Chapter Two
Start as you mean to go on, right? Patchover day was all planned, and yet little things were niggling at me.
Security was an issue, and I was still working on details that the others seemed to be not so fucking bothered by.
Take, for instance, the delivery of food that came earlier.
Dumped at the fucking gates, and left unattended for several minutes.
Doesn’t sound like a big deal, right? But here’s the thing.
It takes seconds… SECONDS… Mere seconds to mess with stuff, and risk people’s safety.
Wanna know how I know this? I’m a mafia guy, and I know this shit happens.
Hell, at one point, when Don Rossi was being targeted by someone, he had a fucking taster for his food, and thank fuck it wasn’t me, because one guy died. That’s what happens when your food isn’t protected from the fucking source to the plate.
“Seriously, nobody thought this was a big deal?” I snapped at Harley, as we checked the cartons, and inspected the seals on them.
“It was like five minutes, man, will you relax?”
Relax. Lucky him, if relaxing was his fucking go-to response in a situation like this.
In a few hours, we’d have all the big cheeses from this club in one place, and if anyone thought there wasn’t a risk of someone attacking them, then they’d be the first to die.
Me? I’m fucking thorough. I sent Harley and Stag, and a few of the others, to the kitchen with the boxes, since they looked untouched, but I also warned them to keep them sealed until I checked the cameras.
It’s called safety, and you’d think one of these fuckers would have their finger on the fucking pulse, right?
“Yo, we’re just leaving, what’s up?” I’d dialled Ice as I walked to my tech office, and locked the door behind me.
“I’m surrounded by fucking idiots is what’s up. Tell me you guys are taking precautions at your end.”
He was quiet for a moment, and I wondered if the call had dropped. I really wasn’t looking to be edged by his response right now.
“Okay, I debated making some dumbass joke about condoms, but I just realised you’re serious. What’s going on? Yo, VP? I’m just gonna be a minute.” I heard Stitch complaining in the background, but I ignored him, because Ice would get this. He was like me in so many ways.
“The guys here are so fucking slack, I swear to god, a team of assassins could just walk right in and kill us all.” I started flicking through screens, finding the camera feed for the gate, and winding it back to before the delivery van appeared.
I went back another half hour or so, and watched it at a medium speed, looking for anyone lurking outside.
“Wait, hold up, man. Assassins?! What the fuck kinda deal are you expecting? It’s just a patchover. We’re all gonna be there, but… Grease, what’s going through your head right now?”
I couldn’t explain it, but something was wrong, and I didn’t think it was the likelihood of a certain pain in my ass returning to bust my chops.
Truth be told, I’d enjoyed fucking her, and I’d happily do it again, but she wasn’t the problem right now.
Everything was going too smoothly. That was it.
This wasn’t the mafia, and shit never went like clockwork, so when it seemed to be, I guess it made me edgy.
“Fuck me. I’m losing my mind, man. Ignore me. Safe travels, and I’ll see you when you get here.”
I hung up the phone, amid grumbling from Ice, and watched the video of the delivery, right up until I started checking the boxes.
Nobody touched a thing. I dropped heavily into the chair, and tipped my head back to stare at the grubby ceiling.
Maybe what I was feeling was the impending end of my fucking happiness once again.
The patchover was happening, and that meant my time here was nearly over.
Once more I’d have to put Grease on a shelf, and be Tesio again.
I couldn’t put into words how much I wished that I could just fucking stay.
To let this be my life. There was no way Don Rossi would let me go though.
You know how you leave the mafia? In a fucking bag.
Ice
Iswear, sometimes it seemed like Grease’s fucking head was in the clouds.
He was expecting some kind of assassin shit today?
We were a simple biker club. We didn’t have those kinds of enemies, not now Micro was being a good boy.
And, by the way, I still wasn’t convinced of that, no matter how much Lissa tried to talk him up.
Once a psycho, always a psycho. Once a fucking traitor to his colours, always a fucking traitor.
