Chapter 21
Lucius studied Lilith as she sat in the corner of his couch with her knees drawn to her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs, and she stared off into space.
Not wanting to disturb her thoughts, because she had a lot to process, he went about making a pot of coffee and when it was done, he brought it to her.
He set it on the table before the couch, and he sat close enough to her that she wiggled her toes beneath his thigh. He sipped his coffee and looked at her.
“Teach me,” she said before she shook her head and looked at him. As she did, her eyes cleared, and he saw fire in them.
With his cup of coffee in one hand, he reached out and laid his arm across her knees, and stared at her in confusion. “Teach you what?”
“How to get revenge on that bitch,” she said with conviction. “Because Sally Jane Barclay is a fucking bitch.”
“I agree, you’re not telling me anything I don’t know. However, the best way to get revenge is to serve it cold.” When she looked like she was going to say something, he shook his head and held up a hand to stop her.
“I may be considered a low-life because I ride a motorcycle and am the president of a motorcycle club, however, I’ve learned over the years to be smart.
You have to build up your case against the person you’re going to take revenge on, and then strike.
” At her confused look, he sighed. “Remember me telling you about that woman that hid her tickets in my papers? Well, I don’t know if I told you this, but it had been eight months since I kicked her to the curb.
By the time I found them, I and the other club members already messed with her by towing her car to a different location.
Oh, we did it out of spite, but it was totally legal to do. ”
“What do you mean by that?”
“People called in a vehicle parked where it wasn’t supposed to be. She thought because she was entitled to whatever she wanted, she could park in a handicap space. Or in those spaces between that have the yellow stripes.”
“The ones that leave it open in case someone has a wheelchair?”
“Exactly, she also parked in a business that was for their customers only. She was down the street, about half a block if I recall, getting her nails done. That private business called in for a tow.”
“Ah, and she was racking up more and more charges or tickets after you broke up, and when you showed what you found to Bandit, then they could act.”
“Correct, so from the time I kicked her ass out, though she never ever stepped foot into this house, it was roughly a year.”
“Cold, she was served cold.”
“Exactly.”
“Do you know what exactly she received?”
Lucius grinned. “One hundred and eighty days in jail. License revoked for seven years, total fines that added up to almost seven thousand dollars, and five hundred hours of community service.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. The only thing I did was give Bandit the tickets she tried to hide, and let the guys know if they saw her car parked illegally, to call and have it towed. Nothing illegal in any of my actions.” He studied her and nodded when she seemed to relax.
At least her shoulders weren’t so hunched that they covered her ears.
He sighed in relief when she put her legs over his lap and reached for her coffee.
“I’m not saying I won’t help you get revenge. I will, because I have a feeling things are far from being done. From what I’ve seen so far, Sally, I won’t call her Ann any more, but Sally is after you, and Brenda will probably come after you because of me.”
“Or she may go after you directly. You turned down her advances, she’s a woman scorned.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that, but this is how I see things.”
“What?” Lilith asked when he didn’t say anything for several moments.
He turned to look at her sadly. “I’m not saying this will be done overnight, but you will get your revenge on Sally.
Right now, look at it this way, Richard took pictures of the three of them together, outside of your house, They had no right being there at that time of the morning, so that is two strikes against them.
Right now, they don’t mean shit, but if I know Bandit, who is excellent at his job, by the way, then he will start a file.
It can be spun in the future that those photos from Richard can be construed as them plotting against us. ”
“Oh, I never thought of that.”
“Right, because it just happened, and they don’t have all the evidence gathered yet, you know, the fingerprints any hairs, whatever, and if anyone has a Ring camera that caught them entering.” He looked at her sadly. “Unfortunately, Richard only had photos of them leaving your home, not entering.”
“So they can spin it that I called them upset and they came over to be with me.”
“Correct. Did you notice that Bandit told Richard he wanted a copy of those photos, but not once did he tell Richard not to interfere. Between you and me, I would bet that Richard will be stalking all three of them in the coming days. More evidence to pile against them. I know it sounds frustrating right now, and as much as I want to deal out biker justice, I don’t want to go to jail for those assholes.
It’s better to sit back, observe, gather information, and strike while the iron’s hot.
I can guarantee that when you’re standing before them and they are dressed in dark green or orange prison garb, and you give your victim statement at their sentencing hearing, you will feel that you’ve gotten your revenge.
Legally, and it will lock the door and throw the key after them.
That’s sweet revenge, when they can’t walk amongst the normal people of society.
” He shook his head and sighed. “They’ll have to follow the rules of the prison, when they couldn’t follow the simple rules that Starr put before Brenda, and that Sally not coming to her job was her breaking the rules of her employment. ”
Lilith stared off into space as she nodded, and sipped her coffee. After several minutes, she looked at him and sighed heavily. “May I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“You can tell me it’s none of my business, but I noticed that some of the men hanging around the club had a ‘Prospect’ patch on the front of their vests. Why?”
“Oh, that’s easy. They’ve hung out with the club long enough that we all like them and feel that when the time comes, then they will strike for the club, and eventually gain their center patch.” He saw she nodded, then he gave her his signature scowl. “There’s also another reason for it.”
“What’s that?”
“You know we’re having the Halloween Bash in four weeks, right?”
“Yes, and you’re going to do a dress rehearsal in two weeks.”
“Correct, remind me to call Starr after this conversation. I haven’t told her about the dress rehearsal yet.”
“Okay,” she said with a nod. “The prospect patch?”
“Oh, you know that the Bash will be held in my new building. That’s mine, not the club’s, mine, just like the regular Hell’s Coffin bar is.
