by J Bree
Maybe then she'd calm the hell down.
"Tomi?"
Her voice snaps me out of my little daydream, the hesitant tone wrenching me back into the reality of the situation. "What?"
She flinches at the tone and I grind my teeth together at the sight of it. "Angel, tell me."
She swallows twice before she manages to get the words out. "The guy who does your books... do you trust him?"
And in four simple words, she has my full attention. "What have you found?"
She blanches a little and stumbles over her words. "It's—I mean, it could be nothing—"
"Angel, what the fuck have you found?"
She huffs. "If the IRS checked these books tomorrow your club would be fucked. Also, there's money going missing... a lot of money. It's... I mean, it's clear to me and any auditor but I guess to someone who didn't know—"
"How much money is being taken? Explain it to me."
She does.
She walks me through exactly how Maverick is stealing tens of thousands of dollars each month from the club and the sloppy way he's hiding it. And then she walks me through the hack job he's been doing with our taxes and just how royally fucked over we'll be the second an auditor comes knocking.
More than that, she's given me a fucking lead.
I start tracking his movements for the last month. Easy enough to do now I have the security up everywhere and sure e-fucking-nough, there he is.
Three Demons and a wad of fucking cash.
I call King from my computer. "I've got it. I've found the best drop off route."
I stick to the agreed on code, even with the whole club out there looking for clues about the Demons. Just in case, I don’t want Maverick making a fucking run for it and having to chase the cunt.
I don’t want to leave Speck exposed like that and there’s no fucking way I’m leaving Angel.
I’ve accepted that now.
He grunts down the line and hangs up, two minutes later he comes through the door. Angel startles on the bed but he ignores her. "You sure?"
I nod. "Without a doubt. There's no way anyone could get stopped."
He nods and walks over to look at the screen. I have the still of Mav standing there and King's face turns to fucking stone. "Call Rue and let him know we're going to check it out. Hawk too, but leave Hell to his hangover."
I nod and murmur, "Keely and Trink with Speck?"
He nods. "We have guys coming in from the Bay for backup. I'll station them close by."
I nod and glance at Angel. She's still glaring at the laptop screen. “I’ll get Angel to work, Axe is there to keep an eye on things. I'll catch you up on the drive."
He glances at her too and then nods.
Time for Mav to meet the Captain.
Serves the traitorous cunt right.
We get out to the swamp a little after midnight.
Rue and I drive in my truck together, silence in the cab for the whole drive. Sometimes you just have to get your shit together and spill the blood your club needs you to.
I don’t have any fucking hesitation in me.
Not a fucking drop.
When we pull up, King is already there waiting. Hawk both arrives a minute or so after us, Mav hogtied in the back of their truck, gagged and fucking livid.
Good.
The cunt deserves worse.
"I've been in this club for twenty fucking years! You think I'm the rat?" he says, struggling against Hawk but there's no budging him. King might have gotten huge in prison but my pops has been a brick wall since birth.
King stops in the bayou, his boots slowly sinking just a little into the soft swamp dirt, and I keep an eye out on the water, my hand hovering by my gun. "I don't just think you're the rat, Mav. I fucking know it. You thought you were slick, getting away with shit while I was in lockup, getting fucking sloppy."
Mav wrenches his body, trying desperately to get out of Hawk's grip, and Rue finally fucking snaps and steps forward to punch him in the face. One quick blow has blood pouring out of his nose and a string of vicious curses. Good thing we're out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere because he's squealing like a pig.
"King, I've been loyal the entire fucking time you were gone. I haven't fucking leaked a word to any other club, I've been on every run, spilled blood for my brothers, what else could I possibly fucking do?"
King throws the rope over the tree and starts tying it off. Mav watches him work, the sweat on his forehead running down his face and mixing with the blood pouring out of his nose. He looks worried and a little confused, nowhere near the fucking terrified he should be.
It's fine, he'll figure it out once he's up there.
"We had someone go over the books, Mav, you thieving piece of shit. You've been skimming from the fucking top for years and writing it all off. I always did wonder how you kept your hog looking so fucking good with all of the gambling debts," Rue says, lowering the tailgate on the truck and pulling out the buckets, their contents slopping around.
Now Mav is looking a little more worried.
"Skimming from the top gets me excommunicated, not fucking strung up in some swamp. I had debts, I needed some fucking money and I knew there was no way the club would help me out with that. I saw what happened when Vic asked about getting extra."
King takes a step back from the tree to admire his work. It's good, should be strong enough to hold, even with all of the struggling. I smirk at him, waiting for the signal to get moving but the Prez takes one last moment to study his traitorous brother.
"We have the footage of you making a deal with the Demons. You might not have been a rat this whole time, that might have been the very fucking first, but you sold us out. Coulda gotten a lot of men killed. Fuck, you have my prospect in the fucking hospital getting open fucking heart surgery. I'd have put a bullet in your brain for that alone but the fact he's my blood? A Callaghan, set to take over this club someday? You gotta pay the price and it's gotta be the fucking Captain."
Now he's shaking.
