Chapter 38
Gabriella
The next few days slipped by uneventfully.
Vienna was occupied with club business for most of it, and so I didn’t see him much during the day. But every night he returned to me, sitting on the end of my bed and catching me up on what had happened.
As much as he would have liked the entire focus to be on Nico, there was still an empire to run.
They had drug shipments coming in that needed cutting and distributing to their sellers.
They had drama with other charters that needed Vienna and the peacekeeper, Riley, to handle.
Then there were the legitimate businesses, such as the garage and the shops.
As well as making sure the working girls were taken care of.
I flinched slightly when Vienna mentioned them, but he reassured me that these girls were willing sex workers, and rather than keeping them on the streets, the club had set them up with their own hotel and made sure it was kept safe and free from the police.
They also had a strict policy that the girls could not be using anything, and that they were there because they wanted to be.
All things considered, it was a relatively “clean” operation, and after he took me to visit one day in an effort to reassure me, I was satisfied that the women seemed happy enough.
I’d asked a few of them, and they were all aware they could leave at any time, and one even mentioned that someone had left a few months back, using a grant from Dante to help her start over.
I wasn’t over the moon that this was a business under Vienna’s belt, but I was placated by the fact it was being handled respectfully.
He then also told me about some of the other businesses they had their fingers in. Laundrettes, gambling shops, restaurants etc.
It seemed over the years, the Devils had built up quite the portfolio, bringing in a steady stream of income, and somewhere to launder the money that came in through their… less than legitimate business ventures.
“Are you sure you’re a biker?” I’d teased Vienna one evening.
“The cut I wear would say so.”
“You’re giving mafia vibes to me. Have you ever thought of wearing a black three-piece suit? Ooh, maybe some suspenders and a hat. You’d look damn good in suspenders.”
“I heard nothing,” he replied, almost drooling.
“Was it the suspenders?” I teased.
“Gabby, please. I’m just a man.”
I’d laughed then and thrown a pillow at him.
When he finished telling me about his day, he always gave me a chaste kiss on the cheek and went to sleep in his own room.
Sometimes he would knock on my walls in an attempt to do Morse code.
I told him it sounded like someone playing the bongos.
So now he just shouted through the wall.
Which made Dante threaten to put his head through it.
So Vienna, in typical Vienna fashion, put a hole through Dante’s bedroom door, covered it with a jacket and when Dante was sleeping, he stuck his head through it and screamed, “Here’s Johnny! ”
Dante had almost shot him, which… wouldn’t have been ideal, but I laughed my ass off all the same.
I didn’t quite know where I stood with Vienna.
He respectfully kept his distance from me, never once invading my space, and he stayed away from all the other women as well, especially the bunnies.
There had been a few times when someone had slipped up and called me his old lady or his woman.
Vienna didn’t correct them, and neither did I.
But that wasn’t a conversation we’d had, and I wasn’t sure what our official status was.
And, to be honest, I was too embarrassed to ask him.
Which sounds ridiculous, because this was Vienna, the man I had loved since we were eleven.
And yet… it just felt awkward when we had so much history.
It felt silly to be asking him to be my boyfriend like a teenager.
But too much history to also assume that’s what he was.
As Friday rolled around, the men set out for their weekly bike ride. As with most clubs, these rides were not optional. If you didn’t ride, you didn’t stay. It was as simple as that.
Rachel was taking Bee to school and staying for her school play. The other old ladies were busy with their jobs. Which just left me, feeling out of sorts.
That was how I found myself wandering through the compound, heading towards the café that Heather had taken over as a mini-nursery within the library built in there.
I found Heather exactly where I had expected to.
The café had long since lost any resemblance to any café you’d find in the city centre.
Toys had taken over one corner, tiny tables another, and books were scattered absolutely everywhere.
There were paintings on the wall, a kitten running around—Steph’s handiwork most likely—and a stressed-looking barista trying to serve the customers.
