Chapter Twenty
Katie
A FEW WEEKS AFTER Hatch’s bare-knuckled duel with Warlock, Maisie called an all-hands meeting at the Dogs’ new clubhouse.
Members and old ladies. No exceptions. She had Hatch’s full support, although I was pretty sure he’d soon come to regret that.
Maisie had sworn to settle the score with the club for their recent acts of treachery and today was the day she’d collect her pound of flesh.
Maisie had instructed every member to drive their family car, truck, or work vehicle to the clubhouse.
No bikes allowed. Once they arrived, traffic was directed into a line that almost wrapped around the property line.
Then, members were told to park in place and leave their keys on the driver’s seat.
Once that was done, they were ushered to their seats in front of the clubhouse.
The old ladies then formed a line and stood facing them.
“Thank you for being here this morning,” Maisie began, in a pleasant but professional tone. “I’ve asked you all here to settle a recent matter involving my husband and certain unilateral decisions that were made involving his life and the future of this club.”
Muted grunts and groans rumbled through the ranks.
“While I respect my husband’s authority as president of the Dogs of Fire,” Maisie continued, her tone sharpening.
“And understand the need for secrecy in certain club matters, I do not appreciate, and will not tolerate, being left out of the loop regarding any actual life-or-death matter involving members of my fucking family!”
The force and volume of Maisie’s voice was so powerful, I half expected the club members’ faces to melt like the Nazis at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Most of the club, me included, had never seen Maisie unhinged like that.
Not even when she’d gone off on Waverly when she refused to lock down all those months ago.
Hatch was seated in a recliner right next to Maisie at the end of our line.
He was wrapped in a robe, and looking miserable, which made sense.
He was still recovering from some pretty serious injuries and would be spared from participating in some of the day’s scheduled punishments, but not all of them.
Worst of all, he’d have to watch his club suffer for his sins.
Hatch stared straight ahead. Not daring to react or make a single sound.
He knew he was guilty, and he knew Maisie had him and his merry little band of assholes dead to rights.
“Of course,” Maisie continued. “My husband didn’t act alone. He had help and support from you mangy lot, which is why you will all pay. You will pay for the crimes committed against the women of this club, and this family, when you all decided to ditch your trackers and start a bloody fight club.”
Flash raised his hand, looking like a schoolboy, and I fought hard to suppress a laugh.
“Yes?” Maisie asked.
“Some of us weren’t even there.”
“If you had been, would you have said anything to me or would you have backed your President father?”
Flash lowered his hand.
Maisie’s eyes narrowed. “That’s what I thought.”
Dani stepped forward. “The First Old Lady has hereby found you all guilty of crimes against hermanity. I’m sure by now many of you have guessed your punishment as you’ve doled it out yourselves to many a prospect over the years.
That’s right, a line of dirty cars means a car wash, and the First Old Lady wants them spankin’ clean inside and out.
More grunts and groans.
“And don’t worry about getting the clothes you’re wearing dirty,” Kim said, pointing to two large cardboard boxes set off to the side. “We’ve got work clothes for you to all change into.”
Maisie motioned to Rooster. “Come on over here and show them what we’ve picked out for you to wear.”
* * *
Rooster
I opened the first box and had to laugh at what I found.
“What is it?” Flea asked.
I held up the top half of our uniform for everyone to see. A skimpy, pink, cotton tank top with a modified Dogs of Fire M.C. patch logo on the front that read Dog Shit F.B.
“The F.B. stands for ‘for brains’,” Maisie said, adding “They’re one size fits all.”
My laughter stopped when I looked inside the second box.
“What’s wrong, love?” Maisie asked, sweetly.
I shook my head. “Nuh uh, no way.”
“Hatch?” Maisie asked, her eyes still pinned on me.
“Do what she says,” he replied, sounding like a defeated Civil War general agreeing to the terms of his unit’s surrender.
I let out a huge sigh before reaching inside the box and producing the bottom half of our mandatory work uniform. What there was of it, anyway. Gasps of horror ricocheted through the club brothers as they got their first look.
“No fucking way,” Mack shouted.
“What the hell is that?” Ace asked.
“I believe they’re called hot pants,” Maisie said. “Also, one size fits all.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to fit in that?” Mack asked.
“Poorly, I would imagine,” Maisie replied.
“This is bullshit, Prez,” Maverick growled.
“It’s time to take our medicine, boys. No sense in groaning about it,” Hatch called out.
“Easy for you to say, you don’t have to wear this shit,” Mack said.
Hatch stood up slowly, opened his robe and dropped it to the ground, modeling our mandatory uniform, hot pants and all.
“Jesus Christ, I’ve gone blind,” Flash cried out, the sight of his father in such a state being all too much for him to bear.
The next four hours were pure hell. Car after car.
Sponge after sponge. Rag after rag. And the endless game of ‘wax on, wax off’ wasn’t even the worst part of the punishment.
No, that award would have to go to the uniform.
Huge, hairy, men shoved into tight, girly clothes were in my eyeline no matter where I looked.
Sacks and shlongs hung out, left and right, not that it mattered due to the fact that once wet, our “clothes” became almost transparent.
