Chapter 9LovelyMarx #2
Blanche explodes out of her seat, baby Tess’s body bobbing in the baby sling as she storms to the table.
She rifles through the pile, picking one up and then freezing in place.
“They have my kids on there! Tav, what the fuck?!” Any shock she is feeling is pushed out by her absolute pure rage.
“They die. I don’t give a shit how we do it and how many we have to kill, they target my babies, they die.
” I admire Blanche in her fury. She’s like the valkyries I saw in the Thor movie.
She’s tougher than me. A lot tougher. Physically and mentally.
Marx takes measured steps toward me before dropping to his haunches. He grasps my hand in his, gently turning it over. His fist hovers over my open palm and he drops a casing into it.
“I may be a fucking idiot sometimes, but I promise you, I’ll keep her safe.” He holds my gaze before standing and moving back to his place at the front of the room.
The cool metal feels as if it’s burning my skin, I don’t want to look but I know I have to.
I can feel the metal is rough from where the name is carved.
Turning it over in my fingers, there, in jagged writing is the word “Bee”.
White hot fury burns through me in a way I’ve never felt before.
My hands are shaking and it’s not from fear, it’s from the rage pumping through my veins.
I don’t care what happens to me or my body.
I gave up fearing death a long time ago, but the thought that my baby, the little girl that saved me, that led me here to this life, a better life for both of us, the thought that she might be taken from me violently by men who are more preoccupied by their own greed than by their humanity, that burns me to my soul.
No one will take my baby from me. No man or God. I will see to that myself.
“They will die,” I say, louder than I thought as silence blankets the room.
“Lovel-”
“No! You know where I came from, you all know where I escaped.” I look around the room, at my family all gathered here, all of them in danger.
“I will not be a victim to cruel men ever again, and neither will my daughter. They need to die. All of them,” I say quietly, steadily, with a passion I’ve never felt before.
Marx’s eyes flash with something I can’t put my finger on before they fill with heat, and I know that he knows what I say isn’t an empty threat.
At this moment my body may still be a little weak and battered, but I feel a strength in my soul.
At this moment I feel like Blanche, like a valkyrie, and I vow to protect my baby and my family.
They will not win.
Marx
I tear my gaze away from Lovely and the fire that is burning inside her to address my club. “So, we’re in agreement?”
“Burn them to the ground,” Ana growls, cuddling Jr in her lap.
Cheering breaks out and my shoulders relax a little.
I didn’t realize how much tension I was holding until this moment.
I knew the consensus sounded like they’d all be down to exact revenge, but having women and children in our care means we have to think about their wellbeing too.
Luckily for me, our women are more bloodthirsty than we give them credit for.
“You’re gonna have a problem on your hands,” Mad Dog murmurs as he sidles up next to me.
“You mean other than the two fucking cartels and one sheriff on our ass?” I throw back.
He snorts, looking around the room, his eyes hovering on the women huddled in a group.
“You can control your men, we all know that. Your biggest problem, besides the shit coming down on you, is that those women,” he tips his head in their direction, “they want blood, and they’ll do anything to get it.
” He slaps me on the shoulder and throws his head back, laughing so hard his body shakes.
I really want to tell him to fuck off, but he’s right. I don’t appreciate his fucking mirth at my dilemma, so I slap my hand on his shoulder, and whisper in his ear, “In that case, I need a man I can trust. You’re on the women and Pops.”
My dad’s shocked gaze meets mine and the look on his face is priceless.
I slap him once more and shove him in the direction of the group of misfits that I can already see are coming up with a plan.
Knowing I need to nip that in the bud, I thump the wall again.
Everyone settles down instantly. We need to get rid of our little problem as quickly as possible.
If this shit drags on too long the women are liable to go rogue.
“Chewy! Give me the first idea that comes to mind on how to get us out of the shit,” I bark in her direction. She nods once, then I see her fingers tapping in the way they do when she’s thinking.
Everyone waits quietly to see what she comes up with.
I may be the Pres, but as my father pointed out earlier, Chewy is the best we have at information, strategy and planning shit.
I mean, sometimes it may not be a well defined plan, but they’re always diabolical and it’ll get us to our particular goal, which is wiping out the threat before it wipes us out.
She slowly moves her gaze around the room, her lips moving, every now and then her head bobbing side to side. She stares at Moss for a moment, before leaning over to Rhodie and murmuring something. They nod to each other and then she closes her eyes, fingers tapping faster and faster.
Her eyes fly open suddenly. “We’ll need to split up.
Fight them on three different fronts.” She holds her hand up, stopping anyone from saying anything.
“I know that we see our power as a collective, but that won’t work this time.
We have people gunning for us from Texas and Louisiana.
A coordinated hit on the same day, same time will be the best way to take them out.
We hit one, they get word to the other and it becomes a shit storm. ”
Savage nods in agreement. “It’s really the only way to stop them coming for us. Hit them when they’re meeting with their contacts stateside.”
“Ana, I’ll need Roman’s help,” Chewy states, typing madly on her laptop.
“Yeah, Roman has asked a favor.” I say, ignoring the groans from everyone around me.
Fuck, I don’t want to do anything for Roman, but he’s helped us out twice in recent times, so we really owe him.
Besides, it’s in his best interests. He was pissed when he found out his best friend was at the compound when it was hit.
He may come across as a cold bastard, hell, anyone in a position of power does, it’s part of our persona, but I know he cares deeply for the people he calls family, and in this case, that’s Ana and her family.
“What the hell does he want now?” Flack grumbles.
“He wants any product the cartels have,” I answer. Eyebrows raise before Rider chuckles.
“He’s going to take over their drug business, huh? Fucking typical. As soon as we clean someone out, Roman comes swaggering in, waving his big Russian dick around.”
