Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
SAS
Standing at the head of the table, I called the men—and single woman—to order. Wilde was off to the side bent with Bou. After our last meeting, he’d called me off to the side to read me the riot act. Told me that if I couldn’t get this little mess under control, he’d have to “shake things up.”
Last time Wilde had shaken things up was right after the last Prez, Cain died. The club was in chaos, and no one had been in charge. Brothers died in some intra-club fights for who would be the next Prez. Then, Wilde just moved his shit into Cain’s old rooms and offed the VP, Scorpion, when he’d tried to object.
Duchess, Cain’s widow, stood up for him, saying that it’s what her old man would’ve wanted.
Wilde made Angel his second, Beans, and the Warden joined our ranks, and we’ve been pretty chill since then. Well, except for the shit with Wilde’s father and the Gambinos.
We had bigger shit to deal with today. But the bee buzzing around in my cut was that we now had a woman at church, and Wilde made it ultra clear I had to accept that shit too. Since I’d been with Diablo, Duchess had been the club caretaker. She fussed over all the members and prospects, but I hesitated to call her the club mom, because after she got over Cain’s death, she was also the queen of the bunnies. Although she fucked in private, one-on-one.
Didn’t matter, though. If Wilde had his bitch under control, it was none of my business.
The guys quieted down, and Wilde gave me a curt nod. I clapped my hands rubbing them together to feel the heat building.
“Calm your tits, brothers,” I said, eyeing Bou.
She stared me down, not seeming concerned that I’d intentionally excluded her. I hadn’t been there when the others in Diablo had ridden out to help Wilde rescue her and the big red fucker, Celt, but she’d apparently shown her balls then. And again, when the cartel had raided her shop. Perhaps she was brother-material after all?
The last of the patched members settled into their spots, including Rafe.
The last thing I needed was a Parisi at this meeting, but Prez put a nail in that coffin too.
In the back yard, when I’d told him to send Rafe back to the Don, Wilde had pulled his gun and shoved the muzzle in my balls, then asked, while not really asking, “You questioning my decisions, Veep ?”
His reaction festered under my skin, but I had to deal. After last night, I at least thought Adelina could keep her mouth shut. I wasn’t so sure about her uncle.
“We gotta keep this quick and moving,” I said. “The real estate is gonna take more time than we would like, but we did hit the jackpot at the warehouse. The Gambinos didn’t do a good enough job of blowing shit up as they thought. We dug some of the ultra-pure shit out of the hole.”
“How pure?” asked Wilde.
“Not cut at all, right Rafe?”
Our resident Marine grunted and leaned over the new computer Ward had brought over for him with a grimace across his mouth. I wanted to laugh. He didn’t look like any more of a computer guy than me, but he’d been slapped into the Secretary role. Maybe I could find some mundane secretary-style tasks for him to take on.
Wilde gave one nod, but his old lady didn’t look happy. They were out in the middle of fucking nowhere still winding down the weed production operations. Most of the people in Park Ridge had just turned into farmers after the legalization. Coke was big time.
“We need to bring in someone who can let us know how much we can make from what’s left.” I’d tasted it and knew it was good shit, but I didn’t know how to process it. “What we found was the most potent shit in the shipment.”
“We know that?” Rafe slapped the laptop lid shut.
“That’s what Cazador Rojas said.”
Rafe continued, “I wouldn’t trust?—”
“I don’t fucking trust him,” I interrupted. “That’s why we need our own boys.”
“What about Ace?” asked Graff. “He’s a doctor, so he should know what to do with drugs.”
I looked to Wilde.
“Don’t know the man,” said Prez. “Can he be trusted?”
Giving a short nod, I said, “He fixed up my leg when we were ambushed at the docks by Gambino’s men.” Then I lowered my voice. “And he helped with Mav.”
Graff beat a fist to his chest. “Ride in peace, brother.”
“Ride free!” Several other voices rose in unison for Duchess’s son and our fallen prospect.
Wilde scanned the patched members sitting around the table. “Teller.”
“Yeah, Prez.”
“Go bring Ace’s ass back here.”
Teller quickly left, but we didn’t start talking again until the door slammed shut.
“Continue,” said Wilde, narrowing his gaze on me.
“Ward,” I called out, and he lifted his head from the computer screen. “Wha’cha got?”
The Warden tapped the trackpad on his laptop a few times. “The Medellín Cartel has workers pissed about unpaid wages and dangerous working conditions.”
“What are they, union?” I asked.
Wilde shot me a look. Excuse me for not wanting to get in the middle of something domestic.
Ward scrolled through something on the laptop with two fingers. “The Barranquilla Cartel is currently under significant financial strain due to a recent government crackdown on their operations. They’re using another company to handle their distribution.”
