Chapter 23
Fox
Icurse as I finish buttoning up the last of the stupid tiny buttons on Jazz’s shirt.
Who the fuck makes buttons and holes on button ups this tiny?
If my big ass hands are struggling, then Jazz’s most definitely would have.
Her fingers look stiff as hell, knuckles a little pink and I know they have to ache.
I share a look with Nitro, letting him know that as soon as Jazz moves in we’ll start phasing out tiny button shirts in favor of shit she can pull straight on.
“Just so you know, I can button my own shirt up,” Jazz says, an adorable grumpy look on her face.
“Of course you can baby, but why would I let you do that when I can do it?” I answer.
“Because it looks like you can’t,” she points out as another tiny fucking button slips through my fingers.
I put all my effort into fighting the little bastard successfully popping it through when yelling and feet rushing around sounds out down the hall. I make sure Jazz is good to go before following Nitro out the door.
“Everything all good?” I ask Mama Debs as she ushers the kids toward the back room.
“All good, just someone the twins know.” We share a look and I move even faster to get to the common room.
Instead of laying eyes on Travis Dickbag Hitchens, I’m met with the sight of a small black woman beat all to hell.
“What the fuck?”
“She’s Loyal’s friend. Turns out, she’s also a friend to the twins’ mom,” Omen says, stepping up next to me, watching as Switch checks her over.
“Wait, so you’re saying that motherfucker came all this way looking for information on those kids? How the fuck did he think they made it here?” Nitro snarls.
“Who the fuck knows? He’s probably grasping at straws, trying to find his fucking payday,” Omen replies, moving his ass when Dex calls Church.
We file in after the other brothers, and it’s a weird fucking feeling sitting down in places that aren’t usually ours, facing a Pres that up until a little while ago, was our brother. I guess he still is, but now he’s the top dog of his own Chapter.
“I know you’ve been dealing with this fucker, so bring us up to speed. What are we looking at?” Dex asks Marx as soon as his gavel hits the table.
Marx’s lips tip up slightly before he tips his head toward me and Nitro.
“As you know we’ve been working with Moss to clean out his department.
From what we can tell Hitchens was your typical badge-wearing bully when he worked for El Serpiente.
Now it looks likely he’s cut out the middle man, so to speak, and is working directly with the people who employed El Serpiente.
” I start off, looking at my brothers around the table.
“This guy, Matthew Thompson, seems to have a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. One of which is black market military grade shit,” Wire adds.
“Girls?” Dex asks.
“Anything you can think of. Girls, boys, grandmas, grandpas, body parts, drugs, you name it.”
“And this Hitchen’s guy you’re looking for, the twins’ father, works for him?”
“Yeah, he’s a total fucking scumbag,” Switch growls. “One of his wives and daughters is staying with me,” he says, staring everyone down, as if we’d challenge him.
He’s been gone for the woman since that night in the ER, and I’m not going to tell him no.
“One of his wives?” Vex asks, brow raised.
“The other is the mother of the twins. Fucking tortured her to death, and has a buyer for the girls. That’s why he wants them so bad.” Nitro answers.
Dex’s jaw clenches. “OK. And that’s the murder the kids saw?”
I take a deep breath then blow it out. “It wasn’t quick. Coroner said it would have taken days for her to suffer the amount of damage she did.”
Curses sound out around the room and Chef looks fit to burst.
“Wait,” Vex interrupts, “at what point did the girls see what they saw?”
I share a look with Nitro and then Marx. “They were there the whole time. School records show they never made it to school the two days before they were found in the home with their deceased mother.”
“And you’re only just telling me this now? Dude, Loyal and I have been tasked with looking after them while they’re here! You should have told us the trauma we’re dealing with!” He slams his fist on the table.
I get it, I fucking do. It’s a shitty situation and those girls, while seemingly OK last night with the other kids and Mama Debs, they’re gonna be fucked up for a long time.
Taking Vex in and meeting Lovely I know why Dex chose them to take in the kids.
They’re steady, calm, and I know they’ve been through some shit.
Fuck, everyone who had the displeasure of growing up in Eden’s Keep has.
“Vex, take a step back, brother. Think about what those kids need. They need normalcy. They need to have fun and be kids again, they can’t do that if the people taking care of them are looking for any sign of trauma or breakdown,” Dex offers.
“I hear your point brother, but your Pres is right. We just gotta leave the twins be for a while. Their lives are going to go to shit fast. The least we can do is give them some good days while we look for their father and shut down their operation and whatever the fuck else they have going on at the PD,” Marx adds in his gravelly voice.
He may well be sitting around another Pres’s church table, but he’s still the Pres of the mother chapter and what he says goes.
“We’re gonna stick to our plan which is to leave this afternoon. We need to keep up appearances that this is just an innocent trip away to visit our chapter brothers. Fox and Nitro will keep tabs on the fucker and build their case, or take him out,” Marx says.
Dex nods his head, Vex still looking a little sick at the prospect.
Not only does he have to act like Loyal is his woman, but he also has to act like the twins are his kids.
That will be their cover until their father and all threats against them are neutralized.
Which shouldn’t be too long. I’m sick of chasing my tail and not being able to act.
We’ve played this whole thing by the book for too long.
As soon as we get back to Rose Grove I’m going to let Moss know in no uncertain terms that his way isn’t working and we need to put Hitchens, Ryan and Norton out by force. Permanently.
