Chapter 19
nineteen
JUDE
Black mascara is smudged under Greer’s eyes after what sounds like a long day. She sits crisscross on her bed, the tablet propped up to video chat with me. Hank’s at her side with his paws and chin resting on her thighs. “And then what happened?” I ask.
“A prospect walked me to my door, made sure I locked it, and that’s it.
” Her voice is upbeat, but her eyes are drained from exhaustion.
She should never be this tired. I should fucking be there to take care of her.
The distance between us claws at my skin, my desire to protect pulsing through my body.
I’m not happy that shit happened while Greer was on the clock.
I grew up in the same neighborhood as Angeliqué’s husband, Timothy.
Cruel is something that’s in the blood like a poison with no antidote.
He won’t change, no matter what methods of persuasion our enforcers employ.
Their goal is to make sure he leaves Angeliqué and the baby alone, though, not to reform.
I hate that Greer witnessed things go down, even if it was an incident that reflects positively on the club. Folgers assures me it’s the only way they could have gotten the mother and child away from her husband.
I’m not the biggest fan of Greer working for a business affiliated with the Bayou Dogs. I don’t want her involved in this kind of stuff, especially when I’m not around, but it's a better option than the others.
She rambles for a few minutes before saying off the cuff, “It was all orchestrated so smoothly, like they’ve done this a hundred times.”
As I stare at the screen without comment, her face morphs with realization before her lips shape into an almost silent “Oh.”
Yeah, oh. Grabbing people off the street is a well practiced skill for Folgers. He spent years as the club’s enforcer before he became the Vice President. There’s a shift in the mood with Greer after that, one that travels through the miles between us.
“I’m sure Folgers brought them somewhere safe,” I assure.
Most likely, another Bayou Dogs chapter to work as a house mouse. It provides women and their children with a safe place to stay and employment. “Were you scared?”
“With bikers everywhere before I knew what was going on?,” she laughs awkwardly. Come on, baby, give me some insight into that pretty little head of yours.
Greer’s CGM alarms with the sound it makes when she’s low, and she groans, “My blood sugars have been yo-yoing all day, no matter what I do.”
“Have you eaten dinner yet?”
Already opening up a pack of gummy snacks, she says, “Yeah, I had one of the prepped wraps for dinner.”
She’s closing up after her first taste of the MC life. I’m losing her. “You’re not being very chatty. What’s on your mind?”
She shifts on the bed and picks at her nightgown. “I’m rifling through everything to decide if I should bring it up to you or not.”
“You can always ask me, Baby Doll.”
She sits upright from her slouch and looks directly into the camera and says matter of factly, “Couyon is the Sergeant-at-Arms, but he’s on the ride with you, a mechanic. Which prompts the question as to why you’re riding with the person in charge of the club’s security for a business trip.”
“And how did you deduce all this?”
“Darcy mentioned she’s having dinner with Couyon’s old lady tonight because he’s on the run as well.”
“This all falls under club business, Baby Doll.”
“Are you safe?”
“Babe, look around. I’m in a swanky hotel. I ate a big steak for dinner. I’m good.” She’s worried about me. I’d think that’s a good thing if it didn’t remind me of Willa’s feelings about the Bayou Dogs so much.
I spend a few minutes trying to make her smile before asking again, “Where’s your mind at, beautiful girl?” It’s on me, but not with me. It’s frustrating.
“Nowhere bad. I think I’m kind of digesting it all.”
“And what conclusion are you coming to?”
In a resigned voice, she admits, “I don’t think you’re a mechanic by any definition of the word, even if you do an occasional tune-up.”
There it is, the lifting of the thinly disguised veil of normality. My woman is nothing if not clever. I refuse to let Greer feel or judge the way Willa does. I’m going to show her all of the good and teach her to understand the shadows.
“After what you saw today with Folgers helping out Angeliqué, do you think the club is full of bad men?” My heart is racing so fast that I think it might explode.
I start calculating the time it would take to leave now and drive straight back to Parran if the conversation ends badly.
