Tiny couldn’t dispute what Devil said. Frederick Gonzalez
knew a shit load more than any of them. “Fine, I accept whatever you’re
feeling. It still doesn’t change the fact we need to get our shit together, and
right now, it’s not together.”
Running fingers through his hair, Tiny stood up going
toward the one counter the cops hadn’t smashed up. He probably should look to
getting some new furniture and the entire place cleaned completely up. This was
the first time they’d been hit that he hadn’t come home and put shit right. He
took out a bottle of scotch and poured himself a healthy measure.
“
You going
to pour me a
glass?” Devil asked.
Pulling out a second glass, he handed one to Devil.
Leaning on the edge of his desk, Tiny looked toward the door where his woman
disappeared through.
“I fucking hate this shit,” he said.
“There’s not a lot we can do. This shit is going to
have to be done, whether we like it or not.” Devil downed his liquor and made
his way toward the door.
“What do you think’s going to happen?” Tiny asked,
curious to know Devil’s opinion.
Devil paused at the door then glanced toward him. He
shrugged. “I don’t know, but I think you need to accept some men are going to
die here.”
“What do you mean?” Tiny asked.
“You don’t go starting a fight with a man like this without
expecting some casualties. I hope for all our sakes, there are none.” Devil
left the room.
Staring down at his scotch, Tiny cursed. He was
supposed to be picking up Angel and Lash. With even one drink inside him he
wasn’t going to risk being snatched up by a passing cop.
Leaving the room he looked around the pitiful excuse for
a club he owned. There was a time when the room would be a bustle of activity
whereas now it was nothing more than a shell. Men and women would be having fun
in different states of undress, simply having a good time. Looking around his
club, he barely recognized it.
Eva was nowhere to be found. Moving toward Sophia, Tiny
touched her elbow. “Where’s my woman?”
“She went out the back to the park.” Sophia offered
him a smile, but he didn’t respond. All of his boys had married good women, and
that made the decision to take on Gonzalez even harder. There was so much more
to lose than ever before. Leaving the clubhouse behind he rounded the front to
find Eva sitting on a swing looking down at their two children playing. Miles
and Tabitha were twins. He’d been cursed to have a boy and a girl at the same
time. Tate had been a handful growing up, but at least he’d been younger. He
hadn’t known shit about raising a baby, but Tate had come out all right.
Staring at Tabitha he didn’t know what he was going to do in the years to come
with her getting older and prettier. He just knew his girl was going to be the
crusher of men’s hearts. She pulled at his heart strings every chance she got. What
was he going to do when the boys started sniffing around her? It was hard
enough not to kill Murphy at every chance he got. Their son, Simon, was living
fucking proof that Murphy was screwing his daughter. No, he wouldn’t think
about it.
“Are you done now?” Eva asked. She looked up at him
through tear-filled eyes. He hated making his woman cry.
“Yeah, I’m done.”
“Are you going to fight, or are you going to back
down?”
“We’re going to fight, but we’re going to have to do
this clever.” He stood behind his woman, pushing the hair off the back of her
neck. Tiny heard her sigh.
“I hate this, Tiny. I just want to go back to when
things were simple and we only had a two bit asshole to deal with.”
He chuckled. “I know. Everything seemed easier back
then, more certain.” He leaned down, kissing her exposed neck.
She shuddered, leaning back against him. “I can’t help
but think this is going to be a disaster. There’s no way someone comes away
unscathed from whatever this asshole has planned. I mean, Butch, he’s lost that
doctor who took care of him. Pussy and the crew lost Ashley. Who else are we
going to lose?”
“Don’t think about it like that?” Tiny said, banding
an arm around her waist.
“How can I not think about it like that? People are
dying. Girls are being sold like cattle. They’re forced to fuck men for money,
and I don’t know if I can let it go on. We know it’s going on, Tiny. We’re
helping it when we should be stopping it. I’d hate for Tabitha to be exposed to
anything like this or any girl for that matter.”
He tightened his grip on her shoulder. “There’s not a
lot we can do about it, baby. We got to stay alive.”
Eva let out a sob, but he saw no tears fall down her
face. “It’s hard. I look at Tabitha, and I see that monster
who
could be in our lives when she grows up.”
Tiny tensed at the image she filled his mind with. Between
Eva and Devil, his mind had been filled with images he didn’t want to have. He
didn’t need this shit. “You’ve got to stop thinking like that, baby. Nothing is
going to happen. I promise. I will do everything in my power to keep you, the
kids, and the club safe.”
She glanced up at him and smiled. “You’re a sweetheart,
but you shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.” She tapped his hand, smiling.
“You need a ride to get Lash and Angel?”
“How did you know?” he asked.
“I can smell your breath. I wouldn’t risk it either.”
She tucked some hair behind her ear and stood. “Come on, let’s leave these to
Tate, and we can go together to get your boy.”
****
Eva glanced toward Tiny, who was resting his head in
his hand. The stress he was under was starting to scare her, and she regretted
slapping his face earlier. She understood his fears. They were hers as well,
but he had to see past it all. Gonzalez could do more than take the club away.
If they weren’t careful, he was going to take Tiny away. For the past few
nights she’d been watching
Tiny
sleep seeing the worry
even when he was dreaming. He’d not been the same since Butch had left and then
come back, only Butch hadn’t come back, not really. They all needed to take a
vote before Tiny would allow Butch back into the fold.
“I can hear you thinking all the way over here,” he
said, turning to smile at her.
She chuckled. “I’m just thinking about Butch. Maybe
after tonight he’ll be voted back in and life can go back to some kind of
normalcy. A club divided is dangerous, but a club that’s whole is unstoppable.”
