Chapter 29
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
CARBON
We stay at the clubhouse two more days. I sit with my wife as she finishes both of our tattoos and then adds F+H Forever to my chest and she does the one on her tit in my room.
Only Ronny and I are privilege enough to witness that.
Honestly… I thought the one on her neck would be my favorite, but seeing myself permanently on that incredible tit, well, it does shit to me.
I look forward to it being healed so I can rub my hands all over it.
I start and end each day taking shots or watching Mint and Hanger take shots at Bobby. My personal favorite moment was seeing Hanger take the galvanized pipe to his knees. I’ve seen shit like that before, but it just hits differently when seeing Bobby suffer brings me such intense satisfaction.
I drop my wife off at work and head back to the clubhouse. Today is the day. We have all agreed that we would do it while she was working and tonight, we would cremate the fucker so no one could trace him back to us.
Hemmy is just checking his tire pressure as I throw my leg over, climbing off my bike. “Need yours checked?”
“Yeah, probably a good idea.”
He crouches down beside my bike, I lean over to watch since he seems like he wants to do it for me, and I don’t mind at all. “Are RC’s planning to make and changes?”
Pushing a heavy sigh he shakes his head. “Not quite yet. We are fighting over some dumb shit.”
Lifting my brow. “We?”
He chuckles. “Jack and Letto are at each other’s throats right now. Whippersnapper may have been thrown around in the last conference call.”
Busting out a hearty laugh, Hem chuckles along because I can see even if it annoys the fuck out of him, he can see the humor in it.
There was a hot second where I thought maybe I’d prefer his job, but I shit you not, those guys fight like alley cats.
They are definitely one of the hardest jobs. At least in my opinion.
“Still rather break up fights with them than do the fucking shit you do.” He grins at me and I can’t help my nod with a laugh.
Clearly, we are all accurately in our roles.
If you look at your brother and pity him for his shit job and thank your good graces that you have what you do… you know you are in the right spot.
“Normally I’d disagree, but lately the shit we are deciding right now with prospects. Fuck man.” Shaking my head. “Fucking headache. When it is just us deciding shit, it isn’t so bad, but with this, the fucking Prez’s and VP’s all want their say.”
Hemmy groans. “Yeah, fuck that. Luckily with ours we just tell them what we decide, and they learn to live with it. Though… I think Goyle is going to have to throw the hammer down. Jack seems to respect the fuck outta him and you know I am coming down on Letto’s side.”
I nod. “Of course, they are as close to us as SLO. Gotta have your immediate backup’s back. Always.”
He smirks. “Damn right. Your air is good.”
“Uh, Carbon?” Latch calls out from the gate. Hem and I both twist our heads to check out what’s going on. Fuck.
“Fuck,” Hem says under his breath. “You didn’t see them pull up?”
“Just outside my vision. You want to call Jolt? I’ll go see if I can shove them off.” He nods his head as I straighten and make my way toward the gate reminding myself of honey and flies. Or perhaps donuts and pigs would be a better metaphor for these fuckers.
Moving close enough to talk at a normal volume to the two cops standing on the other side of the gate. My eyes move between them, eyeing them through the bars. “Can I help you?”
“Got a noise complaint,” one of them tells me. They both look like military or perhaps former military. Yoked out too.
Tilting my head, I cup my hand around my ear. “A noise complaint, you say. Huh.”
The one that spoke shrugs. “We get here when we get here.”
“Well, none of us are hearing anything now, so…”
“Mind if we come in?” the other butts into the fray.
Chuckling. “Yeah, nah.”
“Well, they did say they heard some screaming,” one tries to change the story now.
“They? Who is they?”
He shakes his head. “Keeping it anonymous, we don’t want any retaliation.”
“Yeah man… no one around here is calling you for noise. Not the dead people next door at the cemetery, nor any of the houses around here. So, why don’t we call this what it is, a fishing trip. You cast. You came up with shit. You go hungry.”
“Screaming makes us need to know if everyone’s all right. We can just enter. Exigent circumstances and all.” One gives a sly smirk.
I snort a laugh. “My man, you rolled up here all casual as shit. No one has made a fucking sound except you and me on this property since you got here. If there were exigent circumstances, you would have had a fire on your ass trying to get in here. You want to come beyond that gate—you need a fucking warrant. I am going to ask you to leave.”
Jolt has joined me at the gate but seems incline to let me lead. I mean... I do happen to know the law and all.
