Craving Lily (The Aces' Sons 4)

He was a piece of shit. He’d liked playing Cecilia, and that woman was all drama even as a teenager, so she’d played right along. She’d liked making me jealous, it was her thing, and for a while I’d gone along with it. So he’d been playing her and she’d been playing me and I’d been planning his death. That all ended abruptly when he’d left for the military, but he’d left me with his fuckin’ mess to clean up. As much as I couldn’t stand Cecilia most of the time, I hadn’t been able to walk away from the mess he’d made. The motherfucker.

I ground my teeth together as I walked back into the garage, slamming my hand on the back of the El Camino as I passed it.

“Hey, now,” Will called out with a laugh. “That’s a prime piece of machinery you’re abusin’.”

“It’s all good,” I called back. “She likes it when I’m rough.”

His laugh carried across the garage.

“As you were, then!”

I lifted my chin and moved around to the engine, staring at the block as I seethed. Cecilia was still chasing that piece of shit. Of fucking course she was.

I flexed my hands and got back to work. I was done worrying about Cecilia fucking Butler. I was done walking around on eggshells for her sister, too.

* * *

“Nice of you to join us,” my dad called out from his place at the table as Will pushed through the doorway. It was time for our weekly meeting, or church as we affectionately called it. I was nothing, a sergeant, but I still had a place at the table. My dad, Dragon, was president of our club and years ago when shit had gone down with the Russian mob trying to take out the Aces from the inside out, I’d made sure that I was right in the middle of the planning and executions.

Those motherfuckers had shot me in the face and killed people I’d considered family. I hadn’t ended up pulling the trigger on anyone, but there was no way I would have let the elders leave me out. It wasn’t how I was built.

Things had been quiet lately, but we’d heard a bit of chatter about some of the guys who’d been put away making deals for early parole. Casper had bankrupted and shut down most of their businesses and stolen the bulk of their alliances with people in the states, but there was always someone willing to get in bed with organizations ready and able to do anything to make it back to the top. He’d done everything he could to hobble the Russian’s who’d come after us, but there was only so much you could do without taking out entire families.

They might have been cool with shooting at women and children, but that wasn’t how we did business.

Luckily, the old timers had connections fucking everywhere, and usually had a lock on shit before it ever went down. We now kept an ear to the ground and our fingers on the pulse of the Russian organization. The shooting at Casper and Farrah’s had been an anomaly, one that we wouldn’t let be repeated.

“Reb was havin’ a hard time leavin’ for school,” Moose mumbled as he dropped into his seat. “Had to give Molly a hand.”

Grease nodded. “Got some news from inside. Looks like Karl Sokolov got his deal.”

“Shit,” Hulk muttered.

“Which one is that?” Moose asked, looking around the table.

“Big, bald guy,” Casper answered, looking through some papers in front of him. “Owned a bunch of dry cleaning and carpet cleaning businesses that went belly up when he went inside. Feds closed them down once they realized how much money was being cleaned. Man has a wife and two sons back in the motherland. Hopin’ that’s where he’s headed once he’s a free man, but doubt it. Didn’t care that he’d left them there for ten years before he got arrested, highly doubt he’s anxious for a family reunion.”

“Sokolov’s a problem. Wasn’t at the head of the food chain by any means, but he was high enough that he’s gonna have friends if he goes lookin’ for them,” my dad added.

“You think he’s gonna come here?” I asked, leaning back in my seat. I remembered Sokolov. He was a big bastard, almost as fat as he was tall. Looked stupid, but wasn’t. He hadn’t been directly responsible for the hits against the Aces, but none of us believed he’d been innocent. When Casper had started researching the faction of the mob that was fucking with us, he’d found Sokolov’s meaty fingers in a whole lot of pies.

“Not sure what his plan will be,” Grease muttered. “But if I was him, I’d be lookin’ for someone to help me gain a foothold. Especially if I’d made a deal with the Feds. No way that asshole made a deal without approval comin’ from the top, it’d be a death sentence for his family otherwise.”