Six-Gun, page 11
“I had to make a stop,” he replied. “I happened to pick something up and it set me behind a bit. I should be there in a few minutes.”
“No problem, no problem,” Monk assured him. “We’re ready and waiting for you.”
“See you in a couple of minutes.” Leo ended the call, and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
“Was I the only one thinking he was going to tell us to fuck off?” Rebel laughed.
Jet and Tank raised their hands. “Yeah,” they said in unison.
Monk sent Jinx out front to wait for Leo and to bring him back to church when he got here.
Five minutes later, the door opened again and in walked Jinx and behind him Leo filed in with Memphis and Raelyn flanking him.
We all jumped up, and Playboy rushed to Raelyn.
Leo held up his hand to Playboy. “You might want to take a breath and listen before you try to beat the shit out of me for walking in here with your ol’ ladies.”
Playboy stopped in his tracks, and I had to mentally tell myself to stay put and not gather Memphis in my arms.
Leo motioned to Memphis and Raelyn. “Maybe you ladies would like to start explaining, and I’ll jump in where need be.”
Memphis and Raelyn looked at each other and gulped.
“What in the hell did you two get into?” Monk demanded.
Memphis took a breath and started talking.
Memphis
That couldn’t have gone more bad if we had planned for it to. “Uh, well. You see, Raelyn and I wanted coffee.”
“Yeah, coffee,” Raelyn called. “You know how much I like creamer.”
I motioned for her to stop. She slid her finger over lips and pretended to throw away the key.
I turned back to the club. “So, we went and got coffee.”
“We don’t have fucking coffee here?” Monk growled.
“Did you two forget there’s a fucking murderer out there who already killed one ol’ lady? You think that means you two should be traipsing around for coffee like you don’t have a worry in the world?” Playboy demanded.
“We weren’t traipsing,” Raelyn shot. “I might have tripped once, but it was not traipsing.”
Monk ran his fingers through his hair. He was not happy at all.
Leo finally spoke. “As I was headed to the clubhouse this morning, I happened to stop at the gas station and instantly spotted your ladies here.”
“Which is still a little creepy that you know who we are without actually ever meeting us before,” I mumbled.
Leo tipped his head to the side. “I like to know everything about the people I’m possibly going to do business with.”
I shrugged and folded my arms over my chest. “Whatever.” I had no idea who this guy was other than he somehow knew who Raelyn and I were, and that he had business with the Bastards.
When he had insisted we get into his car, Raelyn and I flipped out.
We were seriously supposed to believe that he was going to take us back to the clubhouse? I had been kidnapped four months ago. As much as I had been able to move on and get back to life, I knew I would never make those same mistakes again.
Unfortunately for Raelyn and me, Leo traveled with armed guards and didn’t give us any other choice than to get in the car.
“I don’t know why you are mad at us.” I pointed at Leo. “He kidnapped up.”
Leo rolled his eyes. “This again,” he muttered. “Did any of my men hurt you? Misplace one hair on your head?”
My eyes darted around. “Well, no, but we didn’t want to get in the car. We were fine getting in our own car and coming back to the clubhouse.”
“But would you have really came back here?” Leo asked.
I clamped my mouth shut.
“Everybody shut up!” Monk thundered. “I’m gonna need as few words possible to tell me exactly what in the mother fucking hell is going on here.”
Leo chuckled. “I love you MC guys. You and Lo would get along great.” Leo hitched his thumb over his shoulder. “I need to find the restroom. Take care of your business and then we’ll carry on with ours.” Leo left the room with his two guards following behind him.
No one spoke.
Monk glared at Raelyn and me as he clutched his fists.
I was the first one to speak. “We weren’t doing anything wrong. We were going to get coffee and then just go for a little ride. We do it all the time.”
“WE?” Monk thundered. “Do you mean we as in you and Six-Gun. Or Raelyn and Playboy? You see the difference between those and you and Raelyn going out on your own?”
“We didn’t see a problem with it,” Raelyn mumbled.
“If you didn’t see a problem with it, then why didn’t any of us know about it until you came walking in here with the country’s biggest gangster?” Playboy hissed. “God knows what would have happened to you two if Leo hadn’t found you.”
“We were fine,” Raelyn and I said in unison.
Monk shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. “I will never walk down the ol’ lady path because all they are is trouble.”
He wasn’t completely wrong. Raelyn and I were slightly trouble, but most of the time we weren’t.
“We were just trying to get coffee,” I insisted.
Monk waved his hand at us. “Get out of here. Your men can deal with you. I have more important things to worry about.”
I glared at Monk. “Like finding out who killed Leona?” I tried to keep the shake out of my voice and I thankfully succeeded. I must have put my sass pants on today.
Oh, fucking hell.
Monk’s jaw clenched. “You two have five seconds to get your asses out of here before I tear this whole clubhouse down and wash my hands of every one of you.”
I gulped and stepped back to grab Raelyn’s hand. “Thank you for your time,” I muttered.
Raelyn and I hauled ass out of church and didn’t stop walking ‘til we hit my bedroom and shut the door behind us.
Raelyn panted and looked around wildly. “That is not at all how I planned for our day to go.”