I still mostly wished we’d killed him, but for some reason Lissa seemed happy getting to know him, and he hadn’t put a foot out of line as far as I’d heard.
I guess the events of today would either prove or disprove that, once and for all.
If it all went smoothly, maybe he wasn’t still a fucking snake in the grass.
If not, well, I wouldn’t let him survive hurting Lissa twice.
Oh, and he hadn’t heeded Reacher’s advice about not fucking in his office, but hell, I was getting used to checking with my ears first, so I didn’t see anything I’d see in my fucking nightmares later.
“The gates were open. Why were the fucking gates open already?” Stitch complained loudly, as he rested his bike and stepped off.
We’d parked just inside the boundaries of the soon-to-be Phoenix MC Hampshire Chapter club grounds, and he was right.
Especially after Grease’s little rant earlier.
There should have been a prospect waiting to let us in.
Paranoid or not, that was just the fucking way it worked.
“I’ll take it up with the fucking interim president,” Stitch barked, heading straight for the small building that housed the President’s office, Grease’s office, and a small lounge.
The place was pretty shitty, if I’m honest. A large plot of land, containing several large buildings, which were more like converted barns, to be honest. One was the building Stitch was marching towards, the second was a bunkhouse kinda building, and the next was smaller still, and used for meetings, aka ‘Church’, and then there was the storage building.
There were plans to build a second bunkhouse, and president’s quarters, because apparently even an interim president, who’s a total prick, should have a swanky room for himself.
Fucking cunt.
I saw him appear from the building, just as Stitch reached it, and started bitching at him about the gates, even bothering to point at them, like the dipshit didn’t know what gates were.
He looked even more shaggy haired than the last time I’d seen him, and if he thought his new Bon Jovi hairdo covered up the monster beneath, he was fucking wrong.
“Stitch seems uptight, man,” Ryder said, as he watched Tori heading over with the other old ladies, to meet up with Sophie, the aforementioned cunt’s old lady. Unofficially, of course. She was his wife though, and who’d choose that asshole? I still hadn’t figured that part out.
“Cammy’s getting close to her due date, man, and he doesn’t like her being in the van instead of on his ride.”
I mean, I could understand that. If Lissa ever wanted babies, I’d feel the same when she couldn’t ride with me.
It still surprised me that I could ride now, but Doc had been working on solutions for my shoulder injury, including some specific PT that he was enforcing on me, and although I’d never admit it to his face, it was definitely making a difference.
Who knew that an injury like that changed the way you used your muscles, and caused additional issues? Well, me now.
“He could have stayed in the van with her,” I said snidely and, after a split second of silence, we both burst out laughing, because like fuck he would.
A patchover was a big deal, and as VP of the flagship club, and let’s be honest, this one too, he had to show up like a boss, astride his fucking motorcycle, and yeah, I would have too, I guess.
“I should go find Grease, and see what’s shaking. He was acting weird earlier, thinking something nefarious was gonna happen here.”
Ryder caught my arm, a frown creasing his forehead at my words.
“Wait. He thinks something’s up?”
I shrugged, tugging my arm free, because nobody fucking grabs me, and he should know better. Especially since he grabbed my long term injured arm. If it spasmed because of him, I’d drag him on his face behind my fucking bike. Which, of course, I wouldn’t be able to ride back if he set it off.
“He’s paranoid, man. Thinks this is like some big scary mafia shit.”
Ryder cast his eyes around, watching the prospects closing the gates, and locking them.
“Maybe we should do a perimeter check, just to be sure nothing’s up.” Jesus, now we were all doing it.
“Yeah, you manage that shit, while I check in with captain paranoia. Fuck me,” I watched Micro slapping Reacher on the back as they chatted, “how the fuck is he alive, and running a fucking second chapter? I still wanna put a fucking knife in his so-called heart.”
“Ice, please, just give him a chance,” Lissa said, having appeared at the wrong fucking moment. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I had to watch her approach the fucker, and then she hugged him. Hell to the fucking NO. I stormed over to drag him away from my old lady.
