“No, Michelle. I mean my brother. He manned it before and there were never any issues. It was the entire clubs fault for letting that income source fall into nothing and we’re picking it back up regardless. This is another way we can make legitimate money, quick, fast money.”
“I just hate that Kyle is the one doing it,” I mutter, moving the mac n cheese around on my plate. Let’s be honest, Kyle is really good to look at and his physically perfected body and panty melting smile has something to do with that. It would be weird if him overseeing the studio didn’t make me a little bit nervous. I trust him, but who I don’t trust are hoes.
“Kyle, I expect you to go and check it out tomorrow. I also took the opportunity to tell the Russian girls about the job, Polina seemed especially interested so take her and tell her what she’ll have to do. I don’t think we’ll have a problem finding a couple Nomad’s or brothers who want to fuck her. The fact it’s on camera will just make them more excited.”
“You got it,” Kyle tells his brother.
I don’t like it. While I understand why Reed chose Kyle, he could have picked Enzo. Kyle could have taken Enzo under his wing and showed him a thing or two and boom, problem solved.
“I’m kinda shocked you didn’t volunteer yourself to fuck her,” Reed says over to Enzo, who cocks his eyebrows at his Prez.
“I may have a thing for a Russian girl, but it’s certainly not Polina,” Enzo replies, causing Seamus to bust out laughing.
“I fucking knew you were holding out on me! Who is it?! Who?!” Seamus exclaims.
“You’re not as dumb as you look. I’m sure you can figure it out.” Enzo hisses, rolling his eyes.
“Oh, he likes the little dove. Doesn’t he?” Maria pipes up. Pain and Chaos both give her a confused look before she begins to speak again, “That is what Dmitri started calling Ksenia a couple weeks back, little dove. It started after his other sister showed up. I guess it’s a family thing or something.”
Everyone turns to Enzo who is beet red and that’s all it takes to confirm that indeed Maria is right.
Well, it’s never boring around here, that’s for sure. It’s gonna be interesting since Dmitri hates Enzo more than anyone else on this planet.
Chapter 29
Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.
William Shakespeare
Kyle
Last night’s dinner wasn’t what any of us expected, especially Michelle. The minute we walked back in through my door she was telling me that I needed to tell Reed to pick Enzo, but I knew better. Once Reed had made a decision there was no changing it – and Michelle knows that. I don’t know what’s gotten into her, or why she’s suddenly become insecure and I said that to her face. All it did was give me one hell of a shiner, and here I am standing in a fuck studio at eleven am sharp with the clubs newly dubbed porn star, Polina.
“Damn, it’s like walking into a toy shop in here,” Enzo comments, taking a glance at the space. There are a few cubby style rooms divided by walls, each room has a certain theme like BDSM dungeon, naughty teacher and I even see a nurses station. The one thing that isn’t here is doors, I’m sure that’s for the cameras to get just the right angle. Toys and tools are riddled all over the place and I’m just here thinking about the nasty shit that’s growing on them. “Pol, find a trash bag and toss all the shit that looks like it could go inside you. We’ll get new stuff.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice. I don’t want nasty things making me ill,” she mutters, before giving me a lingering look and going off to do as I asked of her.
“Damn. You’d better squash that shit before she starts getting some ideas. Michelle will rip her open, and that’ll just be the foreplay.” He laughs.
I smirk along with him. He’s right about Michelle. She is a savage bitch if I’ve ever known one. “Yeah, you’re damn right about that. I don’t think it’s an issue though, the girl hasn’t been flirting.”
“You’re kidding me right? She hasn’t been flirting.” Enzo cackles, imitating me. “She just eye fucked the shit out of you brother, and I’m gonna tell you that you’d better squash that shit before Michelle does. Trust me.”
“Fine. What do I know?” I grumble, really not thinking that anything just happened. “I’m not the manwhore of the club, that’s all you. I will take a page out of your book and shut down this before it becomes an issue.”
Polina throws out the old toys and I see her grab some disinfectant and start wiping all the surfaces down.
