“Sit down, both of you.”
Their president’s tone brooked no resistance; they both sat.
“Rad says she’s his old lady, she’s his old lady. I assume she’s keeping your flame?”
It mattered to the club that a woman make that visible commitment. Old ladies knew secrets—Willa would know Rad’s secrets—and so, just as the patches wore ink to show their loyalty, their women did, too.
Willa hadn’t said yes, exactly, yet, but she would. She hadn’t said no, just that she needed more time. But things had changed these past few days. Yet another catastrophic event had intensified their feelings. Their relationship thus far had been a constant careen from one impact to the next.
“She is,” he answered Delaney. “Soon’s all this settles.”
“Good. To your question, Beck—no, I didn’t tell Kirill about what happened with Willa. I wanted to get all the information I could, and I wanted it run through at this table first. So that’s what’s next.” Delaney turned to Rad. “She’s your woman, Rad. Say your thinking first.”
“Okay, yeah. First thing I want to lay out here is that this ain’t like Dahlia’s shit. This ain’t Willa tryin’ to wrap me up in her chain. This is real. I told you already what that guy did to her. Apollo—I know you looked into her story.”
Apollo nodded. “Sorry, Sarge. Had to.”
“I know. Now say what you found.”
The young patch sat forward. “It took a while, it was years back, and Texas records are hard to get hold of. But the short of it is, yeah. All true. He did time for burglary the first time, but that was a plea deal. The police report detailed what he did to Willa. Same thing the second time, but that time he did hard time for hurting her. She had a restraining order, too, for all that did. Anyway, all true.”
“Nobody thought she was lying, Sarge,” Simon interjected. “We’ve all met her. We believe you. She’s not Dahlia. But all that makes it even worse that we didn’t have somebody on her.”
“I know. My bad. I was…I made a mistake.” This was not the room to admit that he’d caved to his old lady’s will. Not on an issue like protection.
“It would’ve been a hardship to lose manpower,” Delaney said. “We shot Rad down when he wanted to go for this guy at the start, remember. We said that Willa wasn’t close enough to be family. Fuck, I said that. I was remembering Dahlia and not putting stock in this problem. Nobody knew this guy was on Willa yet. I think we’d’ve shot Rad down if he’d asked to put coverage on her. The prospects did their checks, like they do for all the women. It wasn’t enough. So let’s set aside the blame here. Blame doesn’t give us a plan.”
“She’s a little warrior, though, huh? Turned that asshole into shredded meat.” Gunner laughed and turned to Rad. “You definitely traded up, Sarge.”
“Away from this table,” Delaney cut in, refocusing the discussion, “Rad did it. You all know the story. Anybody got a problem with it?”
Nobody did.
“Simon, Gun, Ox—no trouble with the disposal, right?”
“No, Prez.” Gunner grinned. “Didn’t even mess up my pretty face.”
“No word on the police band about anybody spotting the wreck,” said Apollo.
Ox spoke on that. “Where we put it, could’ve burned out and nobody the wiser.”
“That’s a problem, to my thinking,” Rad said. “A dead Rat could just be unlucky. But a missing Rat last seen in Tulsa could be a problem.”
“We don’t know what they know.” Dane tugged on his beard.
“No, we don’t,” Rad agreed. “My thinkin’ is we have to be ready for them to come lookin’ for him. That’s why I wanted his kutte. If this goes down as an accident or a mad hitchhiker or somethin’, the evidence is burned away, so they won’t know if he had his kutte. But if this comes to a head between the clubs, we have proof it was our call and not hers. It was the Bulls protectin’ our people. If the Rats have any sense, then that’s a negotiation, not a war.”
“Rats got no sense,” Becker muttered. “They’ll pull some sneaky shit and catch us with our pants down.”
Delaney sighed. “Enough. We can’t plan shit against a threat we don’t understand. If she’s safe, we can focus on the Russians and give the Rats some time to show their hand. Rad—we need to put Willa under cover for a while, till we can see if there’s blowback. If the Rats know about her, they’ll probably go for her first.”
“That’s what I was thinkin’.” And the thought made Rad’s insides burn.
“Why don’t you take her up to the cabin?”
The club had a cabin up in the Osage Hills. It was pretty nice. They used it for recreation, weekends away, hiding out when things got hot for one of them, and storage for part of their club gun cache.
“Too far, too remote, Prez. If they find her there, she won’t have enough between them and her.” Except for Ollie. Who was formidable, as Rad knew intimately well. “I’ll put her at my place.”
“How’s that better?” asked Griffin. “If they’re a threat to us, it’s because they know she’s with you.”
That was a point, and anyway, Rad’s house was a shithole. He was barely there anymore, and that was the way he liked it.
“Here. Here is where she’s safest.” Simon looked across the table at Rad. “The clubhouse.”
She would absolutely hate that, but Simon was right. Here at the clubhouse, she’d be surrounded by patches and a high fence.
