Chapter 8
EIGHT
Dempsey
“What time did you say?” I asked Alex as he stood next to Hawk on the porch of the clubhouse. I’d had a bad feeling about this meet all morning as we cleared out the clubhouse to make sure everyone was safe if anything happened.
I looked down at my watch and grimaced. “How long are we going to stand here and wait?”
Alex looked down at his watch and let out a sharp breath of air. “This is bad.”
“We’ve had bad before,” Hawk said.
“I don’t remember it being this bad.”
“You drink a lot,” Hawk shot back. “Your memory is foggy. Don’t you remember the crisis in Wales?”
“Fuck that,” Alex shot back. “Wales was almost a decade ago.”
“Will you two stop?” I barked. “This isn’t a game.”
Alex sobered. “I know, and we are sorry, Dempsey, but there’s not much we can do if they don’t show up. We burned their clubhouse to the ground, killed most of their guys. They can be pissed off if they want.”
“They’ll come for us, this clubhouse, your women,” I said. “Do you really think you could rebuild after that?”
“They can try,” Hawk stated. “In fact, they can do whatever the fuck they want, but they ain’t getting anywhere near our people, or our club. We have something they never will. Loyalty.”
The Ghost Rebels did have a reputation for being unbeatable, purely for the fact that they had each other’s backs.
Hawk and Alex walked back inside while I waited on the porch, unable to stomach the idea of spending another day in bed with Shae as she tried to move. She was in so much pain and it killed me to watch her struggle to sit up even if she told me she was okay.
A car pulled up into the compound, having passed the checkpoint. My heart hammered in my chest until I saw the plate number. Tierney bounced out of the car with a large megawatt smile on her face.
“Does your boyfriend know where you are right now?”
She slapped me on the chest. “I’ve come to hang out with your lady.”
“What? Why? She’s hurt, she can’t go get her nails done and shit.”
Tierney rolled her eyes. “Men.”
She pushed past me and into the clubhouse. I ran after her, grabbing her before she could get to the door.
“What are you doing? She’s healing.”
“And she needs someone who doesn’t want to bang her brains out right now.”
“You’re being crass doesn’t explain how you know about Shae and what she’s been through.”
“You think you’re the only O’Leary who cares?”
I looked back over at Alex behind the bar and the smirk on his face as he moved out of view and down the hall to the office.
Fucking prick.
“Seriously, T, she needs to rest.”
“And that’s what she’s going to do while we both watch movies,” she said. “Now, go be a biker boy or whatever the fuck it is you do here, and I’m going to go hang out with my new sister.”
I wanted to stop her, but I knew it was useless. The guys in the clubhouse were already laughing at what was happening, but I knew how ruthless Tierney could be. When she had her heart set on something there was little else you could do but watch as she did what she was going to do.
I moved to the bar and sat down on the stool as Maree came over to pour me a shot.
“Don’t worry, sugar,” she said. “Sooner or later you were going to realise that a woman was going to rule you, and now’s as good a time as any.”
I chuckled as I tossed back the drink and let it burn. My mind was back on the failed meet. What the fuck were the Reapers planning?
“Want to come for a ride?” Alex asked as he appeared next to me again.
“Sure, where to?”
“Let’s go pay our buddies a visit.”
I felt a genuine sense of joy at that. I’d love to get this sorted so I could come home and spend weeks in bed with Shae.
I joined Savage, Viper, Hawk, Fury and Bear by the bikes.
We all got our helmets on and filed out of the compound behind Hawk.
The ride to the Reapers’ compound wasn’t long and you could see the devastation immediately when you rode in.
Their gate was broken, and their clubhouse was in tatters.
Prospects and club members ran back to get their men when they saw us come in.
I immediately grabbed my gun and blade and held them in my hands, ready for a fight. Hawk and Alex stood there, by their bikes, waiting for someone to come out and speak. The boys had all done what I’d done and waited for the command.
Slowly, a few men came out of the ruined clubhouse and down to us. The looks on their faces told me there would be a brawl.
Good.
I needed to get some shit off my chest and violence seemed like the best place to put the anger.
The guy in front was obviously the new in charge and he looked pissed.
“Missed a meeting this morning,” Hawk pointed out. “Any particular reason?”
“Yeah, we had to deal with a burnt down fucking clubhouse.”
“That could be dealt with after the meeting,” Alex added.
He shot me a look behind but didn’t say anything. I didn’t recognise him which meant that the entire club was shifted to enforcers and none of the top guys made it.