“Keep my man’s dick out of your mouth, thank you,” Sasha says in his accented voice.
“How in the fuck did you get here so fast? Wait, why are you here?” Rider says, ignoring the dick in the mouth comment.
“We were at a little cafe not far from here when Chewy messaged,” Roman answers with a smirk. “And I do love to wave my big Russian dick around.”
“Thanks for coming,” Chewy addresses Roman without looking at him. “What do you have for me?”
“I have the information, but this a, how do you say, symbiotic relationship, no?” Roman takes a seat in a recliner that Sniper vacated, choosing to move further near the back of the room.
Chewy stares at him blankly for a moment. “I’ve forwarded the chemical breakdown of the drugs both Cartel de Silencio and La Sombre Roja are dealing. In theory it won’t take much tweaking of their current stock to match yours.”
I shake my head. If we were one percenters then I’d definitely be doing what Roman has planned.
Take over two cartels’ drug stock, tweak them to his recipe and then sell them on with fuck all outlay.
He’s a criminal mastermind, and that’s without the rest of the shady shit I know he gets up to.
I glance at him, his crisp suit and slicked back dark hair at odds with his fair skin.
Eyes so dark as to almost look black, the dude gives creepy vampire vibes and you can’t tell me otherwise.
“Ah, Chewy, have I told you how much I enjoy working with you?” He grins at her and it makes him look even more like fucking Dracula. “You have two weeks to plan whatever it is you have planned. Both cartels like to deliver on the first of the month.”
“How dumb are these people?” Mira bursts out.
“The first of the month? That’s just begging to be killed.
Don’t they know you have to change up their movements, be all unpredictable so people like us-” she waves her arms around, “- don’t murder them?
This exact thing happened in a book I wrote, where the dumb guys weren’t cartel, they were Bratva - sorry, Roman-” snickers break out around the room while Roman looks mildly offended, “The Bratva always do their drug drop on the same day, at the same time, from the same spot. My MC figured it out and then lay in wait. But they were even dumber than that because not only did they have their drugs with them, but also the scientist guy who was working for them to keep his daughter safe. Obviously the Pres from the MC fell in love with the daughter who it turns out is hot WITH a brain and they had some really amazing sex scenes in the back of the drug truck on the way to the compound.” Mira only stops talking because she runs out of breath.
We all stare at her, and I wonder if there’s more or if she’s done.
“Can I just say that the premise sounds fabulous, but the Bratva would never be that stupid,” Roman says, throwing Mira an odd look.
Mira shrugs and cuddles into Tank who looks at her like she invented boobs or something.
“Vodka, Vows and Very Bad Decisions!” Nat yells, pointing at Mira who yells back and they stare at each other flapping their hands.
“I knew I knew that storyline!” They cackle and I’m unsure whether I should stop them or not.
The noise starts to calm a little and then Nat spins toward me. “Sorry, Pres, as you were.”
I nod at Nat, before addressing my club. “Looks like we hit them in two weeks. Computas I want you to pull as much intel as you can in the meantime.”
“Aye aye Captain!” Chewy salutes.
“That leaves us with the sheriff,” Gus points out.
“Give it two days, max,” Moss says. “I’ve already gotten an email from my superiors asking for me to step up in the interim.” He looks around the room. “My little sister was in that clubhouse when you were attacked. Believe me, I won’t stand in the way of whatever you have planned.”
I step forward, holding out my hand. Moss has always been a good guy, but I never knew how good it’d be to have law enforcement on my side until now. “Thank you,”
“Just bring him to justice. Whatever that looks like,” he says.
“Will do, brother.” Dropping his hand I move back to the spot I was standing in.
I don’t know why, but it just feels right for me to be here, in this spot.
“We have two weeks and in that time anything could go down. The threat level is fucking high so we need to decide if we shut down the businesses and lock down, or if we keep them open and double up on security. Make it look like we’re unaffected.
” I look around the room, everyone putting thought into it.
It’s a fucking hard decision. The few businesses we own we work ourselves, but there are others, like the gym Dex runs and Remy works part-time, that have civilians employed, and there’s no way in hell I want innocent lives threatened because of us.
“I know I’m new to how the MC businesses run, but do we have extra money or something that will cover the non-club employees? I’d hate for us to shut down and our employees struggle,” Lovely says in her soft voice.
I try to hide my smile. It wasn’t that long ago Lovely was ready to kill.
Now she’s worried about the welfare of our non-club employees and their families.
I really am a greedy bastard for wanting such a woman.
Speaking of, I need to corner TumTum later and apologize.
When I saw Lovely in his arms, my cool, calm, collected self that I was praised for in the military flew right out the window and I was ready to give the brother a beat down.
I really need to get my shit in order but hell, the woman is fucking perfect and I know I have a long road to get a chance with her.
“Yeah, we can cover the wages for a good few weeks, Lovely, no need to worry,” Wire smiles at her.
“In light of the situation, I move that we lock down until we can get rid of the current problem.” I look around the room, and everyone’s hands go up in agreement.
“Can I ask one question?” Pops asks. He’s been rifling through the shell casings on the table, standing them up. If I didn’t know any better I would say he wasn’t paying any attention to what we’ve been talking about, but I do know better and Sid Tombs sees and hears everything.
“Yeah, go ahead Pops.”
“I know who Kaia is, but who the fuck are Annie-Bella and Jackson?”
“Kaia? Are you sure?” Judge says, pushing Dex out of the way to get to Pops, snatching the casing up into his giant hand. The brother pales, and he grips the back of Pops’ chair, “Shit,” he whispers, “We need to bring her in to lock down. She’s going to fucking kill me.”
Chewy claps her hands and Mira laughs loudly, “I can’t wait to see this go down.”