Chapter Six #2
Outside, the bright light makes me wince. I feel like I’ve got a hangover from hell when I barely touched any alcohol last night.
After lighting the cigarette, I sit down on a low concrete fence post between the entrances to the bar and clubhouse.
The sky is blue and cloudless, and there isn’t the usual rumble of motorcycles filling the air. It’s peaceful and strange. It shouldn’t be this nice with what is going on.
Across the street, the door to the church opens, and Patrick steps out carrying a large toolbox and uses his foot to keep the door open. Kinsley follows, holding a mixing bucket, the kind construction workers use.
I finish the cigarette but don’t move, watching as the two of them set things up, Patrick mixes some kind of filler and Kinsley uses a handheld power tool to sand the wall. They talk little as they work, but Patrick is the silent type.
Kinsley is very adept at wielding power tools, her hips move side to side as she works, the fitted combat-style pants nice and tight around her ass.
Someone steps up beside me, disturbing my peaceful perusal of a very sexy Kinsley at work. Nero looks over at the church.
“Repair work?” he asks.
“She’s an artist.”
“An artist doing construction work?”
“She’s prepping the wall.” I frown, wondering why I’m sharing this information, or even care. “Raven said she is painting a mural or some shit.”
“Who is she?”
“Related to the priest, a cousin I think. Raven vouched for her. She was in the bar last night, hanging out with those chicks Raven is always with.”
“Those chicks,” Nero smirks. “Was she the one who got all up in some guy’s face?”
“Do you ever not know everything?” I take out another cigarette and put it in my mouth, but don’t light it. “Must be fucking exhausting.”
We’re not discussing my sister’s best friend. I was drunk, it happened once, not my fault she got attached and kept showing up. I still catch her staring sometimes.
“He was a prick. I handled it.”
Nero nods and drinks his coffee. We watch for a little longer, both enjoying the reprieve. Kinsley is so focused on what she is doing she doesn’t turn away from her task. I think if the roles were reversed, I’d feel the eyes on me, but I’m built different.
“We’ve got somewhere with Kivisto’s phone.”
That makes me stop looking at the hot, infuriating woman across the street.
“Everything went to plan. Lily distracted him and cloned his phone.”
“Anything?”
“Not yet, but any messages or calls come through, we’ll see them.”
“What about Wallen?” I ask.
“Ronin went down to Romney to keep an eye on him. He’s been watching Kivisto’s house. Nothing strange so far. The wife doesn’t leave, spends a lot of time in the garden reading and walking.”
“Walking in her own garden?”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Nero looks troubled.
It sounds like someone who isn’t allowed to do their own thing. Fucking mafia guys think they own women once they marry them. Not our problem, and Nero should forget about her.
“Are you sure this is the right way to go? Stryker and Fury could get the little shit to talk.”
He gives me a look that says we’re not discussing that again.
“All we’ve done is grab people who’ve helped Storm and beat the shit out of them,” he relents. “What have we got for it? A lot of nothing or missed chances. And he keeps coming back at us.” His jaw is tight as he corrects himself. “At people associated with us.”
After a moment of silence, I address what no one else wants to. “How is Sheridan?”
We don’t talk about her much. She’s Oscar’s mom. They had one night together, and she got pregnant. I’m not sure how Nero let it go that she didn’t tell him until the kid was born. He dodged a bullet going through all the pregnancy shit.
Sheridan had her issues, including a massive confrontation that led to a physical altercation with my sister, but she is a good mom, and she and Nero figured out co-parenting their kid.
They never fought over him, loving him enough to understand Oscar needs them both.
That’s what makes what happened to her harder to swallow.
Nashville doesn’t discuss it either, but he’s still affected by where he found Sheridan after Storm abducted her, got her hooked on heroin and sold her night after night.
“Not great,” Nero stares off into the distance. “She doesn’t want Oscar to see her the way she is.”
“That’s understandable.”
His jaw tightens again. “Taylor has stepped up, but she doesn’t want to take his mom’s place. She’s worried he might forget her.”
“You think that’s possible?”
“He’s young, they forget things when they’re that little.”
“You can’t push her if she’s not ready.”
“Taylor keeps saying it doesn’t mean she doesn’t love and miss him, that it means she loves him more because she wants to shield him from the demons Storm left her with.
” He grits his teeth, the rage emanating off him.
“We see that differently,” he says after getting his shit under control.
“I can’t understand why she doesn’t want to pull him close. ”
I can’t comment because I’ve never been in that situation.
“Speedway has been coming around,” he says about Sheridan’s brother, one of our members who has been around Oscar his whole life. “He talks about her. Tells him she’s sorry she can’t visit, but she loves him very much.” He sighs. “I hate lying to him.”
That is tough as hell. She has a long recovery ahead of her, the worst part of it being she is now a heroin addict who has to break that habit. Nero is paying for the best treatment he could find for her.
“It’s for the best,” I say, not knowing what else to do to make the situation any easier.
“You don’t get it, but Taylor has been good for him. For both of us,” he adds, glancing down the street as two bikes approach.
“Taylor’s good people,” I say. I rarely say shit like that, and surprise crosses Nero’s face at my words.
She might not be what I envisioned as my best friend’s old lady, she hasn’t tried to change him. If anything, she is on board with who he is. You have to be some kind of way to fall for a man like us.
The sound of bikes draws Kinsley’s attention, and she turns to watch them driving into the parking lot outside the bar, which means she also spots me.
Her eyes linger for a moment, but she is too far away for me to read her expression. She turns back to her task and starts up the sander on a new section of wall.
“Anyway,” Nero shrugs off the talk about Oscar’s mom and gets back to business. “Right now, Storm thinks he got away with attacking Elegance and his man is safe. They’re going to meet up soon enough. When they do, he won’t see us coming.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Nero stares at me. “If I’m not, we do it your way.”