"Pick a place," Blaze said, sliding out of bed and pulling on his jeans. "I don't care where, as long as it's with you. Any place in the world."
I nodded, my mind already working through the possibilities. I had the money. Hell, I had more money than God now. All of Guillermo's money was mine, as his sole heir. He had never changed his will, even when he'd known I wasn't his daughter. I didn't know if he was reckless, never believing he'd die; or if it was a final concession to me, something that said he loved me.
"When?" I asked.
Blaze slid his leather cut over his shoulders. "As soon as we can." He kissed me on the forehead. " But now, I have to go. Let's talk about this more later, okay?"
After he left, I thought about all of the places we could go. Mexico. The Caribbean. Thailand. Europe.
Then it hit me. Something was up with the club, something important. Blaze loved me, but why else would he want to completely ditch the club, run away? Was he in some kind of trouble? Or having some kind of crisis of conscience? Either way, that meant this wasn't a regular trip. We needed to be discreet. And if there was anyone who could help me do that, it was Benicio. I needed to talk to him.
I rode up to the clubhouse, the rumbling of the Crossbones beneath me calming me down, the same way it always did. And I needed to calm down before church today. I needed to talk to Axe, this time sober. Shit, I hoped he was sober now. I never knew about Axe anymore. But that cryptic comment he'd made about the club and Benicio was running through my head on a loop.
Maybe the shit with Benicio wasn't going as good as I thought.
What the hell did he mean by that?
It was gnawing away at me, eating away like some kind of disease or something, in the bottom of my stomach. I liked the deal we had going with Benicio-it was good money, consistent money, drama-free money. Benicio liked to lay low, didn't like to stir shit up he didn't need to. It was a consistent gig. I wanted to know what the hell was not going good about it.
I walked inside, already more than a few minutes late. Thanks to Dani. I hid a smile as a vision of her, naked underneath me, flashed in my mind's eye. She was the best thing I had going for me. And I had just found out she was more than willing to run away with me. That shit had me practically walking on air. Part of me had been afraid she was really just into the biker thing, the rush of being a part of the clubhouse. But she wasn't. I should have known better. I should have known her better than that.
I slipped inside, took my seat with the other officers, beside Axe. He looked up at me as I sat down. There were black circles under his eyes so dark it made him look like he'd taken a few punches. His skin was ashen. He must have kept going on a huge bender last night after I left.
Part of me wanted to kick the shit out of him, tell him to get it together. The other part of me thought he was lost.
"Hey, brother," Axe whispered, his words still slurred. "You're late. Couldn't rip your cock out of the Old Lady, huh?"
I felt the blood rush to my ears. "None of your fucking business, brother," I whispered. Axe was on my last goddamned nerve lately. It was a far cry from where we had been, close friends.
When Mad Dog stood, Axe leaned over, whispered in my ear. "Pay attention," he said. "See what happens when you're away all the time, getting your pole smoked."
I was this close to dragging Axe outside and beating him to death. But that nagging feeling I'd had about what was going down with the club? Yeah, that was overwhelming everything else.
Mad Dog cleared his throat. "We've been providing protection for Benicio for a year now, exclusive to him. It's a good gig, reliable money in it. Not hard." The room was still, so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Where the hell was Mad Dog going with this? "But it's not the kind of job that's going to put us on the map."
There it was. That was exactly what I was afraid of. Mad Dog's need to expand, pull the club into bullshit we didn't need to be involved in. I leaned over and whispered to Axe, "He's got a deal going with someone else?"
"The ultimate deal," Axe whispered. I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or if it was just the alcohol that made him sound like that.
"The money," Mad Dog was saying, "The real money, I mean, is in getting into the drug business, running large-and I mean large- shipments up the coast. Getting a cut. Expanding the dealing we've been doing on the side, making it our main business."
The Mexicans. Or the Dominicans, maybe. What the fuck was Mad Dog thinking? He wanted to get us into bed with a fucking cartel. He'd been ranting about this for years, and I vetoed it before. I'd veto it again. He knew that. Why the hell bring it to the table?
I leaned close to Axe. "Why is he bringing this for vote? He knows I'll vote it down."
"You've been absent, brother," Axe whispered. "When the cat's away, the mice will play." Even his whisper was sing-songy.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" I kept my voice low.
"There's no unanimous vote anymore," Axe said. "It just needs to be a majority."