by Brook Greene
Leo doesn’t wait a beat before he wads up the paper, throwing it into the middle of the table. “Why the fuck were we not told the truth?”
The douche sits up, messing with the knot of his tie. “As always, Mr. Tucker, I can count on you to get right to it.”
“Stop trying to kiss my ass,” Leo grumbles back, growing more impatient with each passing second.
“I assure you, Mr. Tucker, my lips are nowhere near your ass. Initially, we were given the information by a trusted longtime CI, who also provided narcotics he claimed to have had purchased from the house. We initiated the surveillance, and that is when we caught wind it was much more than just a drug pass through. The arrival of the eight females two nights ago confirmed it, so we moved as quickly as we could before they were taken out and lost.” He lowers his head, trying his best to look contrite. “We did lose one. She was taken out under our noses. She was the older sister of one.”
“So why didn’t the FBI or Homeland Security lead the raid?” I ask, knowing we’ve stepped on major toes. “Instead of the six of us who are DEA?”
“We already had you tapped to execute the drug raid so the other agencies, who normally deal with this, gave us the go ahead. And like I said, your unit is the best.” He sits back in his chair, rocking it slightly as he lets us digest the information.
“Those were the only eight to pass through that house?” Eno asks the question we all fear the answer to.
Spencer sighs heavily. “The only ones we are aware of since we initiated the surveillance.”
“Fuck!” Matty exclaims as he slams his hand down on the table.
“And now the FBI is going to take over?” Dalton surmises.
“Not exactly. Because of the drug element, we are making this an interagency case, sharing the workload between us. We will be cooperating with the FBI and Homeland Security, as they will be with us.” Spencer flips open the thick folder he has lying in front of him.
This isn’t the first time we’ve worked with other agencies, so it’s nothing new to us.
“The females couldn’t give us any useful information. They had the same story, one minute they were fine and the next they woke up in the back of a van with their hands taped and feet bound with a gag in their mouth. They were taken to a first house, then transported to the one we found them in. We have five of the suspects in custody and five of them in the morgue. Facial recognition and fingerprints have identified them all as known members of the Castella Cartel.” The name makes Leo’s head snap around to Spencer, who meets his gaze. “And that is where your known contacts come in.”
Leo shakes his head. “He won’t do it.”
Spencer produces another folder that’s around three to four inches thick, slapping it down on the table. “Oh, I think he will be more than happy to help or his ass will end up behind bars, along with the rest of his club.”
~~~~~~
Hollis
“What do you think about this style?’ I ask Emily as I shove the catalog across the table to her. She and I sit at our table at Lloyd’s, taking a lunch break and doing a little bit of wedding planning while we’re at it.
She lays her sandwich down and picks up the catalog, looking over my latest choice of bridesmaid dresses. “What color are you thinking about?” she asks, laying the book down so she can pick her sandwich back up, still eyeing the page.
I can’t read her reaction at first, but when she looks up and smiles at me, I know she likes the choice I’ve made. That’s good, seeing as how she’ll be wearing the dress on mine and Roman’s wedding day. “Purple and teal?” I answer, but my response sounds more like a question. I haven’t been able to choose my colors. I’ve never really had a favorite color…well, if you discount my black T-shirt obsession.
She purses her lips and tilts her head from one side to the other, mulling over my answer. “We could work with that. But,” she holds up her index finger. “I get to wear purple.”
I roll my eyes at her. “Just because you’re the maid of honor, doesn’t mean you get to dictate this whole wedding. Besides, I thought the purple would look better with Avery and Josie’s complexions.” She throws a fry at me. “Hey, watch it, woman.” Picking up the fry, I throw it back in her direction.
“You know I’m just kidding. I would wear a tater sack, just as long as I get to stand with you.” I smile at one of my best friends, a person I never thought I would ever be sharing a meal with. I lift my Coke for her to toast with me. I’d stood next to her the day she and Cowboy renewed their vows in the back yard of her mother and father’s house a few months back.