“Ballsy,” I muttered. If the cartel was willing to take that chance, what else would they be willing to fucking do?
“I’ve intercepted some communication from the Barranquilla Cartel,” said the Warden like he hadn’t heard me at all. “There’s a major shipment planned.”
“How much cargo?” asked Wilde.
“Small, volume-wise. The better question”—Ward flashed his gaze over to Wilde—“is ‘How valuable is the cargo?’”
“More valuable than drugs?” asked Rafe, drawing his eyebrows together like he didn’t understand.
Figured. He seemed like an afterthought to Massimo, so he probably didn’t get his hands dirty with shit like this in the Mafia. Now, he was in the room where decisions were made.
“Far more valuable, assuming you have the right buyers,” answered Ward.
“Well, what the fuck is it?” I asked.
“Diamonds and other valuable gemstones. Illegally mined,” said Ward. “Some straight up stolen.”
I blew out a low breath. I bet Adelina would like a new shiny diamond. I cringed at myself for thinking that. She wasn’t my old lady. She was just a virgin with a masochistic streak. The last time I did a virgin, she got all clingy and shit, so I wasn’t tapping that cunt. Let the guys take their turns, and when she was used up, we could return her to Massimo.
“The shipment is heading from Colombia to New York.” Ward clicked through something on his computer and then jutted his chin toward the huge TV he’d had installed near the table.
Graff’s artwork that showed as a screensaver—a row of bikes near the Hollywood sign done in charcoal—disappeared, replaced by a map.
A little glowing red dot started moving from Colombia toward the Northeastern United States.
“It’s coming into North Carolina, then travelling overland.” The red dot followed Ward’s narration, stopping somewhere in the middle of the East Coast shoreline and moving inland, following some back roads north.
“The buyer is...” Ward clicked again on his computer. “Marco Vitale, owner of Vitale Gemma Imports.”
Rafe sat up straighter, awareness or concern drawing his brows together. “He’s the largest jewelry distributor in the United States, and... the Don of the New York City Italian Mafia.”
“Fucking great,” I mumbled under my breath.
More Mafia. Just what I needed in my life. Maybe they would give me another bride, and I would have a fucking harem.
Wilde moved closer to the table with his arms crossed over his chest. “So, this is what the Rojas brothers meant?”
Ward pursed his lips and nodded. “As far as I can tell, if we intercept this shipment, it’ll bring the Barranquilla Cartel to its knees financially. It’ll make them prime targets for El Tigre of the Medellín Cartel to take over.”
Prez swiped his hands over his skull cut. “Fuck! Helping Parisi get guns across the border to the Mexicans is one thing, but jumping between two Colombian cartels getting ready to go to war?” He sighed. “Fuck!”
Rafe stiffened, leaning back in his seat. “Again, we should just pay them the fuck off. Money’s not a goddamn issue. Would someone just tell me how much we fucking need?”
Wilde glared at him, his wheels turning. Like mine. I wanted to tell him we weren’t taking any Parisi loans, but I waited to see what the Prez would say.
“Sas,” Wilde barked, “how much?”
“Don’t have exacts, but nine zeros, min,” I answered, squirming in my chair.
“Beans, do you the specific amount?” Wilde didn’t take his eyes off Rafe, perhaps judging the man’s reaction.
“I’m still working on them, Prez.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “But one thing’s for sure. There’s not that much in all our accounts combined.”
“It’s stupid to not use what resources we have,” said Rafe, the ice in my voice aimed for my chest.
Wilde smacked both his hands down on the table. He swiveled his head to give me a zip-it look and then over to the other end of the table, apparently sending all sorts of shut-the-fuck-up to Rafe too.
Finally, he asked Ward, “Any news on the Medellín themselves?”
If there’s one thing I could say about Wilde, he always wanted intel before making decisions. I’d always been one to fly by the seat of my pants, and goddammit, I hated to admit that I might be in over my head here.
Ward tapped the spacebar on his computer and a satellite image popped up on the TV. “The security around the compound where El Tigre lives is tight. Top-notch. Only intel I got was that people who work for the cartel are pissed about the conditions.” Our hacker zoomed in on the image. “They’ve even managed to blur the satellite images I can find.”
By the time he stopped the zoom action, the picture just looked like a smudge of green across the screen.
“So we can’t raid the place to get them to call off their dogs,” I said.
The Warden tapped his trackpad again, and the image disappeared. “Not without a hell of a lot more digging.”
Rafe, staring at the table, said, “I could do it.”
Cook, who was acting like the tall dark—or gray—and stoic asshole, shook his head. “You’re not in special ops anymore, Rafe. No breaking into that compound. Especially alone.”
