Chapter 32
Overdrive
“So how long do we have?” Relay asked, looking around the table.
Ruck had called church and he’d just dropped the bomb that a couple factions of The Collective were gearing up for war.
“I’m more curious to know if the whole organization is coming after us,” I asked.
“Not according to Glitch,” Ruck said, answering my question first. “He said there are two factions mobilizing.”
“Just two?” Bolo asked, sounding offended.
“Yeah, I thought our work with Carrick would’ve caught their attention more than that,” Relay muttered. “No one gives you the respect you deserve anymore.”
“We should’ve let them see what you did to Boscoe,” Strike told him. “That would’ve ensured they had the appropriate reaction.”
“You think?” Drifter asked.
“I had fucking nightmares,” Strike muttered under his breath. “I fucking hate snakes.”
“They either don’t have the numbers to spare right now,” Flir replied, ignoring the tangent, “or they don’t think we warrant sending more manpower our way.”
“See, for once, I agree with Relay. That’s a fucking mistake on their part,” Kilo said with a laugh.
“It is,” Ruck replied. “But this gives us a chance to take out two more groups before they decide we’re worth spending the time and troops on.”
“Always better to take out some of their underlings before we find ourselves outnumbered,” Strike added.
“Underlings?” I asked, raising my brow.
“Goons?” Strike suggested.
“Doesn’t matter what we call them,” Bolo replied. “They’ll be dead soon enough.”
“It’s not nearly as much fun taking out small groups,” Relay pointed out.
“Says you,” Drifter commented. “I’m the one who has to patch up all these fuckers when we face ten to one odds.”
“So?” Relay replied.
“So… You realize if I’m overwhelmed you’re going to have to help them, right?” Drifter said, tone saying he wasn’t sure that was the best idea.
Relay considered that. “Fine. We take on two factions. Then we go after the whole.”
“You don’t want to help heal us?” Kilo asked with a smug look toward Relay.
“I’d let you bleed to death,” Relay told him, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in his chair.
“Well, that’s just fucked up,” Kilo said. “Ruck, he can’t just-”
“Back to Relay’s question,” I said, cutting Kilo off before he got everyone going on another tangent. “How long do we have?”
“No way to tell yet. Probably not long.”
“So we need to lock our shit down,” I replied.
He nodded. “Good thing your boys aren’t in school right now.”
I grinned. It was still weird to me that my brothers had taken to calling Ryan and Teddy my boys.
But that was exactly what they were. Rue was mine, her baby was mine, and everything else that was hers was, by default, mine.
They were hers. I was a lucky fucking bastard, that was for sure.
“They’ll probably be hoping this runs into fall so they don’t have to go back to school. ”
“Just means Flir would need to homeschool them,” Bolo replied.
Flir’s head jerked up. “Me? Why would I homeschool them?”
“Well, I’m not going to fucking do it,” Bolo said.
“You’re not capable of doing it,” Kilo taunted.
Strike reached out and put a hand on Bolo’s shoulder to keep the enforcer in his seat. Not that he couldn’t have shaken Strike off like a gnat. Bolo pointed at Kilo. “I’m a smart motherfucker. I read good.”
Kilo made a face that said he doubted it. “Yeah you do. Talk good too.”
“Would we want that twitchy bastard teaching kids?” Relay asked. “He’d make them as neurotic as he is.”
“I’m not fucking neurotic,” Flir growled.
Everyone stared at him. He was absolutely neurotic.
“Have you seen the damn dog?” Relay taunted.
“Unfortunately,” Flir snapped. When Relay didn’t continue he sighed. “What about it?”
“The damn thing shakes every time you come into the room.”
“That’s because Norman is scared of him,” Bolo teased.
“No, it’s the nervous energy this fucker puts off like a nuclear reactor,” Relay replied. “Dog follows him around like he’s on crack.”
Norman had taken to following Flir around if Rue, me, or the boys weren’t available.
What was it about animals finding the one person in the room that didn’t really like them and then clinging to that person?
I had a theory that Norman was trying to win Flir over.
I also had a feeling the dog was going to win.
I’d watched Flir give the Rottie a treat the other day, then go wash his hands twenty times afterward.
“Do we have any more information about which crews from The Collective are coming?” Drifter asked when everyone stopped talking about Flir and his new furry friend.
