Chapter Twenty
Kick
A few days later, King called Church. He’d put it off, giving me time to be with Evie, but he was right – we needed to take stock of where the club was at. I left Evie with her Mum and headed into the clubhouse.
Hyde greeted me with a slap on the back. “How’s everything going, man?” he asked, his beef with me completely gone. Jekyll and Hyde.
“All good, but not holding out hope that Gambarro was bluffing the other night,” I expressed my concern that Gambarro had indeed made plans for his crew to avenge his death if it ever were to happen.
His face darkened. “Yeah, I wouldn’t put it past the motherfucker to have organised something.”
We took our seats around the table and King began. “Has anyone heard anything from the Gambarro camp?” he asked, looking around the table. The resounding ‘no’ gave me only a tiny sliver of hope, and it appeared King thought the same way I did. “Well, keep your ears to ground and let me know the minute you hear something. We need to be prepared for this.”
Everyone agreed to that, and then I raised my concern from the other night. “Gambarro said he’d only sent one message to us – the car accident. But my girlfriend’s house was broken into the other night and trashed. Nothing was stolen. Now call me a paranoid bastard, but this feels odd. Have any of you had shit happen recently?”
I looked around the table and from the expressions on everyone’s faces, I knew deep in my gut something was definitely odd with this. Nitro was the first to speak. “My sister’s place was ransacked three nights ago.”
Devil’s vein in his neck twitched as he said, “Fuck, my brother was broken into a couple of nights ago.”
Hyde was murderous. “Fuck!” he roared, standing. He looked like he was about to explode from his anger. “My sister owns a convenience store and it was held up two nights ago.” His gaze zeroed in on King. “This is Silver Hell, isn’t it? Those motherfuckers!”
If I thought Hyde was murderous, King was positively insane. He slammed his fist down on the table and looked around the table. “Those motherfucking cunts!” Giving his attention to Devil, he said, “I want you to look into this, you and Kick, and report back ASAP, yeah?”
Devil’s eyes met mine, and we nodded. “Yeah, boss, will do,” he agreed.
“Any other business to discuss?” King demanded, his wild eyes searching the room. When no one spoke up, the gavel came down and Church was done.
Fuck.
Shit just got real.
* * *
I gazed at Evie sitting in the bed. She’d progressed from lying down all the time to sitting for a while each day. I knew from experience how painful broken ribs were, and I also knew how long they took to recover from.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, keeping her eyes on mine.
I smirked and pushed off from the wall to walk to the bed. Sitting next to her, I said, “I was thinking that my dick could shrivel up from lack of use over the next month or so.”
“Really? Such deep thoughts you have, Kick,” she said with a wink.
“That was your opportunity to tell me we could work without your pussy on this.”
“Well, we could . . . you’ve always got two hands to take care of business,” she responded, with a teasing gleam in her eye.
“Sweetheart, I’d much rather your hands sign up for this job.”
She laughed and fuck if that didn’t turn me the fuck on. Jesus, Evie only had to look at me these days and I was almost blowing a load. Her laugh didn’t last long, though, because it caused her pain and she winced. But then she grew serious and asked, “Do you ever think we’ll get to play with your toys?”
I shifted off the bed and threw my hands in the air. “Fuck, baby, you can’t do that to a man when he’s got no fuckin’ hope of getting a hard-on taken care of.”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to bring your toys up.” She really did look apologetic, but that was no good to me once my dick was already hard.
I placed my finger to my lips. “Shhh, don’t mention the toys again. At least not until you can fix this shit,” I said, pointing to my hard cock.
Nodding, she opened her mouth to say something, but we were interrupted by a knock at the front door. I left her and went to answer the door. My brother and sister stood on the other side, surprising the hell out of me. Lina pushed past me before I could stop her, and asked, “Is Evie in her bedroom?”
I’d forgotten she knew this house; Evie and Lina had been close until the last time I broke up with Evie. “Yeah, just go on through,” I muttered, knowing full well my sister wouldn’t listen to me if I told her to wait.
Braden grinned at me as he took a step inside. “How are you, little brother?”
“Fuck, man, I’m tired. It’s been a long week. And you?” I closed the door behind him.
“I’m good. Heard you had a blow up at Mum.”
I raked my fingers through my hair. “Yeah, that woman . . .” my voice drifted off as thoughts of her cut through me. I wasn’t sure I’d ever work my anger at her out of my system.
“I get it. I told her not to come around my place anymore, too,” he admitted.
“Good. She doesn’t deserve a place in our lives.”
We’d made it to Evie’s bedroom and she caught the last piece of our conversation. She looked up at me and asked, “Who doesn’t deserve a place in your life?”
“Mum.”
Lina piped up. “Oh, speaking of people who don’t deserve a place in our lives . . . Dave has been given a transfer for work. He’ll be leaving in a week.”
I was concerned for her, and what this would mean but at the same time, I was over the fucking moon he wouldn’t be around to harass her anymore. “Are you okay with that?” I asked, watching her closely for her real feelings on the matter.
Her face lit up with a smile. “Yes, because it gives us both space to move on, and it also gets him away from me and the kids when he’s been drinking, which seems to be more often than not these days.”
Evie reached for Lina’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “That’s great, Lina,” she said with a smile.
“Yeah, thank fuck,” I said, meaning every word of it.
For the first time in a long time, it felt like our families were healing and growing, and good shit was happening.
It had been a long time coming.