“Shit, here we go,” Ryder cursed as he followed me.
Micro
It was actually unnerving as fuck, having the whole club here at our little secondary chapter, especially since Torch and Grace had come along too.
They hadn’t come anywhere near me, but I really wanted to try and catch a word with Torch at some point, because surely, after all this time, he might feel willing to at least talk to me.
I mean… wait, what the fuck was wrong with me?
He’d been my closest fucking brother, and I stuck a knife in his back.
I left him for dead. There was no way in hell he was ever going to let me anywhere near him, and he fucking shouldn’t.
“All set, interim president?”
Every time Stitch spoke to me, he emphasised that part, like he couldn’t let me forget, for one fucking second, that I was just their figurehead here. No matter how hard I’d worked, for the last seven months, to get the old Rogues club cleaned out, and rebuilt to fit the ethos of Phoenix MC.
“You know what,” I started, finally ready to fucking call him on it, but he jumped right over my words.
“I know you’re not about to give me some shit right now, prick. You’ve done okay so far, so don’t fuck it up now.”
Asshole.
I forced out a deep breath and nodded at him, swallowing several months’ worth of rage and frustration.
“All set, VP. Just tell me where you want me, and we’re good to go.”
“Drink delivery arrived!” Harley yelled, heading for the gates, while I frowned at Stitch.
What fucking drink delivery? We had beer kegs, and bourbon, stockpiled already, and the plan was to get rat-arsed after the patchover ceremony, as much as it’d be any kind of ceremony with these two.
They’d probably just yell to drop our old cuts, and hand out new ones. Who fucking knows.
“Drink delivery? You spending our budget on shit we don’t fucking need?”
Fucking hell. I couldn’t put a foot right with this fucker.
“Leave me to sort this. I have no fucking idea who ordered these.”
“Great work managing the place, fuckhead.”
Sophie caught my arm as I spun to react to his badgering, stroking my shoulder as she leaned close.
“He’s trying to get a reaction out of you. Just breathe, Micro. Today’s too important to let this ruin it. Let’s go and sort out this drink situation.”
We followed Harley to the gates, where he and two prospects were speaking with the delivery guy.
“We didn’t order anything,” I barked, as soon as we were within range, and Harley turned to me with a bemused grin.
“Compliments of Mr Rossi, apparently. A ‘surprise’ for us.”
“Look, just sign the form, please, I’ve got other deliveries.”
I rolled my eyes, and nodded at Harley to unload the crates of some pretentious fucking microbrew crap we’d never have ordered. You don’t turn away mafia gifts though, right?
Sophie smiled, turning to cup my face with both hands.
“See? All okay. It’s fine. Now, look, we both know I can’t drink tonight, but you can.
So I want you to enjoy this night, because look how hard you worked to achieve this.
How many fights and beatings it took, how many fucking dramas you had to smooth out.
This club is Phoenix MC worthy now, and it’s because of you.
So Stitch can be a prick, and surprises from the mafia can get in the way, but none of it can take from you what you achieved.
You earned this, baby, and I’m so proud of you. ”
I didn’t deserve this fucking woman, did I? I rested my forehead against hers, pulling her closer to me, even though already I was being careful of her stomach, like a fucking hug could somehow hurt the baby within.
“I couldn’t have done any of it without you, Soph.
I was as good as dead when we met, and everything that went right for us after that…
fuck, it was all you. You’re the one thing I never deserved in life, but I can’t live without.
Whatever happens today, I want you to know that you’re the fucking reason I exist. You and our little one.
” The happiness, the joy, in her eyes, was soothing my soul, and calming the anger that had been building again, ever since the original chapter turned up.
My old club. The ones I betrayed, but somehow was given this last chance by.
“This is all going to work out,” Sophie told me firmly, kissing me gently, so imagine how pissed off I was, to be called away from her mid fucking kiss. Because, of course, disaster had already struck.