Chapter 40 Stan
FORTY
STAN
With Kitty at my side, my hand now curving around her hip, I guided her toward the clubhouse as Storm stepped into place next to me.
He was a lot more diplomatic than I’d expected.
I had a rough idea of how he’d come to be the Prez in Ohio—the ex-VP of the New Jersey Sinners’ branch had evaded arrest back home and found a place for himself among the soybeans.
Storm as a Prez already seemed far less mercurial than the Hell’s Rebels’.
If anything, he exuded a level of self-control that I appreciated. The MCs led by crazy motherfuckers, i.e., Lucifer and her gang of demons, were always a massive migraine just waiting to happen.
“My office is this way,” Storm directed once we stepped inside the clubhouse.
This place was a lot less chaotic than the one in Texas too. I could see kids’ toys dumped in a couple corners of the rooms we passed through, and combined with the lack of clubwhores blowing brothers, it gave off a different vibe.
Kitty peered around, but she held her tongue until we reached the office, where a veritable jungle of plants bombarded us. The air felt humid, borderline sticky with heat, and a pungent scent of earth and fertilizer had my nose twitching. Not with distaste, but neither with pleasure.
She released a gasp then strode over to a particularly pink orchid. “Is that a Cattleya Dominiana?”
Storm chuckled. “You know orchids?”
“Not really. My da used to buy them for my ma whenever he did something wrong and this one was always my favorite.” Her fingers hovered over the petal with a reverence that had Storm stepping closer to her.
“Mind me asking why?”
“I loved the scent.” She hummed as she moved closer to it. “And hers was more lavender than this. She had it for years after he passed, but one winter, a few years ago, nothing she did would bring it back from the brink.”
“That must have hurt when she lost it.”
“Yeah, she cried. I did too.” Kitty’s smile turned sheepish. “She asked me to toss it out. I couldn’t. I tried to revive it, but in the end, I had to. I actually talked to it. That’s how desperate I was.”
“I’m sorry it didn’t work.”
“Me too,” she echoed. “It’s lovely in here. I’ve no green thumb, but my ma would be happy as a clam.”
Storm barked out a laugh. “She would, huh?”
Mischief gleamed in her expression. “Oh, yes. She’d settle in that armchair—” She gestured to the seat in question. “—with a cookbook and a cup of coffee and she’d plot a family dinner.”
He tucked his hands into his pockets. “I don’t plot meals, but I definitely have sat there a time or two and worked.”
“I wouldn’t have said you’d be the gardening type,” she murmured kindly.
“Most of my men don’t get it either, but we all need something to keep us from going crazy, don’t we?”
“We do,” she agreed, her gaze drifting over to me. “Maybe you should take up orchid growing, Stan.”
I snorted. “Rory’s the one who can keep plants alive.”
“Your sister’s a gardener?”
“Has a greenhouse and everything. Which, twenty floors up, tells you how much she loves it. Has this wall in her kitchen that’s full of ferns and everything.”
Interest clearly piqued, Storm swept out a hand. “If you’d like to take a seat?”
Kitty, with a final wistful look at the orchid, smiled and stepped around him to sit beside me in the chair opposite Storm’s desk.
“We appreciate your willingness to meet with us, Storm,” I eventually declared when he’d also taken a seat.
“Of course. Once I heard the rumors and the gossip about your family’s fascination with rubies, I admit I was curious.” He tucked a hand into a desk drawer and retrieved a box. “Then, when we found this, I didn’t think you’d be interested anymore.”
Kitty hummed as she stared at the pearl necklace, which was strangely undersized in length. Less of a necklace and more a bracelet, but the pendant, an oversized pearl, said otherwise. “May I?”
Storm nodded and she reached out for it, careful with the pearls as she tilted the rose-cut rubies this way and that. It was a clever move. It let me see what we were discussing without me touching the necklace, which meant Storm’s gaze was less intent, more relaxed.
“It’s beautiful. Are the rubies real? I’ve never seen them as big as this before.”
“We think so,” Storm told her. “Had it appraised, at any rate.”
I tipped my chin. “And what price are you asking?”
A part of me expected he’d request a favor. Another part hoped he wouldn’t.
Luc and Rory had given me the go-ahead to do whatever it took to get the rubies, but that didn’t mean I liked being beholden to people.
I already owed a bunch of people favors on a personal level. As a Valentini, the fewer we owed them to, the better.
Tokens shaped business, after all, and we were already in debt because of the curse.
Storm retrieved an envelope from the same drawer in his desk. He pushed it over to me, and I pulled out a certificate of authentication.
“Can’t they be forged?” Kitty asked politely, attention flicking between the rubies and then the certificate.
My lips curved at the question, so did Storm’s. “I guess they can, but I have no interest in pissing off a brotherhood with as much reach as the Valentinis’.”
“A smart man,” Kitty praised. “But then, I already knew that. It’s really hard to keep some of the tropical orchids alive.”
“Mostly, it takes time and patience.”
“Both admirable traits.”
What I admired was her ability to step through this meeting despite it being a potential minefield.
Even as I wondered if this came from her being a nurse and having to deal with a million walks of life converging in her ER or simply being the big sister in a clan like the Frasiers, I scanned the certificate and read the valuation.
The pearls were of no value to me in the grand scheme of things, but they were interesting. Antiques according to the document in my hand.
“The jeweler we used for the appraisal said they were originally a set.”
My gaze darted over to him. “What kind of set?”
Storm’s hands settled on his abs as he rocked back in his seat.
“The pearls are famous. Belonged to Catherine the Great or something. She had these made into two small necklaces for her two daughters. Apparently, one of these remains in Moscow because Elizabeth became the Empress of Russia, while the other went with her sister, the Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna, who died when she was only twenty. It’s why this one left Russia—she passed away when giving birth to her son.
“If you look in the envelope, there’s a picture of them wearing it.”
I retrieved the photographs of two paintings, surprised to find that one of them was a small girl wearing the necklace and the other an older woman with a castle in the background, the necklace worn on her left wrist of all places, the pendant resting against the back of her hand.
“How fascinating,” Kitty whispered, gazing at the necklace with awe then the pictures.
“With such a history, they’re not our rubies,” I reasoned, disappointment filling me.
“Still worth a fortune, and it’s not like we hand out pearls and rubies to our kids in an MC.” Storm’s smile was sharklike. “There are others interested in it.”
I narrowed my eyes on the piece, deliberating over the truth of the story, but a part of me, the part that was an Anjou-Valentini, coveted this necklace.
The idea of it being a christening gift to my eldest daughter felt right.
A daughter with Kitty’s eyes and a smile that would stop my heart.
The start of my own legacy…
“I’ll take it. Will up the asking price by a hundred grand—on one condition.”
He arched a brow. “What’s that?”
“You’ve heard of Red?”
“Who hasn’t? Fucking horrible drug.” His stare became pointed, which told me he knew I’d created it.
“Yeah. I’m going to rectify my mistakes.”
“How?” Storm scolded. “Isn’t that like trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted?”
“Does that mean we shouldn’t fix past errors? Everyone deserves to find their path to redemption, Storm.”
Storm fixed a look at Kitty. For a second, he froze. It was like she’d slapped him.
Then, gruffly, he acknowledged, “You’re right. What do you want, Stan?”
“It may never come to pass,” I admitted. “But I’m going to be working on an antidote.”
“You want help distributing it?”
“I do.”
Storm nodded. “I can get behind that, and I know the Sinners’ other chapters will too.”