“Don’t look at the clock, man, just keep moving until it’s over,” Pipe said, pulling his mask over his head and lifting the flask he hid in his back pocket to his lips. “Fucking hell,” he hissed, as the liquid burned his throat.
“Just keep moving,” I repeated, peeling away from 23rd Ave and Cropsey.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Cain’s old man was standing outside the shooting range, smoking a cigar as he waited for us to arrive. I pulled up right in front and we jumped out of the truck.
“Pop,” I greeted the old man, as he flicked the ashes of his Nicaraguan cigar.
“How bad is it?” He asked, not leaving any room for pleasantries.
I looked over my shoulder, watching as Riggs opened the lift-gate of the truck, before walking around the side and glancing at the watch on his wrist.
“Jimmy Gold is holding Blackie and my woman hostage,” I said, diverting my eyes back to the aging father of my predecessor.
He raised his eyebrow and questioning eyes found mine.
“Well, I’ll be damned, never thought the day would come when you took an old lady,” he commented.
“Yeah that makes two of us,” I declared. After things ended with Connie I had no intentions of tying myself to one woman. My heart was closed off, no room for anything or anyone, but Reina came into my life and being with her made me want to make room in my heart for the things I thought I didn’t deserve.
And now she was gone, and I was racing against a clock to get her back.
It was a horrible feeling, knowing that the person you belonged to was somewhere unknown, being held at the mercy of your enemy. I was torn between my love for her and the hatred I had for myself. If I had just let her be. If I had just stayed away. If only I wasn’t tempted by the sunshine.
“Clock’s ticking, Prez,” Pipe reminded me. “Gotta keep moving,” he added, pulling me from my self-loathing trance.
“Go,” Pops said. “I’d like to meet the girl who made that dead heart pump again,” he murmured, before pointing to the wooden crates piled up against the wall of the warehouse. “Everything you asked for and more,” he informed me.
“Thank you,” I said, turning to the boys and tipping my chin toward the crates. “Let’s load them up,” I ordered as I walked to the crates, lifting the lid off of one of them and staring down at the AK47 nestled away amongst the straw.
“There’s six of those, a couple of Glocks and I stocked you with some nine millimeters’ and a bunch of forty-five’s. They’re loaded, and I threw in a couple of magazines.” He paused for a second. “You boys are ready for war,” he said, shifting his eyes to my patch and staring at the one that declared me president of the Satan’s Knights, a role his son once called his own.
“Cain’s watching over you,” he said simply, lifting his eyes to mine. “Got faith he’ll see you through this,” he stated.
I patted Pops on the back, digesting his words, and hoping like hell they were true. Satan’s Knight’s needed all the guardian angels they could get. I turned around and loaded the last crate into the truck.
Keep moving.
I got back behind the wheel of the truck, honked the horn at Pops before backing out of the lot and meeting Riggs’ eyes in the rearview mirror.
“How’s the ink on those death certificates?” I asked hoarsely.
“Just about ready to dry,” he replied.
“Bones, gas up the bikes, Wolf and I will load the cage with the ammo,” Pipe said, as we pulled up to the clubhouse. He stepped out of the truck, turned back to me before he closed the door and asked. “You good?”
“Yeah,” I responded, pulling the key from the ignition. “Going to check on Lacey and meet you out here in five.”
When I walked into the clubhouse I was greeted with the scent of food cooking, a foreign aroma for the Dog Pound. That wasn’t the only change though and as my eyes perused the common room in search of my daughter I spotted them all. There was a tablecloth draped over the pool table and folding chairs arranged around it. The bar that was usually a sticky mess was spotless and lined with sterno racks. Lauren Bianci was filling aluminum trays with water and placing them on the wire racks over a flame. Maria Bianci walked behind her daughter carrying a steaming tray of something and placed it on one of the sterno racks before turning around to take another tray from Adrianna’s hands.
Grace stepped around the bar holding paper plates and red solo cups which she handed off to my daughter and Nikki, delegating them the task to set the pool table.
My compound had turned into a fucking Sunday dinner at Vic’s house.
“Dad?” Lacey lifted her head, dropping the plates on top of the pool table and walked toward me. “Have you heard anything?”