Jesus fucking Christ, I really did have a death wish!
“Never,” I agreed.
“Hair buddies?” Vienna asked, his voice wobbling slightly.
“Hair buddies,” I nodded. I went on my tiptoes and placed a chaste kiss against his lips. “Don’t look so worried. This never happened. No one else needs to know.”
“These things have a habit of coming out.”
“Trust me,” I whispered. “As far as we’re concerned, this never happened.”
“Never happened,” he nodded, although if the look on his face was anything to go by, he didn’t believe a word of it.
“Come on,” I murmured, walking towards the door. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
He draped his arm around my shoulders and picked his beard up, slapping me in the face with it. I hit his chest, and he laughed, pulled me into his chest and placed a kiss on the top of my head.
He let go of me just long enough to retrieve his cut and then we left the bar, neither one of us remembering the surveillance, and neither one of us noticing the blinking red light in the corner.
Chapter 58
Dante
The next day, I sat in Church with the club, waiting to get to the bottom of what the fuck had happened with Rachel and Shark.
I had read her notes last night after our argument, so I had a rough idea of what had gone down, but we needed to know who and why so we could begin to put shit right.
I could have asked Rachel, but after returning from wherever Vienna had taken her, she stormed right off to the bedroom and hadn’t come back out again.
For the first time since the contract had been signed, I spent the night on the sofa—which technically voided the contract, and meant Rachel was free to leave whenever she wanted. She hadn’t brought it up yet though, and I wasn’t about to either.
I sighed heavily, pulling my hands down my face as Riley filled us in on what he knew. I had made such a fucking mess of all this with Rachel. It was shocking she had even been willing to give me a second chance at all. If I hadn’t already used up my nine lives with her, I was getting damn fucking close.
“And you’re certain, brother?” Ant asked, his jaw tense and gritted.
“I heard it straight from our mole. They said that Vicky’s dad had approached the Rough Riders. In return for them attacking Dante’s old lady, they would be granted full immunity from the police for any crimes for the next six months.”
Angry shouts came from my men, each of them livid on mine and Rachel’s behalf. And Shark’s, of course.
“Look,” I said loudly, making myself heard above them all. “We’re all pissed, and I get it. But I think we’d all be fucking fools if we can sit here and honestly say we would not have made a similar deal.”
“I’d never be a fucking rat,” Chicken said, spitting on the floor.
“Oi!” I snapped. “You will respect the sanctuary of Church. I want you on your hands and knees cleaning that shit up as soon as we’re done here. One more outburst like that and you’re straight back on fucking probation. And, let’s get one thing clear—the Rough Riders are not being rats. They’re not feeding the police any information. All they had to do was attack a rival gang, and they got immunity. It was a sweet fucking deal.”
“So we just let them get away with what they did to Rachel? To Shark?” Ant hissed.
“No. But I’m not Crash. Do you want to retaliate and start another war? We’ve just rebuilt. We’ve just achieved peace. Vienna, do you want to weigh in here?” I asked, almost snapping at him out of exasperation. He had barely said two words the entire fucking morning.
“Whatever you think is best, brother.”
If I didn’t know better, it almost looked like he cringed when he called me ‘brother’.
“Are you going to share what’s on your mind?”
“It was just a long night. Rachel knows how to hit the bottle,” he said with a small, tired smile. The rest of the guys laughed and started up a conversation about Rachel being drunk, but I wasn’t convinced. Vienna came out of the fucking womb with a pint of Guinness, and he’d only got worse since then. There wasn’t a chance in hell Rachel had managed to drink more than him.
I’d seen Vienna take part in some of the more debased rallies, and he had never so much as had a hangover afterwards.
