“Gia! Are you awake?” Riker came bounding up the stairs two at a time.
“Now I am.” Gia frowned at him. “What’s going on?”
“That fucking uncle of yours!” Riker paced the floor and ranted.
“What? Where?” Gia hopped out of bed like a jackrabbit caught in McGregor’s garden.
“On the phone just now. But I set the fucker straight!”
Gia looked at Riker with wide eyes.
“We are talking about my Uncle Gianni, right?” Gia managed to squeak out.
“One in the fucking same.” Riker spat out.
“Please tell me you did not call him a fucker.” Gia had visions of waking up one morning to find Riker slumped over on the floor with a bullet in the back of his head—shot execution style.
“Came close.” Riker snarled.
“But didn’t?” Gia asked with hope.
“Nah, I got more respect than that.” Riker paced the floor. The heels of his boots pounding into the gleaming hardwood. “I need a beer.”
“It’s nine o’clock in the morning.” Gia frowned.
“Yeah, you’re right. I’m gonna need a shot too.”
Gia quickly tugged on a pair of yoga pants and an oversized tee-shirt and followed Riker downstairs.
Gia stopped in the kitchen archway and watched as Riker tossed back a two finger shot of whiskey. Then he twisted open a beer and chugged down half of it before he turned to her.
“So, I’m guessing you guys talked about the baby?”
“Yeah. You could say that.” Riker pulled on his beer again.
“So? How did that go?” Gia felt her the back of her own shoulder blades bunch into a tight knot.
“He’s fine. It’s all good. Can’t wait to be a granddaddy and all that happy horseshit….”
“Okay, well that doesn’t sound so bad. I mean if he’s okay with the marriage and happy about the baby…”
“Gia. You wanna let me fucking finish?” Riker snarled at her.
Gia lifted her nose at him.
“I’m all ears.”
“Fucker’s insisting on putting a wad of money into my bank account.” Riker’s eyes glittered with anger There was that tension back again. He was flushed, breathing hard, and the veins in his neck stood out like road maps.
“Yeah, and?” Gia could definitely not see a problem here.
“I don’t take charity, Gia.”
“Oh, that’s it? You’re insulted? Jesus. Riker, relax. It’s not charity, it’s customary. It’s what we do. It’s like a dowry thing.” Gia told him and despite Riker’s anger, everything inside of her relaxed. Because whether Riker was pissed off by it or not, this was actually very good news. If Uncle Gianni was willing to put up a dowry, that meant that he had accepted the marriage. While Riker ranted and raved, Gia felt like she had just won the lottery— no having to marry Julian— no being disowned by La Familia. Thank God! While Riker breathed fire, Gia fought the urge to fist pump the air.
“Dowry? What the fuck is this? The middle ages?” Riker would have none of it.
“Calm down, for goodness sakes. It’s tradition.”
“Well, it ain’t my tradition. He can take his money and shove it up his ass.”
“Oh my god! You didn’t tell him that did you?”
“Not the shove it part, I told you I got more respect than that. But I told him we ain’t taking it.”
“We have to take it. It’s like a…blessing. Riker, be reasonable.” Gia’s heart began to race, and she felt sick to her stomach because not taking Uncle Gianni’s traditional gift would be an insult of the highest level.
“He’s as stubborn as a jackass. He knows I won’t take it so he’s gonna dump it in your account.” Riker’s tone could frost fire.
“Well, that’s a great compromise! You can save your pride and Uncle G can fulfill his obligation to family tradition.” Gia felt her stomach unknot.
“I don’t think you are hearing me, woman. The answer is NO.” Riker bellowed.
Gia sighed. Being raised in a male dominated world, Gia was no stranger to testosterone overload and she was seeing it now in epic proportions.
“Yes, Riker. I hear you. Anyone in a four- mile radius can hear you. Will you relax for god sakes? What else did you and Uncle G talk about.”
“Baby names.” Riker growled.
“Oh, the middle name thing? Do you really care what our baby’s middle name is? No one pays attention to those anyway.”
“So, naming the kid after your grandparents, that tradition too?” He crossed his big arms in front of his chest
“Just the middle name.” Gia explained reasonably.
“Rourke Gianni is a mouthful for a kid, wouldn’t you say?”
“It would be Rourke Joseph. Remember? Gianni is my uncle, the middle name would be Joseph after my dad. But where did you come up with the name Rourke?” Gia asked weakly.
Riker thumped his chest. “That’s my pop’s name and that’s gonna be the baby’s name. Rourke after my father and his father before him. And if it’s a girl, name’s gonna be Saoirse, after my grandmother.”
“Seer-sha?” Gia looked at Riker like he had lost his mind “How do you even spell that?”
“S-a-o-i-r-s-e.” He spelled out quickly.
Dear God.
Gia decided not to say a damn thing, the last thing this fire needed was to be fueled.
“So, the minute that cash hits your account you’re taking it out and sending it back. Agreed?” Riker narrowed his eyes at her.
“No, positively not. I will not agree to that.” Gia shook her head and straightened her spine. “I will never agree to doing anything that will purposefully hurt my uncle. And this would humiliate him. That money stays.”
