“Damn straight,” Shelly agrees as we sit back down and continue working on the puzzle together, as all the men in the room with cuts disappear behind a large wooden door. I watch as they all drop their cell phones into a basket sitting on a table outside the room. The music keeps rolling as Remi brings us another round of drinks, and then another after that. We let the whiskey sink into our blood and chat like old friends while we work our way through this puzzle like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
I’m still pretty sure I’m in the upside down, but the more of this whiskey I drink, the less I care.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Sean
“We’ll start watching every member of the Disciples. Their higher-ups are in New Mexico this week at a rally, but technically speaking we have no issues with them right now, so a trip to Lush or Lavish might be in order?” Kai mentions the strip clubs in Lakeside and Perrytown owned by the Disciples. We try not to go to them unless we absolutely have to.
I run through the faces of every ranked member in their club, remembering them all by name.
“A few of the girls that hang around here work over there. We’ll see where we get,” Kai tells the table. He’s been laying out all the information he’s found on one of the Disciples of Sin members, Bryan Freeland, a piece of shit they call Gator. It’s no secret that their club and ours aren’t friends. There have been times of peace, but also times of all-out war between us. Right now, a war is brewing on the basis of Gator being involved in Mason’s sister’s rape.
“And we’re sure Donny knows it was him?” Wolfe asks, mentioning the K6 member who leaked the info to us. He leans forward, folding his hands in front of him.
“He said he’d put money on it. Kinda hard to miss a guy with a blunt-smoking alligator inked on his hand, and the Disciples crest on his neck.”
Jake chuckles and fires up a smoke. “What kind of a fucking twat buys GHB with a tat like that and doesn’t cover his hand?”
“The kind with half a fuckin’ brain,” Wolfe answers, then looks at Mason. “But it’s good for us. The K6s are the only ones who sell it around here and the timing is bang on. It’s enough to find out for sure if it was him, and who gave the order.”
I shake my head and turn to Mason, who’s almost vibrating beside me.
“We’re gonna get what we need,” I tell him, patting his shoulder.
“The thought of that fucking piece of shit anywhere near Nicola is enough to make me burn their entire fucking clubhouse to the ground with every fucking one of them in it.”
“Nicola is our family too,” Robby says from his end of the table. He’s right. We’ve known her since she was twelve, and now at seventeen she’s gonna need years of therapy and recovery to get past this. Even Mason’s other sister, Emilia, had to take a semester off school to help Nicola through the worst of it. It’s affected them all.
“What do we know about the last time he was seen?” Robby pipes up, stubbing out his smoke.
“Apparently, he could be in hiding. But it’s all lining up. Donny said he’s got a perc problem. If he’s buying, we’ll find him,” I offer.
“It’s retaliation,” Wolfe tells us. “It’s too close to us shutting down Seventh and Lark, and too close to us cutting a deal with the building on Fourth Street. It’s prime Disciples territory.” Wolfe swirls his bourbon in his glass, mentioning the Disciples of Sin’s most notorious place in Atlanta to unload fent—that is,until we moved one of our clinics in and cleaned up the block, essentially putting them out of business on their most profitable corner. It would’ve set them back big-time until they could get themselves set up elsewhere.
“No man, it’s my fault. It’s because of what me and Jake did at Lavish,” Mason bites out. “Never should’ve went there to meet Jared. Should’ve picked somewhere else,” he adds, mentioning the prez of our sister club, the Titans.
I nod. It could be. Lavish is known as a place where anything goes, and the Disciples’s prez, Marco, didn’t like the way one of his girls was hitting on Mason. Apparently, he wanted the girl for himself, but she was new and was trying to lure Mason into the back. Mason of course went with her, and fucked her in the bathroom. Then Marco found out. He’s an irrational cokehead, so he pulled a gun on them and told them to get the fuck out. Naturally, Mason broke a beer bottle over his head and cut him up real good. Fucker almost bled out on the floor before their club doctor came, but by then Mason and Jake were long gone. We heard that girl’s now Marco’s ol’ lady.
“Marco told Donny they were gonna hit us where it really fucking hurt, for Bridget,” Mason bites out. “He has some kind of obsession with her. He told Donny it was personal.”
I lean back in my chair. “The moment we can get our hands on this motherfucker it’s gonna be game over for him. Until then, we have to bide our time.” I look at Mason as the sound of Stevie Nicks suddenly blares through the wall of our chapel.
Jake and Kai turn to glance over their shoulders. They can’t see anything because the blinds to the main space of the clubhouse are drawn.
“The fuck is going on out there?” Kai grins. “Got your lady here, yeah?” he says to me. “She stirring up some shit with Maria and Shel?”
I look at the clock on the wall. It’s getting late and this place will be filling up with hang-arounds and people looking for a release. Friends of the club are always welcome here.
“Fuck only knows what’ll happen to your girl if you leave her with Maria too long,” Jake chuckles. “She’ll be corrupted for sure.”
I shake my head. “No one’s corrupting her but me,” I tell him with a grin.
“Alright, let’s fuckin’ eat then, we’re done here.” Wolfe looks around the table to make sure none of us has anything to add. “Let’s organize a tail on Gator’s crew.” He looks at me and Kai. “Hit up Lush in the next couple days, not Lavish. Aiden runs Lush, we know some girls there,” he says. Lush is the club that Marco’s stepbrother and VP, Aiden Foxx, handles. It’s notoriously cleaner—much more of a high-class gentlemen’s club than the sister club, Lavish—and I already know what Wolfe’s thinking. If the girls there aren’t fucking for money, they may need it and be more likely to hand us intel discreetly. “Ask around about Gator. We’ll see where it leads.” Then he snaps the gavel down to end our meeting.
I pull Kai aside quickly before he leaves the room. “That other thing we talked about this morning. Are you on it?”
Kai nods, lighting a smoke. “Yep, we’ll find out who it was.”
