Chapter 5
Brewer
I sat on my back porch, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Makenna’s backyard. Her daughter was adorable. Energetic and full of life. I missed those days. Days when things seemed easier and my only worry was whether or not Mom was going to let me have macaroni and cheese for dinner that night. That seemed like such a mountain of a problem, not getting macaroni and cheese.
I wondered if Ana liked macaroni and cheese.
I drew in a deep breath as I propped my feet up on the porch table in my backyard. I put my beer to my lips and took a long pull from the bottle. Holy hell, my neighbor was beautiful. Entrancing, almost. The way her voice lilted and the way she stood so strong. It took a hell of a woman to raise such an outgoing and confident daughter, and she was nailing it. Those stormy blue eyes that had seen too much and that dark red hair that beckoned to be pulled. I bet she enjoyed a bit of a dominant streak in her men.
It sounded like she’d been with enough pussies to crave that kind of thing.
I had enjoyed being around the two of them. Playing with her daughter and kicking the ball around. I didn’t get much of that in my childhood. I had to grow up pretty fast once my father left. My mother used to tell me when I was little that I looked like him. That we had the same mannerisms. For some reason, that stuck with me, and made me think that I would end up being exactly like him. Like the piece of shit father that he was.
My father and I had some decent memories, sure. But they were tainted by him leaving my mother. By breaking the heart of the one woman who was more important than anything in the entire fucking world. The only good thing about her Alzheimer’s was that she couldn’t remember having her heart broken. She couldn’t remember my father leaving her for his big-chested secretary. She couldn’t remember the nights she spent crying until she fell asleep and making sure she tried her best to hide her pain from me.
Makenna struck me as that type of mother. The strong one that stepped up to the plate because she loved her daughter. But who took care of her? Who made sure she got a break and had some time to herself? There were perks in raising a child with someone, and none of it had to do with any of that family bullshit. Sometimes, a person needed a break. A moment to retreat. That was where the other party came into play. Being a single parent was a thankless job, and I could see the stress of it written all over her face today.
She loved her daughter, but she was also stretched to her limit.
Ana was cute. A ball full of energy. But Makenna was strong. A resilient woman that probably wouldn’t complain even if she was bleeding out through her damn leg. I admired strength like that. It made me want to give her a break. It made me want to interject and give her something she didn’t have to share with her daughter.
Not because I didn’t like Ana, but because I also liked Makenna.
I took another long pull of my beer as a light flicked on in their home. My eyes rose to the second story and I saw Makenna’s shadow. Her beautiful hair fluttering in her air-conditioned home as she picked her daughter up in her arms. I could see her struggling with her daughter, and the faint whisper of her daughter’s giggles could be heard outside. A smile tugged across my lips as I watched the shadows dance. I wondered what they were doing. Maybe Ana was getting out of the bathtub even though she didn’t want to. Or she was ready to get out but she didn’t want to dry off. I watched the glorious battle rage between the two of them before their shadows receded from view, and the light soon clicked off and all was silent again.
I think I was going to enjoy having them as neighbors.
My phone ringing in my pocket pulled me from my thoughts. I reached in and looked down, grinning when I saw who was calling. Rock and I had been friends for years. Buddies in high school and a terror for our professors at the community college we attended. The two of us joined The Dead Souls as prospects at the same time, and we were constantly working side-by-side given our respective roles in the club. I handled the police and Rock handled the technology, which meant we were frequently in the police station together while he was trying to clone some shit and I was schmoozing my contacts.
I’d trusted Rock with my life. There was no way he was the rat.
“I got a beer over here with your name on it,” I said.
“We gotta talk more about this rat,” Rock said.
“Glad someone wants to talk about it. Don’t you think it’s odd that Diesel is still bucking against it?”
“I do. What I don’t get is why. He’s good at reading people. If there’s anyone who can flush the damn thing out, it’s him. But he won’t fucking do it. What does he stand to lose?”
“You know Diesel, he always wants to see the best in people. And his reputation is technically on the line.”
“The fuck does that mean?” Rock asked.
“If there’s a rat in the club and they came into the group anytime in the last seven years, then that means Diesel had to put his stamp of approval on them. People could twist it to make people think Diesel’s decision-making skills are compromised or some fuckery like that.”
