Trisha smiled as she hot the craving for a nice cold beer. She wished she had taken the offer to raid their liquor cabinet fro earlier. It was better late than never. “A drink sounds nice, even if it’s in the morning.”
Dante smiled back at her. “They also have some good food to wash down with all that alcohol.”
Lucia looked as though she would object but bit her tongue. “You two go on ahead. I have some work to take care off.”
Trisha wished her goodbye. “Thank your hospitality, Lucia.”
The CFO left without a word. Dante shook his head and laughed. “Don’t worry, Trisha. I think she likes you. Come on, let’s get to the bar before it fills up. Just because I’m a CEO doesn’t mean these guys roll out the red carpet for me.”
She didn’t know what she was in for at this bar or Dante Alastair’s plan. However, she felt a rare jolt of happiness that had only existed when her parents were alive. For the first time in months, Trisha Kaplan walked with a spring in her step.
Dante smiled as. “Now this is a bar!”
Trisha giggled at his enthusiasm. “I can see that quite clearly.”
“I mean, I’ve been to some fancy bars to meet with clients and business partners,” he replied, taking pride in gritty, homely looking establishment. The Kennel had been a home away from home as far as he could remember. Thankfully, there weren’t too many people at this time of day. They would attract less attention in this visit. “But nothing beats this kind of atmosphere.”
“Here I was, expecting the wealthy CEO of successful motorcycle company to win me over with the royal treatment,” Trisha replied with a teasing smile. “Where is the candlelit dinner and hundred dollar bottles of wine? No ten course meal with caviar? Not even a saucy waiter with a French accent?”
Dante shifted uncomfortably in his boots. “Sorry, this is the closest bar that-
“Relax, a five star restaurant is too rich for my blood,” she laughed. “I’m happy with a cheap beer and some spicy chicken wings. I’m sure I’ll have a good time if this bar is as good as you say it is.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be completely honest if there wasn’t a bit of bias,” Dante replied sheepishly. “The bar used to be run by my uncle.”
“The one who was went to prison for armed robbery?” Trisha began, realizing the bluntness of her words mid-sentence. “I mean who got released? Did he have someone else run it?”
“Not Uncle Cass,” he corrected. “This was Uncle Samwise from my mom’s side of the family. He owned this place. That is until he died…”
His death had not been a tragedy due to an untimely illness. It hadn’t even been an accident. He had been assassinated by a rival gang, the Red Aztecs.
After his uncle’s death, Dante’s father had wanted the club to change for the better. He wanted the Black Hounds to be a pillar of business rather than a tool for violence. Dante intended to carry on his late father’s legacy.
He broke out of his reverie when one of the employees walked by. The man instinctively reached out to hold the farm girl’s hand in his. Trisha raised an eyebrow at the gesture. “What’s this for?”
“Assuming you agree to the terms of the arrangement,” he whispered, still holding her hand tightly. “We would be a couple at this point. We can’t have the people here thinking we’re just associates.”
Trisha looked deflated as she remembered this was not an innocuous outing with a handsome date. “Okay.”
Dante led her across the bar. However, a familiar face crossed his path. “Brendan, is that you?”
This familiar face in particular was scarred from year of fighting. A burn left from a motorcycle crash didn’t help matters. Nevertheless, the young man was overjoyed to meet his old friend.
“Dante! I haven’t seen you in months,” Brendan said, giving him a handshake that looked more like an impromptu arm wrestling contest. The man’s fingers were dark from oil and grease. “And who is the lovely lady?”
“Just here with my girl,” he said, giving his pretend girlfriend a hug. Trisha gave a brilliant smile to complete the act. “I never thought I’d see you leave home.”
“Hello, I’m Trisha.”
“Please to meet you,” he said to Trisha, before turning his attention back to his old friend. “I came here to the city for a special request. Old man Grundy had a friend who won some old military bike from World War II. He wants to get it up and running but half the parts aren’t even begin made anymore. It honestly belongs in a museum.”
“Still a mechanic for Mr. Grundy back at the town?” Dante asked rhetorically. “You sure you won’t reconsider my offer? I could use a guy like you on my design team.”
“Nah, a big company job isn’t for me,” Brendan replied. “I’m more at home in the trenches. Speaking of which, you up for a race, Dante? It’ll just be like old times.”
“No can do, Brendan,” Dante answered, shrugging off the offer. “Lucia forbade me to go over sixty miles per hour. I can’t be a CEO and a street racer at the same time.”
“Ha! I thought I’d never see Dante Alastair turn down a race!”
“Maybe we could always race on power scooters when were both in our seventies.”
