Chapter 10
Slim
“Marissa!” I yell out into the house. “Marissa!”
“Shhh!” She hisses back impatiently as she comes down the stairs. “DJ has just settled for his nap.”
“What the fuck, Marissa?”
She lifts her chin and looks me dead in the eye. She’s clearly gearing up for a fight. I don’t like this new attitude of hers.
“What do you want, Dylan?” She says as she throws herself onto the couch and hugs her knees.
She’s still in her pajamas, and she’s wearing those tiny little white socks that I used to think were cute.
“What were you thinking, calling the Chasers into our clubhouse?”
“Your club wouldn’t help me, and I needed help.”
“Do you still need help? Is that why Dumb and Dumber are hanging out in front of my house?”
The Chasers left two of their own, a man and a very short woman, behind. They aren’t doing anything; they were just sitting on their bikes in front of my house when I drove up, but their presence bothers me for some reason.
Marissa hesitates for a moment before saying, “It makes me feel better to know someone’s outside. Besides, don’t you think we have more urgent things to talk about?”
I frown.
“How long have you been cheating on me?” She asks coldly, and I turn my back to her on my way to the armchair.
“Look, Riss, I never meant for you to find out like that. I was going to tell you after the party. Rebel and I have history, and, well, I…” I trail off, since I’m pretty sure Marissa doesn’t want to hear about how I never got over my ex.
Despite my careful phrasing, her face twists into a grimace of pain.
“Oh, good. As long as you didn’t mean for me to find out the way I did, fucking someone behind my back is fine.”
“Hey,” I warn her, pointing my finger at her. “Don’t twist my words like that.”
“Dylan, please, help me understand. Why didn’t you break up with me and spare me the humiliation of cheating on me? A breakup I can understand, not loving me I can understand, but this?!”
I take a minute to think, as I rub my forehead. I barely slept last night.
After Marissa left with the Chasers’ leadership, it was a mess. People were angry and cussing her out. Everyone but Truck. He just had this distant look on his face.
Luckily, Prez was too busy with damage control to continue being upset with Marissa. He was more frantic than I’d ever seen him, making phone calls, calling in favours, trying to find out more about the Chasers, and trying to use his drug connections to arrange a meeting with the Preacher.
He even called an emergency church meeting this morning.
“As you all know, my sister, your club’s princess, has recently returned to the fold. What you don't know is that, prior to her return, she escaped an abusive relationship.”
The men murmur, angry and compassionate at once. Prez lifts a hand to silence them.
“In order to escape, she took this man’s money, and he tried kidnapping her for it. Got Slim’s baby mother instead.”
“They do look alike,” Twitch tells Pooh.
“Wouldn’t the Wolves do anything for one of their own?
” Prez asks, and they voice their enthusiastic agreement.
“I’ve thought about this long and hard, and where I normally would bash her ex’s head in for putting his hands on her, I can’t.
He’s the Preacher, one of the top players in the lucrative drug operation we are now part of.
He has the power not only to sever his cartel’s ties with the club, which would be catastrophic for us, but he might go as far as to attack us for protecting Rebel.
The obvious solution is to show the man our respect and willingness to cooperate by returning the money my sister took, thereby saving both our income and her life. ”
You can hear a pin drop. Most men look confused.
Yeah, Rebel stealing from that guy was beyond dumb, but it was life or death. I need them to understand that.
“How much money are we talking about, Prez?” Truck asks carefully.
Sly shifts in his seat. “100K.”
Truck’s head jerks towards him, and his eyes widen in disbelief.
Claw whistles. “Damn.”
I look around the room, and people do not look happy.
“I’m the one who brought that money in by forging alliances with the cartel,” Prez spits. “Besides, what if it was your sister? Your ol’ lady? Wouldn’t you give anything to help save her?”
Truck looks at me sternly, and I look away. I know what he’s thinking, but this is the club princess we’re talking about; that’s different.
People got even more annoyed when Sly tasked Claw with protecting Rebel whenever she's not at the clubhouse.
The memory leaves a foul taste in my mouth.
Back in the day, Sly and I were inseparable, but now, with the shop and everything… Claw’s quickly becoming Sly’s top man in the drug-running scheme, and I’m honestly a little jealous of him.
“Listen,” I finally tell Marissa, annoyed and frustrated. “We have a child, and I was trying to end the relationship on good terms for his sake.”
“By cheating on me? Looks like that didn't work.”
Again with the fucking attitude. “I didn’t come over here to do this with you.”
“Why did you come over, then?” She asks, and for the first time, her attitude wavers.
