Chapter 13
Vienna
I dragged Pivot the remainder of the way into Church and then bent low, picking him up and depositing him in his seat at the other end of the table from Dante and me with the rest of the prospects.
But before I took my seat at Dante’s side, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pen, ripping the cap off with my teeth as I steadied an unconscious Pivot in his seat.
“What are you doing, Vienna?” Riley asked, eyeing me with suspicion.
What else was new?
“Decorating,” I replied, my words slightly muffled since I couldn’t move my lips properly.
Dante came over without a word, grabbed the cap from my teeth and shoved it into my beard.
“There you are,” he said, shaking his head already.
“Cheers, pal,” I grinned at him.
He saluted at me with a dry chuckle and took his seat at the head of the table, leaving me to my business.
“Did we really need more cock decorations?” Riley said, leaning over my shoulder to look at the crude drawing I had scribbled on Pivot’s face.
“Not now, Riley. I need to concentrate. You wouldn’t ask Van Gogh if we needed more sunflowers, would you? Exactly,” I nodded without waiting for him to answer. “Now leave me to my cock-sterpiece.”
I was quite proud of it, actually.
I had drawn the balls around Pivot’s mouth, complete with plenty of pubes and even the odd crab here and there.
The actual shaft ran up his face, along the sides of his nose, and the head of the dick was on his forehead.
I added some thick veins to the length of it, some more crabs scurrying, and then, the pièce de résistance, huge globs of cum flying out of the head and dripping down his eyebrows and cheeks.
“Vienna, that’s concerning,” Sunshine said, popping his head over my shoulder.
“Why?”
“Well... it’s quite lifelike.”
“And that should be concerning? We all have dicks, Sunny. We should know what they look like.”
“Here, give me that,” Ant said, snatching the pen out of my hands and placing it against Pivot’s cheek.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Needs some veins. Mine is nice and veiny.”
“See that, Riley?” I said, clapping Ant on the back. “This is a man who is comfortable with his anatomy. Aren’t you, Antony?”
“Fuck off,” he grumbled, slapping the pen back in my hand.
“Hang on a minute,” I said, finally dawning on me what Riley had said. “What do you mean, ‘more cock decorations’? Do we have an abundance of cock about the place?”
“Well... no. But you knew what I meant?” he protested, his cheeks flaming slightly.
“I most certainly did not. Dante, did you know what he meant?”
“I never know what the fuck most of you are talking about. It’s got to the point where I just nod along and hope for the best.”
“See what you’ve done?” I said, backhanding Riley on his arm. “You’ve got our president relying on hope. This place is a fucking shambles.”
“I brought some anaesthetic,” Doc said. “Just say the word and one jab in his ass and he’s out for the entire meeting.”
“Wo-ow,” I breathed. “Sympathy doesn’t last long here, does it?”
I took my seat at Dante’s side and glared at my brothers.
“Can this meeting get underway?” Dante sighed.
“Why does Vienna look constipated?” Chicken asked.
“I’m not constipated. I’m glaring. Intimidating.”
“You look like my nephew when I told him he couldn’t have an extra hour on his curfew,” Ant joined in.
“He has a point,” Dante said. “You look a bit like Axel when Rachel tries to get him on the potty.”
“Rough time,” Sunshine said, the sides of his mouth turning down in sympathy.
“You don’t even have fucking kids!” I protested. “What do you know about potty training? And, more importantly, why are you taking his side?”
“Felt like it,” he shrugged back.
“I don’t think you look constipated, Vienna,” Divorce said, entering the room with a tray of beers.
“Cheers, pal. I knew you were a good ’en. Would you like to join my beard club?”
“Err... well,” he said, placing the beers on the desk and rubbing the back of his neck. “This is slightly awkward as I was going to say you look like a teenage girl dealing with her first period cramps.”
“The audacity,” I gasped as the rest of the room exploded into laughter.
One by one, they reached for their beers and continued to mock me.
“Right, lads,” Dante finally said, banging down his gavel. “Let’s get this underway.”
He reached into the pocket of his cut and pulled out a packet of smokes. Taking one for himself, he extended the next one out of the packet and placed it in the middle of the table, as was customary for these meetings.
“I won’t waste time rehashing the details. We’ve all got our old ladies out there, and they’re clearly in a menacing mood. Let’s share what we know and get the fuck out of here before I’m rebuilding another clubhouse.”
“I’ll go first,” Riley said as Dante lit up his smoke.