“I’ll hold you to it!” Brendan laughed, heading past them the couple. “See you two. It was nice meeting your, Trisha.”
The farm girl waved him goodbye. “Likewise, Brendan.”
“Not a bad trial run,” Dante said, stroking his chin as his friend left earshot. “Although Brendan’s not the type to be snoop. He cares more about the bike I’m riding than the girl I’m dating.”
Trisha looked to give a witty response but held her tongue. Dante wondered what was going through her head. She seemed unused to attention she had received. The woman had lived a quiet, humble life. The biker almost felt like a thief to tempt her away with promises of money and security.
Soon, the couple took a seat at a private booth and waited to get served.
“Here, we’ll have some privacy,” Dante said, sitting across from Trisha. “Sitting at the bar’s counter is the authentic Kennel experience but we’re just here for a quiet drink.”
“Speaking of kennels, do the Black Hounds.”
“We used to have a few bloodhounds at the old club,” Dante replied. “Lucia stopped us from keeping a mascot in the office like the old days. We do sponsor some of the animal shelters around here though.”
“How did you meet Brendan?” Trisha asked, looking through the menu. “Go to same school as him when you were kids?”
“I meet him in juvie hall,” Dante revealed to the farm girl’s shock. “He fought a policeman and broke the man’s jaw. They wanted to try him as an adult and throw the book at him. The judge had sympathy for him since he came from a broken family. Brendan’s turned his life around since then. He found the Bible and motorcycle racing… and not necessarily in that order.”
“What did you do to end up in juvenile hall?” Trisha asked, her eyes widening before becoming narrow again. “Sorry, I shouldn’t ask such a personal question.”
“If we’re going to work together, then you deserve to know everything,” he said with a bittersweet smile. “I hurt people, Trisha. I don’t want to make excuses for the crimes I committed or the people I hurt. I deserved to be punished for what I did… but I was in a lot of pain back then.”
“What happened?”
“It was a bad time for me,” he answered, his becoming low. “Mom got sick. Uncle Cass got arrested. Dad had no time for me between taking care of mom and keeping the Black Hounds safe from the Feds. Lucia dealt with it much better than I did. She hit the books and tried to make mom proud as a good student. On the other hand, I started to hang out with the wrong crowd.”
“Were they part of the Black Hounds?”
Dante shook his head. “Dad managed to keep the real bad apples out of his house. The Black Hounds are tough but principled. We had a code of honor. They taught me everything there is to know about motorcycles a
nd riding. For awhile, life was good. That is until I started wandering outside its walls.”
“Who did you meet?”
“Everyone who the Black Hounds rejected,” Dante answered somewhat coldly. “They were the lowest of the low. They didn’t care about helping the community like the Hounds. They fought, lied, and cheated just to earn themselves a nickel. They taught me how to fight dirty and steal… all the stuff dad tried to protect me from. The worst of it was that… I was good at it.”
Trisha knew what the natural conclusion was for the story. Thankfully for Dante, she didn’t ask for specifics. “I’m glad you turned your life and the club around.”
Then, a cheery middle aged woman greeted them. “Why if it wasn’t Mr. Alastair himself! Ready to order? And who is the lucky lady?”
“My name is Trisha,” she answered, pointing to a German beer with an unpronounceable name. “I’ll have this one.”
“The capuchin is one of my personal favorites,” she said with glee. “The regular for you, Dante?”
“Like always.”
“Your old man would’ve been proud of what you’re doing,” the woman praised, writing down their orders. “I’d give up both my kidneys to have a kid as well-mannered as you. They’re still getting into fist fights in school. Honestly, it’s like a pair of coyotes.”
“Hey, it’s Lucia who’s the brains of the operation,” Dante replied, deflecting the praise. “Your kids have plenty of time to grow up. I was one hell of a troublemaker at their age. And your kidneys are perfectly fine where they are, Martha. You need them to live.”
“It’s also good that your uncle is out of his cage,” she continued. “It must be great to have him as your wingman.”
Dante nodded politely. Lucia made sure Uncle Cass’s position was purely ceremonial. “I always respect my elders.”
The woman smiled before finishing writing. “Just wait one moment and I’ll get you your drinks.”
“Lucia and I spent so much time here,” the biker mused. “When mom got worse, we moved her to the hospital in the city so she could get better help. Eventually, Lucia and I moved here as well. The doctors said it would help her recover if she was with her kids.”
Trisha bit down on her lower lips before speaking. “I’m sure the two of you made her burden feel a little lighter.”
“We would come here after school to do our homework. Mom was strict about us having a good education. She made sure we finished studying before we could go for a ride or have fun with the other kids.”
Trisha teased. “I guess it worked out well for your sister.”