Of course, the old ladies were having a fucking field day at our expense. Cat calls and whistles filled the air as they ‘supervised’ our work over bottomless mimosas. But the most diabolical part of Maisie’s revenge was still yet to come. A savage move that would go down in club history.
A few hours into our shift at the Balls n’ Bubbles Car Wash we were informed by “Mad Maisie the First,” that we’d all be receiving medical attention today.
“One of the many poor choices my dear husband made while his brain was on vacation in Bikini Bottom was to roll around, half-naked on the grounds of an abandoned paper-mill, leading to him getting a tetanus shot. This got me to thinking about all of you and how much time you spend around rusty metal and old tools, and I decided to have Katie and Gina administer you all with tetanus shot updates, just to make sure you’re all covered and up to date. ”
Even more grumbles and groans.
“Don’t worry, it’s just one little jab and we dressed you in hot pants for easy access to those cheeks,” Maisie said gleefully.
“In the ass, really?” Mack asked.
“Yeah, don’t tetanus shots usually go in the arm?” Knight asked.
“How long did you go to medical school?” Gina asked.
Knight shut up, and then we lined up to receive our jabs.
* * *
Katie
Three nights ago, the old ladies of the club had all gotten together for drinks at Payton’s house.
Hawk had taken their kids to a Winterhawks game, so we had the place all to ourselves for a little over four hours.
Four hours in which we drank wine, laughed, cried, drank wine, bitched about our stupid men, and drank wine.
Somewhere within that time one of us made a joke.
No one remembers exactly who it was, or perhaps no one wanted to be held liable for lighting the initial spark, but after a few drinks that joke became an idea.
After a few more drinks that idea became a plan.
After administering the last of the injections, we took a short lunch break, then the men were cleared to return to their scrubbing duties, but not until Maisie made one more announcement.
“Before you head back out,” Maisie called. “Please have a seat. Oh, wait, sorry. Too soon?”
The men grumbled while a few laughed, although, it was fake.
“I have a confession.” She smiled, a bit like a shark. “Those shots weren’t really tetanus shots.”
“What the fuck?” Hatch growled. “What did you do?”
She shrugged. “Well, since you all found it so easy to leave your trackers behind, we thought we’d give you new and improved ones.”
“Fuck! You chipped us?”
“Next time you little doggies decide to run away, we’ll know exactly where your arses are,” Maisie retorted.
“You can’t do that!” Mack snarled.
“You didn’t really think this through, sweetheart,” Knight said. “Pet chipping technology doesn’t work like that.”
“It does now,” Daisy interjected. “I consulted with Sierra out in Colorado to get the next gen chips from the top FBI dog handler. All we have to do is pull up a handy little app on our phones, and we can follow each and every one of your movements.”
“What the hell?” her man, Ruin, snapped. “Why would you do that?”
Daisy grinned. “Because I could.”
“Can you get them out?” Hatch asked Knight.
He shook his head. “Not without surgical intervention.”
“Jesus, woman, you’ve gone too far.”
Maisie cocked her head. “Maybe you’ll think about things a little more before pulling something like this again.”
“Back to work, everyone!” Dani ordered. “Move it!”
As the men bitched and complained, but filed back out to the cars, us ladies silently entered the next phase of Maisie’s punishment.
One by one, slowly so as not to raise suspicion, we began to slip away from the clubhouse, and down the block, to where we had a chartered party bus waiting to take us to Cannon Beach where we’d booked a ladies-only weekend away.
Maisie and Dani were the last to join the rest of us, and we were off.
“Do you think they suspect anything?” I asked.
“No,” Maisie said, pulling out her burner phone and loading up the camera feed from the great room of the club. “Gina’s there to distract, so I think we’re good.”
“Should we have invited her and Cricket?” I asked.
“Gina’s watching the clinic so Katie could come with us and Cricket’s on my shit list right now,” Maisie said.
“What? Why?” Cassidy, Ace’s wife, asked.
“Because she knew what Hatch was doing and kept it from everyone,” Dani said.
“Seriously?” Darien, Mack’s wife, hissed.
“I’m so sorry, honey, that’s gotta be tough,” Cassidy said.
“We’ll sort it out,” Maisie said. “But she’s going to have to feel my wrath for a few days.”
“Well, I’m going to be mad a little longer than that,” Poppy said.
“Baby girl, this is between me and your aunt,” Maisie said, reaching behind her to grab Poppy’s hand. “Don’t take up my offense, okay? I love Cricket and I’ll hear her out when she pleads her case. Right now, I’m mad, but I won’t stay mad, I promise.”
“I’ll think about it,” Poppy grumbled.
“Like mother like daughter,” Dani mused.
“Hello Pot,” Maisie retorted and everyone on the bus laughed. “Okay, okay, shh, Razor just walked into the great room. Dani, pull your feed up.”
“You know, ma’am, you can cast your feed onto the screens on your seatbacks,” the driver informed us.
“Really?” Maisie asked.
“Yes.” The driver walked her through how to do that, and we all sat back and watched as Razor leaned over the pool table and registered exactly what had happened. He then bellowed for Hatch, and all hell broke loose.