“I’m hoping the same thing. At the moment we’re
counting on Gonzalez not knowing the truth about Butch. He believes we
blackmailed him to get what we want. We’re going to leave him believing that
until the times right.” Tiny let out a sigh, shuffling in his seat. “The hope
is for us to get inside Gonzalez’s head without him knowing. Whizz is handling
the hacking and shit.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea? I mean, Butch
dealing with this kind of stuff. It was his club that Gonzalez’s father took
out all those years ago. He didn’t give away much of what happened, and we only
know no one survived other than Butch.” She turned down a street getting closer
to the airport. The drive was well over an hour away. Eva usually hated driving,
but with Gonzalez’s involvement with The Skulls, she’d started doing it more
and more. Not many of the cops pulled her over, but she’d been in the car when
they did pull Tiny over. They made his life a misery just to get from one place
to another. She never thought in all of her life that she’d be so afraid to
live in Fort Wills.
She couldn’t even go back to her dad or take the kids
with her. Another of Gonzalez’s requests was that no one
leave
the clubhouse and that they all stayed around. She talked to her dad over the
phone, and he wired them all money. Tiny was going to pay him back, but Ned
just wanted Gonzalez in the ground. Her own father wasn’t allowed to pay them a
visit from Vegas. Gonzalez held all the power while they were merely puppets
for him to play with. Ned was angry at Tiny. She kept trying to talk to her
father but he wasn’t having her defend Tiny while they were talking. He didn’t
want to know anything about the club or Tiny, only about her and the kids. They
were trapped because of the powers of one man.
Running her fingers through her hair, she stared out
of the window.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. I think anything that
can take Gonzalez by surprise is a good idea, and using Butch just seems like
the right thing to do.”
“It could get him killed.” No matter how much Tiny
tried to play the tough guy, she knew it was always hard for him to deal with
the death of a club member. She’d been with him for some of his club that had
died. The ones that went before she arrived, though she hadn’t been present, she
knew they’d hit him hard.
“I know. It’s the risk
we’re all
having
to take right now. None of us like it, but it’s those risks that
are going to determine if the club survives.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said, pulling
into the airport.
Lash, Angel, and their little boy, Anthony, were
nowhere to be seen. She pulled up into the parking bay that let her stay for a
few minutes to wait. Tapping the wheel, she watched the double doors hoping to
see them.
“Maybe you should go in and see if they’re there,” Eva
said. She hated the fact they’d cut the couple’s vacation short. If anyone
needed a vacation it was Lash and Angel. The young woman had been through so
much in the time since she’d been an old lady to Lash. She never complained as
far as Eva was aware, and she cared about everyone.
“Okay.” Tiny removed his belt and was starting to get
out of the car when Lash and Angel appeared. Lash carried the bags while Angel
held their son in her arms. The couple was a dream to watch. Even now, Lash
couldn’t take his eyes off his woman. Her blonde hair blew from the light
breeze, and her smile lit up her entire face. Finding herself overcome with
tears, Eva climbed out of the car and rounded the vehicle to embrace the
younger woman. She adored Angel, and knowing the other woman was safe made her
feel happier. Eva wished she was bringing the couple back into a much happier
situation rather than the chaos she was.
“Hey, Eva, did you miss us?” Angel asked, chuckling. Angel
hugged her back, tightly.
“Yeah, I missed you. I’m so sorry to cut your vacation
short.”
Angel shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. I know you
didn’t do it on purpose.” She pulled away as Anthony started to giggle and
moan. “I think this guy doesn’t like being crushed between two women.”
“I don’t know. When he’s older he won’t complain,”
Lash said, teasing.
Rolling her eyes, Eva took hold of Angel’s hand and
led her back toward the car. “You’re going to have to tell me everything of
what went on. I want to hear every second of your vacation time.”
“It was fun,” Angel said, securing Anthony in the car
seat. Climbing behind the wheel, Eva started up the car.
“Why are you driving?” Lash asked, climbing in beside
Anthony.
Glancing toward Tiny, she nodded her head. “You may as
well bring him up to speed.”
Pulling away from the curb, she exited the airport
then started the long journey home. She listened to Tiny tell Lash and Angel
about everything that had happened. Between Butch and Nash, Lash had been
updated about some things, but Tiny had asked for them to wait to tell the
other man everything. Some of the stuff needed to be talked about face to face.
This way Tiny got to tell Lash about everything Devil had caused.
“Butch still not
part of the club?”
Lash asked.
“We’re going to take a vote on it tonight. I refused
to vote until you got home. It’s a club decision.”
“Why? You’re the president. Your vote counts more than
anyone else’s.”
Tiny shook his head. “Not to me it doesn’t. I want
everyone to vote on this matter no matter what they think or feel.”
Eva watched him out of the corner of her eye. He
looked stressed, angry, and tired. Fears started to build inside her once
again. Tiny could easily have a heart attack if he wasn’t careful. She didn’t
know what she’d do if anything happened to him. He was the love of her life,
the reason for her staying in Fort Wills. They had two beautiful children
together. Tiny, without even realizing it, gave her a reason to breathe. She
didn’t want a life without him in it.
“You need to take it easy,” she said, reaching out to
tap his hand.
“I will, baby. You need to stop stressing. What will
be, will be.” He held her hand as he turned to look behind him. Every now and
then she checked out the rearview mirror to see the worry on Angel’s face. “We
all took a vote for Nash.”
“Nash was high on coke. We didn’t have much choice but
to all vote. Drugs
was
serious, so even I wanted him
to be voted back in with the club’s vote.”
“The same goes for Butch. He walked away. We need to
know where his loyalty lies. We’re all going to take a vote, and that includes
you.” Tiny turned back to the front.