“It goes”
“It stays.”
Gia crossed her arms tightly over her chest and scowled. Riker paced the floor and shook his head like an angry lion. The heel of his boots pounded scars into the wooden floor boards, as he muttered out a string of profanities. Gia had no idea where this would all end, but she was determined to hold her ground.
“Fuck!” Riker glanced at the screen on his buzzing phone. Then he scrubbed a hard hand over his face and kicked the kitchen chair so hard that it bounced across the room.
“I’m outa here.”
I’m outa here?
“Really, Riker? That’s the way you want to play this, you’re just ….?”
But before she could finish the sentence, Riker was already out the door.
Gia just stood there staring at the empty space in front of her in shocked bewilderment.
What the hell had just happened?
When the sound of full throttle cut through the air like an angry sword, Gia was jarred out of her daze.
As she watched Riker’s tires spin out of the driveway at breakneck speed. Gia just shook her head in disappointment.
It goes.
It stays.
It goes.
It says.
He’s gone?
Way to adult, Riker. Was there to be no conversation? No questions? No compromise?
No explanation? He was just gone?
What a major, major jerk.
So much for sticking it out. So much through thick and thin. So much for in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, for richer or for poorer.
Gia knew Uncle G could be maddening to the extreme, she knew he liked to play hardball and she knew her uncle could be …well…plainly speaking… a real prick to deal with.
And that’s exactly why Gia had needed to get Riker to marry her.
With all that badass attitude, black leather, and band of brothers who had his back, Gia figured Riker was one of the few men who could go up against Uncle G and win. Gia thought with a man like Riker in her corner she would finally be free. She would not have to worry that a son of hers would grow up to be a capo, or a consiglieri, or a mob boss. No daughter of hers was ever going to have to live down the insulting te
rm Mafia Princess. Gia had thought Riker would be strong enough to cut through that lineage—to break that destructive cycle.
Now, it seems she had bet on the wrong horse.
Because with one brief damn phone call, Riker showed her different. He had let Uncle G’s air of superiority and dominance hit its target.
Gia had been doing battle with Uncle Gianni all her life, and that’s all it took for Riker to bail was one conversation where Uncle G showed his typical intractable self. And really, to Uncle Gianni’s defense, he had only been trying to do the right thing
Riker had been furious when he left, raging mad at the thought of being what he considered bested by Gianni Abruzzi.
Mad enough to kick a chair across a room, and then race off.
Gia’s heart almost stopped beating when she considered that this stupid dowry thing could be the deal breaker for Riker. She hated, hated the insecurity that this whole arrangement wrought within her, because her first thought in even the smallest disagreement with Riker is that he would use it as an excuse to leave her. After all the promises he had made to her, would he do that? Would he actually bail on her?
A small sad voice inside of Gia said softly, isn’t that what he just did?
Gia went down to the kitchen, made herself a nice hot cup of tea and forced herself to calm down and think. After about fifteen good long minutes (five spent on throwing herself a total pity party) Gia had formed the perfect plan.
He couldn’t end the marriage if he couldn’t find the wife.
Riker upbraided himself as he roared down the highway at killing speed.
Way to fucking handle your first serious argument, asshole. Why did you let Gianni get under your skin like that? What a goddamn moron you are. And the way you fired up the bike and slammed out of there like a little bitch. What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re lucky if you’re woman doesn’t leave your sorry ass in the dust. When the back of the bike almost fishtailed out of control, Riker slowed down to street legal speed.
Shit. The phone in his back pocket vibrated again.
He was late.
Great. Just fucking great. Because the day wasn’t going bad enough, let’s add in the hundred dollar mandatory late- for- the- meeting fine to the mix. Riker twisted the throttle and started to increase speed again with a vengeance. As Riker went zooming down the highway he felt sick with regret. He couldn’t get the stricken look on Gia’s face out of his mind.
Pussy whipped?
Maybe.
But still, Riker didn’t feel good about the way he left things with her.
So, as it now stood, he had already pissed off his president by showing up late for an emergency meeting and pissed off his wife because he had left for that meeting. He probably should have taken a minute to explain to Gia where he was going, but instead he had kicked a chair clear across the room.
Riker snorted in self-disgust. The marriage had barely begun and already he was fucking it all up.
Reno had just finished up taking roll when Riker walked into the room. Riker threw a hundred-dollar bill into the half-full fish bowl in the center of the table. Looks like he wasn’t the only one late. These emergency meetings were killers, especially on a work day.
Prosper nodded to Riker, waited for him to sit down then began to talk. “Okay boys, we’ve got some changes coming our way and some decisions to make. What I’m about to say next is gonna impact everyone in the club, and it’s gonna hit us where we live.”
“Our dicks?” Someone in the corner of the room yelled out and the room broke out in laughter. Even Prosper had a good chuckle before his tone turned serious again. “Nah, it’s gonna hit something even closer to our hearts than our dicks, and that would be our damn wallets. The change I’m gonna propose is gonna move things in a different direction and not just a little bit.”