“What the fuck? This isn’t politics. We aren’t Washington. There’s a damn rat and until we smoke them out, we aren’t gonna get anywhere.”
“I know. But we have to convince Diesel that it’s a good idea. Otherwise he’ll continue to shoot us down. And if we go behind his back, it’ll be seen as mutiny or something. He’ll throw us both out.”
“Do you have any ideas as to who it could be?” he asked.
“I know it’s not you. You don’t have the patience to be an informant.”
“And I’ve known you for years, so that counts for something. Right?”
“Yep. Same reason why it counts for me,” I said.
“I’m gonna ask something that doesn’t leave the two of us.”
“You think Diesel’s the rat.”
“It’s odd that he’s pushing back so fucking much.”
“I have to admit, it’s crossed my mind. Diesel does have the skill set to be able to cover up some shit like this. He knows all the stuff he’s taught us about reading other people, so he would know what tells and ticks to cover up if he was lying to us.”
“You think Diesel would sell us out like that? I mean he’s the fucking president of our club,” he said.
“That’s the thing. It makes sense, but I’m not sold on it. None of this shit has made sense up until this fucking point, so why should it start making sense now?”
“At least someone else is worried about the damn rat. Knox is running around with Monroe now that she’s ballooned in her pregnancy and Grave’s fucking got Everly’s damn mood swings to deal with.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you hate kids.”
“I don’t fucking hate kids, you asshole. But we don’t live the kind of fucking life that can afford kids. And no one seems to give a shit about that. Each time someone gets someone else pregnant in our club, that’s two other people we gotta watch out for. I mean, what the fuck are these guys thinking?”
“You aren’t wrong,” I said. I glanced over to Makenna’s house and smiled. “But with the right woman, a kid could be kinda ok.”
“Don’t tell me you’re knocking someone up, too,” he said. “Don’t do that to me. I can’t take that. I need my bachelor buddy.”
“I’m not knocking anyone up. Though my new neighbor’s pretty hot.”
“Wrap it up, asshole.”
I chuckled as I took another pull of my beer.
“I’m serious. I got a beer with your name on it if you wanna come over,” I said.
“Nah. Just wanted to talk with someone who had some fucking sense about them with this whole rat ordeal. We gotta figure out who it is.”
“We do. But we can’t do anything until we convince Diesel to do something about it,” I said.
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
“I don’t mean hack his financial information and hold it over his head.”
“I… wasn’t going to do that… exactly.”
“Uh huh,” I said with a grin. “I’ll be up for a couple more hours if you wanna stop by.”
“I hear you. Talk to you soon.”
“Later.”
I hung up the phone and stuffed it back into my pocket as a door opened in the distance. My eyes drifted beyond the fence and landed in Makenna’s backyard again. I watched her step out of her house with a glass of wine in her hand and a cardigan pulled around her body. She had glasses on now and her hair was pulled into a low bun at the nape of her neck.
She was settling in for the night, and she still looked gorgeous.
She turned her eyes to look at me and rose her hand to wave. I nodded to acknowledge her before I drained the rest of my beer. I couldn’t sit out here with her over there. I’d want to go over and talk with her some more. Possibly lean her down on her table and give her that kiss we both knew was coming. I made my way inside and shut the door, then tossed my empty beer bottle into the trash.
As much as I wanted to get to know Makenna, Rock did have a point. The man was completely against families with this lifestyle, and if I brought Makenna into my personal circle it put both her and her daughter in danger. Until we could settle who the hell the rat was and wrap up all this shit with The Black Saddles, it was best if I kept them at arm’s length.
Hell, it was best if I kept them at mile’s length.
Raking my hands down my face, I pulled myself upstairs. I needed to sleep on the conversation I’d just had with Rock. I wondered if any of the other guys felt the way we did. If any of them felt that Diesel not getting on board with this rat thing was odd. But they were too busy worrying over the families they had created.
Something I sort of wished I had myself.
I peeled off my clothes and slid into bed. The morning couldn’t come soon enough. We had a hell of a lot of work to do if we were going to shut all of this shit down and keep the RICO case at bay.
Because if the feds descended into Redding, we were fucking screwed.