Tessa slides a high chair up next to me and I help her get Jax’s legs in the proper holes. She plops her big body down in the seat beside me with a groan. “Ugh, my feet are killing me,” she huffs, looking at us both. “What the hell were you two just doing, having a moment?” Tessa is one of a kind. She says what’s on her mind, but with a little bit more tact than Piper.
I reach for the catalog. “Nope. We were discussing bridesmaid dresses.” I lay the picture down in front of her and reach over and give Jax a kiss on the cheek. “Hello, handsome.” I hand him a fry which he takes, smiling, and shoves it into his sweet little mouth.
Tessa’s mouth turns down in a frown. “It doesn’t matter what you get me, I’m still going to be as big as a house, and everything’s going to look like a very expensive set of drapes.”
I lay my hand on her arm in comfort. “The wedding is in three months.”
“Yeah, and I’m due in two.” She leans back, laying her hand on her very large, growing belly.
“You’ll more than likely go early,” Emily adds as she makes a face at Jax, making him giggle.
“You can always ask them to induce.” Piper draws up the chair beside Emily, then notices the catalog in front of Tessa and reaches out, snagging it. “Is this it?” she asks, eyeing the dress.
“Maybe,” I tell her as Caden runs up and jumps into my lap.
She looks across the table and smiles at Emily. “Hey, Momma.”
“Hey, baby.” Emily hands a fry across the table to her. “You hungry?”
“Yup.” Caden answers, taking another fry off my plate and pops it into her mouth.
“Hey, don’t be eating my fries,” I joke and begin to tickle her, driving her into a wild fit of giggles
Avery and Josie are the last two to join us. We try to get together at least twice a week, if not more. With kids and jobs, and the men we live with, getting in some girl time isn’t always an option, but it’s a necessity to keep us sane.
“What are we talking about?” Avery asks as she too fits Gia down into a high chair, then takes a seat.
“Dresses,” Emily says. “I like the purple.” Piper hands off the book to Josie and Avery, who both lean in to look at it at the same time.
“But I think the purple will look better on you and Josie, and the teal on Tessa, Piper, and Emily.” Caden slides out of my lap and starts to tickle Jax’s cheeks with her fingers.
“My junk!” Jax screams, making us all stop and turn to him.
Tessa shrugs. “Matthew and Eno think that is a perfectly acceptable description of his area.” She waves her hand in the air. “I’m too tired to argue with them these days.”
“Hey, girls.” A waitress named Ally comes to our table with her order pad in hand. “What can I get you?” She glances over to Tessa, down at her belly, then her eyes dart up and meet Josie’s but she quickly looks away. I see it for what it is. Eno and Matthew got around a lot before settling down. They shared women, and Ally must’ve been one of them by the way she looks at my two friends. I would never say anything to either of them. If Matthew and Eno want them to know, it’s up to them to tell the tale, if they don’t already know.
I don’t blame her. Matthew and Eno are loveable, but she didn’t see them for what they were and what she was to them. I understand how she could’ve fallen for them, being two great guys. Hell, they all are. But they’re di
fferent men now—husbands, fathers, and fiancés. They’re no longer the party boys who rolled into town eleven years ago on Harleys, hell-bent on bedding every single woman between the ages of twenty and forty-five.
I look around the diner at the faces of all the women and wonder just how many have been in their beds in the past. I understand Roman wasn’t a saint when I came back to him either. Hell, I was the furthest thing from one, more than anybody. This is something we’re all going to have to live with as long as we live in this town.
“Hollis?” I jerk my attentions back to Emily. “Where did you go, girl?”
“Oh.” I smile and shake my head. “Nowhere important. What is it?”
“My junk!” Jax screams, reaching between his legs, cupping himself and smiling from ear to ear.
Tessa reaches over, smoothing her hand over his white-blond hair. “Yes, son, it is.”
I look around the table, caching all their eyes. “Does it ever bother any of you the way the women in this town look at us and our men?”
