Page 26 of Marx

Mira shrugs and cuddles into Tank who looks at her like she invented boobs or something.

“Vodka, Vows and Very Bad Decisions!” Nat yells, pointing at Mira who yells back and they stare at each other flapping their hands. “IknewI knew that storyline!” They cackle and I’m unsure whether I should stop them or not. The noise starts to calm a little and then Nat spins toward me. “Sorry, Pres, as you were.”

I nod at Nat, before addressing my club. “Looks like we hit them in two weeks. Computas I want you to pull as much intel as you can in the meantime.”

“Aye aye Captain!” Chewy salutes.

“That leaves us with the sheriff,” Gus points out.

“Give it two days, max,” Moss says. “I’ve already gotten an email from my superiors asking for me to step up in the interim.” He looks around the room. “My little sister was in that clubhouse when you were attacked. Believe me, I won’t stand in the way of whatever you have planned.”

I step forward, holding out my hand. Moss has always been a good guy, but I never knew how good it’d be to have law enforcement on my side until now. “Thank you,”

“Just bring him to justice. Whatever that looks like,” he says.

“Will do, brother.” Dropping his hand I move back to the spot I was standing in. I don’t know why, but it just feels right for meto be here, in this spot. “We have two weeks and in that time anything could go down. The threat level is fucking high so we need to decide if we shut down the businesses and lock down, or if we keep them open and double up on security. Make it look like we’re unaffected.” I look around the room, everyone putting thought into it.

It’s a fucking hard decision. The few businesses we own we work ourselves, but there are others, like the gym Dex runs and Remy works part-time, that have civilians employed, and there’s no way in hell I want innocent lives threatened because of us.

“I know I’m new to how the MC businesses run, but do we have extra money or something that will cover the non-club employees? I’d hate for us to shut down and our employees struggle,” Lovely says in her soft voice.

I try to hide my smile. It wasn’t that long ago Lovely was ready to kill. Now she’s worried about the welfare of our non-club employees and their families. I really am a greedy bastard for wanting such a woman. Speaking of, I need to corner TumTum later and apologize. When I saw Lovely in his arms, my cool, calm, collected self that I was praised for in the military flew right out the window and I was ready to give the brother a beat down. I really need to get my shit in order but hell, the woman is fucking perfect and I know I have a long road to get a chance with her.

“Yeah, we can cover the wages for a good few weeks, Lovely, no need to worry,” Wire smiles at her.

“In light of the situation, I move that we lock down until we can get rid of the current problem.” I look around the room, and everyone’s hands go up in agreement.

“Can I ask one question?” Pops asks. He’s been rifling through the shell casings on the table, standing them up. If I didn’t know any better I would say he wasn’t paying anyattention to what we’ve been talking about, but I do know better and Sid Tombs sees and hears everything.

“Yeah, go ahead Pops.”

“I know who Kaia is, but who the fuck are Annie-Bella and Jackson?”

“Kaia? Are you sure?” Judge says, pushing Dex out of the way to get to Pops, snatching the casing up into his giant hand. The brother pales, and he grips the back of Pops’ chair, “Shit,” he whispers, “We need to bring her in to lock down. She’s going to fucking kill me.”

Chewy claps her hands and Mira laughs loudly, “I can’t wait to see this go down.”

Chapter 10

Lovely

We stand outside the diner, all lined up ready to go inside. After Judge explained in detail who Kaia was to him, it was decided that we would bring her in for lockdown. Us women had already heard the whole story from Kaia’s point of view, and I wasn’t surprised to find out that back in the day Judge was exactly as dumb as she said he was.

“So, how do we want to play this?” Chewy asks, looking blankly through the window.

“We don’t play it any way, Chewy. Remember, we all decided Judge would handle this on his own? We’re just here to support both of them,” I say, trying to gently remind her that we’re here for moral support.

“Yeah, we’ll need to go in and smooth it over because as soon as Judge walks in there and says ‘Hey, remember the time that we boned and then I went and got a BJ from the head cheerleader when you had important shit to tell me? Well, it turns out, that somehow got you on the radar of two cartels and now your life is in danger so I need you to accompany me on my big, roaring motorcycle that will do all sorts of things to yourprivate parts and I’ll bring you to live with me at a farmhouse with the other 435 members of my family because my last home got exploded.” Mira says in a deep voice. I really envy how many words she can use in any one sentence.

Chewy rolls her eyes and then nudges Pops who nudges Nat who nudges Ana who nudges Remy who nudges Vi who nudges Mira who nudges me. I turn to do the same to Blanche but I’m met with her palm in my face.

“I’ve got eyes, I can see him coming.” She stares me down then rolls her eyes. “Go on then, just this one time.”

I beam at how generous my big sister is and I nudge her, tipping my head in Judge’s direction with a smile. He nods at us and is about to get the door when a kid on a skateboard rolls up to him, jumping off, kicking it and catching it in his hand.

“Watch out old man,” the kid says, snickering at the look on Judge’s face. The face that could probably make grown men pee their pants.

“Uh oh, this isn’t going to go well. Look at his face! He looks like he’s going to murder someone. We better get in there quick, because he can’t approach Kaia with that face,” Remy says, rushing after Judge through the door.

---