“We are on public property. We can stay as long as we like.”
I snort. “Real exigent circumstances. At least you get you can’t go violating our rights in that regard.
But here’s the deal… we own the property to the sidewalk.
So, if you want to loiter, why don’t you take five giant steps back.
I will also remind you that you are getting dangerously close to violating our fourth and fourteenth rights along with violating the Bane Act and I am sure I could come up with a few penal codes on top of the basic misconduct and harassment ones.
On top of that, you come here using false accusations, trying to coerce your way onto private property without basis for them.
We both know you need real and observable facts to enter for exigent circumstances. ”
I motion over my head to the camera on the side of the building. I then motion over to the cameras on the fence. “They have audio also.”
Both of them frown at me. “Let us see the video, hear if there was a scream.”
Jolt and I both laugh hard at that. “Yeah, no. Come back with a warrant. Though, I would love to see any judge in this county sign off on that since you have nothing.”
They both turn on their heels, taking off in a huff. Our group, plus a few extra brothers loitering around just stand silently watching as they take off. I turn to Jolt. “Tried to argue noise disturbance call.”
Jolt chuckles. “From whom? We own the whole fucking block.”
I nod. “Fishing. But keep the recording. Also, maybe we have Virus go through and check if they have been skulking around. That bigger fuck seems like he has a bee in his bonnet.”
Jolt nods. “Yeah.”
Turning to Latch. “Hey, anytime you see cops even turning around here at the cul de sac, tell me so we can save the recordings.”
“Got it. I would check the recording around five this morning and midnight last night then. Jax mentioned pigs rolling past. This is my first time seeing them today and I don’t recall seeing them in recent gate shifts.”
I nod and fire off a text to all the prospects, letting them know the deal and immediately get comments from our guys. I turn it toward Jolt. Scrolling through them we note eleven. He rolls his neck. “Fuck.”
We’ve got a problem.
Jolt pulls his phone out and sends a text to all of council.
Jolt
Meeting, what time tonight can you all be here?
Hemmy calls from behind us, “I am working tonight, but I can pop in for whatever. We are still cleaning shit up, right?”
I nod.
Jolt scrubs his hand over his face and gives his beard a tug. “Yeah, we need to handle that tonight, real fuckin’ careful and no one new comes through until we get a feel for what is going the fuck on.”
Rolling my neck, I know what needs to happen. “Call Kev, we need to break it down before we clean. Then we can move without problems.”
Jolt groans but nods.
Peppermint
I’ll be there in twenty, planned to stay the night. Same with Wall. Meads coming… should we change the plan?
Jolt
No, best for us all to be in.
Virus
Mama C and I are at this vintage décor place. I can be over after, so maybe an hour max?
Jolt chuckles and I look down at the text chain. I shake my head with a laugh. Jolt looks at me. “Your family is good for him.”
I nod. “He is good for the fam. Harry is real fucking glad he is next door, especially now that she knows it means I can rip out the lawn. She is totally on board with the drought tolerant stuff and is already making plans with him on where more bat boxes should go. He is trying to convince her to make a cat tunnel between our houses for Ronny.”
Jolt and Hemmy both snort out laughs. Hem smirks. “One of these days we gotta get him hooked on a chick.”
I shrug. Jolt watches and I know he knows I know more than I would ever share.
Kevlar
Gracie and I will be over after work. Guess we didn’t need to pack the boys’ stuff up yet.
Jolt
We are going to need you to do some break down.
Kevlar
Interesting. See you after work.
Mouse
Sorry for the delay in response, was going five rounds with the new head of the Carelen House. Fucking asshole thinks reducing portions doesn’t impact nutritional servings. I’ll head over in about thirty.
Me
What a piece of shit. He seriously suggesting reducing food for elderly persons as a way to reduce costs? You need me to throw around some legalese? Fucking hell.
Mouse
Oh, trust me, showed up in person and he started back tracking real fast.
Mayhem
Good. Do people seriously not have compassion for others? We are all *hopefully* going to be old one day. What an asshole. Someone should reduce his portion sizes.
Wallaby
We are doing break down…
Jolt
Yes, get here. Tell Meads a package from Seattle came with her name on it.
Peppermint
Nice. She has been waiting for that!
“You good if we might meet before you get Harry? We can also send someone else to get her—" He already knew I would say no, but he smirks as he reverses his words seeing me shake my head “—or not.”