Chapter 12
Gabriella
As the day slipped by, I remained under the radar, quietly observing and noting the changes I was seeing.
Throughout the day, members from other charters appeared—there was the Scottish charter, who gave Rachel a wide berth—the Manchester charter, London, Newcastle, and Lancashire.
According to what I overheard, there was another charter from Wales, but they were not coming, and a charter in Northern Ireland that was also not coming.
The Wales charter was having its own issues—nothing major that needed mobilisation, but it did need the attention of all its members.
And the Northern Ireland charter was only called in for extreme circumstances, and with the rest of the groups, they were not needed right now.
The day slipped into evening as we waited for everyone to arrive, with Monster and Pivot already arranging a massive BBQ for everyone.
The compound had been shut to members of the public—citing staffing issues, though I knew this was due to security breach concerns—and the old ladies who would usually be working in the various shops were pulling overtime in the clubhouse bar to make sure everyone was attended to.
“You’re not fucking coming in, Eagle,” Rachel hissed. I watched from one of the booths at the back of the bar, seeing her barricade the door with her arms on the frame.
“Come on now, lass. That was a long time ago.”
“Not fucking long enough as far as I’m concerned. I’ve told you, the lot of you are barred.”
“You can’t bar us from one of our own clubs,” Eagle laughed, trying to slip past her.
She responded by kneeing him between the legs. He bent over, his face turning red. He grabbed his bollocks, as though protecting them from further attacks.
“I have, I will, and I will do so again in the future. Go and keep guard.”
“Dante?” Eagle wheezed, still clutching his balls.
“You heard the lady,” Dante said, not even bothering to look at the scene. He simply waved his hand, dismissing the matter.
“You did this to yourself,” Rachel said with a smug grin, pushing him backwards and shutting the door in his face.
She looked at me then and came over to me. “Watch out for that one,” she said. “He once tried to put his hands on me.”
“And clearly he’s still paying the price for it.”
“Long may he continue suffering. Do you want a drink or anything?”
“No. But thanks.”
She patted the table in response, looking as though she were about to say something. At that moment, the door opened and Eagle stuck his head back inside.
“Dante…”
“What did I fucking tell you?” Rachel raged, storming back over to him.
He quickly pulled his head back outside and slammed the door. But Rachel wasn’t content this time. She followed him outside and I could hear her yelling even from way back here.
“You good?” Vienna’s voice came from my left. I turned to find him with two drinks in his hand—one of which he extended to me.
“I’m good. Thanks.”
“You don’t have to sit here, you know.”
“I know. But I’m okay. I’m just…”
“Watching?”
“Watching,” I said with a small smile.
Vienna had been true to his word. He hadn’t avoided me, but he also hadn’t made any attempt to draw me into conversation unnecessarily.
Other than checking in on me on an hourly basis—did I need anything?
Was I in any pain? Etc—he pretty much left me to my own devices. So long as I was in his vision.
“Will you stop wandering off,” Doc said, shuffling over to us. “You’re like a fucking toddler. You’re never where I left you.”
He pulled out a thermometer and stuck it in Vienna’s mouth.
“Is this necessary?” Vienna asked, his words slightly muffled.
“Couldn’t give a shit if your temperature makes that thing explode, so long as it helps keep you quiet,” Doc replied as he lifted Vienna’s shirt to inspect his bandages.
The sight of Vienna’s naked, golden skin had my stomach flipping. I had to turn away before I drooled into my drink. Even wounded and stabbed, he had the best-looking body I had ever seen.
“Ahh, shit,” Doc sighed. “I’m not happy with this. Come on.” He grabbed hold of Vienna’s cut and pulled him into one of the backrooms—one that I knew belonged to Dante and served as his office.
As he closed the door, I breathed a sigh of relief—not that Vienna was gone, just that some of the tension that always surrounded us had gone with him. And then I looked around, seeing this as my opportunity to go to the bathroom without being monitored.
Pushing through the crowd, I was easily able to find the toilets—they were just through the archway, at the bottom of the stairs before the club transitioned into the living quarters.
I went into one of the two stalls, washing my hands at the small sink before staring at myself in the mirror.
“You can do this, Gabriella,” I whispered to myself, splashing cooling water over my wrists and face.
As I opened the door to go back to the club, I almost jumped backwards when I came face to face with a stern looking Vienna and a harassed looking Doc.
