Page 16 of Rome
Pic opened his good eye and glared at me, then closed it again and adjusted the ice pack. “He’s the lucky one,” he grumbled. “If I’d been able to get to my gun, I would have blown his fuckin’ head off, coming at me like that.”
“What the fuck did you expect, Pic? You were fuckin’ his Ol’ Lady!”
He lowered the ice pack and sat up a little straighter in the chair, then held up his index finger. “She was just blowin’ me, we weren’t fucking yet.” He held up a second finger and continued, “And I didn’t know she was still his property. The cunt fuckin’ told me they were done.”
I heard the roar of bikes coming in hot and heavy and tensed, then relaxed when Saint hollered “Prez is here. Looks like Trick and Cowboy are both with him.”
Pic groaned and put the ice pack back over his eye. I crossed my arms and waited for my dad.
A minute later, I heard the stomp of several pairs of shitkickers coming down the hall, and stepped back to give them room to come in.
“You’d better have a damned good explanation for this clusterfuck, Pic,” King demanded as he strode into the room with Cowboy and Trick on his heels.
“Saint still covering the door?” I asked Trick in a low undertone, not wanting to interrupt as Pic fumbled for a response. Trick nodded, looking grim. He took his duties as Sergeant-at-Arms seriously, and one of those duties was to deal with brothers who fucked up. Pic had most assuredly fucked up tonight.
“Look, Prez, the bitch told me that she was done with Bingo. How the hell was I supposed to know she was lyin’?”
My dad closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose, a sure sign that he was trying to hang on to his temper. He dropped his hand and opened his eyes, stepping closer to Pic and pinning him with a glare that probably withered the dipshit’s balls.
“She’s been his Ol’ Lady for years, dumbass, and you know damn good and well that she takes off in a snit and comes back home to Indy every few months whenever she’s pissed at him.” King growled, punctuating his words with a hard poke to Pic’s chest. “How many times has Bingo been in town lookin’ for her ass? He has Rash notify us every damned time he crosses into our territory, and it’s at least three or four times a year.”
Cowboy, our club VP and my dad’s best friend for over twenty years, was normally pretty quiet, content to stay in the background until he was needed. He apparently decided that time was now and took over from King chewing Pic’s ass.
“You knew better, fucknut. You don’t fuck with another biker’s woman, and now the club’s going to have to deal with the fallout ‘cuz you just couldn’t keep your dick at home where it belongs.” Cowboy shook his head in disgust. “Your ass just better hope you haven’t fucked up a twenty-year alliance with the River Rats.”
“Prospect’s here with the van,” Saint hollered out from the front of the shop, and Trick moved toward the chair, grabbing Pic’s arm none too gently to help him up.
“Let’s go, asshole. Bull’s brother is meeting us at the clubhouse to get you stitched up. You’re gonna be lucky if he doesn’t have to give you a few more stitches, because once Prez gets done making nice with the River Rats, I may have to add to the ass-kicking Bingo gave you.”
Pic tossed the makeshift ice pack on the chair as he stood. He pulled his arm out of Trick’s grasp and glared at each of us in turn, before opening his big, fucking mouth.
“So, I’m getting a beatdown just because I face-fucked that lyin’ cunt, is that right?” He demanded belligerently.
“No, but you may get a beatdown for disrespecting an affiliate club, and for being an all-around stupid motherfucker, not to mention the attitude you’re throwing around right now,” Trick stated calmly, taking his arm again and guiding him to the door.
King and Cowboy were already walking outside by the time I got to the lobby, and I could see the club’s van idling just outside the front door. We normally used the van to pick up supplies for the clubhouse, or to follow the club on rides in case somebody broke down along the way. King instructed Saint to lock the shop up tight and meet us at the clubhouse.
“I need to hear everything that fuckin’ happened here tonight, Saint. Every last damned detail, got it?” King eyed him, sizing up where Saint’s loyalties were. Nobody wanted to rat out a brother for something petty, but Pic’s actions tonight weren’t something that could be overlooked.
“You got it, Prez. I shut the computer down and got the cash drawer counted and locked in the safe while I was waiting for Rome. I told Lacey just to leave everything and get gone when shit went down.”
“Good thinking. Prospect, Rome, you two get Pic’s bike loaded in the back of the van. I don’t want to leave it here overnight in case Bingo heads back this way. No sense giving him an easy target, no matter how much that dumbass over there may deserve it.” King gestured over his shoulder to the van, where Trick was helping Pic get settled into the passenger seat. Saint went back into the shop, and I saw him walking toward Pic’s suite, presumably to turn off the lights that we’d left on. I knew he would double check that the back door was locked before setting the alarm and locking up the front as well.
A minute later, King, Cowboy, and Trick mounted their bikes. There was a low roar as all three men fired up their rides and peeled out of the parking lot, with King leading the way.
The prospect, Rodney, had been with us for about three months or so. I hadn’t spent much time around him yet, so I had no idea if he would make it through the year’s prospecting period or not. He didn’t say a word, just grunted a few times as we got Pic’s bike strapped down in the back. He hopped back into the driver’s seat as I headed over to my bike. I decided to hang back and follow the van to the clubhouse just in case Bingo was still nearby. I felt the weight of my gun in the inside pocket of my cut and hoped that I wouldn’t need to use it tonight. I noticed Saint jumping on his bike as I followed the van out of the lot.
There was no other traffic once we turned onto the dead-end road leading to the clubhouse. I noticed that our third prospect, Tony, was manning the gate. We didn’t typically have anyone at the gate unless we were having a party, or if there was the potential for trouble. Obviously, King wanted to take precautions tonight, just in case Bingo decided to escalate a piss-poor situation up to shitstorm levels.
The lot was full, as was typical for a Saturday night. I could hear the music thumping from inside as soon as I shut my bike off. I headed inside, leaving Rodney and Saint to assist Pic out of the van and up to the door.
Chris, Bull’s brother, was waiting near the front door, his medic bag on the floor at his feet. He was flirting with one of the women from town who liked to hang out and party with us sometimes. I glanced around, but didn’t see King, Cowboy, or Trick in the main common room. I idly noticed one of the strippers from Fallen Angel working the pole on the stage in the corner, with several of my brothers crowded around the stage. The dancers rotated shifts between the clubhouse and the strip club on Friday and Saturday nights, so that we always had some entertainment here for those who didn’t want to venture out.
I heard the clack of pool balls and looked over to find Viking and Bodhi in the middle of what looked like an intense game. Viking, in his late sixties, had been Sinner’s best friend for over fifty years. His long gray hair was pulled back into a low ponytail as always, and his bushy beard looked like it needed a good trim. Bodhi, on the other hand, looked like he’d just come back from surfing on a beach somewhere, which was why he’d been named after the Patrick Swayze character from Pointe Break when he’d been patched in a few years ago.
“King wants to talk to you and Saint. He’s in his office.” I turned to see Irish, our club treasurer, who had a beer in one hand, and a club bunny in the other.
“Thanks, man.” I spotted Rodney handing Pic over to Chris, who hefted his medic bag onto his shoulder and guided Pic up the stairs, presumably to the room Pic kept here at the clubhouse. I motioned over the bunny’s head to Saint, and he followed me to King’s office.