Piper was in the middle of shoving a fry into her mouth, but stops and looks around, noticing the same thing I just did. Avery shrugs and Emily snorts. Josie bites her lip and Tessa burps.
“I’ve had to live with it a long time. Not as long as Piper, but longer than the rest of you.” Avery sits back, dusting the fry salt off her hands. “It took me getting into a fight to prove to the women of this town Leo belonged to me.”
Piper gasps. “I remember that!” She looks around the table, her eyes alight with giddiness. “It was so fuck—,” She cuts the word off when Emily levels her eyes at her. “Awesome.” She points at Avery. “She’s a badass. She kicked that skank’s butt, and it was epic.”
My head jerks around to Avery. “You got into a fight? This must’ve been while I was gone.”
Avery nods at me. “It was.” Damn, I hate I missed that. “She kicked Leo’s bike over, so of course I did.” She sighs. “But I was in a sundress so the whole damned clubhouse saw my goods. It was not a good scene.”
“I feel the same way. It pisses me off the way some of them stumble all over themselves like they’ve never seen a good-looking man a day in their life,” Josie speaks up, and I feel sorry for her, seeing as how she’s with the biggest playboy—aside from Matthew—of them all.
“Anybody fucks with Matthew, I’ll just sit on them,” Tessa adds, rubbing her large belly again.
“Yeah, two girls came up to me and Cal when I first got back into town, in here, actually.” Emily points across the room. “We were sitting right over there in that booth.” She licks her lips and sighs. “I look at it this way, as long as he shuts them down and lets them know right quick that he’s a married father, I let it all go. Because there’s nothing I can do about it and I believe in Cal and the love that we have. He comes home to me and his daughter every night, and if one day that isn’t something he wants and orders from the menu, he’s out. There’s no coming back from that for me.” I know she and Cowboy have had several extensive talks about this, by the way she’s so confidently talking about the topic.
“When I got back, Roman had a girlfriend.” They all look away. “It’s okay, I know y’all knew.”
“We didn’t like her,” Emily says.
“Not at all. She was more of a bitch than I am and that’s saying a lot.” Piper laughs. “Hated her.”
“But it was something he did with her, that when I think about it now makes me sick.” I roll the words around in mouth and wonder if I should tell them about that night.
“Oh no, what did my dumbass brother do?” Piper wrinkles her nose up.
“They went on a date and he brought her back to the house, where I was staying in the guest room downstairs. They were very loud.” I wave my hands in air over the table. “Y’all can fill in the rest of the blanks.” I feel a little guilty for ratting my future husband out.
“He did not!” Piper nearly screams at me. “You wait till I get my damned hands on him.”
“Oh no,” I rush out. “You can’t say anything. This is all between us, please?” She relents, but she’s still fuming. I should never say anything about him waking me up with a gun to my head, or fucking my brains out on the kitchen table that we’ve since replaced.
“Honey.” Avery lays her hand on my arm. “I know, I walked in and found a naked stripper on mine and Leo’s bed in the clubhouse.”
“Is that the girl’s ass you kicked?”
“Yeah.” Avery has an evil little grin on her gorgeous face.
“Did she come back around?”
“Nope. But Hollis, Roman loves you.” She grits her teeth and I know what she’s going to say next will be in reference to me and the past. “But he risked everything bringing you back and was willing to give it all up for you, so I don’t think you have a thing to worry about.” Avery’s as polite and tactful as usual, setting my nerves at ease.
Tessa lowers her brows, looking at me. “Wait a minute. Where the hell did you go and why did you leave?”
All chatter at the table stops and I look uncomfortably at Emily, who looks over at Tessa. “It’s a long story, and not for little ears. When you have these babies,” Emily rubs Tessa’s overly large babies bump, “we’ll have a wine night and tell you all about it.”
Tessa grimaces. “Y’all are the weirdest bunch of chicks I’ve ever met in my life.”
