Chapter 5
Vienna
Now
Taking my seat to Dante’s left, we waited in silence as the rest of the members piled into Church.
Hacksaw—the secretary—walked in with a scowl on his face, which was nothing new. And behind him walked Chris, who deliberately chose to take a seat as far away from Hacksaw as possible.
Chris’s brother, Trent—our road captain—looked at them both with disgust, shaking his head before he took a seat at Hacksaw’s side.
Interesting.
Hacksaw and Chris had been in a private relationship for a few years, but now they were public, and we were witnesses to their many arguments. It was a massive source of entertainment for me.
Next followed our club doctor—aptly named Doc. Our peacekeeper, Riley, Sergeant-at-arms, Ant, and then the rest of our members: Monster, James, Liam, Greg, Rooster, Chicken, Tools, Sunshine, and the prospects Mike, Pivot, and Darwin.
As an honorary member of the club, Rachel’s father walked in afterwards, still looking around sheepishly.
He was also called Chris, but in order to make things easier, he had been given the nickname Divorce, given his separation from the wench that is Rachel’s mother, Beige Becky.
It was supposed to be temporary whilst he earned his cut and established a real name.
But his cut was long since on his back, and we hadn’t stopped calling him it, so here we were…
With a member called Divorce. And maybe once or twice I called him Dolly.
But it’s about time someone else earned their road name based on a song.
Sometimes, I looked around at the club and really did worry about our sanity.
As we did at the beginning of every meeting, we took a moment to remember our fallen brothers, none of us speaking, none of us smoking. Just complete stillness. And then Dante banged the gavel, and the room erupted.
“Those hang-arounds are fucking pathetic,” Ant snapped, grabbing the smokes Dante had put in the middle of the table.
“They’re not that bad,” Tools scoffed.
“Oh, aye, are they not?” he said sarcastically. “I suppose it should come as no interest to you then that I’ve just seen one of them chatting up your old lady, eh?”
“Jade?” Tools asked with a frown.
“You got more than one old lady we should know about?” Monster said with a grin.
“Don’t you even fucking dare speak up about old ladies,” Dante snapped back, and I smothered a grin.
Steph—or Snow White as Dante liked to call her—had been Monster’s old lady for a while now, and she and Dante had never got along.
It was mainly due to the fact that Steph wanted to soften the compound a little, bring in some animals, liven the place up. And Dante thought that idea was shite.
That was the long and short of it, anyway.
Steph hadn’t taken too kindly to the rejection and had made it her mission to torment him on the daily.
“Look,” Monster said sheepishly. “I told her to lighten up with all those plastic animals…”
“Well, she didn’t fucking listen!” Dante barked. “She’s got Rachel on her side now and—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, you can’t put Rachel’s actions on me, brother. I’m not taking responsibility for her.”
“Dante doesn’t take responsibility for her,” I chuckled back.
“Sorry, do you have an old lady?” Dante hissed, snapping his head in my direction.
“Having no old lady makes me a neutral party. I take no sides, only facts. Monster, has Steph been ordering torment tools on again?”
“I swear I banned her card!” Monster rushed out.
“Can we circle back to these hang-arounds,” Ant piped back up. “Because I asked one of them to sort out the new patches for the Descendants, and he more or less told me to go fuck myself.”
“Did you do it?” I asked.
“Do what?”
“Fuck yourself? Because it’s bad enough dealing with Dante’s boner over these plastic animals Snow White is throwing around the place. The man practically spends his days salivating. I can’t be dealing with your anger boner as well.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked, the entire room growing silent as they stared at me in bewilderment.
I simply grinned until Ant shook his head and continued.
“And don’t get me started on those fuck head nephews we’ve got living with us. I’m one more smart remark away from…”
I drifted off then, listening to the conversations around me, but not actively participating. Ant was determined to get the Descendants back up and running, but I’d lived that life already.
Besides… thinking of the Descendants too much made me think about her. And whenever I thought about her, all I could think about was the stupid, pointless, waste of my nights. The stalking habit I couldn’t quit.
A therapist would have a field day with me.
A therapist had already had a field day with me. Until doctor Ashleigh asked me to stop attending Dante and Rachel’s weekly couple’s counselling because I was, and I quote, “making everything worse.”
Which I found rather rude.
Eventually, Dante made the decision that Ant could whip the hang-arounds into shape, putting him in charge of getting them ready for prospect status, or getting them the fuck out of here. And one way they earned prospect status was by doing whatever Ant demanded with the Descendants.
God help those lads, because the sadistic grin that crept across Ant’s face sent a chill down my spine. I knew what the bloke was capable of.
“Right, lads,” Dante said, leaning back in his chair with a smoke between his teeth, bringing the lighter up to his face.
