Thirty-Three
I didn’t want her to hear this stuff, but I was out of any chances here, and completely fucking powerless. All we could do was listen to the man, and pray that something would save me at the eleventh hour.
“You went after Elise, man, my baby sister. My poor, and at the time, virginal , fucking sister. She was gentle, and sweet, and vulnerable, and you terrorised her. Kidnapped her, you jerked off over her fucking face…”
Shit, yeah, guess what, Soph. I’m a real cunt, and I deserve this.
“Can she leave the room? I don’t want her having to listen to this.”
“No. She fucking stays, because she needs to know what she’s signing up for,” Stitch hissed at me, nodding to Reacher, who rolled his eyes.
“Thanks, Stitch, nice of you to shut it at last. Micro, you did things no biker can come back from, hell, no man can come back from. You should be rotting in a prison cell, or dead in the basement. Instead, you’re neither, and there’s a reason for that.“ Sophie was squeezing my hand so tightly, I think she was trying to crush it, which was adorable, because she had such cute little hands. See how I’m focusing on something other than the words coming at me? I know I’m gonna die, so why drag it out?
“There’s a way that this goes down where you don’t die, not here, not tonight, but there’s work ahead, so I need to know if you’re gonna be the man you claim you are now, that she claims you are, and work with us here.”
What? I leaned forward in my seat, certain I’d just misheard him, because what the fuck.
“What? I don’t die?”
Reacher stared at me, waiting for something, but I had no idea what. He said I wouldn’t die, and that possibility hadn’t even occurred to me.
“Is it so hard to fucking say yes, and find out what we want you to do?” Shit .
“Yeah. Anything, I’ll do anything, I swear. Just tell me.”
“He’s making demands again, Reacher, this is how it’s gonna be if we do this,” Stitch warned, and I squeezed Sophie’s hand, like it could stop me from freaking out. My life was hanging in the balance, and it seemed like one wrong word or reaction would end it.
“ Please . Please tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. Anything,“ I practically begged. Fuck it, I literally begged. I never thought I’d be the begging type, but I wanted a life with Sophie, and I’d do anything to earn it.
“You don’t get to come back here, and you don’t get to visit, unless we demand it. Let’s get that straight first,” Reacher said, but it sounded like I’d live, so I nodded, even though the thought of not returning here burned somewhere in my chest, like there’d been some hope there, and he’d just crushed it, once and for all.
“You go back to the former Rogues club. You run it as interim President, you get it clean, and keep it that way. You make sure the remaining members are Phoenix material, and if not, you remove them. You bring in worthy prospects, and train them up. We will be involved in every decision that needs a vote, and for now, they’ll have to be unanimous, as in we’ll get the power of veto in everything. You turn it into a decent, worthy club, and we’ll consider making it a Phoenix chapter.”
What the fucking hell did he just say? Was he serious?
“I… honestly? You’re not only letting me live, but trusting me to build a club you’d put your colours on? I don’t understand. I’m not knocking it, or refusing, but I don’t understand this at all.”
Stitch grinned savagely. “It’s simple. We’ll have eyes on you from day one. You’ll update us regularly too, so we can make sure you give us the real story on things. Like Reacher said, we’ll have ultimate power, and if you try to fuck us, we’ll kill the entire club, including you. We’re not playing around here. You should die for what you did, but this serves a purpose for us. Some idiots in this club don’t hate you as much as they should, and their wellbeing matters to us too. Yours doesn’t, by the way. I couldn’t care less if you stepped in front of a bus right now. We want that club though, so this is how we’ll proceed.”
Reacher eyed Sophie then, and his eyes on her was suddenly really fucking pissing me off. I had to fight the urge to yell at him to stop looking at her. Before, it was like he was idly addressing her, without really looking, but now? Now, he was really fucking looking.
“Sophie, I don’t understand how a nice lady like you ended up with this fucker, but you’re part of the package deal. You seem to keep him in line, and we like that. Also, your skills that you applied before for the Rogues, we’d like you to continue, but you’ll get a decent cut, which I’m sure you weren’t getting before. You’d be working with us, not trapped under our thumb.”
“But you just said-”
“In addition, we’ll be sending a few brothers from this club to work with you, to support you, and back you up. They’ll also be our eyes and ears, as will the full camera setup we’ll be adding. And that brings us to tech,” he paused, exchanging a look with Stitch, and I clenched my free hand into a tight fist. Don’t send Ice with me, Jesus fuck, don’t send that asshole with me.
“You remember our good friend Grease?”
“Tesio, you mean? The mafia douche?”
They both grinned, before they wiped any trace of humour from their faces.