Only the Callaghans know about the Captain, know exactly how we torture and kill the worst of our enemies but there's rumors about her aplenty. Everyone knows something evil happens out here in the swamp.
"She's grumpy tonight. I've already given her a snack, just something small to get her excited about the main course."
"King, I didn't—"
"You did. We have it all on camera too. String him up, boys."
I grab one side of him and Rue takes the other from Hawk, walking him over to the tree and holding him in position as King starts to tie him up.
"You'll fucking pay for this. The whole club too. You think the Demons are just fucking around? Grimm Graves is going to fucking destroy everything your daddy built and make it his own personal playground. You think I wanted to hand that information over? He's fucking insane. He's mentally unstable and if you go against him then you'll end up dead too. There is no getting out of this, King. Patch over or die trying to stay Unseen. They're your only options."
King tightens the last rope around Mav's arm and then punches him in the face, the crack of his cheekbone breaking as loud as a gunshot through the warm night air.
"I live Unseen. I'll die Unseen. If that death is handed to me by Grimm Graves himself then I'll have died protecting my family and my club. That's the life I wanna have, the death I'll be happy to have. You get a death out here in the swamp like a fucking coward, your memory nothing but an old story we'll tell our kids about how traitors die. Stinking and screaming."
Rue grabs a bucket and hands it to me, then grabs the second one for himself. The chicken blood and livers fucking stink, King wasn't wrong about that, and when we pour them over Mav's head he starts gagging and hacking up his guts like a fucking pansy.
It takes a matter of seconds for CeCee to come out of the water.
I back up a little, completely aware that I've got some of that stinking mix on my clothes too, and Rue grabs the buckets up to throw them in
the truck again.
"You wanna watch it or are you heading back to the club?" Hawk says, a cigarette hanging out of one corner of his mouth.
I shrug and stare as the gator slides on out of the water, her body twice the length of mine and her jaw already snapping at the scent of Mav. I can't think of much worse ways to go.
"I'll stick around with Rue, make sure he's definitely dead and gone. You two go and get cleaned up, head back to the hospital and take over for Hell. We need someone watching Speck at all times. Blood only," King says, and I nod.
We stay long enough to watch the first leg get torn off.
I need that much to get me through another night at Speck's bedside.
Chapter Twenty Three
Angel
My night at The Boulevard is the same as the night before except this time I’m smart enough to take my laptop with me to study while I’m locked in Tomi’s office. I’ve already missed a full day of study thanks to the hospital trip and looking over the club books. I still haven’t managed to get through them all but I’ve made a dent in it.
The Unseen are a very wealthy club.
You’d never really guess it from how rough the guys all are, none of them really scream rich, but the money The Boulevard brings in alone makes my nightly income look like child’s play. The garage that Rue runs is known for custom motorcycle jobs and extremely specialized repairs. They handle all of the classics, the shit people shell out a lot of money for, and Rue is definitely a big earner.
Even the Mugshots bar is raking the cash in.
Add onto that the money they’re very clearly laundering, they’re all fucking loaded.
There’s a few ways to sort the laundering issues out and I’d started making notes about them before we ran out of time and the day was up. When I got into The Boulevard I’d finally had time to grab a shower and Tomi had stuck around long enough to see me in and out of it. When I opened the stall to find him glaring at his phone screen I’d tried not to look shocked at him.
Whatever is going on has him really fucking worried.
He disappears right after that to go look at the new route he’d been talking to his club president about planning. I'm smart enough not to ask a single question about it, but he’s very clear on what he expects from me.
Stay where Axe can see me at all times.
Tell him the second something happens.
Do not leave The Boulevard with anyone who isn’t a Callaghan and sent by him.
The shooting has scared me enough to listen to him and do exactly what he says without question. I mean, Axe is nice enough. He doesn’t ever try to touch me or look at me, he only ever speaks to me respectfully.
He seems just a little bit scared of me.
Well, maybe not me exactly but clearly he’s been told by Tomi to keep a close eye on me thanks to the asset I’ve become to the club. I don’t really get it but hell, I’ll take it.
So I do my first dance and when I get off stage Axe hands me a hoodie, waiting until I have it zipped all the way up before leading me over to Tomi’s office.
“You need anything? I can get Diamond to bring you a drink or whatever.”
I try to hide my cringe. I would never accept a drink from that woman, it would probably be poisoned. “No thanks. I’m fine. I’m just going to study, I swear I won’t be any trouble to you.”
He huffs out a laugh. “No trouble. Just yell if you need something, you’re gonna be as bored as fuck in there all over again.”
I shrug at him. “It’s not so bad. I’ll get a heap done, Tomi’s probably doing my classwork a favor.”
I sit in my usual chair, no way I want to sit in his, and even though I know I should be studying I spend the whole time working through the Unseen books. When Axe kicks on the door to grab me for my next dance I startle, no idea that almost two hours have already passed.
I go out and do my thing, the crowd much smaller tonight than it has been in all the months of me working here. I still make a decent amount and when I walk off stage I find Tomi waiting there instead of Axe.
I stumble over my own feet at the sight of him.
He’s showered since I last saw him, his hair slicked back and a soft black tee stretching over his wide chest, tight around his tattooed biceps.
