Chapter Six
Every day felt the same here at the compound, surrounded by all this opulence, while I craved my old room at the clubhouse. I didn’t need marble fucking floors and walls, and shit. What I needed was that small unpretentious lifestyle I’d adapted to so fucking fast that it made my head spin.
I missed being surrounded by loudmouthed assholes, who thought nothing of pounding fists on doors to get their attention.
If you did that here, you’d eat a bullet, before they’d even ask what you wanted.
And noise? No chance. It was like a fucking mausoleum, and nobody here enjoyed my whistling, or tolerated my new louder voice.
You had to be loud at the clubhouse to be heard, and Grease wasn’t a quiet guy. I’d enjoyed being him. I’d felt like he was me, and this was the costume I was being forced to wear.
A too-polite knock on my door had me groaning, because it was never anything good, and never interesting. It was always the same old shit. Monitor this guy because he owes us money. Monitor these wise guys because they’re taking the piss. Same old same old.
The knock was firmer the second time, and that reminded me that I was keeping someone waiting.
“Yeah?”
Luca strode into the room, a pissed off look on his face.
“You think I have nothing better to do than wait out there?”
I stood up, because I’d forgotten how these fuckers liked to storm over and tower over me. I was no longer the guy who sat and tolerated any shit, and I think they were starting to realise that.
“Something I can help you with?” I asked, frustration adding a tense note to my voice.
“You came back different, you know. The Don might be tolerating your new rebellious phase, Tesio, but don’t push it.”
I glared at him, resting my fists on the desk.
“Still not hearing why you were disturbing me in the first place, Luca.”
He tried the eyebrow thing, but it just wasn’t as intimidating as the Don’s eyebrows, in fact, even his weren’t affecting me like they used to. I wasn’t just a fucking tool for them to use. I was a valuable member of the family, and they had to start fucking treating me that way.
“Do I need to remind you of your place, Tesio?”
I felt a grin stretching across my face.
“You think you’re man enough?”
He glared at me for a long moment, and then he huffed out a sharp breath.
“I didn’t come here for this, and I won’t be goaded into a bar room brawl with a guy who seems to forget where he came from. You might have behaved like this with those bikers, but you’re home now, Tesio. This isn’t acceptable.”
I was on the verge of calling him out on his pretentious bullshit, of telling him to fucking try me, and that’s when his phone rang, and he backed up a step to answer it.
Whatever it was had him leaving my room, without even having explained why he’d fucking disturbed me in the first place, but as he reached the door, and covered the phone with one hand, he glared at me.
“This isn’t over.”
I smirked at him. “Can’t wait.”
So a fun fact about the Phoenix MC is that they have a well kept secret outside of their club, probably more than one, but this one in particular is a doozy.
Four members of their club live offsite, and to be honest, spend very little time around the club at all.
They’re very much the insular ghostly kind of people who never leave their own little compound unless they’re needed.
They’re regularly paid to go on secret little fucking forays into other ‘worlds’, and they leave a lot of bodies in their wake.
Mercenaries, yeah, let’s just call it what it is.
And look, nobody seems to fucking know what unit they served with, but if it wasn’t the SAS or something, I’d be fucking stunned. They were quiet, deadly, and efficient.
Once Don Rossi had been made aware of them, he quickly retained their services for several small assaults on those who’d offended him, be they individuals or entire fucking crime syndicates, and as a result, he was amassing more power and wealth by the month.
So anyway, these guys. They’d arrived at our compound for a debrief, and for once I was involved.
As a vital tech guy, but actually one of several who worked in isolation of each other, to keep us all honest, I was left out of a whole lot of shit, and honestly, I think my time with the MC had made me even less trusted than I was before.
I joined them in the conference room, and it was just Don Rossi, Luca, Enzo, and me, along with the four of them. I’d never met them before now, and I didn’t even know their fucking names, but I knew of them, and that was enough.
“You bring news?” Don Rossi asked the one who seemed to be in the ‘alpha’ position.
He sat while the other three stood behind him in a fucking protective formation that spoke volumes.
Snap at this guy, and get introduced to how your spine looks when it’s outside your body. That’s the vibe they were giving off.
“Target is eliminated,” the guy said, and Don Rossi smiled, nodding at the guy like he’d known this and, if he did, then wasn’t this a waste of all our fucking time?
“Very good. Payment has already been made.” See? What the fuck were we here for?
“I understand we’re here on another matter now. Reacher has already updated us.”