“Glitch is sending the information over. I need you all to get your families who are here in Phoenix,” he paused, “anywhere in Arizona really, situated. We don’t need these fuckers going after our families to get to us.”
We all nodded in agreement.
“You’re not going to have long,” Ruck warned. “Get it done. OD, make sure Merc, Hype, and Code do the same.”
“Will do, Prez.”
That was his way of dismissing us, so as a group we got up and left the meeting room.
Kilo tossed his arm over my shoulder as we walked out to the common area.
This new building was massive, but we were going to need the space if any of our brothers took a page out of my and Kilo’s books and got themselves some old ladies and started having kids.
I paused, pulling Kilo to a stop with me.
“What’s your problem?” Kilo asked. “Figured we could-”
I nodded over to where Bolo was standing, staring down at his cell phone like someone had just sent him a threat telling him they were holding all his beer for ransom. “What’s his deal?”
Seriously, he’d lost all color in his face and his mouth was hanging open.
“Let’s go find out,” Kilo said with a dark smile. We’d all given him a lot of shit about being the first to get himself an old lady. Any chance he had to seek revenge he was going to take.
“You okay, Bolo?” I asked as we walked up.
He looked up at us like he wasn’t sure who we were, why we were there, or who the fuck he even was.
“Jesus,” Kilo said. “Seriously what’s going on? Your parents okay?”
We gave Bolo and Relay shit about their family but we all loved them like they were our own. Because they belonged to us as much as they did to the brothers.
“What? Oh, yeah. No, they’re fine,” he muttered.
Reaching out, I grabbed the phone out of his hand and silently read the text on the screen. My eyebrows shot all the way up. “Well…fuck.”
“What?” Kilo asked.
“Who’s Devyn?” I asked, ignoring Kilo.
“Woman I met,” Bolo said, his eyes meeting mine.
“Where the hell did you meet a woman?” Kilo asked. “Did you grab her by the hair as she tried to run away from you? Did you climb a skyscraper while holding onto her?” He chuckled at his own jokes while we ignored him.
“You going to answer her?” I asked.
“I mean…yeah.”
“Good,” I told him. “You don’t blow off this kind of responsibility.”
He frowned at me. “I know that. Fuck. What do you take me for?”
“An asshole,” Kilo chimed in, then grunted when I elbowed him, and fell silent.
“You need any help, just let me or Ruck know.”
“...thanks, OD,” he said. He grabbed his phone out of my hand and lifted it to his ear as he walked away.
“What was that all about?” Kilo finally asked when Bolo made it out of the clubhouse.
“He knocked up a woman,” I replied, then walked away from a shocked Kilo.
I trotted up the stairs and closed my apartment door behind me, leaving Kilo to wonder about the details.
It wasn’t like I had many either. I knew as much as he did, but I wasn’t about to bother Bolo about his lady yet.
Or soon to be old lady. There’d be time for that later.
When he didn’t look like he was going to fucking hurl all over in the new grass Ruck had planted.
Rue looked up from where she was reading a book in the recliner in the living room. “How was church?”
I’d tell her what Ruck had wanted to talk to us about. In a few minutes. First, I had something I wanted to ask her. “Will you marry me?”
She gave me a confused look. “I already answered that question.” She held up her left hand and wiggled the diamond ring I’d gotten for her.
“I mean now?”
She blinked at me in shock. “Right…now?”
“As soon as we can. In a couple days?”
She studied my face. “Is this because of The Collective?”
“I want to marry you before all this kicks off. We can have the ceremony here. Invite some of our friends from Tucson and Wyoming. You can invite that nerd ambulance driver of yours. Then have a huge party after.” I smiled at her. “What do you think?”
When she didn’t say anything, I sighed. “I know it probably won’t be your ideal ceremony-”
“It’s not that,” she said interrupting. “I don’t care about that.” She sat forward, watching me. “I don’t know how fast I can get something like that planned. And Gary’s not a nerd! Well, a little bit, but be nice!”
“I’m sure Mercy would be happy to cater it. And the Tucson guys’ old ladies would help.”
She grinned at me. “Then let’s get married.”
I chuckled, realizing that I hadn’t been this damn happy in a long fucking time.
I’d found my light and I was going to do everything in my power to keep her bright and happy.
Somehow I’d not only managed to step into a ready-made family but I was also adding to it and I considered myself the luckiest man alive.
Thanks for reading!