That was interesting.
“We’ll meet you when we’re good and ready,” the guy said. “Until then, you can fuck off back to Kilkenny. We’ll call you.”
“No dice,” Hawk said. “We’ll talk now since it looks like you got time.”
“We don’t have time now, you fucker,” the guy beside the new Prez sneered. “We gotta clean up the mess you fucking made. Bury our dead.”
“And promote yourselves, it looks like,” Alex added. “You can do that after we’re done.”
“Like fuck!”
The other two goons came at us with ferocity. I launched over to protect Alex who had been taken by surprise. I clocked the guy with the but of my gun and went to help Hawk who was wrestling with the new Prez. An all out brawl erupted and we had members running at us from all angles.
I clocked the next guy who ran up to me. Putting my full force behind every kick, punch and stab, I mowed down every guy who came for us. Hawk and Alex were handling their own. Rebel, Fury and Savage were wiping off their blades they’d been using, bodies laying on the ground around us yet again.
“Stop this!”
We all paused, mid punch, to see an older woman coming down the steps of the burnt clubhouse, two women behind her. They all had red rimmed eyes. They had cuts on their bodies.
I knew they were ol’ ladies and judging by the angry looks on their faces, I could tell they were now widows.
Because of us.
“Enough of this,” she said as she approached.
The new president cowered beside her, his head hung low.
“This is stupid and before you start, O’Leary, I am well aware this was started over a year ago by our former president.
I am not disputing the error has been played by our side either, but this is enough, we have more than enough to bury and I’m sure you are hurting too. Let us go our separate ways.”
“We still need to discuss the issue with Viking,” Alex said. “That was why we wanted to meet, to discuss it but when they didn’t turn up, we came here to talk.”
The woman looked to the new president. “Is this true, Jeremy?”
“You know how much we are dealing with, Ma.”
So he was the son of the last president, no wonder he was so headstrong. I almost felt bad for the kid if he hadn’t been such a dick.
“Tomorrow,” the woman said to us. “We will come and discuss with you. We will honour the codes our charters have set forth.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Hawk said. “We’ll roll on out. We just want to come up with something to put this shit behind us. That’s all.”
She nodded. “Good. We’ll be there tomorrow.”
Hawk made the signal for us to all get on our bikes and leave. I was still anxious, I wanted this to be done. They either kick my ass, kill me, or whatever, but I wanted a resolution.
I followed the others out of the Reapers compound, and headed back to Kilkenny. It was like I was waiting for death, and it had my chest seizing.
Shae
Tierney came back into the room with the burgers I had requested. I was almost salivating over the smell coming from the bag.
“How did you get it past Maree?” I gasped, sitting up in the bed. My ribs were still hurting, but not as much as the pain in my stomach from hunger. Tierney giggled and got on the other side of the bed and pulled the greasy boxes out of the bag.
“The woman is doing inventory,” Tierney said. “She also happens to hate inventory and is currently muttering to herself about idiot bunnies unable to count.”
I tried not to laugh, but Tierney’s infectious enthusiasm made it hard not to. I pulled the burger from the box and took a bite, moaning as the juicy ingredients burst to life in my mouth.
“Okay, if my brother heard you right now, I’m sure he’d be jealous.”
I giggled. “You don’t want to know about that part of your brother, do you?”
“Ew, no,” Tierney laughed. She bit into her burger and we sat there and watched Friends on TV. “You’re good for him. He told me a little bit about you over the times he came home.”
“I wish he’d come to see me, to explain.”
“He told me you would have followed him if you didn’t hate him.”
I nodded. “That is true. Wherever he goes, I go.”
Tierney offered me a small smile. “I’ve always wondered what kind of woman would tame my brother.”
“Are you disappointed?”
“No,” she said, looking over at me. “If anything, I’m in awe that he found someone who would do anything for him. That’s rare. Even my dad strayed, and he loved the fuck out of my mum.”
I nodded, remembering the stories Dempsey had told me when we’d been in the Nomads together. He loved his dad but he was so mad at him for being unfaithful to his mother, even if one of those resulted in Bear.
“Are you sure your man wouldn’t do anything for you?” I asked her. “I’ve heard Brogan went loco on your abusive ex.”
“No, that was my brother, not Brogan.”
I smirked, loving that she had no idea. “No, babe, it was Brogan. Dempsey told me he stood back and watched him beat the ever loving fuck out of him.”
Tierney’s eyebrows furrowed into a frown. “Why didn’t he tell me that?”