He paused for a moment to light up, and then looked around us, taking a deep draw.
“We need to get serious about assigning a new treasurer. Hacksaw here has been doing a brilliant job as both secretary and treasurer for a fair few months now, but it’s time we lightened his burden.
I know we all miss Shark, and I know it’ll hurt Jenna when she finds out, but…
” his words drifted off, but we all knew what he meant.
Shark had been murdered after he and Rachel had been attacked. Jenna, his old lady, had been left to raise their one-year-old by herself, and she wasn’t taking to it well.
“Would anyone like to volunteer for the role? Not you Vienna!” Dante hissed at me, seeing me raise my hand in the air.
“And why the fuck not?” I replied. “I’m great with numbers. I can handle the books easily.”
“Last time you tried to handle the books, Gemma and Imogen nearly castrated you.”
“Gemma and Imogen had no business being in the garage during business hours, for one. And two—”
“Gemma literally works at the garage,” Tools interrupted.
“Thank you for that, brother. I’m so glad you’re on my side here. As I was saying—”
“And she caught you wiping off your bar tab.”
“And ordering yourself a new bike,” Doc added on.
“And beard kits,” Greg added. “Not that a beard kit will help with that monstrosity.”
“Why are you piping up for? You know, these meetings are starting to feel like a gang up on Vienna session. I think we need to revisit that whole spiritual retreat thing I mentioned—”
“No!” the whole table practically roared at me.
“I’d be up for a spiritual retreat,” Divorce mumbled.
“Well, well, well, would you look at this,” I grinned. “The newest member of the club, but the most fucking loyal. Thank you very much, Dolly. You book it, I’ll attend it.”
“Chris, you’re the treasurer,” Dante announced. “I can’t be dealing with you fuckheads any longer.”
“Err, boss,” I murmured, leaning closer to him. “Trouble in lovers’ paradise. You sure this is wise?”
“I’m sure two grown men can put their differences aside for the sake of the club, right, brothers?” Dante asked, raising his voice at the two of them. They nodded sulkily, and he banged the gavel, finalising his words.
“Perfect. So, now for matters outside the club, and you all know what’s coming.”
“The Rough Riders?” Sunshine asked, his voice as gravelly as ever.
“The Rough Riders,” Dante nodded. “As you all know, there was a tentative agreement in place after Nico took over. Neither of us wanted to go back to the war we had when Crash was in charge. But Nico hasn’t been following the terms of the agreement.
There have been drugs sold on Devil’s territory, prostitution taking place on the streets rather than one of the safe houses we set up for the women.
And then there’s the matter of Gabriella—”
At the mention of her name, several members of the gang sat up straighter. I forced my face to remain neutral, not wanting to give anything away.
“I still don’t see why we’re bothering with her safety,” Tools snapped. I can’t say I blamed him. He had been there that night. He was a first-hand witness to what she did.
“We did it for our brother. It doesn’t matter what happened previously, she did—”
“What?” Tools demanded. “What did she do?”
“Rachel murdered her brother right in front of her, and she didn’t shoot back. She fired to the left, saving us both, and then allowed us to walk away free. She could have killed us both there and then,” I said, keeping my voice calm.
“So she did one good deed, and that cancels out what she did, am I hearing this right? When are we going to acknowledge that you’re still hung up on her?”
“Careful,” I warned, keeping my voice low. “You’re toeing the line between concern and disrespect.”
“As opposed to the complete disrespect she showed you when—”
“It doesn’t matter what she did back then!
” Dante snapped, taking control of the situation.
He looked at me briefly, but when he saw nothing on my face, he continued.
“Those of us who were there that night remember all too well. But Vienna has forgiven, and he has chosen to place her under his protection. As our brother, and your VP, might I add, it is our duty to protect her as well. Agreed?” Dante looked around the table.
“Agreed?” he said more forcefully, earning himself dutiful murmurs of agreement in return.
“So we need to think about what we’re doing in response. Regardless of your personal feelings—which shouldn’t be interfering with club business—there is a woman who might need our protection. Let that be your focus, and not your feelings towards said woman.”
They began discussing strategies then. How we might get word to Gabriella, how we would announce the truce was over, and how we could gain control of the situation.
I was only half listening. I was too busy thinking on everything that had been said. They were right. Gabby had betrayed me. And she had done so in front of all my brothers. There was no forgetting that, and no coming back from it. They had made that perfectly clear.
But Tools was wrong.
They all were.
Because that hadn’t always been the case. There had been a time—before the clubs, before the lines were drawn—when she’d chosen me.
When she’d stood right in front of me with everything to gain and walked away with nothing but my friendship instead.