“Fucking tell me about it,” I gasped. I had been minding my business as I filled my cup with coffee when two guys in black suits flanked me, and “helped” me get into the back of a blacked-out Town Car. Raelyn was right behind me with her own set of men in suits.
For a good ten minutes, I was positive I was being kidnapped again and didn’t know if I could make it through it.
Though this kidnapping was obviously done in a much more high-class manner instead of being tossed into a basement and then used as a play thing.
Leo had briefly explained he was an associate of the Bastards and that he was taking us back to the clubhouse.
Raelyn and I had pleaded and begged for him to just let us out and we would go back to the clubhouse on our own, but Leo refused.
Now we were in big trouble with not only Six-Gun and Playboy, but Monk was pretty pissed at us.
Not good at all.
Chapter Sixteen
Crazy MCs...
Six-Gun
“Have you ever heard of the Devil’s Knights?” Leo asked.
Monk nodded. “Yeah. Not a lot, but I know they’re from up north.”
Leo nodded. “Southern Wisconsin. My sister married one of their men. They’ve become a sort of an extended family to me.” Leo laughed. “Swear to God, it was like I was back in Wisconsin when I saw your two women just bopping into the gas station with no care in the world but for coffee and donuts.”
I still had no fucking clue why the hell Raelyn and Memphis had decided to leave the clubhouse for coffee.
When I had left them sitting at one of the tables in the common room, they both had their cups of coffee filled and were just chatting about nothing. Next thing I know, Leo walks in with them after finding them at the gas station.
What the fuck?
“They have ol’ ladies who don’t listen?” Jinx cracked.
Leo smiled. “They have strongheaded ones who think they know better than the men who are trying to keep them safe.”
“Well, then I guess we are just like the Devil’s Knights,” Monk drawled. “Though I hope we stop at two ol’ ladies and that’s it.”
Leo shrugged and grabbed his cup filled with coffee. The coffee that was apparently not good enough for the girls to drink this morning. “Your women are safe, and from what they babbled about, they just planned on going for a drive after getting coffee. Perhaps you need to loosen the chain you have on them a bit.”
“We’ll take that into consideration,” I muttered. It was easy enough for him to think we needed to ease up on the girls, but at the end of the day, he didn’t really care about them or us.
“Let’s get down to why you’re really here.” Monk scooted his chair closer to the table. “I was glad to hear from Marco that you were more than willing to help us.”
Leo shrugged. “As I said before, I have an MC who is like family to me, and I’ve heard nothing but good things about the Royal Bastards. If things go well, you could be included into the fold.”
One of Leo’s men behind him grunted.
Leo glanced at him. “You have a problem with that, Creed?”
The tall, brooding man with sunglasses over his eyes grunted again. “Whatever you want, sir.”
That didn’t sound to convincing to me.
Obviously whoever Creed was, he didn’t think Leo should be here today. Good thing Leo was the guy in charge.
“How is Marco doing?” Monk asked. “I tried to talk to him when I called, but he was busy.”
Leo turned back and leaned back into his chair. “I put Marco in charge for a bit. I was in Italy for a little vacation and came straight here to help. I should be back in the office in a couple of weeks. He needs to learn how to take the reins so I can do a little bit more of relaxing.”
Leo Banachi sat on a mountain of money. He could pay people to do his job and he still wouldn’t have to ever want for anything. Marco should consider himself lucky to be able to possibly takeover the Banachi empire.
“He’s made a few deals so far and things seem to be going well. Time will tell though.” Leo laid his hand on the table. “So now let’s see if I can make a deal with you.”
“Right,” Monk drawled. “As a whole, we’re not really sure what you would like to do, but we were hoping you would be able to help us work it out.”
“Give me the condensed version of the problem. Marco gave me the rundown, but I do like to hear it from the horse’s mouth.”
“About five months ago, two girls from the strip club were kidnapped. We managed to get them back and dispose of the scum who took them. A week or so after that, a car pulls up to the clubhouse, lights it up with bullets, and kills the woman Barracuda was seeing.”
“Your old president?” Leo asked.
Monk nodded. “He’s still our president.”
“But he’s gone.”
“He is,” Monk clarified, “but it’s not forever.”
Leo shrugged. “I’m not sure you would want him back if he left you and club in the lurch like he did.”
Leo didn’t know anything about the club or the brotherhood we had in the Royal Bastards. He had experiences with a different club, but that wasn’t us. Barracuda did take off without a word, but the reason he did it was because he knew the club would survive without him until he was able to figure his shit out.
He was coming back.
Eventually.
Monk didn’t get into Barracuda being gone. That had nothing to do with Leo being here. Sure, it would be great if he were here, but we couldn’t make that happen. “We’re trying to find Leona’s killer and figure out why. Was she the intended target? Was it supposed to be one of us? Or was it really just a random shooting?”
“Which one of those is at the top of your list?” Leo asked.
“After going over every possible scenario, Six-Gun was able to find us a promising lead.” Monk nodded to me.
I leaned forward and laid my hand on the table. “I found a guy from Barracuda’s past, who also knows Menace, the president of the Devil’s Rebels.”