There was a low muttering around the room, and the boys leaned with all eyes on Prosper. “It’s no secret that law enforcement has been turning up the heat and cracking down on organized criminal activities. And the reason it’s no secret is because the feds don’t want it to be. They’re sending out a very clear, very loud, don’t fuck with me message to the home boys and drug trafficking is at the top of that list.”
“I thought word was they were going after the Cartels—the Colombians.” Someone called out.
“Yeah. How it was, but ain’t how it is no more. They want the Cartels bad. And that shit goes all the way up to D.C. This new administration is doing more than the Just Say No To Drugs campaign of the Reagan days. This shit is serious and any port in the storm is fair game—they don’t give two fucks who they take down in the process. They’re spending millions on getting brothers to flip. The more soldiers that go down, the better chance there is for someone to rat out. And if the right fucker does that? We all know that everything and everyone associated with that information will go down like a house of cards.”
Prosper paused to give the men time to think. “ The feds aim to leave no man standing and the last thing we want to do is get caught in that cross fire. Feeling that, the executive board has met a couple of times over the last few days and ciphered out the situation…weighed the risks against the gains. We unanimously voted to do some heavy lifting and get out of some of the more dangerous shit we got going on. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that my internal compass ain’t exactly pointing to the moral high ground, but I’ve never been comfortable with the drug business —for a lot of reasons. And now number one reason I ain’t so comfortable is that outspoken, righteous, stick up her ass, Judge Carmichael, who has made this her damn pet project. I for one, do not want to go head to toe with that bitch. And to be honest, our margins ain’t making it worth the time or the risk anymore.”
Clusters of conversations broke out in the room and Prosper waited a few minutes. Then he cleared his throat and began again. “Now I know there’s a concern about earning. The profit that the heroin trade brings in ain’t chump change. I ain’t denying it. What I’m sayin’ is the risk is starting to outweigh the gain.”
A voice called out in protest. “Gain is pretty fucking substantial. I’d like to be a part of that. Are we a bike club or just a bunch of lame dicks running scared anytime the heat gets too hot?”
“Jesus, here we fucking go again.” Diego muttered underneath his breath, but still loud enough for the Riker and the rest of the boys to hear. Over the years, Drummer Jones had become a real pain in the ass. Reason being was that his general attitude sucked most of the time and he said stupid insulting shit like this.
“Hey Drummer,” Reno called out. “What’s the difference between your dick and a joke?”
“Fuck off with your stupid stand up, Reno.” Drummer growled.
Reno bellowed back with a grin. “Nobody laughs at your jokes!”
The room erupted into tension breaking howls.
Drummer just scowled and flipped Reno off.
Prosper waited until the good- natured guffaws died down. Then he continued on.
“I hear your concern, brother.” Prosper said to Drummer. The he looked at each man around the table slowly and deliberately. “And I know this is gonna sting and I wouldn’t be bringing it to the table if I hadn’t considered every other option. But the truth is, it’s time boys. I got some ideas of how we can make up for that cash flow, but it’ll be a while before we can get it all together. Having said that, if things go the way I think they will, over the next two years our earning power will double. And the best part of it is that most of that revenue will be from legitimate sources. And those businesses of ours that ain’t? Well, they won’t come back to bite us, not in the way drug-trafficking will.”
“And what the hell are we supposed to do in the meantime to get by? Pull the money out of our asses?” Drummer snarled. “Or you gonna cover our expenses, boss?”
“Watch yourself, Drummer-boy. And remember who the fuck you’re talking to.” Diego’s voice was laced with quiet violence. “This one time, I’ll chalk
up your fucking bad judgment as a knee jerk reaction to news you didn’t come here today expecting to hear. But the next time? The next time you even think about showing disrespect at this table of brotherhood, or as much as frown at the man who’s sitting at the head of it⸺ you better think again, you disagreeable fuck. Because I even get a whiff of your self-serving, denigrating attitude again? I’m gonna knock your teeth so far down your throat you’re gonna have to stick a toothbrush up your ass to brush ’em.”
While the rest of the brothers fell silent, Drummer looked down at his boots and a muscle leapt in his rigid jaw, but he didn’t say a word.
Prosper stood up. “Think about what I said, boys. Talk amongst yourselves. I’m gonna go get a brew and take a leak. You got fifteen minutes, then we’re gonna take a vote.”
Prosper and his executive crew left the soldiers to ruminate. It was precisely fifteen minutes later that they walked back in the room.
Prosper took his seat at the head of the table.
“Boys have got a few questions before we cast. That work for you, boss?” Riker asked.
“Absolutely. Tell me what’s on your mind, boys.” Prosper relaxed his shoulders and leaned in to listen.
“What are we gonna do with the heroin we got now? We gonna distribute that out to our runners?” Gunner asked.
“We could.” Prosper nodded. “But the Aces have offered to buy it from us for a damn good price. It’ll mean transporting it across a couple of state lines but Hez is takin’ that risk into account and giving us a differential.”
The men around the table did some more talking while Prosper, Jules, Diego and Reno had their own sidebar.
Gunner nodded, sat forward in his chair and the men quieted. “The guys and I are wondering about the opioids and coke?”
Raising Riker (Hells Saints MC) Page 8