He has no right to be so hot.
No right.
He smirks at the dumbass look on my face, handing over the hoodie for me to slide into and it’s only when I pull it on that I realize he’s switched it out with one of his ones, the Unseen patch clearly visible across the back.
“Diamond wants you to fill in for Farrah again so we’re sticking around for another hour.”
I nod and then follow him down the hall. I don’t know what it is about him but I find myself standing closer to him, tucking my body in behind him and he always shifts until he’s covering me like a shield… protecting me even when there isn’t any danger in the room.
He lets me into his office when he gets a phone call, standing in the doorway as he talks to his mom about Speck.
I try not to look as though I’m listening in but I’m desperate to know if anything has changed.
“I can do another shift there… Well, is Hawk staying there with you? I don’t want you by yourself… okay. Okay, I’ll come tomorrow night… is she at Poe’s… is Thorn home… I know but it’s my job to make sure you’re both safe… nah, Rue will go and stay there tonight… okay, I will… call me if anything changes.”
Mel and Diamond giggle obnoxiously as they walk past, glaring at me once they know Tomi can’t see them. I don’t know why the hell they try to hide it from him, it’s not like he gives a fuck about me.
Other than adding me to the notches on his bedpost which, again, he’s already managed to do.
I roll my eyes at them but Tomi sees that and glances back over his shoulder at them both. I hear their footsteps speed up like they’re hotfooting it away from his anger.
I grab my laptop and get it set up again, ready to just work quietly and not get in his way.
He waits until the door is shut before he starts in on me, the accusing tones harsh in his voice again. “You should have told me you didn’t have a place to stay.”
Typical.
I sigh and keep my eyes on the screen, tapping through the spreadsheet to make sure my numbers are all correct. It’s hard to do with him staring at me like he is.
His eyes are too intense for me.
“It didn’t matter then and it doesn’t matter now. I’m my own person and I’ll sort my own shit out,” I say.
“You’d rather sleep on the street than tell me you’ve been kicked out of your place? Angel, that’s just fucking stupid.”
I refuse to look at him, to see the loathing and hate that I know he’ll have all over his face. “Look, it’s not your problem. I don’t blame you for showing me the door when… you were done. It’s whatever, why are you even bringing it up? You don’t owe me anything. I’ve got a job to do, you’ve got a business to run.”
At the mention of my job his eyebrows draw down a little and I brace myself for whatever he has to say about it.
I will not let him make me feel guilty about my job.
I already hate myself, I don’t need the fucking guilt too.
“Angel, my business is keeping you safe.”
I swallow and look down at my nails. One of them is chipped from my first dance and my knees are a little sore from it too. There’s limits to what a body can do without proper rest, good nutrition, and time away from the pole. I’m quickly discovering that I’m running into the end of the line for what I can do without burning out.
I need to be more aggressive in my saving.
Maybe there’s something in the air, or maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment, but I just have to question him.
“Why me, though? Because I’m your biggest asset? You know Diamond and the other girls hate me because I’m getting preferential treatment. They all want me out and honestly�
�� I’m not going to dance forever. Shouldn’t you be protecting the girls that want to stick with you?”
He stares at me for so long I try not to squirm in my seat.
Finally, he shuts his laptop and then leans forward to shut mine too.
“I’m not protecting you because of the club. Yes, you are our best dancer and the biggest money maker out of all of the girls here for the club but I’m a selfish dick. I’m protecting you because I want to.”
I swallow again, a lump forming in the back of my throat. This feels too… real for me. I feel like he’s actually trying to open up to me. I mean, I’m not sure what I was expecting him to say but it wasn’t this.
I kind of thought he’d be telling me how much he hates me again.
“Who is your boyfriend, Angel? The one you’re afraid of. Is he making you dance here and taking your money? Tell me his name and he’ll be gone before the sun comes up.”
I glance down at my computer.
I could tell him.
Except then whatever progress we’ve managed would be gone, he’d never trust me again, I’d lose everything.
Better to keep that secret close to my chest.
“I don’t have a boyfriend. I… I’ve been knocked around some but there’s no one now. I’m just trying to finish college, get a job, live a normal life. There’s no big secret, Tomi.”
He looks me over, his eyes too intense for me. “There is a secret. I don’t know what it is but you’re too fucking scared for there to be nothing. If you tell me what it is, I’ll sort it out.”
I sigh and lean back in my chair, fussing with the hem of his hoodie, picking at the threads there. “You want me to be honest with you Tomi, but you’ve given me no reason to be. Why should I trust you? I mean, the sex is good but there’s nothing else going on between us… right? You don’t want to be my friend.”
He scowls at me, ignoring his phone when it starts to ring. “Angel, I don’t want to be your fucking friend. I want you naked in my goddamn bed every night. I want you outta this club. I want whoever the fuck is hurting you dead and rotting in a fucking hole somewhere, and I want you to stop jumping at the smallest fucking noises. It’s pretty fucking simple. You want me to prove myself to you or some shit? Fine. Your ass is protected by me and my club. Anyone touches you, they die. You need something? You come to me.”