CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
-:- TwoCents -:-
Sunday morning, training over and it’s time for church. Now I know we have a lot to cover, so this could be a long one. I’ve a bottle of water to take in with me, and my ledger that I keep for reports I give in church. That way I’m always able to see at a glance when I report on something, and no one can call me out for not having all information on hand.
Taking my seat, I place the ledger in front of me and look at BS, who is sitting with his tiny notepad and pencil in front of him. I can’t stop the smirk that crosses my face because honestly, you’d think we had a kid in here playing dollhouse.
“Fuck off,” BS mumbles when he notices my smirk, but it just has the smirk turn into a full-blown smile. “You’re an asshole.”
“I know,” I reply, but with not an ounce of remorse.
Buzz walks in next, followed by Wings. They take their places and looking around, I think we are all here apart from Axel and Drag. It’s only a few minutes before they both walk in and take their places.
Axel slams the gavel down and opens the meeting. “Anything to report on businesses?”
Nobody comments, so it appears everyone is happy enough with how things are running business-wise. I have no problems with the business financials, so I remain quiet as well.
“Okay. We now have a new baby in the club. Silver and Eden’s son, Harrison O’Brien. He weighed in at a nice 8lb 2oz, bald as his ass, too,” Axel grins at his own comment.
“How’s Eden?” Mav asks.
“Oh, she’s fine, but we can’t say that for Silver,” Axel throws his head back, laughing. “She grabbed Silver’s balls when he was standing next to her for the last pushes to get Harrison out and he ended up on the floor, holding himself before passing out.”
Foot stomps and fists banging on tables show everyone’s delight that the baby was born with no issues, Eden being good, but laughing at Silver’s dilemma because it seems he’s walking like he has a bucket between his legs.
“Okay, settle down, let’s get to some serious shit.” Axel looks around the room, pointing at Sting first. “What’s going on with you and Lily?”
“Nothing. I thought she may be the one to be my Ol’ Lady, but it’s not gonna happen. She’s too busy with her business for relationships, so I’m moving on and looking at what or who else may be available. But I’m not looking too hard, I have to admit.” Sting, we all know was taken with Lily and being rejected hit him hard. I hope he finds someone worthy and, although I like Lily, I find her a bit on the selfish side. Maybe that’s because Sting is my brother and I don’t want to see him hurt.
“Sorry it didn’t work out, brother. But, sometimes it’s for the best. We just don’t realize it at the time.” Axel had a relationship when he was younger and he thought she was the one, but it didn’t work out, and now he has Mia, who is perfect for him.
“Okay, Jig, stop chasing Lina. I’m not telling you again, and if I see you pinning her against a wall one more time, I’m taking you outside and beating your ass blue. Then, I’ll let Buzz, Drag and Wings join in the fun. You get me?” Axel is squaring up to Jig, who is the joker amongst us, but he’s taking this a bit too far and we know Lina’s job could be on the line if he keeps it up.
“Sentry, what’s this I hear about you being Swap Shop manager?” Axel asks.
Now, I know Axel knows about this, but he’s playing it cool. Sentry looks up with a huge grin on his face. “Yeah, I’m officially the manager and I have to tell you, Pres, I’m enjoying it. I liked being on gate duty and taking responsibility for the compound, but this feels right. Helping these families feels good, and it’s given me a sense of purpose.”
“TwoCents, what about his salary?” Axel asks, looking over at me.
“We have looked at the financials and the salary isn’t large, but with the percentage he gets as a brother, it gives him a little more to play with on a monthly basis.” I don’t want to give figures because it’s so small a wage that the work Sentry will put in should earn him triple what he’ll actually get.
“Show me the figures.”
I slide my ledger over and point to the figure for Axel to see, and he frowns before looking at me. Pushing the ledger back again. As always, Axel surprises when he addresses the brothers.
“The salary that the Swap Shop would give isn’t enough to piss in a bucket. I suggest we give TwoCents the go-ahead to make up the salary from the club’s pool. It’s only like we’d be giving to another brother in one of our businesses. TwoCents, get Paisley to sign us a percent of the business to warrant us being involved in Sentry’s salary.”
“Okay, Pres,” I reply. I know Pais won’t care about a percent ownership for the club, but Axel’s right to say it would make this legitimate.