I frowned at him, and turned to see Don Rossi nodding again. Why didn’t he eyebrow-fuck this guy like he did us? Probably because they’d get torched off his fucking face.
“Tesio, these gentlemen are with Phoenix MC, please introduce yourselves. Tesio was undercover with your MC as Grease, during the whole unfortunate situation with that traitor.”
The men all glowered at him, but alpha leader turned to look at me at last.
“You backed the Pres up, and that’s appreciated. I’m Alpha, and these men are my crew. That’s Slick, Tag, and Diablo. We’re being deployed with you.”
I frowned again, even though I wanted to crow about how I’d guessed that fucker’s name, because how fucking obvious and dickish was it to call himself Alpha? Deployed? Deployed where?
“Boss?”
Don Rossi sighed. “You’ve been missing the MC life, have you not? Everyone can see it. You’re different than you were before.”
Was it so fucking hard for him to just answer a question?
“Maybe. What’s going on now though?”
Luca snorted, rolling his eyes at Enzo, who didn’t even react. Stiff, stuck up bastard.
“Huh?”
He was glaring at me now.
“What?”
“You starting something with me? I’m not stiff and stuck up, and I’m no fucking bastard.” Well, shit. I said that out loud, didn’t I?
Don Rossi sighed, and we all took it for the ‘shut up’ it was, and returned our attention to him.
“Seems our Phoenix MC friends are branching out.”
What? My heart started thudding in my chest, don’t ask me why. Don’t ask me what the fuck had me suddenly on the edge of my fucking seat, but I was. If he didn’t explain himself soon I’d peel those fucking eyebrows off his face for him.
“Tesio, you will be going back undercover…” YES! Fucking hell yes!
Was I smiling? Laughing? Could they see my relief? From the disapproving looks on Enzo and Luca’s faces, I’m sure that answer was yes.
“Back with Phoenix?” I had to clarify, because this was already too good to be true, and a good mafia man never takes anything at face value.
“A new chapter. You’ll be reporting to me, and to Reacher and Stitch. They’re putting an interim president in place to rebuild a club they took down.” I was gutted to have missed all of that. It sounded like a fucking blast. But the next words out of his mouth blew my fucking mind.
“The interim president is someone you’re aware of. I’m sure you remember Micro.” WHAT. THE. FUCK.
Jamie
Thank god my suspension was over, and thank god my counselling sessions had gone well enough that they were letting me return.
Thank god that my ‘returning to work’ interviews had all gone swimmingly, because I didn’t want to be operating under any restrictions, or extra guidelines.
I wanted to be doing what the hell I wanted.
Namely, taking out a fucking biker club, that was bad news and needed to be burned to the ground.
“I know that look on your face, Jay, don’t start already. They’ll be watching you more closely for a while. Don’t push it.”
I grinned widely at Evers, because of course I’d push it. I’d worked too hard to be stuck in this same job forever.
“I’m not pushing anything. I need a big win, and I have an idea of how to do it.”
PC Evers groaned, parking the car and turning to glare at me.
“If this is about the MC, just know I’m not having any part of it. I told you, they threatened my family. I’m not risking them.”
He had a good point, didn’t he? But my crusade didn’t have to be his too, did it?
“I wouldn’t dream of involving you, partner. I just need to do some recon, and ruffle a few feathers, and they’ll make a mistake. You can stay away.”
“We’re partners, Jay, for fuck’s sake! Who do you think this’ll come down on if something happens to you?” Nice priorities, for the person who’s meant to be my partner. Not what if something happens to you, but how will that affect me. Charming.
“I’ll try not to get you in trouble, but I’m starting my surveillance on the club now. Time to find out who those other bikers were.” I stared out of the window, as we waited for something to happen, but Evers caught what I let slip like an idiot.
“You’ve already bloody started, haven’t you? What other bikers? Jay, you’ll get yourself killed!”
I sighed. “I just did a little concerned citizen rubbernecking, that’s all. There’s another club coming and going from there. I don’t know why, but I plan to find out.”
“Please. Can you just listen to reason for once?”
I finally faced him, giving him his moment to share whatever pearl of wisdom he had in his arsenal, what magic words would change my mind.
“Fuck it. You’ve already decided, haven’t you? Stubbornness, that’s your worst trait. Let’s go see what they’re up to, but follow my lead, okay?”
Suddenly he had the balls to go there? I wasn’t about to knock it, just like I wasn’t about to take his freaking lead. It was my case. My big win. Not his.