As I walk around the studio, I see hazard after hazard, there are nails sticking out of the shitty drywall jobs and electrical wires hanging. I’m no construction worker but between Enzo and I we have this covered. For the next couple hours, we trade in our cuts for construction hats as we fix issue after issue.
“Shit, man. I’ll be back in a minute, need to light up and take a breather,” Enzo tells me, and I nod. This is the first opportunity I’ve had today to talk to Polina, and I guess there’s no time better than the present.
“Hey Pol, can we talk for a sec?” I ask her,
“Oh, yes,” she replies back, tying up the trash bag and setting it on the ground next to her, she walks over to me and looks up into my eyes.
Fuck, okay, Enzo is right. She’s got that crazy girl googly eyed shit all over me.
“So, I think—?”
Before I know it, Polina’s pressed her lips onto mine and her hands are wrapped around me, clawing my body closer to her. I rip away as fast as I can, not meaning to shove her from me, but fuck I do it. I’ve never pushed a woman before, but then again I’ve never been kissed by someone that I don’t want to kiss me either.
“No, fuck! Polina, shit this cannot happen. You know I’m with Michelle, and whatever the hell you think is going to happen isn’t.”
Her beady blue eyes stare up into mine like I’ve just slapped her in the face. She’s the one who made the move on me. I’m the one with a girlfriend. So, why do I feel like an asshole? Why do I feel like I’m the one who crossed the line?
“I don’t understand why none of you want me. Why? Jenna had told me some clubs have multiple women, that it is okay…so why is this not okay here? Why can’t I belong to someone? I just want to belong….I have not had a home for a very long time.”
“You do have a home with the club. It’s been your home since the second Reed brought you all to the club. You don’t need to search for one cause you already have one, you got me?”
Polina opens her mouth but just as she starts to speak gun fire breaks from outside the studio. I can’t listen to whatever it is she just said because we have bigger threats. I grab my glock from the back of my pants and charge out to the nearest door, but before I go through it, I turn back to Polina, “Call Reed!”
I push my hand on the metal door and bust outside, the moment I exit the chilly fall air hits me. Surveying around, I see Enzo on the ground, holding his knee cursing up a storm. A few feet from him, I see two men, obviously Mexican assholes. That means they work for one man, and one man only.
Rafael Ramirez.
“Get the fuck out of here!” I roar, glock raised wavering between the two targets in front of me.
“My boss is done playing games with yours, do you understand?” One of the goons informs me. “He is tired of these games and has sent us here to arrange a meet so we can pick up the girl. She’s not yours, never has been.”
I roll my eyes at the idiotic words he spews. “She’s belonged to us for a while, or does Rafael not seem to remember the fact he sold Maria to us?” I hiss back in his direction, taking a step closer.
The Mexican laughs, crossing his arms before he stares at me, cocking his head to the right. “You all know my boss’ reputation well, this I know. What I do not understand is why you choose to believe he is a kind man, and that he will not kill each and every one of you at a moment’s notice. This is a courtesy because of the working relationship he
had with Reed. Why he gives courtesy to a man who works with the government I do not know. But it does not matter to me, only to Rafael. So, I tell you that this is your last and final warning. We will be in touch, and Enzo here was treated lightly, remember that. Next time we will not be so kind.”
I look over to Enzo who glares at me before turning back to the two men. Reed may be the type of man to let these two walk away unscathed, but I am not. I pull the trigger on my gun and fire as quickly as possible, hitting both of the men, knocking them off their feet.
Enzo yanks out his gun and makes two swift headshots, killing them instantly. Our shots were practically flawless.
“I was hopin’ you weren’t gonna let those mother fuckers walk away. They done pissed me off, fuck, look man! I’m all jacked up! I’m gonna need some damn surgery for this shit!” Enzo whines, pointing to his knee.
I nod, cause he’ll be off that for a couple months at least.
