Chapter 21 #2
Ignoring him, Saint rubs his temples. “She’s not stupid. She knows if the club makes a frontal attack, Ace could be killed in the crossfire. She’s fully aware of what she’s up against and the treatment she might face. She remains adamant that she wants to do this for us. For you. For Ace.”
It’s in my nature to be suspicious, particularly given recent events. My hand thumps the table. “What do we really know about her, Prez? She’s Mafia, we all know that. MDMC has links to the cartel. She could be in bed with them, have helped to set this up…”
There’s a murmuring of discontent from all around the table. “Mafia working with the cartel? You hear yourself, Freak?” Words is the first to speak.
I’m on a roll. “Did we check out her backstory? Or did we just take her in because Irish had a soft spot for her, then he himself ended up dead? Pretty fuckin’ convenient.”
Tempest launches to his feet and leans over the table. “You doubting all the chapters of the Kings who tried to help her? Six, including us?”
Stalker bangs his hand on the table. “I’d say you’re projecting your own fuckin’ faults onto her.
If you’d had your own doubts about Toni, you’d have never let Ace go to stay with her.
Instead, you got led around by your dick.
You’re attacking Trixie because you’re feeling guilty as fuck that she saw what you missed. ”
Rattler takes in a deep breath. I shoot him a warning glance.
I’m really not ready for his shit at the moment.
Sighing, he states, “Much as I think the club girls are just here to fuck, and unless they’re sucking cock should keep their mouths shut, I've got to admit that she was pretty ballsy putting a tracker on Ace.” He raises his head and looks straight at me.
“And what would be her game play if she were a traitor to the club? She wouldn’t achieve anything. The MDMC already have Ace.”
It’s Rat speaking, so it has to be crap. I shrug off his words. “I knew the MDMC had him. We’d have found him ourselves…”
Short throws up his hands in disgust. “And fuckin’ how?
The MDMC moves their clubhouse around. We all know that.
Maybe we’d have located them eventually, but you can’t argue that what Trix has done means we know his location now and not in six weeks’ time.
When fuck knows what might have happened to him. ”
Bullseye slams his fist on the table. When my eyes go to him, he says, “Just say Trixie was working with them, which, mind you, I’m not considering for one fuckin’ second.
But just to settle your mind, what has she to gain from going to the MDMC to look for him?
She could walk out of here anytime, no questions asked.
She could pack a fuckin’ suitcase and leave, and no one would stop her.
Club girls ain’t our prisoners. They can come and go as they fuckin’ want. ”
He’s right. Lowering my head into my hands, a question revolves around my head.
If Trixie’s for real, and the evidence put forward is swaying me to think she is, what are the chances of this working?
The MDMC might clock her as soon as she crosses the threshold.
Life to them is cheap. They wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in her head on just a vague suspicion.
Likewise, instead of taking her in to be their plaything for the night, they might think she’s just flesh to be trafficked.
Whichever way I consider it, no sane man would bet on her success.
Brothers are quietly talking together, but the moment I raise my head, conversations cease.
“I don’t understand why Trixie would offer to put her life on the line to rescue Ace.
She must be out of her mind. If there’s another way, I want to take it.
” Though it guts me to say it, I add, “I can’t ask her to do this.
” It’s bad enough to have Ace’s disappearance on my conscience.
She’s an innocent, property of the club, someone to be protected and not used.
Unlike us members, who’ve sworn an oath to the patch, she owes us no loyalty.
“Her sacrifice will raise the odds of us finding Ace,” Saint offers softly. “And Ace knows her.”
“He could give her away.” That’s another point that’s not in her favour.
Tempest slowly, and seemingly reluctantly, nods his head. “There is that. And if not Ace, then Toni. I tend to agree with Freak, there’s too much risk.”
Bullseye closes his eyes for a moment, then he says firmly, “Someone go get her and bring her into church. Let’s get all the pros and cons out in the open, and leave the final decision to her.”
