s not like I seriously hurt him,” I tell her when the elevator door closes.
“Shut up.”
“Cassie-”
“I said shut up. Don’t talk to me right now. I’m so mad I could fucking break your nose.”
That would never happen, but I keep my mouth shut. I’m sure she can talk her way back into her job. Tensions were high, people were scared because I acted like a fucking lunatic running in there throwing Vance into the glass wall.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” She snaps after we’ve driven in silence for ten minutes.
“That he was going to hurt you.”
“He was angry because we’re losing ground on his case. He was not angry at me. Jesus Mace just because he was yelling doesn’t mean I was in any danger.”
“I didn’t know that. When I got there, he threw a glass jug at you.”
“He didn’t throw it at me, he threw it at the wall.”
“It happened fast, and I reacted.”
“And look what happened. Now I don’t have a job.” She squeezes the steering wheel so hard her knuckles go white, and she clamps her mouth shut.
It’s not in my nature to say sorry but I feel bad for her getting fired. It sounds like her boss was waiting for something to go wrong where the club is concerned.
We drive the rest of the way in silence. I’m surprised she goes back to the house and not her apartment.
She storms inside and leaves me to get her things and my cut out of the trunk. I slip it on and look up at the house. My bike is parked around the side, Handlebar’s isn’t there.
Never thought I’d be wishing he was here. It’s going to take a lot to get her to calm down. I don’t have the ability to do that. And even if I did, there is no way Cassie will let this go easily.
She is stomping around in the kitchen when I go inside and set her bags down. She eyes me, then the bags, then grabs the bottle of whisky and pours herself a shot, downing it in one go.
“This is a good thing,” I say. Her head swivels toward me.
Wrong thing to say. But what the hell, she’s already pissed at me, might as well double down.
“You don’t need to worry about defending the asshole, you already pulled strings in the background to make him lose, now you don’t need to worry about it. And you have the club to work for, it’s not like you’re unemployed.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“I’m not going to regret making sure you’re safe,” I snap back.
“This isn’t protecting me, Mace,” she pours another drink. “This is trying to control me, to isolate me.”
“Wait a minute that isn’t what happened. I never intended to beat anyone when I went there today.”
“But it happened, and now I’m here and you don’t have to worry about me going to work like you wanted. And, to top it off, if he is the asshole everyone thinks he is, you waved a red flag right in his damn face.”
“He can’t get to you.”
“He can press charges, Mace. And don’t scoff at that like you can get away with shit, because you can’t. Harry was right, he has a lot of money and a lot of powerful people behind him.”
“We have a good lawyer.”
“Oh… oh… You.”
She screws up her face, trying to think of something to say but she is really angry, to the point of being incoherent.
“Just get out,” she says, putting the lid back on the liquor and keeping her back to me. “I don’t want to look at you.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Then go outside and stand guard,” she snaps. “Beat up the paper delivery boy when he shows up, or the neighbors when they get back from work. That seems to be what you’re good at.”
“Cassie.”
“Just don’t, Mace. Don’t.”
Heaving out a heavy sigh, I do as she asks and go and sit on the bench on the front porch. I’m still there when Handlebar gets back an hour later. He walks up the steps, his eyes on me the whole time. He leans his back against the post at the top of the stairs.
“What happened?”
“Let her tell you, I have somewhere I need to be.” I get up pull out my keys and walk away.
Sooner or later, she is going to realize this is for the best. Fuck Vance Roderick if he thinks he can get close to hurting me, or her.
My head is a fucking mess, and I can’t afford to be worrying about this right now. She’s really upset behind the anger. Guilt is gnawing at my conscience about causing her to lose her job.
Maybe I did overreact, but I did it for her. Jesus, she’s making me stupid. I don’t like this feeling. I can’t stop picturing her when he fired her. She put on a brave face but her heart broke. I did that to her.
Fuck this. If this is what’s it like being in a relationship, I’m not sure I’m cut out for it.
I ride to the clubhouse faster than is legal because I’m already running late. Talon, Jefferson and Monroe are waiting with the van we’ll be using to load up once the ship clears customs.
It takes another hour to drive to the designated spot where we’re going wait for the call to come in.
Talon and I get out of the van and walk away so we can see the port. It’s dark and quiet where we’ve chosen to wait, only the lights from the buildings of the port in the distance and the low lights from the van illuminate where we are.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing, Prez. You were late.”
“I said it’s nothing.”
“I’m not saying it to piss you off,” Talon pulls out a cigarette and flips it between his lips, but he doesn’t light it. “If your mind is elsewhere, then you’d be better off being the one who waits in the van.”
“Since when do you give the orders?” I grate out.
“Since something is going on with you and I don’t want us to blow this. You’ve been saying for weeks this is how we get out from under King. For whatever reason your head isn’t in the game. And we can’t afford to fuck this up.”
We both turn to the van when the back door slides open. It’s Monroe getting out for a smoke, he’s texting with someone so isn’t listening. I like the guy, he’s a good brother, but he came from Sussex and as much as I don’t want to admit I’m still wary of him, I need to stay on my guard.