Nitro
I pull in quickly behind Fox at the clubhouse, eager to get to our trailer and get everything ready for Jazz.
We don’t have a bath which fucking sucks.
In the home we build we’ll have to have one for her joints, but in the meantime I can get the water heating for a shower for her, maybe heat up a heating pad to put into bed for later and I’ll get Niko to go out and grab some massage oils so we can help her relax.
Movement on the porch catches my eye and I look up to find Moss smirking down at me. “Why the fuck are you on the clubhouse porch?”
His smile grows even wider and it hits me.
Last week Fox and I arranged a surprise dinner with her family here at the clubhouse so we could announce our intention to claim her and for our families to spend time together.
Except with all the shit going on with Hitchens and having to get the twins outta dodge, one of us forgot to postpone and now Jazz is not feeling great.
Oh and even though we’ve called her our Ol Lady, we haven’t actually spoken to her about claiming her yet.
“She’s going to freak out.”
“Mhmm.”
“What the hell are we going to do?” Fox asks, looking agitated.
He’s usually the more easy going of the two of us, but I can tell this has him rattled. And I’m not too sure how to fix the problem other than tell him everything will work out. Which is most definitely not something I would naturally say. But, everything will work out. It has to.
“It’ll all work out.”
Fox stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “What did you just say? Our girlfriend, the very skittish one that acts all suspicious when we do nice things for her, the one that only just told us she loved us, and only just believed us this morning that we would take care of her-”
“Yeah, well she’s going to freak out and get all weird and or upset and then I’m going to have to beat up her brother if he upsets her.”
“I’d like to see you try,” Moss’s unimpressed voice says from where he’s leaning on the railing.
“Moss, we need to call the dinner off. The club knows she’s ours but we haven’t officially spoken to her about being claimed. She’s not feeling too good and hasn’t told your mom yet. We can postpone dinner. Flora doesn’t know anything is going on.” Fox says hopefully.
“Of course Mom knows what’s going on, I told her,” he grins.
“You rat bastard,” I can’t help but spit. “If your sister gets upset because you ran your mouth, I’ll kick your ass.”
“And again, I’ll say, I’d like to see you try.
Look, I was trained to fight by my mom, and that woman fights dirty.
Besides,” he looks from me to Fox and then back again, “stop treating my sister like she’s an invalid.
Yeah she has shit wrong with her, but she’s just as tough as you two. Probably tougher.” He shrugs.
I glare at him while Fox mutters about Moss being an asshole.
“Seriously guys, she’ll be fine. I mean, I’m doing you a favor really. Mom loves you guys anyway, this way we can all have a nice family dinner, it’s out in the open and it means Jazz will be stuck with you guys.”
“What do you mean ‘stuck with us’?” Fox frowns.
“Did you ever wonder why the hell she’s still single? I mean she’s my sister so she will always be inherently gross to me, but come on. She has a great job, she’s funny, she’s kind, she’s beautiful.”
He’s right. She is all those things. Even without her looks she’s a fucking catch, but add to that her long, wavy dark hair, her large tits with fat berry colored nipples.
That little tiny patch of dark hair leading to her perfect pink pussy.
She’s fucking perfect in every single way.
The smell of her, the taste of her. My cock is hard in my pants before I come crashing down to earth and remember that her brother is standing right there.
“We force this dinner on her and she’ll have to face the fact you two are in it for the long haul.
I can see she loves you already, but that girl is skittish as fuck.
She’ll look for any reason to lose faith in you guys.
” Shit. He’s right. Days of us caring for her isn’t enough to undo the years she’s had of telling herself no one will want her for the long haul.
“Think of it this way, it’ll be A) harder for her to run away because we’ll all know about you three and will give her shit for years if she ditches you.
She hates when we give her shit, and B) it shows her that you can put up with our particular brand of family crazy. ”
“No offense, but your family are pretty fucking normal compared to some of us out here,” I mumble.
“You keep thinking that when mom stabs you for making her baby cry,” Moss says, shaking his head sadly.
“We would never make her cry!” Fox spits.
“Course you will. We’re men, we’re fucking dumb sometimes.” He grins from his position of superiority on the porch.
“Why are you helping us?” Fox asks suspiciously.
He thinks for a moment, before huffing, “Because she’s my little sister and she deserves to be happy. I think she could be with you two.”
“You’re twins, she’s not that much younger than you.”
“Doesn’t matter. Six minutes or six years, I can’t bear to think of her living a lonely life when there’s two men out here willing to give her the world.”
“Thanks man,” I say, dipping my chin as the sound of my brother’s bikes come roaring into the compound.
“Don’t thank me yet. Mom’s driving in now.” He beams, head tipping in the direction of the little flower van coming up the drive with Flora honking and waving maniacally at us.
“Oh fun! Miss Flora is here,” Rider grins, giving Fox and I the eye on his way into the clubhouse. “I can’t wait to see why she’s visiting.”
My head falls back on my shoulders and I let out a groan as Fox panic asks Pops for advice on how to get through this without pissing Jazz off too much.
“Suck it up kid, this is just the first of many, many times you’ll annoy your woman.” Pops says with a twinkle in his eye. “Any hey, think about it. At least you have a florist on your side. Get that cut price bouquet.” He cackles as he walks into the clubhouse.
Taking a deep breath I share a look with Fox and turn to wait for the SUV with my woman to arrive.