A whore in church? Well, that’s something I never had on my bingo card. But, for that matter, neither did I have the kidnapping of my son, or the betrayal of the woman whom I’d seriously been considering to take as my old lady.
Woody stands and goes to collect her. Within moments, he’s back with Trixie in tow and has had the forethought to bring in an extra chair.
There’s a scraping of seats until room is made for her at the opposite end of the table to Prez.
I watch her carefully, eyeing her as if seeing her for the first time.
She’s got a natural beauty about her, a little older than the other girls, but her maturity seems to soften her features, and has certainly done nothing to take away from her curves.
Inappropriately in that moment, I remember how her naked body had felt beneath me, that one time I’d tapped her ass.
I’d never gone back. Perhaps it’s because she’s volunteered to save my son, but for the first time, I admit something to myself.
I’d not invited her into my bed again, not because she’d disappointed me, but because I’d worried how perfectly we fit together, and how quickly I might get addicted.
And anything more between us would be impossible.
She was a club girl, belonging not just to me, but all my brothers.
I hadn’t even been the one to have her first. If I ever was going to have an exclusive relationship, it wouldn’t be one with a pussy that had been shared with the whole club.
It had been easier to convince myself she was nothing special and move on.
My eyes remain on her as she slips her perfect pear-shaped ass onto the chair.
“Thanks for coming in, Trixie,” Bullseye starts in an unfamiliar, kind tone. “We are just discussing your offer to try to get into the MDMC clubhouse.”
I can’t keep quiet. Maybe it’s the memory of our one and only night, but I’m in a fucking quandary.
I want Ace back with all that I am, but I don’t want her death on my conscience.
In an effort to dissuade her, I ask, “Why, Trixie? Why the fuck would you even think of it? Have you no idea of how dangerous that would be? The MDMC aren’t like us.
Even if they don’t suspect you, they could rape and kill you just for fun. ”
As I’m looking straight at her, I don’t miss her twisted smile.
“I’d thought for all this time that no one here knew my history, but I was na?ve.
As Bullseye has told me, you all do, though you probably only know the headlines.
” Her back’s ramrod straight as she looks around the room.
“I was married to my father’s underboss when I was sixteen.
Like the other girls with fathers of equal rank to mine, I knew that I’d have no choice in who I’d marry.
We were all used as pawns, a step up for our parents, all the benefits theirs, and none of our own.
Some had it good, some, so-so.” She makes a see-sawing motion with her hands.
“Me? I got it the worst. I was sixteen, still in school, not yet knowledgeable of the world. My father had kept me confined, so there’d be no chance I could be sullied.
Secluded, I had no social skills. And my new husband, thirty years older, wanted a young virgin in his bed and an experienced hostess for a wife.
” She huffs. “I failed in the latter department. From the start, I was his punching bag. My father knew and condoned it. A daughter was a commodity, and in my case, one he’d effectively sold.
My only friends were in the Mafia, and they turned a blind eye, probably thankful it was me and not them.
For ten years, he beat me. I never learned how he wanted me to behave.
I lost two babies before they were fully formed in the womb because he punched them out of me.
And then I got more punishment as I couldn’t carry a baby to term.
” Her head is lowered, as if she doesn’t want to meet anyone’s eyes or see our reaction to her story.
“That last time, well, that was one of the worst.” Her voice drops to a whisper.
“I thought he’d killed me, and knew when he hadn’t, it was only a matter of time.
” She snorts a mirthless laugh. “The Mafia has cleaners, too. Disposing of my body would have been easy for him. I’d already seen that when he’d beaten one of his soldatos to death in our home.
The next day, the body and all the blood had disappeared.
” She pauses, and no one speaks. I think, like me, they’re all enthralled.
“The nurse in the hospital realised the truth.
I don't know what her relationship with Irish was, but somehow, she managed to get him to help me.