"For their sake, I hope they are keeping their mouths shut, and biding their time."
Biding their time until what?
Until I took the club back?
It wasn't until right that moment that I realized it would be a possibility.
If my father dealt with his men, and the Henchmen were willing to make a move on Chewy and any of his loyal followers, that still left a club without a president, didn't it?
I could have it back.
It was everything I always wanted.
Right?
Right.
Of course.
I'd worked my whole life for it.
But as Fallon curled me more tightly into his arms, there was this niggling little voice in the back of my head that wouldn't shut up.
If that was all you ever wanted, why did it never feel as good as a couple of stolen minutes alone with the man you used to call your rival?
Chapter Sixteen
Fallon
"You're up early," my father said as I walked into the kitchen for a cup of coffee.
He was already there, leaning against the counter with his own cup.
"Yeah. Couldn't stay asleep," I admitted, going for the coffee machine.
We were going to move on the Vultures.
After several long talks with the club and with Danny's father, it seemed like the only possible choice.
After her father had done his questioning, it had come out that not only did three of his men make a move on our men, but that Chewy had been working on Danny's men behind her back almost since they first arrived in Navesink Bank.
Not all of them, it seemed.
Chewy might have been a lazy and opportunistic fucker, but he wasn't stupid. He knew that there were some die-hard loyalists to Danny. And he also knew that there were a lot of men in the middle, ones who might not have always been one-hundred-percent on-board with a female president, but had learned to respect her and the position she held.
Though, they couldn't have respected her all that much if they'd turned on her that night without even hearing her side of the story.
"Did Danny sleep?" he asked.
"She tossed and turned almost until sun-up before passing out."
"This has to be hard for her," my father said. "She'd lived with these men. Ate with them. Partied with them. Did jobs with them. Provided for them."
And now she was going to have to let us kill them.
From the moment we knew Chewy had been involved, and that he likely had some of the Vultures on his side, we all knew what it was going to come down to. They wouldn't be welcome in the Navesink Bank chapter of the Vultures. Or any of the other sister chapters either. And since they knew all the Vultures secrets, they couldn't just be allowed to keep walking around.
"I know," I agreed. "I think it comforts her a little that the five or so that she believed were the most loyal to her seem like they are."
"Still. It's a lot."
"Yeah," I agreed.
"Have you two talked about her plans after this?" my father asked. "Once business is handled, there is nothing stopping her from going back to her club."
"I know."
"And from the sound of things, she crawled over broken glass to get her chapter."
"Yeah, her father is a real dick," I said, shaking my head.
"Did you discuss it?"
"No," I admitted, knowing it was immature of us not to, but all this shit was still new for us. Sharing and communicating. Besides, I figured maybe Danny wanted to do some thinking about it on her own without me badgering her. That would be what I'd want in her situation. "I'm giving her a little space. This has all been... a lot."
"Yeah," my father agreed, sighing out his breath, but it ended on a chuckle.
"What?"
"The women," he said, shaking his head. "Every single fucking one of them has been... a lot. Kinda gotta start to think it's a club curse," he added. "But I don't think any of us would have it any other way."
"Ma wasn't a lot," I insisted.
"Christ, kid. Yes, she fucking was. Is. But especially was. Human trafficking and skin traders and long-lost family members and one fucking twist after another. Believe me, kid, it was a lot. But that woman is the main reason I get up out of bed each morning," he added.
"Kinda sappy for you, old man," I teased.
"This is a hard life, Fallon. Especially at the top. So when you find a soft spot in it, you hang onto it."
"Have you met Danny?" I asked, smirking. "Nothing soft there."
"I think there is a lot of soft there," he countered. "But I think you're the only one who gets to see it. There's something special in that. And I'm glad you found it. I think a lot of us saw it coming."
"What? No," I said, shaking my head. "We hated each other."
"You poked and prodded at each other. It's different."