“I needed a few things, and I wanted to see my son.”
“Well, he’s napping now, so you can look at him all you want. I’m going to go make myself some lunch.”
As I grab my shaving supplies, the bathroom mirror tells me I’m overdue for a haircut. I avoid looking at the bed and head straight to my closet. The familiar smell of the laundry detergent Marissa always uses does something to my gut.
I grab some clean clothes, kiss my boy, and sneak out of my own house like a thief.
*
A few weeks later, when Prez finally manages to arrange a meeting with the Preacher, I insist on being there.
“No fucking way,” Sly tells me. “I don’t need your jealous ass causing a scene. This man is a cartel boss; we need to tread lightly.”
“I swear on my son’s life,” I proclaim, staring him right in the eye so he knows how serious I am, “I won’t say a thing. I only want to see the bastard.”
“Fuck, man, I don’t know.” Sly sighs and runs a hand over his face. “You can sit on your bike and watch. If you even think about dismounting, I’ll shoot you myself.”
I nod.
“Send Maya in here before you leave. I need to unload some of this stress.”
I find Maya at the bar, laughing with Rebel and Claw.
“Prez wants you,” I tell her, and she hops off the barstool.
I tilt my head at Claw to indicate he should get fucking lost. He grins, lifts the drink to us, and leaves.
“What is it, baby?” Rebel puts her arms around my neck as I step in between her legs.
“Nothing,” I say coldly, trying to catch the prospect’s eye.
When I do, I nod at Rebel’s drink, and he pours me one too.
“You seem to forget how well I know you,” Rebel whispers into my ear and then traces my neck tattoo with her finger.
“We’re meeting your ex today,” I tell her, and she raises her eyebrows.
“You’re going, too?”
I nod.
“Please be careful, D. He’s going to try to provoke you, for sure. He’s a master manipulator.”
“Don’t worry,” I say and hug her waist. “I can take care of myself. If he wasn’t hiding behind bodyguards and armoured cars, I’d bash his skull in for putting his hands on you.”
“I love you,” she whispers against my mouth before sliding her tongue between my lips.
I suck on it, and she moans. She tastes like cigarettes. I love it.
“You be careful today too, okay? Don’t leave the clubhouse. He might make a move while we’re all away.”
“Don’t worry, I have Claw with me.”
I move my head back to look at her.
“How’s that working out?” I ask.
“I’m just glad I didn’t get stuck with Twitch’s pervy ass.”
I chuckle. “Yeah.”
I love the emotional haboobs I experience with Rebel. I’m jealous, she provokes me, we fight, and then we make up with fireworks between the sheets. That’s love.
It was never like that with Marissa, and I told her that yesterday, after she gave me hell when I came to see Junior at an hour she didn't like. It’s like she puts him to bed on purpose whenever she knows I’m coming.
She’s always been anal about his bedtime, like the world’s gonna end if he isn’t in bed by a certain time. Gimme a break.
We started bickering, and I have to admit I’m not proud of how I responded when she started insulting my relationship, but she made me out to be some lapdog who keeps running back to his toxic ex.
I informed her that, unlike Rebel, she had nothing to offer and that she wasn’t exciting or interesting.
“You came on to me, Dylan! And you kept coming back for more! Why, when I’m so lame and boring?!”
“Because you look like her!” I screamed, and that’s when Marissa (understandably) lost her shit.
She said she hated both of us, said all kinds of things. Then Junior started wailing upstairs, and I got out of there before I said more mean shit.
I was so worked up from our fight that I got into it with the loudmouth bitch that’s supposedly watching Riss. Yeah, it’s a nice gesture that the Chasers gave her a protection detail, but I don’t know.
I wish I’d had a better comeback for her when she said, “Marissa is club.” I wish I could have told her the Wolves take care of their own. We do, I mean.
This is a particularly complicated situation is all, I think as we drive to the meetup.
“I feel like I’m in a movie,” Twitch says as we park in the last row of the agreed-upon formation.
“Why?” I ask grumpily.
“We’re meeting a drug lord in the desert. There he is, arriving with his motorcade of armoured vehicles.”
We watch three black SUVs with tinted windows park in front of us. Only three men get out. I wonder if there’s more inside the cars, pointing assault rifles at us.
The three men look more like finance bros than cartel people. They’re wearing expensive-looking suits, and their faces are clean-shaven and relaxed.
“Sylvester, hello,” the one in the middle tells Prez as they shake hands.
So the Preacher knows Prez’s government name, big whoop.
“Hello,” Sly replies in a tone I’ve never heard before.