Talon is right, I’m not behaving the way I should. Cassie has got my head all fucked up. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve told myself not to get in too deep, or to let her mess with my head, it’s proving really fucking difficult.
I don’t have the same kind of relationship with her that Handlebar does. They talk, share shit, I’m not like that, not that guy who talks about his feelings but that doesn’t mean I’m not experiencing them.
Why am I letting her get to me? And why is the jealousy I felt so strongly when this all started fading away?
It’s insane that all I can think is, at least she has him there to help her, to show what I did might have been fucked up, but I did it for her.
The last thing I want is for him to smooth things over.
That is down to me to do. I don’t want Cassie to be mad at me. I hate the way she looked at me as she told me to leave.
Talon is right, I need to shake it off. For now at least. I can worry about how I’m going to fix shit with her once we’ve got the product off this ship and into our warehouse.
“I’m good,” I tell him. “I mean it. How much longer?” I check my watch.
“Singer is going to message when everything is past inspection and unloaded. We go in from the west side, it’s being moved to a specific container. We back up the van, get the stuff and get out.”
“What could possibly go wrong?” I mutter.
“Did you have to jinx shit?”
“Shut the fuck up,” I elbow his ribs making him flinch. “Everything is planned down to the last detail. Singer knows what he’s doing.”
“Yeah,” he looks away towards the port, to the ships coming in and out and the giant machinery lifting containers on and off them. We’ll blend right in with the vans moving around the roads down there.
“You talk to him about Marshall?” he asks.
“No, figured anything he wants to find out about that is up to him.”
I haven’t told Talon about the guy who gave us information on Marshall’s killer. Keeping shit from my VP is bad. Now isn’t the time to talk about it. If Singer is happy to move on from it, then so am I. Our involvement with that is over. It’s time to focus on this new partnership.
Talon gets the text fifteen minutes later and we load up into the van then head down. Singer has cleared the way for us at the entrance with one of his men, no one questions us as we drive through.
“So far so good.”
“Don’t you fucking start,” Talon grumbles from behind Jefferson, who is driving the van and will wait inside while the three of us load up.
We follow Singer’s directions and come to a stop at the container.
It’s far back from the lights of the very active dock and there are two men waiting by it when we hop out and Jefferson backs the van up to the door.
One man nods and opens the container, the other one comes into the light and lifts his chin.
“Wasn’t expecting you to be here,” I tell Singer.
“When it’s a new crew, I like to oversee everything. You have any trouble?”
“No, all good.”
We watch mine and Singer’s men move. They’re like a well-oiled machine.
“You don’t want to check it?”
“Got word at the start of the journey that everything was as it needs to be. And I don’t have any reason not to trust you,” I turn back to him. “Do I?”
“It would be bad for business for shit like that to happen.” He shoves his hands into the pockets of his suit pants and glances around. He doesn’t seem nervous, so I stay somewhat relaxed but I’m never fully off guard.
The doors to the van slam and Monroe gets back inside. Talon comes over to us.
“All good?” Singer asks.
“Yep, same way out?”
Singer nods. “You won’t have any problems.”
“The money is on its way.”
“Pleasure doing business with you. I’ll be in touch.”
He heads away with his man after he’s locked up the container.
Talon grins at me. “I checked everything,” he says. “It’s all there.”
I nod. I might have told Singer I trust him, but you can never be too careful in this business. Especially when you’re shipping a fuck load of guns into the country. “I’ll feel more comfortable when we get out of here. Let’s go.”
We head to the van and drive away. None of us breathe easy until we’re driving away from the port. Talon and Jefferson start talking about how good everything went and how we’re going to have a great partnership with Singer.
They’re right, even with the split for Singer, we’ve made a shit load of money on this deal. There is no way King is going to doubt what we’ve pulled off here.
By the time we’ve got everything stowed at the warehouse and back to the clubhouse it’s way too late to go back to Parsippany.
The guys want to party and get a few drinks, but I beg off and go to one of the few bedrooms. No one else ever uses this room, it’s off limits.
I strip off my T-shirt and boots and sit down on the bed.
Taking out my phone I wonder what in the fuck I’m doing when I text Handlebar to tell him I won’t be back till morning.
I’m surprised he replies given it’s after three AM. He texts that he’s not going to the garage tomorrow so I don’t need to rush.
When the fuck did we get so domestic? And when did I lose my head because I type out a message asking if she is alright, but delete it before I can hit send. Tossing the phone on the nightstand, I take off my jeans and get into bed.
Sleep is a long time coming, and it’s not because of the job we pulled. It’s the dark-haired, dark-eyed siren who is overtaking my every thought. And it’s the two of them I’m thinking about when I grab my dick and jerk myself off to a fast and heart pounding climax.
I have no idea if she is going to forgive me and let me anywhere near her, but I intend to do everything in my power to convince her I’m not the asshole she thinks I am.