One little boy was happily colouring in what I suspected was supposed to be a dinosaur, though it currently looked more like an unfortunate potato with legs.
Another was running around, giggling as he dared to cross the colourful padded mats that signalled the play area, and then ran back into the “safe space” after two steps.
Heather, meanwhile, was balancing Trex on one hip whilst attempting to wipe chocolate from Axel’s face with the sleeve of her jumper.
“Do you need a hand with that?” I asked, grabbing hold of a couple of napkins from the counter and rushing over.
“Oh, you’re an angel,” she breathed, gratefully grabbing the napkins. “I was only supposed to have Axel and Trex today, but then Kourtney came along and the twins there,” she nodded at the boys I had first seen.
“Who do they belong to?” I asked, scooping Axel off the floor and out of her way so she could compose herself.
“No one here. Sometimes friends of the club drop their kids off if they know I’m not busy. They must have forgotten to ask today,” she muttered.
“Well, I’m free if you need a hand. Aren’t I, Axe-man?” I asked, booping his nose.
“Oh, you don’t have to, I—”
“Heather,” I interrupted with a laugh. “I’m not offering. I’m telling. How hard can it be?”
Fucking hard.
That’s how hard it can be.
Two hours later, I was covered in paint—including a nice handprint on my ass, courtesy of Trex, who hadn’t quite mastered walking yet and figured my body was as good a walking stick as any.
The shy little girl I had met the other night in the form of Kourtney had exploded into a full-blown, hyperactive child. She wanted to skip, she wanted a story, she wanted to play hide and seek—which meant we lost Axel for fifteen minutes. That little sucker knew how to hide.
Which made sense, I suppose. He would have been doing lockdown drills since he was a newborn.
Trex and Axel had a fight over one of the toy motorbikes, the twin boys had eaten one of the peanut cookies, which led to Heather having to monitor them both for allergies—neither of them had it, luckily enough.
Someone—somewhere and somehow—had found the glitter pots, and it had taken precisely one second for it to be thrown everywhere. Including my hair, my mouth, and every inch of my stress-induced sweaty skin.
It had all come to a head when Axel had tried to pour milk in the fish tank and Heather had demanded everyone settle down for a story time.
“Do you regret this?” she asked as the kids attempted to tidy up.
I laughed. “No, not at all,” I said sarcastically. “This is exactly how I envisioned my day going.”
We both looked down at my clothes, covered in food, paint, glitter, and a lovely helping of dried snot.
“I appreciate the help all the same. You can get going if you want. I know the men are due back soon.”
“No, it’s okay. It doesn’t look like Axel is going to settle,” I said, nodding at the toddler who was spinning in circles. “How about you do the story with the rest of them, maybe get Kourtney to help you so she feels special and grown-up, and I’ll keep the live wire occupied?”
“I could kiss you.”
“Look at me, Heather. I’d dread to think what you’d catch,” I laughed. And then, without another word, I rolled my sleeves up and wandered over, crouching beside a still spinning Axel.
“What are you up to, trouble?”
He looked up at me with the same cheeky grin his father wore whenever he’d done something questionable.
Funnily enough, it was also the same grin Vienna had. It must be a club trademark.
“Dig-ger.”
He proudly held up a yellow toy excavator.
“I can see that. But diggers don’t usually spin up in the air like that. They go on the ground, see?” I said, picking up another toy and mimicking the movement.
He immediately rammed the digger into my shin.
“So you chose war,” I said with a nod. “I can respect that. How about we take your digger to the park instead?” His eyes lit up with interest, and I knew I had almost hooked him. “Maybe your digger might like a turn on the slide? Or you could even sit him in the swings, and I could push you both?”
Ding, ding, ding.
He immediately rushed towards the door, yelling “Park!” as loudly as he could.
“Heather,” I called over, rushing after him. “I’m going to take him to the park!”
She waved in acknowledgement, holding the big book alongside Kourtney, and I smiled softly at the sight of them before spinning and following Axel out the doors, the rest of my afternoon booked with a date in the park.