Target had dropped a bomb.
I exchanged glances with my Brothers. All of us clearly stunned, but trying not to make it obvious. We didn’t want to give the asshole the satisfaction of knowing he’d rattled us.
“My family name is DePalma. Ring any bells?” He smirked and the urge to wipe the look off his face was just too strong.
I clocked him in the jaw, forcing his head against the hard cold concrete wall.
The name did ring a bell. The DePalma family was one of the top Mafia families on the West Coast. Was I scared of them? Not particularly. But this did change the game.
“Why you riding with bikers if your so called family runs New York?” Optimus asked, obviously realizing just who he was talking about.
“Expanding business. Motorcycle clubs and Mafia don’t tend to mix.” That was an understatement. “Getting in good with the club meant more business.”
“We’ve never dealt with them before, and you’ve never brought it to the table.”
As far as I knew, Target had been with the MC for a little over six years. Background checks would have been done and if they hadn’t pulled up anything then it was something he’d wanted to keep hidden.
“A Trojan Horse,” Harmony muttered.
We all turned to her. “Say again?”
“The Greeks used a Trojan Horse to win the Trojan War. They made this huge horse and hid a bunch of men inside it. Then the rest of the army pretended to leave. When the Trojans pulled the horse inside their city as a trophy, the Greeks climbed out and let in the rest of the army.” She shook her head. “He was the Trojan Horse. He was going to destroy the club from the inside out.”
“We aren’t at war with the DePalmas. Or any Mafia for that matter,” Optimus stated. “They’re fucking states away.”
“My family is growing and your little club – it’s in the way.”
I frowned. “So where did Daniel Ashley come into this? And what’s with the vendetta against women?”
“Some say that a man is only as strong as the woman who stands beside him. My family believes women are to be seen, not heard,” Target said as he eyed Harmony. An Italian accent was now becoming more prominent, something he’d obviously had to disguise for years. “Daniel has particular skills when it comes to making women disappear. Chelsea was obviously the first intended target. What with being the one woman Optimus wants but refuses to acknowledge. But then Harmony came along and I thought, well why not hit two birds with one stone. Things obviously worked out strangely with her father on the scene, but that was neither here nor there.”
“Things didn’t work out at fucking all for you,” Optimus growled. His face was red and he had pulled his gun from his jeans. “You’re full of information, Target. Spilling your guts here.”
Target laughed again, he clearly thought he had the upper hand. “Killing me is only going to bring the heat harder. The plan will not change. But since it’s no longer an undercover operation and my family will be exacting their revenge, I will die in peace just from seeing those looks on your faces knowing that you will all be in hell with me very soon.”
He was right.
We were all in pure shock with this information. We’d thought Target was just a woman hating chauvinistic asshole. While that was true, he also had a backing that none of us expected nor wanted the pleasure of dealing with.
The room was silent for a moment, but it was Harmony who moved first. She ran over to where a baseball bat was propped up against the wall. She took a hold of it with both hands and walked toward the hanging man. None of us stopped her, all either too busy trying to collect our thoughts or just not caring about what the hell she was about to do.
“You don’t get off that easy,” she stated before she wound back and swung the bat like it was a golf club, straight into the man’s junk. He screamed and attempted to fold his body in to cradle himself, but the restraints held him tight. That swing alone was enough to make me what to cup my balls and apologize for things I hadn’t even done.
Her second swing was unexpected as she held it over her head and brought it down against his forearm. Another scream resonated in the air. His arm was now undoubtedly broken, instead of straight it now resembled a wide V shape and hung loosely.
A third shot to the ribs, another to the groin and to top it off she dropped the bat and plowed her fist into Target’s face. It was a good shot too.
She shook her hand, cursing as she walked over and kissed me softly. “I’ll leave you boys to it.” I watched as she walked up the stairs, happy to have her gone but missing her already.
“Man, that girl can swing. You better watch your balls, Kit,” Blizzard chuckled.
“Don’t I know it,” I murmured.
Target groaned. I didn’t blame him really. Two shots to the family jewels and I’d be surprised if they hadn’t crawled back inside themselves to hide from the torture.
“You may have a Mafia family behind you, but we have a family too. This club will stand together. We won’t fall. We won’t give up. We won’t bow down,” Optimus said loudly as he walked forward. He twisted a blade in his hand. “Let them come. We’ll be ready. Then everyone will know never to mess with the Brothers by Blood.”
With that he thrust the large knife straight into Target’s chest, piercing his heart. Target stared at the blade, wide-eyed and mouth hanging open.
“I was going to do this slowly – painfully. But you’re not even worth the time I would have to spend cleaning my tools afterward,” he sneered, stepping back to watch as the blood and life slowly drained from the traitor’s body. “See you in hell.”
We all followed Optimus from the room. I shut the door to the small shed behind us.
Target didn’t deserve an audience for his death. He didn’t deserve to have his Brothers around him as he took his last breaths. He would die alone, with only his thoughts to comfort him into the next life.
“This is big,” Blizzard said quietly, his joking now pushed to the side.
Optimus nodded. “He said the plan would be the same, which means Chelsea is still a target because of her association with me.”
I looked at my Brother, my long term friend. “We’ll protect our girls. They won’t get to them.”
“She’s not my girl.”
“Bullshit,” I said sternly. “When’s the last time she was with another Brother? When’s the last time she wasn’t in your bed.”
“She’s not my fucking girl,” he shot back.
Optimus had history. I could see in his eyes that he was right back there. All those years ago when his father died and he’d made the choice to do what he had to do to protect the ones that he loved in the middle of a war. Optimus made his decision back then and it haunted him to this day. The ghosts of his past were very real, and ones that he couldn’t escape. There was a story there, but unfortunately it wasn’t mine to tell.
“You guys all knew, Target knew. What if he told them?”
I knew exactly what he was talking about, and the likelihood that Target had told his family Optimus’ secret was high.
Blizzard, Tally and I all looked at each other. We knew what the answer was going to have to be. We all knew his feelings for Chelsea and why he wasn’t taking things to the next level.
“We don’t know how quickly the DePalma’s are going to retaliate. It could be tomorrow, it could be a week from now, maybe even months.” I swallowed the lump in my throat and said the words that we were all thinking. The words that were possibly going to throw his world into a tailspin. “You’re going to have to bring her back, it’s the only way you can make sure they’re safe.”
He rubbed his fingers over his short hair then in a flash he screamed, slamming his hands against the brick wall. With that, he stormed off with noises of banging and crashing following in his wake.
We had to prepare ourselves for a war. It was coming. We could feel it in the air. On top of that, Optimus now had to deal with a whole other problem – one very close to his heart, one very personal.
I hoped that he lined up his shit, got it straight and stepped up like the president I knew he could be. Because I could only do so much, and if this club didn’t have a strong leader when the shit hit the fan – we were all done for.