“Don Rossi is loaning him to us long term. Seems he wants a closer relationship with the club, and this actually works in our favour, for reasons I don’t see being any of your business.”
“Plus Grease got a real boner for club life, so he jumped at the chance.”
“Make no mistake, he’s going to be faithful to Rossi, and to us, and definitely NOT you.”
I clenched my fist tighter, but it was more to feel the bite of pain as my nails dug into my palm, and the cracked skin of my knuckles split open again. I needed something to make me certain of whether this was real. Suddenly I felt like I’d stepped into a fucking parallel universe, because somehow I was getting all the things I’d wanted, albeit with a shitload of supervision.
“This is all for real?” I asked warily, waiting for them to laugh in my face, and say ‘hell no, of course we’ll kill you today’. Instead, they both just nodded.
Sophie
I was in shock. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but they were letting him live. He was going to stay alive, and be mine. Sure, I’d still be cooking drugs, and supplying them to the club, but this time I’d get paid for it, and since I already had the perfect setup for it, it wasn’t exactly a hardship to keep going. At least this time it wasn’t something I was being forced into, to keep my sister safe. It was employment. It was collaboration. It was a future.
Micro seemed absolutely stunned into silence, but he suddenly took a deep breath and spoke again, like he was coming out of some kind of fog, or something.
“Which brothers?”
They seemed to have been expecting that question, because there was no surprise on their faces, just a kind of grim defeat, like what was happening was the lesser of two evils, and they were forced into it. Who knows, maybe this Rossi guy was in charge, and forcing all of it.
“Rocket and Stag. Both are looking for a change of scenery, for different reasons, and they’re on board with this. They’ll follow you down in a few days, after they wrap up their shit here. It won’t be permanent until we see how things go for six months. At that point, they can choose where they settle, but you can’t. It’s this or death.”
Micro nodded, as if his harsh words were something gentle and kind, and maybe to him that’s how they seemed. Like it was what he was used to, like it was how he’d always been treated.
“Does he get to choose his VP?” I asked warily, because the chances were that they’d enforce that too. I knew it wasn’t my place to ask, but he seemed to be mostly in shock, and I wanted everything out in the open, before we left here.
“He doesn’t get one until we see how this goes. He’s a lone wolf, but he’ll get to make a recommendation on who it should be, and we’ll make the final decision. Understand this, Micro, you’ll be President, but you’re just a figurehead. If this goes badly, it’ll be your failure. If it’s successful, it’s our win. So… that’s the deal, take it or leave it.”
Micro was silent, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, like he was holding back something, or maybe he was just overcome with shock and relief.
“This decision gets made right here and now, and then you get out of here and back on the road.”
“We don’t get to rest first? He’s been injured, and he needs sleep.”
Stitch shrugged, folding his arms resolutely, while Reacher simply watched Micro.
“It’s okay, babe,” he whispered, squeezing my hand, “this is more than I could have ever hoped for. Way more than I deserve. Thank you. I know you’re not doing it for me, but thank you. I promise I’ll do you proud. I’ll fucking grow a club you can be proud of, so you can patch it over, and then, I’ll do it anywhere else you send me.”
Reacher finally stood up, walking around the desk, and leaning back against it.
“This is the only club, kid. You get this one up to our standard, and you have a home there, with your old lady. We’re human, yeah? We made mistakes, and you made some bigger ones, and we can go on making mistakes, or we can try and find a new path for the future. This is the path, and we want it to be a success. You’ll be very tightly monitored, but you’ll be given a chance to prove yourself, and from there, a future.”
Micro stood up, dragging me with him. “I don’t deserve this, but I’m up for it. I’ll be what you need me to be, and I won’t throw this chance away. I get it. This is the last minute stay of execution I was fucking desperate for, and I won’t blow it.”
Reacher nodded. “Good. Now get out of here, and see Tommy on the way out. He’s packing up a few plates for you guys, and Nick’s driving you. Try not to fuck in the van this time though, or I’ll make you lick up any mess.”
Oh my god! I was mortified, turning and hiding against Micro’s chest.
“Tommy told you?”
Stitch barked out a laugh then. “You still had your earbuds in, dickhead. His music couldn’t drown everything out, and Ice was seriously pissed, since we had him on watch ’til you got back. Try not to bump into him on your way out.”
Oh god, oh god!! How did we forget those? We hurriedly removed the damn things from our ears, and deposited them on Reacher’s desk.
“One last thing,” Reacher said, as we turned to head for the door, “You’ll be getting therapy sessions with Lissa, via video chats, and she’ll help make you into a well-rounded individual. Your sessions will be confidential, of course, but don’t give her reason to doubt you. That’s not fair on her. Get it?”