“Nico was last seen near Barnsley. Seems he fled the clubhouse and is currently shacked up with a woman he has there on one of the estates. I’ve got some of our lesser-known hang-arounds scoping it out and trying to narrow down his location.
Told them the first to give us some concrete evidence can have his prospect status rushed through. ”
“Good call,” Dante nodded. “I don’t mind prospecting a couple of them if they prove their worth. Do we know who’s on it?”
“I put Michael and Carl in charge. I think we can all agree they’re the best hang-arounds we have. If anything is found, I can say it’s thanks to their planning and push them through.”
“Perfect. Let me know as soon as you hear anything.”
Riley nodded.
“Will do, boss. I’m actually due to speak to a cousin of one of the Riders later this evening, so I should have a bit more information.”
Riley was our current peacemaker, which was my old job before I became vice president. We knew a lot of moles and rats, and you’d be surprised at the number of people willing to hand over information on their own family members—for the right price.
“Anyone else have a problem with rushing Michael and Carl through to prospect status?” Dante asked, looking around at the table.
“I dunno,” Tools spoke up. “I asked that Carl the other day if he had ever shot someone, and he looked as though he was going to faint.”
“So the kid needs to toughen up,” Dante shrugged. “It’s not ideal, but we’ve got a year, minimum, before he can graduate. We can work through any issues then.”
“Why were you asking if he had shot anyone? You probably scared him,” Riley said.
Tools was a huge, tattooed, borderline feral man with a gold tooth and a mean face. I remembered him scaring us as kids and all we did was steal one of his cars. Complete overreaction, in all honesty, but I could see where Riley was coming from.
“If I scare him, then he has no chance against his missus,” Tools replied, jabbing his thumb in Dante’s direction.
“Hey now,” I said. “In Rachel’s defence, she has calmed down loads. When was the last time either of them set fire to something?”
“Why has this turned into talking about Rachel?” Dante sighed.
At that moment, we heard a screech from the pub, followed by shattered glass and hysterical laughter.
“I’ll put money on that being her,” Sunshine grinned.
“You’ll win that bet,” Divorce sighed.
“And what happens when we find him? Nico? That’s what I want to know,” Eagle said.
Eagle was the president of the Edinburgh charter.
Whilst we hadn’t allowed every member of the other charters in here—they were manning the grounds and keeping guard—we had allowed the leaders in.
I was surprised Rachel had let him through the doors, but even she knew that she couldn’t mess with Church, no matter how much leeway Dante gave her.
“He’s dead,” Dante said simply.
“Boss...” Riley tried to intervene.
“Whatever you’re going to say, save it,” Dante said. “I know you’re just doing your job, brother, and I appreciate that. But this has gone on long enough now.”
“You know what this will lead to.”
“I do. And that’s why we’re here. Killing Nico will more than likely cause an all-out war.
And if that’s the case, so be it. We’ve tried long enough to deal with the Riders.
We’ve given them ample opportunity to play nice, and they’ve fought us at every turn.
Harming our vice was a step too far. As far as I’m concerned, he’s DOS. ”
Dead on sight.
“An all-out war would mean the other charters are involved,” Eagle warned.
“I’m aware. Which is one of the reasons we’ve called you in. Wales and Ireland are fine, the Riders don’t extend that far. But the rest of you need to be prepared—especially you lot in Manchester,” Dante said, looking at Tom-Cat, the president of the Manchester charter.
“Already prepping the troops, boss. I didn’t bring my vice, he’s still at the clubhouse waiting for further information. We had a feeling it was going to come to this. We’ve had issues with the Riders ever since Nico was president-in-waiting at their Manchester charter. We’re already prepared.”
“That’s what I like to hear. As you can see, we’re low on numbers here.
We’ve had a lot of war over the past few years, and we’ve lost some valuable members,” Dante said, growing quiet for a minute as we all looked up at the pictures of our fallen brothers on the wall and gave them a moment of silence out of respect.
“But those we have left—well, see for yourselves. They’re some ugly, mean bastards,” he grinned, earning himself some feral smiles in return.
He wasn’t wrong.
We were the smallest we had ever been, but we were growing steadily, and doing so with much more rigorous checks.
We had Dante as president, me as vice. Hacksaw was our secretary, Trent the road captain, and Doc as—would you believe it—the club’s doctor.
Riley was the peacekeeper, Chris was the treasurer, and Ant was our Sergeant-at-Arms. He was also in charge of the youth division, the Devil’s Descendents, and had already recruited a bunch of rough lads from the estates, alongside his own nephews he had custody of.