Page 10 of King
Chapter 4
King/Dante
I strode into the clubhouse a little before ten the next morning and was immediately approached by Star, one of our longtime club bunnies.
“Lookin’ good this mornin’, Prez,” she drawled throatily, stepping closer and running her finger down the front of my leather cut. I pinned her with a glare, which stopped her finger mid-stroke. She dropped her hand and took a step back as disappointment and a hint of anger flashed across her face. I kept on walking.
She’d been with us for a few years now, and I’d noticed that she was getting a little bolder lately. It had started a few months ago, when she reported Paisley for mouthing off to Abby. That bitch had said some fucked-up shit to my daughter-in-law by the time Star had alerted Bull. He’d put a stop to it and Paisley had been tossed out on her ass.
I’d apparently given Star the wrong impression when I’d told her how much I appreciated her loyalty to the brothers and to the MC. It probably hadn’t helped matters that I’d let her suck me off later that night, because now she took every opportunity to talk to me, and had upped her flirting game, trying to eye-fuck me every chance she got.
Normally, the club bunnies knew better than to approach me first. If I wanted them, I’d let them know, and I rarely did. Iused to fuck them all the time, until Jag and Rome had started prospecting nine years ago. The idea of fucking the same bitches my sons were with didn’t sit right with me, so I’d started looking elsewhere. There were always plenty of hangarounds to choose from – non-club women who came to party with us so they could brag they’d fucked a biker. I’d also pick up women at The Inferno, the bar Jag ran for the club. I wasn’t hurting for women to ride my dick, so I didn’t need to turn to the bunnies very often these days. Besides, they all wanted the prestige of fucking the club president, and I didn’t need the kind of drama that came with that shit.
“Church in ten minutes,” I shouted a reminder on my way through the common room. I detoured into the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee, seeing several of my brothers finishing breakfast. I watched in distaste as Skid reached into the fridge for a piece of leftover pizza, shoving half the slice in his mouth in one bite. I was too damned old to think cold pizza was a good way to start the day. Of course, I’d eaten the last of Eleanor’s brownies for breakfast, so I guess I really wasn’t in a position to judge someone else’s eating habits. They were fucking delicious, though, and I hadn’t been able to resist.
I made my way into the room that we called our chapel, taking my seat at the head of the table. Over the next few minutes, the brothers wandered in to take their seats, stopping to drop their cell phones in the box just outside the door. I was the only one who kept my phone with me during Church, in case of emergencies. It was a safety precaution since we did discuss things that skirted the law from time to time; things that we wouldn’t want to be recorded or listened in on. The room was soundproofed for the same reason and was swept for cameras and listening devices by Bull before each meeting.
My half-brother Ace was the last one through the door, as usual. It was some kind of passive-aggressive bullshit he pulled every Sunday, taking his seat with mere seconds to spare before he was late. He was still pissed off over being passed over as president when Sinner retired ten years ago, since he was actually the first-born son. Our club didn’t work that way, though. Our by-laws required that officers, including the president, be voted in. I’d beaten Ace by a landslide, since most of the other patched members couldn’t stand him either. He was a racist, homophobic piece of shit who only had the support of a couple of old-timers, neither of whom were involved much in the club anymore.
I still remembered the day when Sinner had punched Ace right in the face for mouthing off about the club not “sticking to its own kind” anymore, after Sinner had invited Joker to prospect years ago. When he was patched in a year later, the color barrier had thankfully been broken, and we were better for it. When Saint and Skid, originally from the Dominican Republic and Mexico respectively, had patched in shortly after I took over, it pretty much sent Ace over the edge. I’d offered to let him turn in his cut and leave the MC with no repercussions, but he’d refused and had done his best to make me miserable ever since.
I called the meeting to order, and we got right down to business. After the usual rundown on club finances from Irish, our treasurer, we got a report for each of the club-owned businesses, then moved onto the next item on the agenda.
“We finally have a new bunny to replace that crazy bitch, Destiny,” I announced, and several of the brothers groaned while others laughed at the mention of the bunny we’d kicked out a month ago. She’d been Paisley’s replacement. She also had the distinction of getting kicked out faster than any bunny in club history, after repeatedly making unwanted advanceson married brothers, including Jagger and Rome. When she’d plopped down on Brick’s lap and started kissing all over him, that had been the last straw. He’d stood up so fast she’d fallen on her ass, right about the time his Ol’ Lady came flying out of the kitchen. The resulting ass-kicking had been quite the sight, as tiny Theresa laid into Destiny like a woman possessed, with Brick trying to hold her back while swearing he hadn’t wanted her anywhere near him. He’d been telling the truth. The poor bastard had been stunned when she’d pulled that shit.
“Her name is Danielle DeSanto – she apparently goes by her initials, DD.” My mouth turned up in a smirk as I thought about how fitting the nickname was. I’d met her, briefly, and I’d bet my left nut that her tits were indeed a double D-cup.