“I think she didn’t want us to notice how sick she was becoming…” the man brought a hand to his forehead. “God, I was such fuck up. She had months to live and I wasted that time racing and fighting.”
“She would be proud of what you’ve become,” Trisha countered. “CEO of a successful company… trying to make an honest living. I think any mother would appreciate that.”
“Sorry, I shouldn’t be talking about this,” Dante sighed, rubbing his eyes. “I should be trying to get to know you better instead getting all nostalgic about the past. Or talking about how much of a fucking disgrace I acted to my sick mother…”
No, it’s okay,” Trisha replied. “I enjoy getting to know you better. It’s a lot more interesting than reading a press statement.”
“Lucia prefers press statements to the truth,” he shrugged. “Press statements don’t list my criminal record as a teenager.”
“It must be tough trying to put an act on all the time,” Trisha said. “Don’t you feel like… you’re stuck in an advertisement that doesn’t ever end?”
“Here, I’m just Dante,” he answered with a bittersweet smile. Even when talking to his sister, the man had to play the role of the CEO. “At least, that’s what I tell myself. The boys here see me as club president of the Black Hounds. At work, I’m a CEO. Whenever I enter our new office, I have to leave ‘Dante the club president’ at the door. I have to work towards a larger goal for the good of the Black Hounds. If a little privacy is the price of succeeding, then I’ll pay it.”
The farm girl looked at him and processed his words. Dante felt a kindred spirit with Trisha. It was easy to talk to her. There was a kindness in her that reminded him of his late mother. Even if she rejected the offer, he knew he desired her companionship.
“Dante, I accept.”
The biker nearly jolted up from his seat. “What?”
“I’ll be your mail order bride,” Trisha clarified with a blush. “Or girlfriend or fiancé or whatever I’m supposed to be.”
They were interrupted by a waitress delivering their drinks. Trisha gingerly sipped the capuchin. Dante’s drink, however, went untouched. He didn’t speak until the waitress was out of earshot. “Thank you, Trisha. Lucia had already written the game plan for what to do if you had accepted. Now, we just have to put it into play.”
“What do I have to do?”
“You have to sign a formal contract that binds you to our agreement,” Dante explained, writing a phone number and address on a napkin. He had a business card in his pocket but writing a note felt more natural to him. “We’ll make sure you have a lawyer to help you understand all the legalese of the deal. Could you meet us on next Saturday at this address? It’s Lucia’s place. Use this phone number to contact us if you have any questions. We can’t contact you through our regular phone lines.”
She nodded. “It should give me time to deal with the farm. I can make arrangements so it runs by itself in my absence. I bet the boys back at home will be excited we have a steady form on revenue… one way or the other.”
Finally, Dante raised his glass and met that of Trisha’s with a soft clink. “I could make an awful ‘you bet the farm on it’ pun but I’ll hold my tongue.”
Trisha smiled and drank a mouthful of her capuchin. “Just maybe… I’ll amend the contract and forbid bad farm puns. I get enough of that at work.”
“Talk about a ‘punishing’ amendment.”
They both had a good laugh at that awful pun.
“So how illegal is this exactly on a scale of one to ten?” Trisha asked the lawyer. This arrangement was a lot more complicated than buying insurance for her workers and farm equipment. “With one being fibbing on your tax return and ten being… well, Enron.”
“Well, it certainly isn’t legal,” the elderly man replied. “It’s the darkest shade of grey that isn’t entirely black. However, your small business is privately owned. It would be immaterial to your debtors. You are the only person who stands to lose if the true nature of this arrangement was to ever come out. It’s a different matter on Mr. Alastair’s end…”
“Lucia’s done her homework,” Dante replied, looking confident at his plan. “We’re in the clear since we’re still a privately owned company at this point. None of our business partners have a leg to stand on if they want to sue us. Going public won’t change the fact that people are legally investing in our products rather than in my personal life. If you made buying a girlfriend a crime, then you’ll have to lock up all of the CEOs in this state along with their mistresses.”
Mr. Brown sighed and handed Trisha a thick binder full of papers. “Stubborn as always. Your father gave me grey hairs. You’re making me bald. You Alastair boys know how to make me work for my money.”
“No one will get hurt, Mr. Brown,” Dante assured him. “It’s not a vehicle hijacking. It’s just a bit of theatre for the media.”
Trisha flipped to through the binder. In spite of its size, there was a section summarizing the terms of their agreement. It was written in layman’s terms which she could easily understand. “You’ve checked everything, right?”
TRACKING TRISHA - A Black Hounds Motorcycle Club Romance (The Fox and the Hounds Book #1) Page 5