This job isn’t as important to me as Greer.
“No, but I already knew that. Bad men don’t get soaking wet so they can escort a woman home in the rain.”
“Keep that in mind. Remember what you’ve seen with your own eyes and experienced for yourself.”
She starts to fidget again, looking away from the camera, and then back with a smile, “It was kinda awesome. They did it all without the baby waking up from his nap.”
I feel like a lead safe has been lifted off my chest, “How old was the kid?”
“One-ish. He was adorable.”
Greer starts to mess with her hair clip, so I ask, “Pull down your hair for me.”
With a coy smile, she unclips her hair, and it falls around her shoulders in a curtain of ginger. “It’s a mess today.”
“I can’t believe you’re mine,” I say in awe. Her face warms, and she looks down. In a playful voice, I add, “Now the same with the top. I wanna see your tits.”
Her eyes shoot straight for the screen, and she holds her mouth wide in outrage. “You’re shameless. Just when you’re being sweet, too.”
“Can’t help loving your breasts, babe. They’re pretty perfect.”
A loud knock interrupts us. Why? Just when things are starting to heat up.
“Is someone knocking?”
“Yeah, it’s Couyon,” I sigh. He’s early. Cockblocker. “I have something of his. I’d better go deal with it.”
She blows a kiss to me on the screen that I pretend to grab before disappearing. I lay my phone on the bed and rearrange my hard as fuck dick before swinging open the door.
“You done yet?” he demands in a thick Cajun accent.
Gesturing to the canvas bag on the floor, I say, “Yeah, it’s all there.”
I reach for the pistol on my bedside and tuck it under my cut before grabbing the cash. “Why can’t we do this at a decent hour?”
“More people to pay off during the day.”
One hundred thousand dollars, collected from an out of state debt, is surprisingly light in my hands. The insane amount of cash is only going to pay for four new gaming machines to get “lost.”
It takes about twenty minutes to go from the casino’s hotel to the loading dock in the back, beyond the sight of its guests.
The night crew waits at the foot of the ramp with vapes that smell like strawberries.
Slim and Three-Peat are behind our rental truck, loading new gaming equipment onto a box truck.
They’re still in sealed wooden crates, straight from the manufacturer.
“I thought we were doing that tomorrow morning?” I ask Couyon as we walk up the ramp.
Grabbing the duffel bag from my hands, Couyon explains, “We had to move things up.”
A man appears from the shadows, wearing a suit, his bulging belly held in by a black leather belt. His shoes are shiny, black hair slicked back. Couyon hands the duffel to him, “As promised. Make sure you wait until tomorrow night to report the machines as stolen.”
“Our insurance and the police will be notified after you have reached the state line,” he assures Couyon. Before turning, he declares, “The cameras start working again in an hour.”
No they don’t. Folgers got them down remotely, ensuring there’s no footage of us entering or leaving the casino.
With fifteen minutes to spare, our misbegotten goods are loaded and strapped down. “Let’s get this shit to the storage unit so we can hit the hay,” Couyon announces.
It would be easier to buy the machines directly from the manufacturer, but we’re paying half the price that way.
It also leaves no trail for Uncle Sam or the Gaming Commission to follow.
All of the other supplies for the casino—liquor, paper products, food—are rolled into our legitimate business expenses and transported to the casino.
As far as the government knows, the facility has one full time employee and an unusually large electricity bill.
When the truck’s engine turns over, I want to push everyone to start the drive back to Greer now, but we’ve been awake since daybreak. I wish we could take off for a few hours, just so that I’m that much closer to her.
An hour after Greer is normally asleep, I find a text on my phone.
Greer
I’m sorry if I was weird tonight. I’ve been given a lot to process. It’s the secrecy that bothers me. I’m not used to having to hide stuff from my family.
Jude
Just because I’m prospecting for a club doesn’t mean you can’t still be close to them. They’ll understand eventually that there’s some things you sidestep discussing. It’ll all work out.