I set my phone down and leaned against the deck rail. It was a clear night, cool and peaceful. I wished we could stay here forever. Just the three of us, one big happy family.
Well, until we started making babies. I felt my heart sing at the prospect. Had I ever wanted kids before? No. But I’d never had an Angel and her mini-me to love and protect either. I wanted little angels. Lots of them.
But Cal was right. The mob may or may not be on a hunt for my Angel. They would never find us here, but that didn’t mean we could stay. We’d have to go somewhere eventually. If they wanted to track us down, there were ways. Tracking our cellphones. Or the mob would follow one of the guys to find us.
It was time to toss the phones and get burners, that was for sure.
I had to protect my Angels. Both of them.
Chapter 28
Donahue
“You sure about this?”
“Yeah.” Dev nodded but he looked worried. “Vincent is reasonable.”
“Tony is kind of a hot head.”
“Right. Vincent is more of a slow burn.”
“Great. So who are we dealing with?”
“I don’t know.”
We’d just parked our bikes outside the prewar building the Margarelli brothers called home. It was more like a mansion, but bigger. The place took up the better part of a city block. It was several buildings that interconnected, the ones on the back corners with thriving store fronts. But it was what went down deep inside the massive structure that was the real money maker.
Gambling. Guns. I was sure there was some trade in drugs as well. They owned strip clubs galore, but I didn’t think they ran women, not like the Vipers did. That kind of shit made my blood run cold.
“Okay, let’s do this.”
Dev nodded and we knocked on the door. It swung open to reveal one of the largest humans I’d ever seen. Not just big and tall, like Jack. This guy was big in every direction.
“They’re expecting you.”
We exchanged a look and stepped inside. I had the crazy feeling I was stepping into a lion’s den. It was oddly swank inside, especially after the alley entrance and metal door. We walked down a hallway with rich looking wallpaper and ornate moldings. I almost wished the guys were here. Jack, Whiskey and even Cal loved wood work. Drake was handy too. Hell, even Lucky worked construction before his professional gambling took off.
Lucky… I kind of wanted to punch him for this mess. Then again, it sounded like if he hadn’t stepped in numerous times, this girl would have been in big fucking trouble. It didn’t matter that he’d fallen for her. I didn’t like hearing about females being mistreated. I especially didn’t like hearing that Sal had roughed the girl up, the POS. It brought back a lot of painful memories. Of my childhood and my beautiful wife’s more recent past. Every day I did my best to erase those memories. I doubted I ever really could.
Fucking Sal. This was all his fault. Not Lucky’s.
I was glad that piece of shit was dead, though I wasn’t so sure we would be satisfied with the aftermath. Best case scenario, they wanted Lucky and his girl to take off for a while. Worst case, they wanted them gone for good. Even worse, they might tell us that there was a bounty on Lucky’s dumb head.
Leave it to Lucky to fall in love with a boatload of trouble.
I sighed, leaning against the wall. Lucky had finally found love after all his years of running wild. And from what I heard, she’d made him work for it. It made me like the girl, even though we’d never met. It was good that she’d made him suffer. It was extremely satisfying to me. I loved the fucker, even if he was a loose cannon. He was a good person, deep down.
He deserved happiness. And the girl deserved to live without an axe hanging over her head. The club took care of their own, without fail, and Lucky was a brother to me. Part of the inner circle.
So, here we were.
Dev stood perfectly still. He was doing that leader thing, when he sort of powered down and got very focused. It was almost like he had his own gravitational pull when he got like this. He certainly had no trouble managing a fuckton of unruly bikers with that technique. When Dev got quiet, everyone else shut right the fuck up.
“They’re ready.”
We followed the big guy to the back.
“It’s good to see you again.”
I shook hands with Antonio while Dev shook with Vincent, and then we switched. We sat in plush velvet chairs facing the mahogany desk. Tony sat off to the side, watching us with an assessing look on his face.
They might be somewhat reasonable, even honorable for criminals, but I knew we shouldn’t underestimate them, no matter how polite they were. The Margarelli brothers were very powerful and very smart. They also didn’t mind getting their hands dirty. Their people were as loyal as ours were. That made them very, very dangerous.