“While we are talking about the Swap Shop, I’d like to approach Garth. That’s Hannah’s husband, who’s prior-military to stand as a security officer. With the attempt to grab Paisley, it would be myself and Garth all day, and it would make sure the back and front of the building could be covered. I have, however, had extra locks placed on the back door and windows, and Specs has added a security camera in three rooms.” Sentry looks around at the brothers and gives a shrug of his shoulders when no one comments.
“I think that’s a great idea. I’ve met Garth, and he’s a good man. He’s ideal for extra security and we’ve already mentioned we could pull him into the club or a business if we found him floundering now he’s not in the forces anymore. None of us want to see him get the depression we all know about.” I’m making it known I support the idea fully, and Sentry gives me a chin lift of thanks.
“Show of hands if you are all okay with that?” Axel states, and everyone raises a hand. Why he’s voting on Pais’ business, I’m not sure, but I’m a wise enough man to keep my mouth closed.
“Anything else with financials?” Axel asks.
“I informed all staff at Club Whisky about their pay raise. I spoke to Liam at the Coffee House too, so nope, all is covered, Pres.”
“Okay. Now we need to talk about Paisley’s issue and what we are going to do about it.” Axel now has his serious face on, and I know we are going to make some headway with how to go about keeping her safe and taking out enemies. “TwoCents, fill us all in.”
“We know Senator Brooks was, or is, involved in some nasty shit. We’re not sure how deep he is, but it would appear he’s not just on the sidelines. We know Pais has a lot of evidence on him, and we think someone named in the evidence is trying to have her taken out. Tank has been helping check all the street cameras for the guy that tried to snatch her. It wouldn’t make sense for it to be the Senator himself after all this time. There are many people connected through her evidence that wouldn’t want to be associated with this. It ranges from senators to FBI agents, mafia to cartels, congressmen, and judges.
“It looks to be a massive operation and not just statewide. Dep and Sober, at Forest”s request, are making a list of each of the individuals involved and their state of residence. Then it will be a process of elimination to whittle down the possibilities. That is going to take time.
“In the meantime, Nell has contacted Vincenzo Vitale and asked for any knowledge he may have of this operation. He’s being very cooperative with Nell and, unfortunately, is expecting some cooperation in return, which Nell is not playing ball with. It took her a long time to drop off Vitale’s radar, and this has put her right back in his spotlight. We are going to owe her big time after this.”
“We?”Buzz drawls. “I think you mean ‘you’ will owe her big time. That’s quite an IOU to fulfill, judging from the way she charged in and out of here the other day,” he said with a huge smirk on his face.
“Either way,” giving him my most evil look, “it seems that the most likely, from their perspective, is Charles Irvin. He has so far led a charmed life. He keeps associating with some disreputable characters but no one can make anything stick. His links to the DeSantos Cartel are by far his biggest digress from the straight and narrow, but even those links aren’t enough for our forces of law and order to get him off the streets. There just isn’t enough tangible evidence.” I lean back in my seat and fold my arms over my chest.
“Specs, get checking out this guy, and get everything you can on him, no matter how small,” Axel states firmly. “Liaise with Nell and Vitale. I want to know all there is on him. What time he has breakfast? What he eats for lunch? Who he has dinner with? When and where he shits it out! If the law can’t stop him, then we’ll feed him to Nell”s gators. While we wait for that, I want every brother on alert for Paisley’s safety. Watch all the women, though. We’ve had cases of mistaken identity in the past, I don’t want it happening again.”
“Aaron is due in town this week, Pres. I’ll see what he has to volunteer, but if I think he’s holding out on us, I’m going to put our friendship on the back burner and give him a hard time. This has gone on long enough by the sound of things. When women are being sold like this, the operation should have been shut down long ago,” Forest states with a grim expression.
Forest dealt with a lot of trafficking in his FBI days and shut down many similar rings to this, though perhaps not on such a scale. It left some scars on his ‘mental processes’, shall we say, and it is certainly one of his triggers.
“Okay, be alert. Speak to anyone you may think can find this fucker in town. The faster we find him, the faster we can get rid of the threat to Paisley.” Axel slams the gavel down and we all walk out of church. I’m sure everyone is trying to think of who they can contact for information.
Buzz and Target both have street contacts, but so far they have reported nothing back, which says that this fucker is well underground, or looking so respectable that you wouldn’t suspect him.
Okay, where’s my woman? It’s Sunday afternoon and we’ve time for some loving. I rub my hands together as I go in search of Paisley, and all the dirty thoughts that are running through my mind have me thinking we may just miss the evening meal today.