“Not that I can think of. Pres?”
Micro jabbed a finger at my tablet. “No, he knows my darkest secrets already. So let’s get this done, yeah? You wanted to show me some ideas for tarting this place up?”
I grinned and woke the screen up again, trying to illustrate my idea for the new covered area for our rides.
“I like it, man. I mean, not your drawing, because…hey!I’m only saying,” Micro argued as I flipped him off, and I swear that’s all we do sometimes.
“I’m no fucking designer, but I know what we need. Hell, if I had my way, I’d bulldoze this entire fucking compound and start from scratch. There’s so much we could do with this plot of land, I’m telling ya. For a start, single story buildings are a waste of space, when we could have at least another floor. We could get accommodation for way more members in, and we could havea proper lounge and bar. I mean, the possibilities are endless. Except for funding, of course.”
Grease snorted, but he wasn’t arguing with me, and Micro was nodding.
“I mean, I’d really like a decent suite for me and Soph to stay in when we’re onsite, but it needs room for a baby too. We talked about it a while back, before shit went to hell, and we lost a whole building to the fire.”
Oh yeah, the fire. The fucking Halloween party from hell. Apparently I spent the night riding an imaginary horse named after myself, but people had mostly stopped ribbing me for it now. Damn the few whose memories were clear, because mine really wasn’t.
“I mean, look. There’s so much we could do. A proper garage on site for working on repairs, and doing up the sale bikes. A proper spray area, for Rocket to customise our rides outside of my shop hours. A fucking kitchen, so we can actually eat real food instead of ordering in the same old crap.”
“Wish we had a Tommy of our own,” Micro said to Grease, who nodded, but I had no idea what that meant exactly, so I moved on.
“We need better gates, and security. We need a prospect hut near the gates, where they’re under cover while they’re not opening and closing gates. Grease mentioned this before too, but that first gate to the compound should be further away, and have a secondary access point afterward. That way people like his little PC friends wouldn’t have ever made it on site at all.”
“Kinda worked in my favour in the end though,” he muttered smugly, but they knew I was right.
Grease scratched at his chin as he glanced around us.
“What kinda capital are we needing to knock this place down, and start from scratch?”
Hell. I hadn’t considered costing that up, because it was a pipe dream, but I knew it wouldn’t be cheap.
“A few hundred grand at least, and we’d need a demo party to trash this place, we’d need temporary huts brought onsite for us to keep things going while it happens. So, expensive.”
“Betting we’ve got guys in the club who have contacts and skills we haven’t tapped yet.” I nodded, because Micro was damn right. I knew a few who were in various trades. Smitty was a carpenter, and Dash was a plumber’s apprentice, so he’d have access and contacts, along with his own skills.
“You want me to work up some plans to go through? I can show you what I’m picturing for this place.”
Grease waited until Micro agreed, and then dropped his bombshell.
“We come up with something that’ll improve this place, and add a nice little suite for me and Jay too, and I’ll help fund it.”
The fuck?
We both stared open-mouthed at him, and he laughed.
“What, you think mafia guys don’t earn well, and have investments, and stockpile a shit-ton of money? I’d happily invest in improving this shithole, so I can bring a little taste of mafia comfort to the place.”
It suddenly occurred to me that if I hadn’t scared off a certain little lady, I might even have a willing helper with the designs and plans too. All I had to do was convince her that we weren’t bad guys, and see if she could manage to find some time to help me out, and not be intimidated by everyone she meets along the way.Easy, huh?
Caroline
BY THE MORNING, I was practically buzzing with energy and excitement to get started on Rocket’s project for him. I’d even found what I needed in myself to finish my client’s website build that I’d been dragging my heels on, so as of this morning, I was free to focus completely on this.
I had to get a taxi to the shop instead of my favourite method of transport, because of course I had my scanner, laptop and other equipment with me, but when I arrived at Harley’s place, he stepped outside almost instantly, opened my door, and helped me out.
As I started gathering my things from the seat, he tapped on the driver’s window and chatted with him while I got out. He lifted my things from my arms, and the car drove off, while I was still processing the fact that Harley had just paid for it.
“You… you didn’t need to pay!” I gasped, following him to the door of his shop. Harley, being the gentleman he was, even with an armful of my stuff, still pushed the door open and gestured to me to go inside first. There was already a desk waiting for me, between Harley’s and Rocket’s counters, a chair tucked under it, and best of all? A steaming mocha and a muffin, both from the coffee shop we’d visited together. Harley set my kit down carefully and backed up.
“Anything else you think you’ll need?”
