Chapter 12 #2
He laughed at my bluster. His eyes darted from me to Roishin and back.
“ We need to talk before the meeting starts.” Wolf snapped his fingers and the prospect assigned to him hopped off his barstool and joined us.
“ See to it that Ro — Roishin gets a drink and is unmolested for the duration. She’s Bear’s . ”
That was exaggerating the situation slightly, but probably the most succinct way to get the point across.
Wolf hated to mess around with unnecessary talk.
I appreciated that about him. Jackson used chit chat to find your weakness and didn’t approach things head on like his successor did.
The honesty of Wolf’s leadership style was refreshing.
He led me into the meeting room. This meant our discussion wouldn’t be interrupted. I waited until he sat down at the head of the table before joining him.
There was an uncomfortable pause before Wolf started his questions. “ What did Fin and Betty Jo think of her?”
“ They love her. Fin’s making a custom dagger. Betty Jo tried to sell her entire inventory to me.”
He laughed. “ You should be used to their tactics by now. How much did they pinch off you?”
Over three grand if I paid for the shit I hadn’t taken with me. “ Eight hundred down, another twenty-two on delivery.”
“ Jesus .” He leaned in and squinted at my forehead.
“ What ?”
“ When did you tattoo ‘sucker’ up there?”
My hand covered my forehead, despite knowing he was teasing me. “ I ain’t a sucker. You’ve spent more on Tits .”
His face turned dark. “ That’s because she’s worth it.”
“ And Roishin ain’t?”
My words stepped very close to insubordination. The tightness in Wolf’s jaw warned me that I was treading on shaky ground. “ You just met her…what was it, three days ago?”
I didn’t back down. Instead , I explained, “ There’s a four-inch bruise on her right arm. Looks like a stick or a cane got blocked there. Carl did that. Of course, Betty Jo saw it and asked questions.”
He leaned back, relaxing. Or at least, thinking. “ Make sure my wife doesn’t see it. I don’t want her tangled up in Carl’s shit.”
“ You might want to warn her before they meet. I’m going to take her on the ride tomorrow.”
His eyebrow scrunched into a scowl. “ Why ?”
“ Because Kate and Zoe met her, too.”
That got his full attention. “ Does Jackson know?”
“ Of course. He’d have to be on Mars or something not to know every fucking detail of what went down.
” Kate knew far more dirty details of our operations than Tits did.
Although , it wasn’t because of any acrobatics on Wolf’s part, Tits didn’t want to know.
That way, she wouldn’t have to rat out her husband to her biker sisters who’d go vigilante on his ass.
Wolf speculated, “ If Jackson knows, and Kate’s in the mix, you shouldn’t worry about my wife.”
No shit . “ I know that.”
“ What’s your harem going to say?”
I didn’t have a harem. Only a few women I hung around with for parties, and the working ladies who stayed around the club for a bite of my wallet. At least one of them was in the crowd just outside the door. But I played it cool. “ Say about what?” I countered.
“ About you getting an ol’ lady.”
“ She ain’t my ol’ lady and you know what happens at the end of the month.”
He glanced away. “ Yeah , about that.”
“ Now what?”
“ Carl’s disappeared.”
That was bad news, and good news. I focused on the bad part first. “ He owes us eight grand. When did this happen?”
“ Whoosh’s guy, the one who saw him with the cop? Says he walked out of his house, hopped in his truck and never came back. That was the night you took his girl. There’s been no movement inside for over twenty hours.
This was out of character for Carl . “ I know he visited his sister’s house the first night. And as far as I know, that was about ten, ten-thirty.”
“ Maybe he stayed there?”
I shook my head and relayed what I knew. The second conversation Roishin had with John seemed normal.
“ I don’t like this. First the cop, and now poof.”
Wolf was right to be worried. “ How’s Sketch ?” I asked.
“ Pissed . Izzy insists she’ll take the fall for anything that went down.”
“ We can’t let her do that.” Not only would that raise more questions, like why did the other gang members disappear, but the cops already knew she was with Sketch and admitting anything would implicate him.
“ Sketch is on it.”
“ Do we bring her in, talk with her again?”
Wolf shot my suggestion down with a single shake of his head. “ Let Sketch handle it, okay? Izzy will come around.”
I frowned. Sketch had recently gotten custody of his kid. The situation had to be freaking him out. But there was another person we had to worry about. “ Is Whoosh holding up?”
That earned a snort. “ Fucker , he’s acting like he’s got his patch already. I’m thinking of putting a pause on it just to teach him a little humility. I might stall the vote tonight.”
It would serve him right.
“ But that’s not what I needed to talk to you about. Sprout told me that you stepped up the other day.”
Aw shit. This was a dressing down. I braced myself for the worst.
“ And I appreciate that. The club agrees we need a VP who can handle decisions without calling a fucking meeting all the time. After all the bullshit we went through, we are all smart enough to know we can’t have another Kush slacking off and leaving every decision up to the president.
“ You did good making the moves you made, even if you kind of fucked up taking Rose — Roishin . I’m going to have a talk with Jackson about rotating you out of his protection detail, so we can install you as VP .”
If I hadn’t been sitting down, I’d have ass-planted on the chair. As it was, I had mixed emotions about all this. Foremost was the question I asked, “ Who’s going to be watching Kate and Zoe ?”
“ We’ll keep doing what we’re doing. Prospects , members, that sort of thing.”
“ And when a fucking prospect screws up?” I reminded him.
He grinned at me. “ Guess who’d be in charge of picking ’em?”
Fuck . Me . Wolf sure knew his way around the role despite only being in it a few months. Or , maybe not… “ I suppose that was Tits’s idea?”
He grinned a little wider. “ My wife might have had a say in it.”
I scratched at my ear, pretending I hadn’t heard that. Bad enough the club knew Wolf’s soft spot for her, but if someone on the outside knew? We’d be laughed out of the organization.
“ Fix this shit with Carl , and the job’s yours.”
Unspoken was, fuck it up, and you’ll never have a chance .
No pressure.