“Rival?” Leo asked.
Monk shrugged. “Not that we knew of. We never really got along with Menace, but it wasn’t like we could pinpoint a reason why.”
“That is until I talked to a guy who connected Barracuda and Menace when they were younger.” I cleared my throat and knew I needed to just get to the point so we could get on with figuring out the solution. “Guy says Barracuda ended up with Menace’s woman. One thing led to another, Menace and Barracuda get into a high speed chase and crash. The woman dies and for a while, Menace and Barracuda go back and forth doing shit to each other. Ten years ago, they call a truce, and nothing else happens.”
Leo tapped his fingers on the table. “Except now, Barracuda’s ol’ lady is dead, and you guys can’t find the guy with the smoking gun.”
“It has to be Menace, but we don’t know how to prove it.” Monk sighed. “Before the kidnapping, we were helping out the Kings of Vengeance and were being the in-between for them and the Devil’s Rebels.”
“Kings of Vengeance blew up the Rolling Devils, didn’t they?” Leo asked.
Monk nodded. “Yeah. That’s a whole other can of worms.”
Leo laughed. “You fucking MCs are wild. Blowing each other’s shit up. Pretty sure at one point the Devil’s Knights shit exploded too.”
Creed chuckled. “Sure did.”
“Any possibility it could be the Kings?” Leo asked. “Maybe they didn’t like the terms you negotiated with the Devil’s Rebels?”
Monk shook his head. “We went down that road. There is nothing at all that connects them to this. They’re close business partners and would lose a fuck-ton if the Sacramento chapter of the Royal Bastards went away.”
“What about the guys who did the kidnapping?”
Monk shook his head. “Nope. Again, nothing we can find that would connect them.”
“Plus they are all fucking dead,” Tank laughed.
“Okay.” Leo leaned forward and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “So, let’s assume it’s Menace. What do you want done about it?”
“He dies,” Monk growled. “Barracuda isn’t here, but I know what he would want done.”
“He gonna have a problem with the fact you’re taking care of everything?”
Monk shook his head. “No. He knew if anything ever happened to him, I would be the one to step up, with Six-Gun taking my spot as VP.”
Leo nodded his head. “So, now you need me to get close to the Devil’s Rebels and get you the information you need.”
Monk nodded. “Yeah. That would be ideal, though none of us know how you should do it.”
Leo chuckled. “Not to toot my own fucking horn, but people in my world trip over themselves just to talk to me. Being offered a possible job with me is rare.” Leo typed on his phone. “And I think I might have an offer the Devil’s Rebels won’t be able to say no to.”
“You’ll help?”
Leo nodded. “I should be able to, and it won’t really be much effort on my part. My reach is a little weak here on the West coast.”
“It’s hardly weak,” Creed grumbled. “You just don’t have the southern part of California in your pocket yet.”
“Which makes my reach weak,” Leo growled. “If I bring on the Devil’s Rebels, they can start running for me up and down the coast. I’ll let Menace think I need him. Get him comfortable, and find out what you need to know.”
“And then what happens when you get the information?” Tank asked.
“That’s where you guys get to come in and do what you want with the information. If you chose to exterminate the problem, then you’ll have to be the ones to take over for them on the west coast.” Leo set his phone down on the table. “Like I said, I need more reach out here, and this is my solution. I give it to Menace, he spills whatever information his has, and then the ball is in your court. Either way it goes down, I need a club running up and down the coast for me. I know the Royal Bastards are a large club with chapters all over the world, why didn’t you ask one of them to help you?”
“Because we know Menace wouldn’t trust any of them. He’d be a fucking fool if he did. We may be in different cities and states, but we’re all connected. We don’t betray another chapter.” Monk sighed. “We had to ask for help from the outside because it’s out only choice.”
Leo nodded. “Fair enough. Give me a couple of weeks, and hopefully I’ll have the information you need. I know Menace will be more than likely tripping over himself to work with me, but I can’t put pressure on him too soon to spill his guts to me. It’ll take a little bit of time.”
Monk nodded. “We understand that. Right now we’re sitting pretty good. There hasn’t been a threat seen or heard from anywhere since Leona was killed. A couple of weeks of just looking over our shoulders isn’t going to be anything different than what we have been doing.”
Leo nodded. “Good, good. I hate to be rushed, especially when I’m doing a favor.”
Monk held up his hands. “No pressure here.”
Leo laughed. “We’ll see how long that stays that way.” He nodded to Creed behind him. “Let’s go. Hopefully we don’t find any more ol’ ladies wandering away from their guys.”
Creed chuckled. “We’re not headed to Wisconsin, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Marco is dealing with Fayth, Meg, and all of those crazy women now.”
Leo signed the cross to his chest. “God help my nephew.”
With a nod of his head Leo headed out with his two men following behind.
“That went surprisingly well,” Jet laughed.
“Pretty sure Barracuda will shit his pants when he comes back and finds out we’re working with the Banachis.” Monk shook his head. “Hell, I’m pretty sure I need to go check my pants. This is a big fucking deal.”
Playboy nodded. “Yeah, if we fuck this up, we might as well as just blow ourselves up before Leo can.”
