Chapter 16
Vienna
Now
“Careful, Axel. One wrong move and the mighty beast will awaken.”
“Car,” Axel replied, completely unfazed by my warning as he shoved one of his toy cars straight over the fuel tank of my bike.
I cracked one eye open and squinted at him from where I was lying flat on my back across the bar floor, one arm tucked behind my head and the other draped dramatically across my stomach like some tragic Victorian widow.
“Did you hear me? I said careful. You’re playing a dangerous game.”
“Car,” he repeated, this time louder, before ramming the little red car directly into the handlebars.
I let out a long, suffering sigh and tilted my head towards the ceiling, staring up at the rafters as though I were silently asking God why this was my life.
My head was pounding. My mouth tasted like I’d licked the floor of a pub toilet, and every bone in my body felt as though it had been rearranged by a particularly angry lorry.
And yet, somehow, this was still preferable to being left alone with my own thoughts.
“Your uncle Vienna is trying very hard not to die, Axel,” Rachel called from behind the bar, not sounding remotely sympathetic as she wiped down the counters. “Can you at least try not to make his hangover worse?”
“Excuse me,” I croaked, lifting a hand into the air. “I’ll have you know, I am not hungover. I’m simply… preserving energy,” I finished, gesturing vaguely into the air.
Rachel snorted. “You’ve been laid on my floor for twenty minutes.”
“Strategically placed,” I corrected, turning my head to look at her. “There’s a difference. I’m using the cold floor to regulate my body temperature. It’s very scientific.”
“Mm-hm.”
“I’m basically a doctor.”
“You’re basically a public nuisance.”
“Now that’s just rude. In front of the child and all.”
Axel giggled, clearly taking my side, which was only right and proper.
“There, you see?” I said, pointing at him. “That’s because he recognises greatness when he sees it.”
“Or because you’re acting like a clown,” Dante muttered from his seat at the bar, not bothering to look up from whatever paperwork he was pretending to be interested in.
I frowned at him. “A clown? I’ll have you know, I am this child’s emotional support adult.”
Rachel barked out a laugh. “That is the most concerning thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It should be. I’m shaping young minds here.”
“Vroom!” Axel shouted, apparently in agreement, now driving two cars up and down the length of my bike seat like he was preparing them for some sort of race.
“You still haven’t explained to me why your bike is in the middle of my bar,” Rachel said, scowling at me.
“It’s not your bar,” I replied, closing my eyes, only to snap them back open again when she threw the wet bar cloth at me, slapping me in the face.
“What was that for? Facts are facts, Rachel. I’ve been here longer than you.”
“Fine,” Dante sighed. “Why is your bike in my bar?”
“It’s not your bar, either.”
“I was born in this bar, but sure… it’s not mine,” he smirked.
“I spend more money here. I basically paid off the mortgage,” I replied without missing a beat. “And, let's not forget… I am a co-owner.”
“Vienna…” Rachel warned, not wanting to pick up the old, familiar argument. “Bike. Why is it here?”
“The distance from my parking spot to the beers felt too great to walk. Would you have me damage my legs at such a young age?” I said, throwing my hands over my eyes dramatically.
“Dante, I can’t with him. I cannot. I’m leaving him in your capable hands.”
At that moment, Axel decided to slam his toys into my bike repeatedly, the noise like a sledgehammer on my sensitive head.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You know, that is a very expensive machine you’re currently disrespecting.”
He looked me dead in the eye, and then deliberately crashed the two cars together.
I gasped. “Rachel! Did you see that? He’s a menace. An absolute menace.”
“He gets it from you,” she called back.
“I was going to say his father, but fine. Hurtful.”
Dante finally looked up then, one eyebrow raised as he took in the scene of me sprawled on the floor beneath my bike whilst his son slowly committed vehicular manslaughter above my head.
His mouth twitched, only slightly, but I caught it.
“There’s a joke there somewhere,” I told him. “About me being beneath you and your child running rings around me. But I’m too fragile to find it.”
“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all morning.”
“Another cheap shot. Honestly, the abuse I endure in this place is unbelievable.”
“Put it in the shitty suggestion box,” he shot right back at me.
Suggestion box my ass!
Axel made a tiny crashing sound and then climbed onto my stomach with absolutely no warning.
“Christ!” I wheezed, both hands flying to his sides as my organs momentarily attempted to leave my body.
Rachel turned at that, clearly attempting to smother a laugh. “Axel, careful.”