“You’ve told us that already.” I smile at her, and the laughter is once again filling the air around the table.
“Oh, I did, didn’t I?” Tessa smiles at us, not looking the least bit guilty. “But y’all are freaking nuts and I love every minute of it.”
~~~~~~
Roman
“It ain’t right, man,” Dalton says as he throws back the shot, “to do this to him. They’ve gone clean, and if word has gotten out, it could get him killed.” By no means are Oz and his club sporting clean hands, but with what they’d done for and with Hollis, they’d been given a pass for the information they’d provided.
“The higher-ups don’t give a shit about that,” Leo says, coming up beside me, throwing his phone onto the bar. “They’re on their way. He said it should be about two hours.”
“Heard anything from Janine yet?” Leo asks, nudging me with his elbow, laughing.
“Fucking Eno.” I stand and look down the bar at the gossiping asshole, who shrugs and smiles at me. “And no, I haven’t yet. She owed me a favor.”
“I’ll bet she did,” Matthew says, only helping to piss me off more. The last thing I wanted to do was call her, but for Hollis I would do anything, and if calling an old fuck buddy and cashing in a favor is what is needed to put this to rest, I will do it a million times.
“Shut the hell up. All of you.” I cut my eyes at them, getting laughs in response. “I gave her all the information we had and she told me she would get right on it.” I quickly hold up my hand, stopping any sarcastic remarks they might think to make, but I do hear a few more laughs.
I look over at Leo. “And what did Oz have to say?”
He grimaces. “He wasn’t happy.”
“Fuck no he wasn’t,” Dalton says as he gets another beer from the fridge, offering us all one.
~~~~~~
Hollis
Emily and I are loading our supplies into the back of her SUV, having finished up the day a little early. I place the last bucket into the hatch and turn to her. “Emily, has Cowboy been acting, you know, funny, since the other night?”
She stops resting her hands on her hips letting out a long breath. “Not like himself, that’s for sure.” She reaches to close the hatch door, slamming it shut. “What do you think happened?”
I look at her, a bit shocked. “He didn’t tell you? I thought he’d promised no more secrets?”
She and I round the vehicle to the front doors and climb in. Resting her hands on the steering wheel, she says, “Sometimes, Hollis, secrets with their line of work is a good thing.” She starts the engine. “And with th
e face he was wearing when he got home, to tell the truth, I don’t think I want to know what happened. Why do you want to know so badly?”
“Because it’s really bothering Roman, and I don’t want what I asked him to do to make him look the way he has the past couple of days.”
“I’m sure it isn’t what you asked him to do.” She pulls away from the strip mall that houses the lawyer’s office we’d just finished cleaning, heading in the direction of the clubhouse.
I jerk around in my seat to her. “We’re going to the clubhouse?”
She smiles. “Sure. We haven’t been there in a while, but,” she holds up her phone, “calling for back up first. Always show up with food. They don’t seem to mind an impromptu visit when you hand them cheeseburgers.” I shoot out a group text. This should be fun.
Chapter Ten
Roman
The sounds of several motorcycles echo through the air as we watch Oz and his boys pull through the gate. They park their bikes and remove their helmets, their cuts proudly stating they’re The Hell’s Bastards. Oz reaches his hand out to Leo, giving it a firm shake. “What in the hell is all this shit?”
“Man, I’m sorry, our new CO is a real prick and I hate they’ve pulled you into this,” Leo tells him.
“Exactly what is this?” Cruz asks, taking Leo’s hand next.
“A whole bunch of fucked up shit,” Matty adds, making the rounds too. “Dex, hey, man. Mose.” He nods to each of the men.
Leo turns and Oz moves with him as we all make our way back into the clubhouse.
“What the hell?” Eno asks, making us stop and turn to see all the SUVs of our women pull through the gate.
Avery’s the first to jump out, waving wildly at us. “Hey, boys.” The rest of her posse unloads from the two vehicles behind hers.