Page 10 of Iron
CHAPTER THREE
Iron
There was a bunch of little shit that I did that not too many people knew about. It was my job to protect the club and keep the peace. That sometimes meant that I had to do a lot of checking in. This was one of those times.
“I’m headin’ out to meet Connor,” I told Mason, my VP.
We had gone through the weekly stuff like how the bar and garage were doing. Yeah, we ran guns but we kept the businesses legit for the most part.
“Want me to come along?” he asked looking like he was ready to, whether I wanted him to or not.
“No.” I shook my head. “Keepin’ this low key. Don’t think there’s anything going on. Just a friendly check-in.”
Fergal, the leader of the Irish mob here in town, was a busy man. He didn’t like to take meetings for little shit like this. So I often dealt with Connor, which I didn’t mind. In fact, I preferred it that way.
Connor O’Shay was not only Fergal’s unofficial successor, but he was also a local cop.
I say unofficial because it was clear how Fergal thought of him though it hadn’t yet been said. He kept Connor close, and some might think he was Fergal’s right hand because he was usually right there beside the man ready to protect him with his life. But I’d seen some of the things that Fergal let him handle, and I’d seen that responsibility grow over the last year or two.
Needless to say, there were new things in play for the Irish, we all could feel it, but things hadn’t been set up completely yet. Fergal was getting old and knew he needed to find someone to take his place. I was pretty sure that was going to be Connor when the day came, and Fergal’s nephew, Elliot, would end up being Connor’s right hand. Why not make the nephew the new head? It would have made sense considering he was blood and the next one in line for the job. But Elliot was young and, to put it bluntly, not mature enough. He was wet behind the ears and spent most of his time drunk and goofing off.
I let Mason know exactly where I’d be before I hopped on my bike and headed to the coffee shop where I was meeting Connor.
Royally Brewed was a local place that had better than okay coffee. Sure as hell tasted better than the shit I made back at the compound. And with a couple of shots of espresso added to it, I’d be good to go for a few hours.
I got my cup and took a seat at one of the tables in the front. With my back tucked into the corner, I was sort of hidden but could still see what was going on all around me. The windows were wide and gave me a good shot of the entire street.
It wasn’t even a few minutes later before I saw Connor’s cruiser park across the street.
“Still on the clock?” I asked after he’d taken the seat across from me.
“Yeah,” he replied with an angry scowl. “I got roped into a double today.”
“Mullins still riding your ass?” I asked with a raised brow.
Detective Mullins had a fucking chip on his shoulder. At one time, he was out for blood against me and the club, and even Connor and his people. He changed his tune real quick with us when he needed our help, though. Since then, we hadn’t really had any problems with him, but that didn’t mean he was on our side.
Connor, however, was another story.
“He’s still doing everything he can to irritate me. I have to watch my back all the time.” He sounded a mix of amused and irritated.
If Mullins was a smart man, he’d back off. But he’d already proven that he wasn’t that smart. And he was damn lucky that he was still breathing.
“Anything I need to know about?” I asked him but I wasn’t alarmed. I figured if there was something going on then he’d have come to me earlier.
“No. Just a bunch of shite I gotta deal with. Nothing involving you. At least not that I know about.”
“Good.” I took a sip of my coffee as I scanned the street outside. “You still got tension with the Italians?”
“Yeah. But nothing we can’t handle,” he answered with a bland shrug. “Still workin’ for them but not taking on any new jobs. Think that’s what’s keeping the peace for now. Something’s going to have to change. But don’t worry yer pretty little head, we’re taking care of it.”
He tossed me a smirk and I chuckled.
The thing was, I kind of did have to worry about it. Not only could things blowback on the club if shit got ugly, but it was sort of the club’s fault for the tension in the first place. See, the Irish sometimes worked for the Italians. In the way that the Italians often provided protection— for a hefty price, of course. But they also weren’t ones to get their hands dirty with the little stuff, so they hired the Irish to take care of the day-to-day shakedowns. It worked before because the Irish didn’t have a very big hand in guns. Only now that we were in the picture, they did. And their take of the guns had slowly gotten bigger. I had a feeling the Irish were doing their best to stand on their own and get away from the Italian jobs altogether.
I didn’t think that things would be simple. That said, I never meant to shake shit up like this. I wanted unity between us outlaws, something I’d been working real hard to keep.
Just then, a car I knew pretty well pulled up behind Connor’s cruiser, the glossy black shining bright in the midday sun. You would have thought she’d have a bright red convertible, but if you knew her like I did, you’d know this fit her perfectly. The door of the Jaguar opened. A heeled foot slipped out and planted firmly on the ground a second later.