“Don’t know until you try,” I said. It might be a damn good way to get him out of the picture.
“Or die,” said Cook. “Or get arrested. Or get captured and tortured.”
“Been doing it for years,” said Rafe, appearing a bit distant, like he was reliving something that wasn’t happening in this room.
“Enough.” Wilde sat down in the chair Teller had vacated. “None of this will matter if we don’t have a plan, and we don’t have time to waste on a shitty choice.”
“Riiight,” Graff said, sketching. One earbud in place. Always the most levelheaded peacemaker of the bunch. “So we get a message to Caz and tell him we’ll help with the Barranquilla? Or we let Rafe storm the Medellin compound—sounds like a suicide mission to me. Or we figure out how to turn the coke pronto. None of that sounds like a quick deal.”
Cook kicked his boots up on the corner of the table at the far end. “If we want to play with the rich kids on the diamond front, we need an in. Anyone here know a jewelry store contact?
I sat straighter. “I’ll do it.”
Maybe Adelina would actually be helpful for a change.
Rafe shook his head. “If we’re not taking them out from the top down, we seriously should just buy them off.”
“That’s a pussy way out,” I snapped at him.
“If you’re dipping into Mafia territory, Don Parisi would be an invaluable ally,” suggested Rafe.
I rolled my eyes. “Of course you want us to play bitch to your brother all over again.” He clearly wanted it either in the buyoff or the diamonds.
“I can infiltrate the compound,” insisted Rafe.
“Then why don’t you?” I asked.
His eyes shifted between me and Wilde, and the daggers his glare shot said he was about to throw me back into the boxing ring in the basement. I was ready this time, and I knew exactly where to hit him where it would hurt the most: Adelina.
“We’ll go after the diamond buyer,” decided Wilde, using his best Prez voice. “And we will leverage all of our resources, Sas.”
Before I could open my big mouth, a knock rattled the door, and we all turned our gaze over. I worried that it was Adelina, because she seemed to be always lurking around like a virus.
“Just me,” called Teller, and slipped inside with the doctor, Ace, on his heels.
Wilde had made a decision, but he still asked Ace, “What’cha got?”
“More like what I hear you’ve got,” said Ace. He lifted his chin to me. “How’s the leg?”
“Good as new,” I replied.
Still really short, the doctor seemed like he’d bulked up since the last time I saw him, and was that a tattoo on his neck?
Ace spread his hands, then clasped them back together. “So the coke. We can cut it with creatine or powdered sugar. You could also use it to lace marijuana. I recently read that it’s one of the hottest new designer drugs. Since weed is legal, it makes it easy to obtain.”
Wilde pursed his lips, stroking his chin in thought. If I was tracking with him, he was considering the farm we had down in the Ridge.
All this reading and posturing was giving me a headache. What about the old fashion way of busting someone’s head in with a bat?
“Marijuana is legal, so we can get our hands on lots of that, right?” said Graff.
Cook piped in, “We’ve got growers all over the Ridge, so no need to spend money here.”
“How is that lacing thing done, Ace?” asked Wilde.
Ace said, “From what I can tell, there’s a few steps to processing. Involves soaking the weed and then drying it, I think. Then it would be part synthetic and pack a bigger punch.”
Beans asked, “Anyone know what the going rate is?”
Ward pecked away. “Looks like we could make ten times what we’d make from selling the bricks of pure coke.”
“This could be our way back into the game,” I agreed, liking where this was going.
“Production’s going to take time,” said Wilde. “We need to get in touch with Jackyl to see how long.”
“Already on it.” Bou typed on her cell phone.
“Problem is,” I said, “I’ve gotta give a word to the Rojas brothers tomorrow.”
Prez nodded. “Diamonds are quickest. Let them know were in on helping disrupt the Barranquilla.”
“Good deal,” I said, relieved to have a direction at least. Standing, I scanned the brothers around our Church table. “While we’re at it, maybe we could blow off a little steam tonight. Like that party you all had back in the Ridge.”
Wilde smirked. Even sitting next to his pregnant old lady, my brother was there. “It’s been a while since we’ve partied up at Red Rock.”
“Not since we patched everyone into The Ridge MC,” said Graff.
“Done. Who brought the whores to that party down your way?” I asked Wilde.
Bou’s phone rang.
“Jackyl will know. He used to ride with the Ridge Rats.” She sneered when she said the last but pressed her cell phone to her ear and said, “Hey, Jackyl. Two questions.”
Prez’s old lady marched away from the rest of us, talking to the patched member from Arizona and looking quite grumpy.
I couldn’t give a shit, ’cause I was soon going to be in heaven.
High out of my fucking mind.
Cock buried deep in a whore.
It would take off the stress and cure my raging headache.
This was why I was in the MC.