My cell phone starts to ring and the name on the caller ID doesn’t surprise me. I guess Polina did her job and called Reed. I answer quickly and fill him in on what just happened. “Look, this isn’t the time for us to do this shit alone anymore. We’re in over our heads with the cartel and we know it. Call Fist, call fuckin’ Zeus. I don’t care who, where or which club we call for help, we just need it. We need a hell of a lot of it, Reed.”
The last thing I expected was for Reed to agree with me, but he did, and not only do we have to battle tomorrow at Thanksgiving, but another war is on the horizon too. Rafael may think that he’s getting Maria, but the bastard better get used to being disappointed cause he won’t be getting jack shit.
Chapter 30
The best things in life happen unexpectedly.
Anonymous
Michelle
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year, and no it’s not because I’m a certified foodie. It’s the one day of the year where we can all put our differences aside and be thankful for what we cherish the most, and usually that happens to be the people in the room with us. I know for me it most certainly is. Only this year is a tad different, my Father is at this Thanksgiving. A holiday that he’s missed out on for plenty of years, and even though he’s been at the club for a little bit…I still can’t get used to seeing him around, not after being used to him not being here at all.
Reed surprised me and everyone else when he told us that the Petrov’s were coming over for dinner. If that wasn’t shocking enough, it was when Mariana and Ion Petran walked through our clubhouse doors with their men in black. There is never any doubt in my mind at the power that this couple holds, and to be honest…this is something that we could potentially use to our advantage. I would never walk up to her, afraid that just by saying the wrong thing daggers might shoot out of those beautiful eyes of her and cut me into bits. It may be some form of sci-fi crap that I’ve seen on TV, but if any woman had the ability to do just that it would be Mariana, the Queen of the Clans.
“Would you care to chat for a minute?” I hear his voice, and I’m shocked that he’s asking me. Wrath, or Dad as I should probably refer to him, hasn’t wanted to speak to me in years. That’s the whole point on him taking off in the first place, isn’t it? I’ve stopped kicking a dead horse, though. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter why he left, because he did – he abandoned me when I needed him the most. There is no excuse great enough for me to be able to give him my forgiveness. I thought that maybe one day I could, but it’s useless because it will never happen.
“I’d love to avoid that if at all possible,” I smartly respond back to him, a sarcastic laced venom evident through my tone.
“I guess I deserve that,” he murmurs softly.
I turn to him, rolling my eyes, careful to see if anyone is paying attention to us before I respond, “You guess? You deserve so much worse. Don’t you get that?” I hiss, shaking my head back and forth while I close my eyes. I’m not going to cry. Nope. I’ve cried so much over this man through the course of my life, he doesn’t deserve any more tears right now. He doesn’t deserve a damn thing from me, not even a moment of my time.
My father grabs onto my arm before he speaks, “You’d be correct. I was a shit Dad to you, kid. Always was. I knew I’d never amount up to any of those Dad’s that your friends had or any of it. You already hated me for gettin’ put in the slammer. Shit, I think it was easier on you when I was gone. I just wanted it to be easy on you, and it seemed like when I wasn’t around you were happier, so I made it easy on you. I just left.”
I can’t believe he has the nerve to stand here and say that him being gone was easier on me. I was a child. No, I was a child who needed her father. The only flesh and blood that she knew on this earth. What I didn’t need was for him to leave me at such a critical time in my life, when I was discovering who I was and the woman that I had hoped to become.
“You achieved the exact opposite of what you were hoping to. The only thing you did by leaving was make it harder for me. Did you ever stop to think for a moment that maybe I needed you to be here for me? Mom may have abandoned me but that doesn’t mean that you should have. I already had one shit parent, I didn’t need two of them” I tear away from my father’s grip on my arm and head straight into the kitchen. I just need a minute of space. Letting out those feelings that I’ve had bottled up inside me for years. Truthfully, I never thought that I’d have the opportunity to let those feelings out. I’d be lying if I said it was easy, but I am glad that I got it out. Keeping that sort of hurt pent up inside me was only slowly eating at me. I know that one day it would have become an even bigger issue.
