Yeah, Buck had given her Lorie, Minnie, Pinky, the rest of the old ladies, and Toots and Tatie were thicker than thieves.
Fuck, they were at the Valley Inn the other night and some woman had told Clara, “You and your daughter are so sweet together!” And Clara was the only female alive who was barely old enough to be claimed as a mom of a sixteen-year-old who would beam that bright at that comment.
But she was going to feel the hit of Tia being gone again. Even if she could talk to her.
Those two were tight.
He reckoned, given the lives they’d lived together, navigating the system, that happened.
So he didn’t want his woman to lose her girl.
“She gonna go after Christmas?” Sylvie asked Damian.
“After Christmas, I’m not giving her a choice,” Damian answered.
There were a number of approving grunts sounding in the room.
“Right, second problem,” Sylvie continued counting them down. “Aces High is back on radar, times two. The Esposito shit, which, I don’t need to remind you also includes a personal member of the family being tied to it, and along the line, they might remember that.”
Buck felt a muscle jump in his cheek, seeing as Clara was that “personal member of the family.”
“Redhot has dick to do with any a’ Esposito’s shit,” Chap clipped.
“She’s just saying, you might be in a position to remind them of that,” Tucker pointed out.
No one had a response.
Sylvie kept talking.
“And Imran Babic is a very poor loser.”
This was what Buck wanted to talk about.
And this was why Buck had called the meet.
Pinky had left work the night before, went to her car, and found a note under her wiper blade that said, I don’t get her, I want you.
It had freaked her, she’d told Cruise about it, Cruise told Ink about it within earshot of Lorie, and Lorie had shared she’d had the same thing. She thought it was a mistake, or some crazy marketing thing, so she’d thrown it away.
Commence Ink tagging Buck, and Buck hauling everyone in for this meet.
They knew it was Imran because Lynch and Slate went to the bar where Pinky worked, demanded to see their security tapes, and they saw one of Babic’s boys place the note.
Those boys knew those cameras were there. They weren’t acting sneaky.
That meant Babic wanted them to know who was communicating.
The other old ladies were asked, none of them had received one, but now, they were on high alert.
It didn’t take much to jump from I don’t get her, the “her” being Clara, I want you, that Babic, like Babic could do, was going to start playing with them.
And Babic was a lunatic.
So that was a problem.
And he was already a problem, kidnapping Clara at all, much less the way he had.
So now, he was a big problem.
“Your last problem is that Eleanor Moynihan is one serious liability,” Sylvie finished. “Because a woman who’s convinced herself she was wronged is a helluva wildcard.”
Buck looked to Gash.
Eleanor Moynihan was Nails.
And since Buck had turned her out in a way she would never get back in, she’d been fucking with them.
It started with a “pregnancy scare” that ended up nothing.
But that didn’t mean she didn’t rope Gash and Cruise into that situation, sharing it could be either of their kid.
And she did this by telling both Minnie and Pinky that she might be carrying one of their men’s baby.
Pinky had been devastated.
Cruise had lost his mind, pissed at Nails, but even so, he’d focused since he was more concerned with the thought of losing Pinky.
Buck had given the man some time because he was a brother, a friend, and a good man who had occasion to do something seriously stupid.
Chap, however, turned him out.
Some things Chap was willing to counsel you about.
Others, he figured you should just know. And if you didn’t, he wasn’t going to waste his time educating you.
Cruise talked Pinky into trying to work it out.
They were trying.
From what Clara said, it wasn’t really working.
But they were still trying.
Minnie had scraped Gash off.
Done.
The end.
Which put Buck in a tough position because—on threat of having access to Clara’s body being denied “for an appropriate time of punishment, you’ve got your brother code, I’ve got my sister one” (her words)—he couldn’t tell Gash that Minnie was in his living room with his woman, crying her eyes out about the man she loved cheating on her, losing him and her family.
But there was no turning her back.
Not that Clara had tried.
She’d just explained to Buck, “She knew, or figured it was a possibility. I think it’s more about him acting like he was innocent and throwing you under the bus. Being a man like that and taking a good man down to be able to keep doing it. I also think she’s embarrassed that cast aspersions on her Professor Higginsing. She was pretty proud of being my biker babe mentor.”