CHAPTER TEN
-:- MAV -:-
Sitting in the kitchen drinking a coffee and checking in with Chaos, who has an idea for everyone to go on a ride over the weekend. I’m going to get my name down for that because I’ve been at the club, the bar, or here at the clubhouse for months, and I’m well ready for a break.
Meat hands me a plate with a grilled cheese sitting in the middle. I look up and give him a nod of thanks before grabbing it and taking a huge bite. I don’t know what else he puts on top of the cheese, one of his concoctions, but fuck, it’s good.
Bitty takes a seat beside me and I give her a side-eye, because I’m not sure what that look is on her face, but it smells of trouble. Before I can speak Mia, Sybil and Amelia take a seat.
“I thought you were all looking after the twins and Summer?” I ask, with more than a little suspicion in my voice.
“Oh, Star has them in the playroom. Now…we have something we want to discuss with you.” Mia says quietly and leans forward. But it’s the shifty way her eyes are flashing to the door that leads to the common room that I’m worried about.
Leaning back in my chair I fold my arms over my chest and give Mia my squint-eyed look. That tells her clearly I’m onto the fact she’s up to no good.
Bitty gives a small giggle before placing her hand over her mouth to contain the glee I can see in her eyes. “What are you lot up to?”
“Well, you know Bitty just got herself a daughter? Doesn’t matter, she has, that’s all that counts. Well, seems her dead husband got mixed up with another woman, on a one-nighter, but produced a son. Which we know now is all a lie. He isn’t her dead husband’s son…”
Now, I’m not a dense person as a rule, but I’m not sure I’m following what Mia is saying, and looking at the other three who are nodding in agreement with all Mia is saying I decide to not even ask, and remain quietly listening.
“Anyway, we want this terrible woman out of Blake’s house, and in such a way, she can’t get into trouble for evicting her, with a child being involved. So, are you up for coming along and finding out what we can? Then we can decide as to how we are going to get Yax and her man gone,” Mia leans forward and looks me in the eye. Waiting for my response, I’m sure, and for fuck’s sake, she is the President’s woman. There is no way I can allow her to go without having her back.
“Okay, I’m in.”
Meat grunts where he’s working at the island, slicing steaks and placing in marinade. I can see he has a slight upward tip to his lip, which shows he’s finding this highly amusing. “What about Meat, he’s a good one for recon missions?” Yeah, I’ll throw the fucker under the bus.
Meat stops slicing and looks over at me. I give him an innocent look, but he knows as well as I do what I’m up to. Amelia must realize too, and she’s totally in on the idea. “Yeah, Meat, you are good at recon. You can come with us, too.”
“Go where?”
We all turn and see Star, who is holding Summer over her shoulder and patting her back lightly. But when Summer belches louder than any baby should, followed by a tremendous fart, we all look at Mia, who starts to giggle, “Just like her daddy!”
That is how forty-five minutes later, I’m following Mia out of the compound. Mia is on her trike, and looking damn proud of herself. Meat is driving the SUV with the Three Stooges excitedly sitting inside, and all of us are heading towards the house that Blake owns. I’ve a feeling this is the Blake that I caught, and the woman who we are going to spy on is the one in the street causing trouble.
As we reach the street, a bike pulls up and I see it's Graham. Now, what the fuck is he doing with a bike? A damn fine Harley he has too. It’s an Electra Glide, and in damn good condition.
“Where are you all going?” Graham asks as he takes his helmet off.
Mia grins, “You want in on some trouble, you follow us. No questions asked, no lies told.”
Before anyone can say anything at all, Mia is off and we are all right behind her. I look over my shoulder and see Meat is right behind me. The Stooges are grinning like fools in the SUV and must be giving Meat some grief, but he doesn’t seem to give a fuck what any of the women do. He’s always on their side, whether they are right or wrong. He just loves the women of the club and sees them all as his responsibility.
Pulling up at the side of Mia, she quickly places her helmet on the handlebars and gives me a grin. “Come on, Mav. The others can follow.”
I sigh to myself as I follow Mia two streets through the back of gardens and dodging dogs that think we are invading their territory. Mia doesn’t give a shit, and I keep looking behind me, but no sign of the others. Mind you, I can’t see the Three Stooges climbing fences and shooing dogs out of the way. Graham is another matter. He is climbing fences and catching up to us fast.
“What’s going on?” Graham asks as he finally reaches us.
“We are going on recon duty. This bitch is going down, and we are going to get the evidence we need to get her out of this house. Bitty’s daughter owns it and we need this woman gone so Blake can sell it and free herself of some debt. Debt that isn’t even hers, I might add.” Mia is on the ball with this, and knowing how bad she had it with the prison stint and all, she is a tremendous support when she finds any woman having an injustice thrown at her.
“Did you tell Axel where you were going, Mia?” I have this terrible feeling in my gut that she has sneaked off, and that’s going to leave all of us in hot water when he finds out.
“No, of course not. You think I’m a fool? He’d have said no, I couldn’t come and do recon.” Mia snorts as though I’m an idiot for suggesting it, but she continues speaking. “Star is keeping him busy. He’ll not notice I’ve gone missing.”
“So, you are dodging Axel to come here and check on what’s going on with this woman?” Graham asks.
“Yeah…” Mia replies but stops mid-reply when we see the Three Stooges and Meat stomping up to the door of the house that we are watching and bang on the door.
“Are they not supposed to be doing recon? You know watch, but not be seen?” Graham mumbles.
“Yes,” Mia growls, and I look at her because she sounded just like Meat.
“Let’s wait here and see what happens. They have Meat with them and he’ll not let anything happen. But we are a backup that the people in the house don’t know about, so a secret weapon at this point.” I had to make it sound good, or Mia would stomp her way over to the fucking house and cause mayhem.
