Page 80 of Bolo's Curveball
Bolo
“When are you meeting her parents?” Strike asked, staring up at the building we were about to check out.
I frowned at it, looking down at the address on the GPS. “Is this right?” I texted Ruck to double check. We’d been searching through warehouses and old factories for another three weeks. These Collective assholes were hard to pin down. Now that they knew we weren’t going to be an easy target they were holed up. They were waiting for the perfect time and place to come at us again.
That was starting to make me nervous. Dev was eighteen weeks pregnant now. Every day was pretty much the same for me right now. Go out and search for these assholes. Come home. Have dinner with my woman and watch a show or we hung out with my brothers. I was well and truly domesticated. And itwasn’t bothering me in the least. I just wished we could get rid of this threat that was looming.
With the families now living on the compound, we hadn’t been having any parties. Those had started dying down more and more as we got older anyway, but now Ruck was getting more discerning about who came on the property. It was safer that way.
Besides, we didn’t need any bunnies showing up and pissing off the women. And we didn’t need women coming around with their asses and tits out in front of two sixteen-year-old boys. Everyone was still overly protective of those two after what’d happened to them.
At first they’d eaten it up. Now they were starting to get irritated with us treating them like kids half the time. Not that we also didn’t treat them like the men they were becoming, when the situation called for it. It was a balancing act and we were doing the best we could, considering none of us have had kids. Mom and Dad had been really helpful in that regard. They’d been giving OD and Rue advice often, and that had trickled down to the rest of us.
My phone dinged and I shrugged. “No, this is the right place.”
Relay leaned forward, his elbows on the handle bars of his motorcycle. “So we check it out.”
“It’s an apartment complex,” I pointed out.
“So?” Relay shrugged.
“Civilians,” Strike answered.
“Maybe,” Flir corrected. “It could be empty except for Collective.”
“True,” Strike acknowledged. “So we have to go carefully.”
“Fucking great,” I muttered. When they all looked over at me, I arched a brow and jerked a thumb in my brother’s direction. “He’s not exactly the poster boy for carefulness.”
Strike and Flir looked over at Relay, who looked mildly annoyed, but he had a knife out and was absent mindedly flipping the blade in his hand as we waited.
“Maybe you should stay out here,” Strike said with a grin.
“Fuck that,” Relay replied. “It’s a big place. We should all go in.” He scowled, waiting on Strike’s response, because between the four of us Strike had the most authority, being the secretary.
As the enforcer of the MC I would make the calls in matters of security, but that would happen once we ended up inside and in the middle of a shit storm, though Strike and I would really both be sharing the leadership role. With neither Ruck, OD, or Kilo here, Strike was the next up.
We didn’t always strictly follow the chain of command but if brothers were butting heads it was a good way to come to a decision.
“Fine,” Strike told him. “But weneedto be careful. We’re not shooting this place up. There could be women and children in there. I want to make sure the only people we take out are Collective scum.”
“Agreed,” I said.
Both Relay and Flir nodded in acknowledgment.
“And I want an answer before we go in.”
I looked over at Strike, who was staring at me. Chuckling, I shook my head. “Next Friday. Having dinner at her parents’ house. Her sisters will be there, too. Then we’re doing dinner the next night with my parents and brothers.”
Strike let out a whistle. “That’s a lot of family bonding in a short time.”
“Statistically, the faster you get it out of the way, the better it will go,” Flir stated.
I narrowed my eyes. “Is that true? Or are you just trying to make me feel better?”
The look on his face told me he’d never fucking tell me either way. It was Flir’s way of trying to be supportive so I let it drop. Though part of me wondered if he was capable of trying to make others feel better. Did his robot programming have empathy?
“I bet both sets of soon to be grandparents are excited to meet their kid’s spouse,” Strike said as we got off our bikes and double checked our weapons.
