Page 45 of Brother In Arms

And her family? Well, her brother, as well as the rest of these rich fucks trying to stifle her? They were doing a great job of driving her right into my arms. Still, I was out of my depth. There was this huge fuckin’ rift between us with the way we both came up and I wasn’t blind to it.

I jumped in the truck and drove back around to the main garage on the other side of the house, between it and the main stables, and parked it. I put the tools away and felt satisfied with all I’d been able to get done that day. I checked in with Jorge and he was too, sending me off with a hearty handshake and a thanks for everything I’d done for the day. Dude was a natural leader. Bailey had lucked out there. Things were almost running smoother than with Renaldo at the helm and morale? Definitely higher. Still, we were running on the bare minimum of staff, a real skeleton crew, and we couldn’t do it forever.

I went up onto the porch to go into the house and stopped when I heard Bailey on the phone.

“I don’t care, Caleb. You’re blatantly ignoring me. You get those financials to me in the morning, you don’t? You’re done, period. I’ve already got my lawyers involved.” She paused, listening, and said, “Well, you haven’t been listening to me! I don’t care what Philip says! He wants this farm to fail. He wants to sell the property to some big development group.”

She was calm, her voice barely even raised above a normal talking tone so her next words pissed me off, “Don’t patronize me, Caleb. I am calm. I have every right not to be calm. I have a dead horse, a lead groom and trainer in the hospital, and most of my staff walked off the job all in the span of a week. I own two-thirds of this place, I run it, I operate it, yet you have just about all my assets frozen and won’t give me a reason why. Financials, in the morning, or I’m going to have every reason to believe you’re stealing from me and if you are? You’re going to find out just how much my father’s daughter I am.”

She hung up the line and I pushed through the screen, her head snapped up, those deep brown eyes of hers blazing just like Dragon’s or Dray’s, just a couple of shades lighter in color. I made an expression as I looked her over that said I was impressed and I was.

“I want to go for a ride,” she said and swallowed hard, as if she were unused to voicing her wants.

I gave her my best slow, panty dropping smile and said, “Well you’re going to have to be a might more specific when it comes to that.”

She gave me an answering smile of her own and said, “I know you can go fast, but you can’t go that fast.”

“Well alright, then. Do I got the time to grab a shower and a change of clothes?”

“Absolutely, I have one more call to make.” She looked down at her phone, fingertip tracing along the screen before she raised it to her ear.

“Yeah, Mom? I just got off the phone with him. I think I’ll be getting what I want by way of the financials tomorrow, but I think you’re right that something’s not right. I think we’re going to need an accountant to go over everything. Someone who’s on our side…”

I knew just the person for that job, I also knew just the person to do the digging that needed to be done to find out for sure what was what. Nothing that would stand up in a court, mind you, being that we’d technically be stealing the information, but sometimes when you wanted the truth, that’s what had to be done because neither one of these motherfuckers were being honest with her.

I couldn’t even imagine not being able to trust one of my brothers. The thought just boggled my mind, I couldn’t conceive of it. I wasn’t just talking my blood, or the foster brothers I came up with, I meant all of them. My chosen brothers, my club, none of them would even conceive of stabbing you in the back like this. It just wasn’t how things were done. When you belonged to something like the club, there wasn’t no way any of us would be so dumb as to fuck that up. I mean, sometimes it happened, but the consequences of being out bad? Not worth it.

It was just easier to maintain your integrity than not, I just didn’t understand why more people didn’t do it. I’m not talking being a law abiding citizen, don’t get it twisted, I’m talking personal integrity as a man. Society had it all fucked up. Integrity wasn’t just being a good little law-abiding sheep, especially when so many laws violated common sense so hard.

A man hits you, don’t hit him back, boy… No, a man hits you, you protect yourself. You fuckin’ stand up for yourself and make sure that same man will never make that mistake twice. It’s what I’d done, and society reamed my ass a new one over it. I’d already been with the club when that shit went down, but if I hadn’t, it surely would have driven me right fuckin’ to it. I paid for my ‘mistake’ by society’s fuckin’ standards but society didn’t believe in second chances as much as they’d have you fuckin’ believe.

I showered up quick and dressed even quicker. Bailey was pacing on the front porch, ready to go. She was agitated, but it wasn’t out of pocket. If anything, she needed to be, this shit had gone on long enough. I only wished her mamma had reached out before it got so bad.

“Let’s go, boss lady.”

Bailey shook her head but followed me off the porch, “It’s past quittin’ time, Rush. I’m not your boss again until tomorrow morning.”

I thought about that and asked, “That mean you’re willin’ to give me a try?”

She stopped and asked, “What do you mean by that?”

I pussed out, I pussed out hard by saying, “Nothing, forget it.”

I threw a leg over my bike and started it up the growl drowning out whatever she was going to say. I put a bandanna on over my wet hair to keep it down and strapped on my brain bucket. Bailey did the same and we rode out, I’d gotten a text back from Dragon by the time I got out of the shower, and so we headed for Ghost and Shelly’s. Data was going to meet us out there and we could round table some of Bailey’s problem.

I figured that Shelly could use the money that would come from reviewing Blue Hills’ books, while Data could definitely track down if Caleb was doing anything out of pocket. We rolled up to the house and Ghost’s tow truck was out front, so was his bike but his regular pickup was missing. Shelly, pregnant with her second, came out the house’s front door with her first on her hip.

“Hi!” she called out.

“Hey, mamma!” I called out by way of greeting. Bailey got off the bike and asked low enough to where I could just hear, “Why did you bring me here?”

“Shelly is the best damn accountant I’ve ever met. If she can’t find anything fucked up in your books, then there ain’t anything fucked up to find. Plus, she’s not related in any way to either your assclown brother or your father’s dick of a best friend.”

She stared up at me, her delicate face stony and unreadable before she finally drew in a deep breath and said, “You are so hot right now.”

I laughed and put an arm around her and led her up to Ghost’s front porch. Shelly led us into the kitchen and through the house to the back deck, which was shaded by an awning. She had iced tea waiting and set Harmony into a nearby playpen. The little shit immediately started to throw a fit so I went over and picked her up, bouncing her.

“Oh, what, what, what?” I demanded and she stared at me, transfixed and held her rag doll up for me to kiss, so I did. Bailey watched me, transfixed and completely missing what Shelly had said.

---