He wondered what Ollie would think about all this.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“You know, that new shop down the row from mine did this thing with their floor,” Joanna offered, studying the page of paint samples Maureen had handed her. “This kind of concrete stain, with patterns. Could we do something like that?”
“That oddball place that did graffiti on the windows?” Maureen looked aghast.
Willa knew the shop they were talking about. She loved it. They sold a wide selection of Doc Martens and had fantastic jeans. She’d been there just a few days before; she’d seen Jesse watching her when she’d come out.
For the most part, she’d been sitting quietly, listening to Maureen and Joanna throw out ideas and sketch out plans. She’d met and had some brief chat with both of them before today, and they’d been friendly, but she wouldn’t have said she was their friend yet, or vice versa. Over the years, Willa had become slow to call people friends. It didn’t matter that she was Rad’s old lady; she hadn’t found her place in the clubhouse or among club people yet—and she was definitely not comfortable enough to offer decorating opinions.
When Rad had left her here and gone back for his meeting, Maureen and Joanna had been quite nice. They’d asked how she was feeling and fussed about her hurt face a little, and they’d offered her coffee and drawn her into their conversation. She still felt a little awkward, but that was her, not them. The things she had in common with them were so new to her, and they’d lived this life for years. She felt like a freshman on the first day of school, pulling up a chair at a table full of popular seniors.
But she knew the shop they were talking about, so she took a chance and offered a careful opinion. “The floor is pretty cool. It just looks—almost like weathered stone, I guess. Like old terra cotta?”
Joanna smiled and flipped her red hair over her shoulder. “Yes! It’s real nice. I’m thinking about ripping up the carpet and doing something like that at my place. Have you ever been in my shop, Willa? It’s La Luciole.”
Willa knew the shop, but she’d never been in it. It was a high-end women’s fashion boutique that stocked clothes and accessories that were both out of Willa’s league and nowhere near her taste. It surprised her, honestly. Here she sat with two women probably in their mid-ish forties, both of them shapely and attractive, both dressed in jeans and snug, dark tops, lots of jewelry, and boots with high heels. Full makeup and hair. They looked like the queens of this castle. La Luciole was more the Ladies Who Lunch kind of shop. Nothing Willa would e
ver go into willingly. She had a hard time picturing Joanna in there, either.
But to Joanna, she said, “Yeah, I know it. It’s nice.”
Maureen snorted. “You’ve never been in there in your life, love. Admit it.”
A glance at Joanna suggested honesty would not provoke violence. “Well, it’s not my style, really. But the window displays are always gorgeous.”
“It’s not my style, either,” Joanna laughed. “But the women who like that shit pay. The store was my mother’s. I worked there my whole life, I inherited it when she passed, and I didn’t see any reason to change up a good thing. But you should come in sometime—we have some nice things that aren’t so…obvious.”
“Okay,” Willa agreed with a smile. “I will, thanks.”
“Back to the topic at hand,” Maureen interrupted, the slight lilt of her accent becoming more pronounced in her emphasis. “The floor. I don’t want to do anything too nice here. These boys are like children the way they treat this place. They’ll just tear it all up.”
“Then why redo it?” Willa asked, not considering that the question might cause offense.
But Maureen lifted an eyebrow, and Willa knew she didn’t appreciate the challenge. “We have to be here, too, and I won’t spend time in a shitter. It’s been like this coming on ten years, because Brian keeps putting himself in my way. ‘Too much disruption to do this room,’ he says. Well, the furniture looks like they dragged it all from a dumpster, and it smells like jizz, stale beer, and White Shoulders, and I am at my end. I made him see it was time he let me at it.”
Joanna laughed. “To be a fly on that wall.”
“I don’t know what you mean. It was a perfectly civilized discussion betwixt two reasonable people.” Then she laughed. “More or less.” Setting a conspiratorial elbow on the bar, Maureen leaned close to Willa. “You’ll learn, love. Men like ours, sometimes you have to lock your knees and set your shoulders and let them crash into you before they’ll stop and listen. And sometimes you have to step aside and make way.”
“Yep,” Joanna agreed and refilled Willa’s coffee cup, pushing the cream close. “Pick your battles. Because battles you will have.”
“That one, I figured out already,” Willa said.
An arc of sunlight moved over the bar, and all three women turned to the front door as two young women walked in. With the light behind them, Willa couldn’t make out whether she knew them or not—though she hadn’t exactly socialized among the Bulls yet, she’d been introduced to a lot of them, including a few sweetbutts and hangarounds.
Sweetbutts. What a ridiculous thing to call a grown woman. But they referred to themselves and each other that way, and they seemed pleased to have the designation, so Willa kept her opinions to herself.
“Hey, cookies,” Joanna said and stood. “What’s the what?”
The door had closed, and Willa saw that she didn’t recognize either young woman. They were slim and tall, about the same height, both with long hair, one ginger and one blonde. They both had clear blue eyes and liberal dashes of summer freckles across their noses.
