1
Blayke
Johnston leaned forward, bracing his forearms on the table as he laced his fingers together in front of him. I rocked in my chair, an energy drink in my hand, as I waited for him to get to the point of why he’d called church at nine at night when we usually held church first thing in the mornings.
Drew, one of the patched members, shot me a questioning look, but I just shrugged my shoulders. I had no fucking clue why we’d all been called in here—immediatelyat that. I mean, fuck—Trigger had walked in the door only thirty damn minutes ago after spending the past few weeks with the Texas Charter trying to eliminate the Russian mother fucker who’d targeted Aaliyah, Johnston’s wife/old lady.
The asshole hadn’t been captured, but we had wiped out most of their men. So, that was a plus, at least. We’d weakened him.
“Alright, Prez. What the fuck is going on?” I asked.
Johnston rolled his neck around. “Scorpion and I reached out to Alejandro about the group rising up in Mexico. Alejandrowas already aware of the group, but he did not know they were working with the Russians. Since the Russians are our problem, he wants us to deal with that end while he deals with the uprising against him.”
“Okay…” Lawson drawled, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. “We’re already dealing with that.”
Lawson, also known as Law, was our road captain. He planned our runs, mapped out safe routes, and he was responsible for handling exchanges with other clubs and organizations when we did gun and drug sales. He was chill and laid back, and it was hard to get him riled up.
Which only meant when hedidfinally have enough of something, everyone better run for fucking cover.
“Scorpion and I agreed we need people in Mexico to deal with the Russians there. I imagine that’s where the Pakhan will burrow down at while he regroups after we wiped out a lot of the men in his inner circle.” I stopped rocking, intrigued now. “Alejandro has agreed, and he is opening his home to us.”
“Surely, all of us aren’t riding down to Mexico,” Trigger grunted. “Not to step on your toes, Prez, but Sophia will have a fucking coronary if I leave the entire country.”
Sophia was Trigger’s woman, but she was also the Texas Charter’s vice president’s woman. The three of them—Trigger, Chase, and Sophia—were a throuple. I hadn’t been surprised by it in the slightest. I’d always known Trigger had a thing for Chase, and when Chase began “sharing” Sophia with Trigger and Trigger and Sophia fell in love, too, I knew it would only be a matter of time before Chase and Trigger fell for each other, too. Chase had been a bi-awakening walking. It’d only been a matter of time.
“I know,” Johnston told him. “You think Aaliyah would let me go all the way to fucking Mexico without at least bringing heralong? Which will never fucking happen.” I snorted. Johnston was a hard mother fucker and more of a sociopath than any other man I knew, but Aaliyah could bring him to his knees for her with a single look. Johnston wouldnotbe going to Mexico. That was for sure.
“So, what’s the plan here?” I asked, lifting my can to my lips.
“Scorpion and I are sending a small group of you to Mexico. Alejandro will be escorting you across the border. He’ll be providing assistance where he can without hindering his own business. Blayke and Geek, you two will be going to Mexico with Halo and Gidget. The two of them should be on their way here already.”
“Halo and Gidget?” Geek asked, frowning. His eye even started twitching. Reaching up, he pressed his finger to it. I hid my smile in my can. “Is that a good idea?”
Gidget and Halo were… complicated. When Scorpion was first re-forming the Texas Charter after he’d gone through and wiped them out for going after his wife, which he was lucky he didn’t get fucking slaughtered for, Gidget and Halo had gotten into a nasty altercation that landed Halo in ICU with head trauma. Honestly, none of us were sure he was going to make it, but he came out on the other side.
They had a love/hate relationship at best. Putting them on the same job together would be… interesting.
“Halo and Gidget won’t be a problem,” Johnston assured him. “Scorpion has assured me they can be trusted to work together, and for some fucking reason, he believes they’re the best to send, so that’s who we’re getting.”
“What about Tango?” Geek asked.
I laughed. “Tango leaving his boy? Hardly.”
“Gabriel is so co-dependent on Tango that I’m not sure if the boy can survive being apart from him. And Tango will let this whole club burn to the ground before he leaves Gabriel,” Triggeragreed. “Out ofallof us, Tango is the first option off the fucking table.”
Trigger wasn’t wrong. Gabriel had been part of a rival club that’d partnered with the Russians. He’d been abused and neglected, treated worse than a dog. He’d been sent on a job to “make him a man” basically, but Tango had caught him and the guy he was with. When Scorpion realized Gabriel was basically innocent and just trying to survive a shitty, abusive father, he told Tango to take him home.
It hadn’t taken long for Tango to make Gabriel his own after that. That man would stand ten toes down for Gabriel, and he’d turn his back on this club in a fucking heartbeat if it meant protecting his boy.
“So… Halo and Gidget,” Geek muttered. He sighed heavily. “Great.”
“Stop being so fucking dramatic,” Johnston snapped, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. I smirked, amused. Geek was overdramatic as fuck, the biggest tech geek I’d ever met, and the smartest mother fucker in the world, if anyone asked me. I loved being around him. He never bit his tongue, and he made it known when he wasn’t happy about something.
“Blayke and Geek, I need you two packed and ready to hit the road tomorrow after Alejandro gets here. He didn’t give me a time. Said he needed to wrap something up first.”
“Sure,” I said, shrugging one shoulder. “We done here?”
“Yeah,” Johnston said, grabbing his gavel. “We’re done here.” He slammed it on the table, then pushed his chair back to stand.