But he was already giggling, holding the toy car high above his head like some kind of victorious warrior.
And because I was an idiot—or perhaps because I needed the distraction far more than I was willing to admit—I sat upright in one dramatic movement, scooping him up with a low growl.
“Well, that’s it,” I said in my deepest voice. “You’ve awoken the beast.”
Axel squealed instantly.
“Oh, no,” Rachel said, already sounding done with whatever I was about to do. “Vienna—”
Too late.
I lurched to my feet with Axel tucked under one arm and the toy car in my free hand, stomping around the bar in exaggerated, clumsy steps.
“Raargh!” I bellowed. “I am Godzilla! Destroyer of cities, ruiner of small vehicles!”
Axel laughed so hard he nearly snorted, clutching at my shoulder as I pretended to crash through the stools and tables, making engine noises and explosion sounds with absolutely no shame.
“Vienna!” Rachel snapped as I deliberately knocked into one of the chairs and sent it scraping loudly across the floor. “If you break something, I’m billing you for it.”
“You can’t bill Godzilla, woman!” I shouted back. “He doesn’t believe in capitalism!”
“That’s funny, because you seem very interested in everyone else paying your bar tab.”
“Lies and slander!” I cried, ducking behind one of the tables as Axel cackled in my ear. “You hear this, boy? This is character assassination.”
Dante huffed out a laugh then, shaking his head and dragging a hand down his face as though he had long since accepted that this was just his life now.
Still, when my gaze flicked his way, I caught it.
That look. That brief flicker of concern that was easy to miss if you didn’t know him. But I did. I knew him better than anyone. And I knew what that look meant.
Dante was watching me.
Not the Godzilla routine. Not Axel. Me.
Me, and the fact I’d gone from face-down on the floor to stomping around the bar like an overgrown idiot with just a little too much energy, just a little too much noise.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.
Dante had always seen more than most.
And I had always been very good at pretending there was nothing worth seeing.
Thankfully, before he could decide to poke at that particular bruise, the bar door opened.
The shift in the room was instant.
Hacksaw stepped inside, his expression grim enough to kill whatever remained of the laughter in the air. Chris was right behind him, Riley trailing after them both.
I lowered Axel to the floor and straightened automatically, every trace of Godzilla gone in a blink.
Hacksaw looked directly at me. “Brother, can I have a word?”
And just like that, the hangover, the noise, the act… all of it fell away.
I rolled my shoulders back, my expression hardening, the familiar comfort of the VP role slipping into place, grounding me, giving me purpose.
“Of course,” Dante said, shooting me a small look. “Let’s hear it.”
“Axel!” Rachel beamed, scooping the boy out of my arms. “How about we go find Heather and Bee and see what mischief we can cause?” She grinned at him, booping him on the nose.
Dante inclined his head towards the office at the back of the bar.
The office door clicked shut behind us, sealing out the noise of the bar and leaving nothing but the low hum of the overhead light and the quiet scrape of chairs as we took our seats.
Dante moved straight to the head of the table, leaning back slightly, one arm hooked over the back of his chair as he looked between Hacksaw, Chris, and Riley.
“Go on,” he said. “What have you got?”
Hacksaw didn’t waste time. He never did.
“We went where we said we would,” he began, his tone clipped, all business now. “Riley got us in with a few of the lower Riders. Nothing official, nothing that’s going to get back to Nico, but enough to get a feel for things.”
Riley gave a small nod. “They’re getting bolder,” he added. “More visible. Less careful about where they’re moving product. It’s like they’re testing how far they can push before we push back.”
“They’re not testing,” Dante said calmly. “They’re assuming we won’t.”
“Either way,” Hacksaw continued, “there’s a shift. It’s not chaos yet, but it’s heading that way.”
I leaned back in my chair, arms folded loosely across my chest, listening without really needing to speak. This was familiar territory. Strategy. Territory. Power plays. Things that made sense.
Things I could control.
“Anything concrete?” I asked, my voice steady, detached.
“Bits,” Chris said with a shrug. “Nothing you could take to the bank, but there’s chatter. Apparently there’s a shipment due at the end of the month. And it’s more than they’ve ever moved at once.”
“How much?” Dante demanded.
“At least a million,” Hacksaw said with a slight grimace.
“Shit,” Dante hissed. “Get Monster and Ant watching. I want to know when that shipment comes in and exactly where it’s going. We know they won’t sell it clean.”
The Riders never did.