The redhead hugged Joanna, and Willa wasn’t surprised to hear the way she addressed Dane’s old lady. “Mom, don’t try to be down with the lingo, okay?”
“I’m cool. You don’t even know.” Joanna hugged the blonde. “Have you two met Willa yet? I don’t think so.” She turned with her arm around the blonde. “Willa, these are my daughters. This is Clara, and the one with the smart mouth is Cecily. Cissy just finished her first year at OU. Clara’s going into twelfth grade in the fall. Willa is Rad’s old lady.”
Willa shook hands with both girls, neither of whom seemed especially interested in her. But they each gave Maureen a quick hug.
Joanna settled herself back on her stool. “You’re here of your own free will, so you must want something. How much is it going to cost me?”
“We actually want to ask Dad,” Clara said.
Maureen laughed, and Joanna groaned. “That much? What is it?”
The girls seemed reluctant.
“Look, cookies. Your father is in church. He has a lot going on right now, and the last thing he needs is you double-teaming him with your baby blues and your ‘please, Papa,’ pouts. Tell me what you want.”
Cecily huffed dramatically. “There’s a concert next week. It’s sold out. We were hoping Dad could…talk to somebody and get us some tickets.”
“What concert? Where?”
Clara answered. “Victim Kink. At Cain’s—it’s all ages, Mom. Totally safe.”
Joanna rolled her eyes at that. “I’ll look into it, and I’ll talk to your father. You will both keep your wiles holstered and leave the man alone. Now scoot—or hang around and help us out.”
“We’ll go,” Cecily answered, quickly. “Can I at least take the card? We’re meeting everybody at the Promenade.
Joanna went behind the bar and got her handbag. “You work at a clothes shop. Why wandering around a mall is fun for you, I have no idea.”
She handed a credit card over the bar, and Cecily snatched it. “Thanks, Mom.” With spry little turns that sent their silky manes flying, the sisters headed toward the front door. As they opened it, they called out, in unison, “Bye Mom, Bye Aunt Mo, Bye Willa!”
Slick, who’d been near the door, pinning photographs up on a big corkboard, had watched the girls go, his eyes lingering on the closed door.
“Careful, Slicky,” Joanna teased in a singsong lilt, “I’ll tell their father!”
The prospect returned his attention to his project with all due haste.
When the women picked up their discussion of the party room décor, Willa thought Maureen seemed quieter than before. Nothing she could put her finger on, but something different.
~oOo~
The men were in their ‘chapel’ for more than two hours. By the time the doors opened and they filed out, Maureen and Joanna had made lists of things they wanted done and contractors that needed to be called, and they’d all cleaned up the paperwork and were in the kitchen, preparing dinner.
Willa had been given a list of painters to call for bids, and she was going furniture shopping with them soon. Apparently, she was to be part of the project.
She was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables, when Rad leaned against the jamb. “Ladies, I need Willa,” he said.
“Sure, love.” Maureen waved him off with a wooden spoon, and Rad grabbed Willa’s hand.
“Gotta talk, baby.”
She set the knife on the cutting board, and Kymber, one of the so-called sweetbutts, slid in and took her place like they’d choreographed it.
Rad led her back to a mudroom. The glass in the back door showed a fragment of the patio beyond. She’d never been back there, but she was curious. There was a big metal bull out there; from this vantage, she could see part of one horn.
“What’s up?”
“Made some decisions, and I need you to hear what I’ve got to say.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“We decided that you do need to stay away from home and work for a few days, while we sort shit out.”
After their talk the night before, she’d been expecting that, so it neither surprised nor upset her. “Okay. Where?”
His lopsided smirk wasn’t quite as cocky as usual. It was wary instead. Like he expected her to smack him when he answered, and he was preparing his face.
“Where, Rad?”
“Here.”
“Here?”
Maureen had described the aroma of the party room as ‘jizz, stale beer, and White Shoulders,’ and that was a start. But, perhaps because Willa wasn’t as used to it as they were, she thought Maureen’s description had been overly kind. Add in blood, farts, cigars, weed, and motor oil, and they’d be getting closer. In short, the place stank to high heaven and right back to hell.
“I know, Wills. But there’s no other place as safe as this. Here, there’s always gonna be somebody around, and we’ve got a good security
setup.”
She thought of her pretty little house and her pretty little garden. “It’s so gross here.”
It was her only argument, and it was entirely decorative. She’d caused this mess—well, no, Jesse had caused this mess, but she’d made it worse—and she would do what Rad needed her to do to help get the Bulls out of it. She’d have agreed to stay in a hole in the ground if he’d said he needed her to.
The clubhouse was a very slight upgrade from a hole in the ground.
He laughed and slid his arm around her waist. “Upstairs is nicer. There’re bedrooms up there—not fancy, but Mo did her magic on ‘em a couple years back, and the girls keep ‘em clean.”
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