The club uses it as a hangout because of the patch room.
It’s also centrally located for all of us.
With that being said, we had five hundred tickets printed, and they have all been sold.
Not that it matters, but they sold for ten dollars each.
They don’t get in if they don’t have a ticket. ”
“Control the chaos.”
“Correct. Anyway, the way it will work is that the patch holders will be inside, the strikers will be manning the door, taking the tickets and turning people away if they don’t have one.
The prospects will be doing the running.
Bringing full beer kegs, taking the empties away, going upstairs for any bottles of alcohol needed, going to the coolers to bring out more beer.
Don’t get me wrong, everything will be fully stocked, but five hundred people can drink a lot. ”
“I can imagine. But that didn’t answer my question as to why they have a prospect patch now.”
“It means they belong to us. If any patch holder, striker, or wannabe from another club harasses them in any way, shape, or form, they deal with me. It’s a way to protect them from the other bikers.
Not that I think the others that will attend are bad, but years ago, when I was just starting the club, I went to a function where one club thought because they wore a center patch, they controlled all clubs around them.
When the actual president of this other club harassed one of my men, he was a striker at the time, I got into his face.
He pulled a gun on me, and tried to tell me that he was in charge.
The president of the club we were at, it was this new guy’s function, pulled his own gun and aimed it at back of the guy’s head.
He told the asshole that they were in his house and if he couldn’t respect the rules of the house, then he was out. ”
“Oh my, what happened?”
“Later, this might be where some of my revenge started, but about six months later, there was a group of bikers in here that said how they had been treated by the first guy who thought he owned everyone in the area. I listened to them, and after gathering information, I took it to Bandit. Does it make me a bitch that I go to the cops? Probably in some people’s eyes, but I don’t see it that way.
We’re a bunch of guys that want to ride motorcycles, and we have all our own lives outside the club.
This guy, he wanted to be a one percenter, and take everything from his members. ”
“What’s that mean? A one percenter?”
“There are one percent of bikers out there that are bad. I mean really, really bad.” He paused and shook his head.
With his hand wrapped around her knee, he looked her dead in the eye.
“If someone wanted to strike for that club, and had a girlfriend or was married, they had to share their woman with the entire club. The striker had no say in the matter. A life insurance policy was taken out on the guy, and the president was the beneficiary. The wife or family got nothing. If they owned a home, they had to sign the deed over to this guy. Oh, and in order to gain the privilege, his words, to wear his patch, then they had to kill someone to get the patch.”
“Holy shit, where is this guy now?”
“About six years ago, they went out of state to some big biker rally. There were fifteen members when they left here. Six returned alive, but were arrested and are doing life for murder, drug trafficking, and sex trafficking.”
Lilith felt her jaw drop and stared at him in shock. It took several attempts to clear her throat. “No.”
“No, what?”
“No, you’re not a bitch for protecting your men.
We’ve been dating for a little over five months and I have never, not once, seen anyone disrespect you.
Not a patch holder, a striker, a lady from the club, or a prospect.
When I go to Hell’s Coffin to hang out, I get a sense of being with family while I’m there.
If turning people like that club, or Brenda, or Sally, or that guy they’re hanging out with into the cops makes you a bitch, then I’m one right along with you.
I believe in right and wrong, and in my eyes, I have never done anything to Sally to make her strike out like she did.
She attacked me in my home, my personal space. ”
“I know.” He moved on the couch to gather her in his arms, and as she snuggled into his chest, he sighed heavily. “You know, you’re staying here until this is done.” When she looked, he shook his head at her. “Think about it.”
“What’s there to think about? My house is destroyed.”
“Yes it is, I’m not saying that to be mean, I’m stating the truth. Now, it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
“How can you say that?”
“One, the crime unit has to come in and dust for fingerprints. Two, you’re going to have to contact your insurance company, and they’re going to have to come in and assess the situation before they can pay out on any claim you make.”
“Shit, I didn’t think about that.”
“I know, then once that’s done, then I’m going to ask the ladies of the club to come with us to help clean up.
” He shook his head when she started to say anything.
“Lilith, think about it, there’s going to be nothing salvageable in that house.
It might be days or weeks before the insurance company will close on a claim.
I’m not telling you that you have to do this, but I would highly suggest that we get a dumpster, one of the construction ones, and we all get in there and throw everything away. I only have one question right now.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you rent or own?”
“Own. Actually, I inherited it from my grandmother, and no one knew that before she died, she put my name on the deed so that I didn’t have to pay any inheritance tax.
She and grandpa paid it off over the years, so I don’t have a mortgage either.
It was grandma that suggest I beef up my insurance coverage to get the maximum of what I was eligible for. ”
“That was smart.”
“It was. The house was in extremely rough shape when I got it. I mean like I had to replace the roof, the windows, and put siding on. The garage was falling down, and I had that one ripped out and the new one constructed. It took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get it where it is now.”
“And those assholes ruined it. I know you can’t answer this question now, but you might want to sell it if you can’t go back inside after it’s cleaned out.”
“I’m sorry, but no, I refuse to allow those three cowards to push me out of my own home.”
“Good for you. In the meantime, I’m expecting, but maybe I should ask you if you’ll stay here with me until everything is done.”
“I can do that, just don’t get mad at my working hours.”
“I wouldn’t, I work weird hours also.” They sat there in each other’s arms, then Lilith leaned back and smiled at him.
“What?”
“Call Starr.”
“Shit.” He sighed heavily, but grabbed his phone from the side table and dialed.