“Hey girlie!” Elena beams, waltzing into the kitchen, peering into the oven. “I think this stuffed bird will be ready in another hour or so! I’m so excited for today, all of us together. We need to do this more often.”
I nod along with her, listening as she goes on about the importance of family, of the club, and our unison together. Her voice fades away as pounding in my head starts, my vision begins to get blurred before my eyes so I grab onto the island to steady myself. Her lips are moving and yet no words come out.
Suddenly I feel myself wavering from side to side and as I start to tell Elena I’m not feeling so well, everything goes black.
Chapter 31
You’re either a gift from God…or, the devils dirtiest trick yet.
N. R. Shepherd
Michelle
I squint my eyes at the overload of luminescence that I wake in, there’s only one place that I could be that has these shitty lights and they haven’t changed since the last time I’ve been here. I’m in Gainesville Community Hospital, oh what a joy! I tug at my arm, suddenly realizing that I have an IV which causes me to stop tugging. I’ve ripped an IV out once before and it was not a pleasant experience.
“Princess, how you feeling?” Kyle immediately asks, eyes darting all over my body but focus on my face. He’s trying to see if I’m going to lie to him.
I’m not going to though. “I’m okay, just a little…tired I guess. What happened?” I look at him and then over to my left where I see Elena sitting in the other chair. A curtain separates my small “room” from the others, if that’s even what I can call it. I’m in a typical emergency department, which means that there is no such thing as privacy.
“You were up talking to me and then the next second, you hit the kitchen floor. Did you eat anything today?” Elena presses, staring at me much like a mother would to a child. It makes me smile, cause I know she’ll be the best mom to that little bun in the oven.
“Yeah, I think I did? Honestly, I can’t remember. Today we’ve all been so busy. Wait, what time is it?” We’d better not be missing dinner or I’d feel like the biggest asshole on the planet. This is the first time in weeks that we’ve all been able to be together, especially after the fallout that Reed had with Slash and Dmitri. We can’t be missing dinner…no, we seriously can’t. I’ll feel so terrible if we are.
“It’s a little after
five,” Elena tells me, and I immediately shake my head. Yup, we’re going to miss dinner. They’ll be starting in just a few minutes and it’s all my fault that the three of us are stuck here.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for this to happen,” I say to them both.
“Fuck dinner. All that matters to us is if you’re okay,” Kyle kindly tells me.
“Yeah…but I’d rather be stuffing my face right now,” I whine, puffing my bottom lip out. Did I mention that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday?
“I made sure that Maria saved a massive plate for each of us. There’s no way in hell we were gonna miss any of that delicious food.” Elena laughs, “Plus, I need to eat for two….which means I get double the deliciousness.”
“Ugh, I’d kill to be able to use that excuse. I’m just a fat ass who wants the noms.” I grumble, wishing I were on the couch stuffing sweet potato casserole with marshmallow on top in my mouth.
“You have the nicest ass around,” Kyle tells me.
Just then, a middle aged man in a white coat comes into view. He turns directly towards us and approaches me. “Miss. Mathers, it’s nice to see that you’re awake. How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay, just a little tired.”
“That would line up, your blood sugar is extremely low and you’re dehydrated. Now, can I speak to you in private please, miss?”
Kyle gives me a cautious look and even though I can’t help but wonder what it is that this doctor wants to speak to me privately about, I nod, giving both him and Elena the all clear to leave me alone with him.
“We’ll go grab a coffee and see how Enzo’s doing,” Kyle comments, “Text me if you need me.”
Enzo was shot and had to come to the hospital for a surgery. I hadn’t asked Kyle how he was…that’s a super shit thing for me to do, but I hope he gets an update. I watch as Elena and Kyle walk off down the hallway and then look to the doctor who stands before me. He takes a seat at the end of my bed before swiping through the tablet in his hands.
Reclaimed (Skulls Renegade MC Book 6) Page 11