“You weren’t where I left you, princess,” Vienna murmured to me, barely even seeming to notice that Doc was stitching one of his re-opened wounds.
“I needed—”
“We know what you needed!” Doc snapped. “Now would you do me the fucking honour of going back to where you’re supposed to be so I can get this one to behave?”
He punched Vienna’s side, but Vienna just smirked at him, his eyes locked on mine.
It was me who looked away first, feeling the blush creep over my skin at the intensity of his gaze.
Without another word, Doc frogmarched us back into the pub and business resumed as usual.
The hours slipped by, and by the evening I found myself leaving the booth, propping up the bar instead and observing everything around me.
Every member of the Leeds charter was in this room, alongside their old ladies. And it was there that I had found my biggest change.
“You can’t pull a pint to save your fucking life,” Steph snapped, slapping Dante around the back of the head.
“Told you!” Rachel whooped, throwing a plastic animal at him.
Dante chuckled. But it wasn’t one of amusement. It was one of annoyance. And then he grabbed the pint out of Steph’s hand and chucked it in her face.
“What the fuck, Dante?” she spluttered.
“Enjoy your drink, Snow White. You’re banned for the rest of the night.”
“Oh, Dante. You really think you have the authority to make that call?”
“I own the bar.”
“And I own you,” Rachel piped up, sliding her pint in front of Steph.
Steph smirked, bringing the pint to her lips and downing it in one. “Ahh,” she gasped, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Tastes like victory.”
I watched in disbelief as Dante stormed off, muttering under his breath whilst Steph and Rachel high-fived each other.
What in the actual fuck?
“Here,” Rachel said, leaning over to me and extending her hand to my face. “Let me just close that for you.”
Her index finger hit my chin, and I realised then that my mouth was hanging open. She shot me a wink as she jumped down from her bar stool and walked around to the other side, taking over with serving the drinks.
It didn’t take long before the men were banned from serving entirely, and their orders were fulfilled by the women. And you’d think this would have made the men in charge, right?
Wrong.
Over the space of half an hour, I watched the old ladies do whatever the fuck they felt like doing.
Monster had ordered a pint of Guinness. He was served an orange and vodka with an umbrella. Ant had asked for two pints for him and Riley. Imogen threw them a packet of pork scratchings and a water bottle.
Pivot had approached the bar and then scurried off again without even asking for a drink, and he was served a pint which only had about a quarter froth.
Which was better than Dante, who had received a pint with a coaster on top of it.
When he questioned it, Rachel had shaken the pint, shook her hands off in Dante’s face, sucked her thumb to clear the remaining spilled beer, and left him with nothing but a foamy drink.
Crash would have had the old ladies banished for much less—so would my own dad, in fact.
But Dante had just laughed and slapped Rachel’s ass.
Pivot looked too scared to question anything, and the rest of the men either tried to argue with them—and were quickly shut down—or just accepted their fate with a lot of grumbling.
The only person who had been spared the “Ladies of Sin” treatment had been Vienna. Which he had been ridiculously smug about to begin with.
“You wouldn’t begrudge an injured man a drink, would you ladies?” he said, bestowing his best smile on them.
“Hair buddy, you are the man of the hour, the man of the night, the man… well. That’s all I’ve got,” Rachel replied.
“I knew it. So a pint please, woman.”
“Of course,” she said, pouring him the pint without any funny business. She handed it to him, but just as he went to take it from him, she pulled it out of reach. “With some strict rules.”
“Not the rules,” Vienna moaned, face planting the surface of the bar.
“Yes. Rules. You are to drink this slowly. Jenna will be bringing you small bits of food every fifteen minutes and I expect you to eat it.”
Without lifting his head from the bar, he tried to reach out for the pint, but Rachel simply stepped back.
She placed her spare hand to his forehead and pushed his head up slightly.
“You will be allowed a maximum of three drinks all night—no spirits. You are to take your painkillers as and when Doc tells you to, and you will do so without complaining.”
Vienna groaned again.
“You will also sit right here where I can see you. You will not move too much, you will not talk too much, in fact, you won’t even make much noise. I want you to—”
“Not be your annoying fucking self,” One of the old ladies interrupted.
“Thank you, Jade,” Rachel laughed. “As Jade has so eloquently put it, you are to not be so… you. Do you agree to my rules?”
Vienna sat up—sulkily, with his arms folded and a massive pout on his lips—and muttered his agreement.