Page 29 of More Tricks

“Whoa, easy there, BigFoot,” Picasso warned, grabbing my shoulders to steady me. “She might be a badass, but she is still tiny.”

“Just wanted to thank her for saving our asses the other day. Not many people I know would jump out of a helicopter and take out a machine gun for people that aren’t their own,” he explained as he released my hand. “Pinky had you all wrong, Little Queen.”

I flashed him a smile. “Is that my road name now? Have I earned my cut here among you Phantom Saints?”

BigFoot stood to his full height, shoulders, back, and bellowed, “Quiet.”

The whole clubhouse fell silent instantly, and I was impressed. He’d even managed to get the background music to stop that had been thumping in the speakers.

“I know I’m not part of the leadership, but I was chosen to petition them so we make you an official member of the Phantom Saints. You’ve spilled blood protecting us, sent your own men to our aid, and took down the enemy without hesitation,” BigFoot said to Picasso. “We know some of the old timers have their thoughts about women in the crew, but we know this one is more than capable of living our lifestyle. Fuck, she rules the goddamn West Coast from what I can tell.”

Picasso’s face was expressionless as he listened to what BigFoot had to say. “Your petition has been heard, and we will vote on it during Church. Give Eagle a few more days to recover, and we will send out the call.”

BigFoot nodded and looked back at me. “Little Queen, I know you already have the leadership behind you, but no matter if you get sworn in or not, you have our respect.”

His words warmed my dark little heart in a way even I didn’t understand. I’d never wanted to be part of an MC. Hell, I fucking hated them for a long time. However, this group of men and women were quickly becoming as important to me as my own Empire. Goddamn, these men are slowly turning me into a big softy.

“Thanks, BigFoot. I really appreciate it,” I said and patted the man’s arm as I headed out, standing tall in front of all these men.

Chapter ten

Dax

A week passed, and we all fell into a routine of sorts, managing things for both the crew and the Empire while getting ourselves prepared for what was coming next. During that time, I coordinated with Harper, the triplets, and Levin to get his granddaughter set up in a small private school in New York. Prim needed to be hidden away for a bit until things died down for their escape from Russia.

Levin sent the tank he’d promised me with them, so it was now hidden away in a cargo airport in New York. Soon he would be sending the guns I’d also gotten as part of the deal. While we wouldn’t need them to deal with the De Leóns being in the city, going after Marco would be a whole different story.

Eagle was now up and moving about the compound. He still had to take it easy and couldn’t lift anything too heavy. Thankfully, he was more focused on healing faster, and he was fine with the limitations. Weston was kicked out of the kitchen since that was one thing he could absolutely do without a problem.

Dani didn’t need to stay with us in the house, so she used one of the dorm rooms they had for new recruits to the crew. Eventually, we would need to figure out where having her located would be best, but for now, this plan worked.

Wes got his command center set up in a spare room just outside the security room they had. He’s been working on helping them upgrade that as well since they already had to replace a bunch of things from the attack. The FBI was long gone and didn’t really reach out to contact us about anything, which allowed that whole event to come to a close. The Mad Dogs were done for, and there was no fear of them coming back. Did that mean there wasn’t still a threat to the compound? No, but for now, we were doing all we could to beef things up.

“Hey,” Void said as he sat down on the coffee table in front of me.

I glanced up at him from the report I was reading from Brian about a situation going on within the Empire. “What’s up, hot stuff,” I greeted with a wink.

We’d been working ourselves hard in training and dealing with everything else. While I slept in someone’s bed each night, we’d been too worn out to do more than cuddle or make out. I wasn’t worried our relationship wasn’t built on sex, no matter how much we all enjoyed it.

“Ruban got back to me about our idea. He took it to a few others in the game, and they had a meeting. He was all fired up about it, but if this is going to be as big of a deal as we need it to be, all four of them need to be in on it,” Void explained.

The four men he was talking about ruled the underground fighting rings. Each had a different area they were in charge of but all worked together to make the money flow and keep the secrets hidden.

“So, what’s the answer?” I asked, sliding the computer off my lap so he knew he had my full attention.

“Good and bad… full of strings and promises we might not want to agree to,” Void admitted, running both hands over his face.

“You’re gonna need to give me more than that, big guy,” I murmured, reaching out to rest my hand on his leg.

“One of them is they want us to each fight a person of their choosing, which we expected.” I nodded as he paused to look at me. “Then, if we both win those fights, they want us to fight each other.”

Now I could see why he was upset. Void might be as ruthless and bloodthirsty as I was, but when it came to me, I was his Achilles heel. There was no way he would be able to fight me the way they would want him to.

“Is there another workaround?” I asked. “There has to be something they would find way more interesting than the two of us going head to head.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to wrack my brain for,” Void muttered.

I didn’t like seeing Void like this. He was the cold, detached enforcer of the Saints. “Call him back.”