The door opens, and Bitty pushes the man who opened it in the chest as all three of the Stooges rush past him into the house. Meat grabs the fucker by the collar and slams the door closed behind them. I look at Mia, who is frowning and keen to go over to the house, but I speak to Graham to divert Mia’s attention. “What happened to Nell’s date night?” I innocently ask.
Graham immediately knows what I’m doing as he gives Mia an innocent smile. “Well, they went for a meal, and Vincenzo chose a beautiful Italian restaurant. All dressed up in his black suit, which we all know is the normal attire for him, anyway. But, he brings an enormous bunch of flowers with him, including lilies which Nell is allergic to. So, she gives him a dirty look, takes the flowers and hands them to Tank, telling him to get rid of them before she feeds the idiot to the gators.”
Mia giggles and rubs her hands together. “Was Nell okay?”
“Yeah, she stayed back from them, so none of the pollen got on her. But she went for the meal and in the restaurant, a woman at a nearby table kept speaking to Vincenzo. The idiot, instead of ignoring her or telling her to go away, kept responding. Now, you all know Nell, she saw that as disrespectful from the woman and her date.
“Nell excused herself to go to the restroom, and she climbed out the window, sprinted down to the nearest park and found herself a quiet area where she called Richie, Tank and myself to come and fetch her home.”
“Oh. My. God. The idiot, what sort of date talks to another woman while you are at the table with your date? What happened?” Mia has forgotten all about the house across from us, as she is now fully focused on the tale Graham is telling.
“Vincenzo must realize after a while that Nell isn’t coming back from the restroom, and goes to see where she is. He can’t find her, so has his men start the search. They find her before we can get to her, but she’s hopping mad. She throws every insult she can at him, and everything at hand, which happens to be rocks and earth. Vitale’s men are inching nearer and that’s when Nell inches her skirt up and grabs her Glock from the holster she has strapped to her thigh,” Graham is grinning as he is telling us the story.
“No…Oh, good for Nell. I need to go visit. I’ve not been over since I had Summer.”
“She’d love that, Mia. She doesn’t have enough friends. As you all know, she tends to stay on the property with the three of us, but we are not always great company.” Graham leans against the wall of the house we are hiding beside and gives the house across the road a sharp look. “What do you think they are up to? It’s boring being on your recon.”
“We’ll go over in a minute. Just finish your story.”
I grin because Mia is not interested in what is happening right now across at the house. She is interested in what happened with Nell and Vitale.
“Oh, she shot one of his men in the shoulder, one in his thigh and pointed the gun at Vitale, snarling that if he takes one step nearer she’d blow his dick off. That he had his one chance and blew it, and why didn’t he go back and play with his new piece at the restaurant. She wouldn’t let him get a word in, and when we arrived he was about ready to grab her, but she jumped on the back of Richie’s bike as he was the nearest to her and we all drove away. She’s ignored every contact he has made since then.” Graham is grinning so seeing it happen had to be highly amusing.
“I’m going over to see Nell next week while the twins are at kindergarten. I need to hear all the details, and then I’m going to enroll Nell into the girl gang. I don’t care she’s not an Ol’ Lady of the club. She’s my friend and she’s going to be enrolled.”
The door on the house opens and the Three Stooges followed by Meat leave, and they all look smug. I side-eye Mia as I notice she’s giving them all a look that says they best have left something for her to deal with. Graham is looking from one to another, and I innocently ask. “How come you’ve got a hog? And why have the other two got hogs as well?”
Graham smirks, “Well, we have all that property and we were fed up of dragging out the truck all the time, so we got ourselves a bike. We love them, we can check out the property on them easily, and we love riding them. Nell loves them but isn’t keen on having one of her own, but I reckon I could persuade her to have a trike like yours, Mia.”
“Well, if she is part of the girl gang, then she will need her own bike, or trike, don’t matter, she just needs whatever she’s happy with. I’ll talk to her next week.” Mia scoots over the fence, dodging the yapping dog and both myself and Graham clamber after her, but why she couldn’t just walk up the sidewalk I don’t know!
Back at the clubhouse and in the kitchen once more, I listen to Bitty, who fills Mia, myself and Graham in on what happened at the house. “We pushed our way inside, and oh my, it was disgusting. There was trash everywhere, the kitchen was disgusting, and every room will need to be fumigated in my opinion. Our boy Meat had that asshole pinned to the wall, and made sure he paid full attention. Amelia and Sybil checked every room, and Yax, along with her son Franklin, were not home. We told that piece of shit he had two weeks to find somewhere else to live, taking his woman and kid with him. Also, they best not mess with Blake again because come two weeks the cleaners will be in, and the house up on the market for sale.
“I let him know that the DNA was false, that the debts were paid and him, along with his piece of shit woman, best get out of town. Amelia whacked his shins for him with her cane, and that made him pay attention.
“Now, I have to speak with Specs, who is doing something magical, and then we can tell Heather about this cleanup job. I don’t care if they are out of the house because I’m taking my boys if they are not to just throw them out. I have friends who can make sure Franklin is safe and has a place to live with people that actually care.”
Mia is grinning so widely her eyes are nearly closed. She’s enjoying every minute of this, and I know she’s had some of that postparty whatever it is after having Summer, so she deserves a little fun.
“Momma…!” We all turn when we hear one of the twins shouting to Mia, but what we didn’t expect was the ribbon in his hair, and the fake tattoos on his arms and chest. He’s got shorts on and his sneakers, and that’s it…what happened to his other clothes I’m not asking. Ribbons, tattoos, whatever next?