"You heading out?" Grandpa asked, knowing the routine. I was always down for a party. But the orgy-type situations were where I tapped out. I mean, how could you still look your men in the eye after you knew what kinds of faces they made when they orgasmed?
I couldn't.
So I didn't put myself in those situations.
"Yeah," I said, nodding.
"Chaz's?"
"Only thing open this late unless I want to wander the aisles of Walmart again." Which I didn't.
"Be safe."
"Will do," I agreed, giving him a smile before heading out the door.
The stickiest part of summer was behind us. And good riddance. The temps were still spiking during the day, but the nights were taking on that slight coolness that hinted at fall weather. And I was ready for it. I secretly had an affinity for pumpkin spice flavoring in my coffee, even if I refused to admit that to my men. I was ready for jackets and crunchy leaves and comfort foods after a gruelingly hot summer where we lost power four times.
I don't know if you've ever spent time with twenty-something sweaty men and no air conditioning. But I have. And let me tell you, as bad as you might be imagining it to be, it was worse. Infinitely worse. I sometimes still feel like I can smell those days and nights, and get immediately queasy.
Deciding to take advantage of the nice weather, I left my bike parked in the back lot, and took off on foot instead.
Word was, this was the shitty side of town.
When we'd moved in, it had been controlled by a ragtag group that had the audacity to call itself a gang, despite barely-there central leadership and more of its members getting locked up than on the streets at any given time.
We'd unintentionally had a hand in the decimation of that particular gang, but by the looks of random groups hanging on street corners and front stoops, it wouldn't be long until someone else flexed hard enough to actually create another criminal empire.
That said, I wasn't the kind of woman who spooked easily.
It wasn't that I was immune from fear of assault, especially of the sexual variety, but I never went anywhere without at least half a dozen weapons stashed somewhere on my person.
Besides, when we'd finally been ready to show ourselves to the area, we made it very clear that I was the president, and to fuck with me, it meant you fucked with the whole club.
Most of the men around the area were afraid to even look at me for too long.
Still, I was on high alert as I walked, double-checking shadows and pausing at strange noises.
I didn't think I was in immediate danger from any of the local organizations. Though, to be clear, there were a lot of them, and it was hard to keep track. But the local mafia family, the Grassis, tended to mind their own business. As did the loan sharking Mallicks. Then there was the other new guys on the block. The Alcazar Cartel, led by the almost alarmingly good-looking Andres Alcazar. I'd run into him picking up groceries once, and the smooth bastard had come up behind me, and casually murmured Hey, lil' mama, you're sexier than I was told. The fuck's up with that?
Now, I was generally of the mindset that no one should be calling a woman who was not his mother any variation of ma or mama, but, well, when that man said it, I swear it was practically panty-melting.
And I had to admit, it had been a stroke to my ego that he even knew who I was. I was new in town, and new in my position. It felt good not to have it questioned, just accepted. Then again, unlike your typical MCs, the cartels had a long history of having respected and ruthless female leadership. So, coming from that world, Andres—or "A" as most people called him—hadn't blinked an eye at my position.
But then, of course, for all the "minding our own business" type organizations in town, there was the fucking Henchmen.
Okay, alright, fine.
Did I steal their business and have their president kidnapped?
Yes, yes I did.
But they had their panties in a fucking bunch about it.
In my opinion, it had been a rather tame takeover, all things considered. We could have taken them out. We had the numbers to do it, even if we had to call in the sister and mother chapters to carry it out.
Yeah, Reign got a little roughed up in the process. But that hadn't been our doing. We'd outsourced the kidnapping, and those idiots got carried away. I'd killed their so-called leader for them as a show of good faith.
That wasn't good enough for them, though.
They were the perpetual thorn in my ass.
I mean, the paranoid bastards still had men staked out on the roof across the street from our clubhouse, day in and day out.