Back in the day, it used to be a soft drinks factory, but it’s been out of commission for years. Luis Wolf took it over when he was a teenager and gave his father little choice but to buy it and the land it sits on when the council demanded they stop squatting inside.
It’s been the place the younger Wolves hang out ever since. It’s pretty impressive really, all things considered. There’s a huge communal party area, back rooms that are more intimate places to meet or hang out, and even a mezzanine with bedrooms above them. Not bad for a bunch of Lovell reprobates.
“Maybe this place isn’t as bad as we always thought,” Alex mutters, obviously impressed with the cleanup job they’ve done. If we weren’t here the week before last to witness the carnage, then it would have been hard to imagine.
“Ah, Cirillo royalty are back. Twice in two weeks… we must be moving up the ladder,” Jace says, appearing on the balcony that leads to the bedrooms and dragging his hoodie over his head as he peers down at us.
Dax appears behind him, shirtless and doing up his fly, an obvious bullet wound in his shoulder as he glares down at the man who put it there.
“You still pissy, Daxton?” Theo taunts. “I do hope whoever you two have just spent time with back there wasn’t married.”
“Un-fucking-likey,” Jace mutters, shooting a look back over his shoulder.
“You fuckers here for business or pleasure?”
“Little bit of both,” Theo says with a grin while Dax snarls at him. Touchy fuck. He deserved that bullet hole for even thinking about laying a hand on Emmie all those weeks ago.
“Where’s the boss?” Nico asks.
“In the sanctuary. Careful though, when we left he had a girl on her—” A door slams deeper in the warehouse before a female cry echoes around us.
“You’re a fucking arsehole, Archer Wolfe.”
His deep rumble fills the air, but it’s too low to decipher—not that I try too hard. A second later, a woman with dark tears staining her cheeks comes running our way. Her hair is a mess, her dress all twisted up, barely hiding the goods as she flies past us, a whimper on her lips.
“You playing too rough with your toys again, Archie?” Jace teases as he jogs down the stairs.
“Fuck you, man,” Archer booms as he emerges from the shadows with a smirk playing on his lips. I get the feeling he got exactly what he wanted from that girl. Something that I’m sure wasn’t reciprocated.
“Ah, just pissed off I left her with you instead of letting her play with the real men, then?”
Archer flips his boy off before stepping closer to us.
“Boys.” He nods. “How’s it going?”
“It’s good. Boss sent us for a peacekeeping meeting or some shit,” Nico says. “Although personally, I think I prefer the party.”
“Come on,” Archer says, beckoning us to follow him down to his sanctuary.
Theo and Nico are totally unfazed as they take a step forward, but I briefly look over at Seb, who shoots me a similar look. Being invited into the Wolves’ Den in one thing, but their inner sanctum? That’s something else entirely.
It seems like this peace treaty and support thing we’ve got going on with Archer and his boys really is serious. Something I never thought would happen. Well… while they were being headed up by Archer’s big brother, anyway. We might not have known the depth of his desire to rip the Cirillo family apart with Ram, the prez of the Royal Reapers by his side, but since everything with Emmie was uncovered it’s become clear that that was their number one objective. They wanted power, money, and all the respect that came with it.
It’s a real shame they underestimated their opponents.
Our world is different now. With Archer heading up the Wolves and Cruz, Emmie’s uncle, taking the gavel over in the Reapers compound, we can only hope that the future might just be a slightly tamer one where we can all just get on with business instead of fighting amongst ourselves. The only other motherfuckers we need to worry about are the Italians, and seeing as they’ve been making moves to claim our businesses recently, and helped to hide Ram when he disappeared, something tells me they’re sitting back, watching all the drama and waiting for their turn to strike.
“The OGs have calmed their shit since that night,” Archer informs us after inviting us into what is basically a self-contained studio flat at the back of the building.
Grabbing beers from his fridge, he throws each of us one as we find seats on the sofas arranged around a coffee table.
“But I’m assuming you’re not expecting it to stay that way, seeing as we’re sitting here now,” Theo guesses.
“They’re licking their wounds, planning their next hit. Those brainwashed cunts are fully on board with Luis’s dictatorship.”
“So what are you saying?” Nico asks before taking a pull on his beer.
Archer stalks toward the final empty sofa and falls into the middle of it as Dax drops down beside him and Jace stands guard at the door with his foot casually pressed against the wall.