“She was referred to us by Diamond. They went to school together or some shit. She’s moving into one of the rooms over the garage today, so you’ll all meet her tonight. She seems to have her shit together but let me or Trick know if you have any problems with her. We don’t want a repeat of the Destiny incident.”
“As long as she stays the fuck away from me, I’ll be fine with her, Prez.” I snorted a laugh at Brick’s heartfelt sentiment. He only had eyes for his wife, and still felt guilty about the whole Destiny thing, even though it hadn’t been his fault. Luckily, Theresa hadn’t blamed him for it, knowing full well that her man was faithful.
“OK, next order of business. That rogue gangbanger from K-Dog’s crew seems to be peddling his shit in our territory again. Jag found a couple of customers trying to sell heroin in the bathroom at the bar a few days ago. Trick and his Louisville slugger had a little heart-to-heart conversation with both of ‘em, and they claimed they’d bought the stuff from T-Bone and decided to resell it for profit for themselves.”
I glanced across the table at Trick, our club’s sergeant-at-arms, who sat with his arms crossed over his massive chest and a satisfied smirk on his face. He not only enforced the rules of the club with our members, he also was first in line to deal with any threats against the club. He and his baseball bat were almost as legendary as he had been in the ring as an MMA fighter. He liked to use the bat, rather than his fists, for club business though. Honestly, the bat was probably less lethal.
I nodded at Bull, who handed over a piece of paper with the information he’d been able to find on the slippery motherfucker. I glanced at it, holding the paper a little further away from my face to be able to read it without putting on my reading glasses, then passed it around. Getting older fucking sucked.
“To refresh your memory, Tyson Cox, better known as T-Bone,” I said, ignoring the snickers as they heard his government name and made the connection to his street name. These guys were like a bunch of twelve-year-old boys sometimes. “Look at his picture, remember his face. If you see him, call me, Trick, or Cowboy immediately.”
“This is the same guy who ripped off K-Dog’s stash last fall, right?”
I nodded at Bodhi, the assistant manager at Fallen Angels, the strip club Ace ran for the MC. They’d had problems with people – customers and dancers – dealing drugs there on occasion, too.
“Yeah, that’s the dumbass street rat who thought it would be a good idea to relieve his boss of an entire smorgasbord of drugs – pills, meth, crack, and heroin. K-Dog’s still offering a marker to the club if we find him. I’m not as concerned with that as I am with keeping that shit out of our businesses. We don’tneed that kind of reputation, and we sure as fuck don’t need to land on the cops’ radar because of it.”
Our MC wasn’t a one-percent club, and we didn’t mess with that kind of hardcore shit. Several of the brothers smoked a little pot, but that was about it. Anything harder, and I’d kick them out on their asses. We didn’t need a bunch of junkies and meth-heads running around fucking with our livelihood or our freedom.
Our businesses were legitimate, with the exception of a side hustle we did for La Famiglia Rossi through the MMA gym Trick managed for the club. The gym’s secondary purpose was to serve as the spot for an underground fight club Luca Rossi and his family ran. We also provided security for the fights and were well-paid for our trouble. Dabbling with the Rossi family was as far over the legal line as most of us were willing to go. Everything else – the bar Jagger managed, the tattoo shop Rome ran, the security alarm company that Brick was in charge of, the custom bike shop that Viking and Lucky handled, and even the strip club, were all law-abiding, tax-paying enterprises that gave us all a pretty comfortable standard of living.
“Any more news on Pic?” Rome asked, causing me to grimace as I shook my head.
“No, that fucker’s still in the wind,” I groused, not fucking happy about it at all.
“He’s dropped off the grid since that last report of him picking up work at that tattoo studio in Aspen,” Bull said. “No sign of him since.” I’d spent three weeks in Colorado back in April, trying to track the bastard down. I followed his activity from Denver to Aspen, before the trail went cold and I’d come home pissed off all over again.
I was still fucking livid about the entire clusterfuck. Pic had been a club brother for years. I’d even sponsored the rat-bastard when he started prospecting for us and had personally fronted part of the money to start up Guardian Ink. I wasn’t sure when exactly he’d started going off the rails, but Rome had noticed it first, when Pic started slacking off at work. As his co-manager, my son had stepped up and handled shit, hoping Pic would get himself together. He hadn’t, and it had finally gotten so bad that Rome had no choice but to alert me to the problems.
Turns out, Pic was doing drugs, running around on his wife with multiple women, and had almost fucked up a long-standing alliance with another club by fucking the Ol’ Lady of one of their patched members. It had been a complete shitshow, and we’d had to fine him and even suspended him for a month. Despite it all, I had still been shocked when Pic had skipped town with Cynnamon, the stripper that Rome had a drunken encounter with.
