It didn’t take long to reach the clubhouse, since it was down the road but on the same property as the hog farm, and we all backed in against the building. Though the temps were cooler, I was still sweating by the time we reached the clubhouse.
“Fucking hate those things,” I bitched as I hung the helmet on the handlebar to let the sweat dry.
Phoenix chuckled. “Pussy,” he teased. He wore one all the time, no exceptions. Then again, the fucker loved the heat because he barely felt it. If it wasn’t for his special talents, he’d probably be down with a chapter in Texas. But we all had our reasons for being where we were.
“Fuck off,” I said with a huff of laughter.
“You look scarier now than you did before,” Squirrel muttered.
I flipped him off.
We stepped into the cool interior, and I left the guys at the bar to go back to Venom’s office. Facet followed me but went into his room as I continued on. I already knew he was going to dig into what the guy had said about Mule.
Venom looked up as I knocked on the open frame. “Hawk called me. You okay?”
I nodded. Though I was worried about my grandmother, if my parents said she’d be okay, I believed them.
“It done?” He didn’t need to elaborate; I knew he was asking about the job.
“Blade’s working on the cleanup, but yeah.” He nodded in satisfaction.
“Where’s Raptor?” I asked as I sat down in the chair opposite the desk from him.
“Making the rounds with Kicker to check on the dry cleaning shop, the restaurants, and car washes.” Also legit businesses that were perfect fronts for cleaning the dirty money we brought in.
“I wanted to let you know something that the guy at the farm said today,” I started. He leaned back in his chair with an intense look.
“Does this need to wait for church?”
“I definitely plan to bring it up, but I wanted you to know first.”
He nodded, and I told him about what the guy had said and about how I’d been feeling like I was being watched. He didn’t like it either.
Once business was out of the way, we sat and shot the shit for a bit before he looked at the time. “Unless you wanna be cleaning shitters this weekend, I suggest we get to the chapel.”
“Um, yeah, no thanks. Give me a minute to wash my face,” I said as I stood and followed him out of the room. Once I’d washed the makeup off, I headed down the hall to the chapel at the end. We dropped our phones in the basket outside the room as we stepped in.
As always, the old-timers were there first. Goob, Shorty, E, and Break had pretty much all retired, so they hung out all day at the clubhouse to get peace from their ol’ ladies. Well, except Shorty. He’d never gotten serious with anyone and swore he was a confirmed bachelor.
Kicker, Shank, Phoenix, Squirrel, Croc, and Ghost were at the table, too. Facet walked in after us with his laptop. It was the only electronic device ever allowed in church, because that thing had the highest security I’d ever seen. Encryption upon encryption and whatever other shit he had on it to protect the dealings he did for us on the dark web. It was where our jobs came in from. Most of the people we worked for didn’t know who we were, and we didn’t know them.
The guy in the slaughterhouse today was one of the few jobs we did where we had met the client who hired us in person. The woman had a lot of money and was willing to pay heftily for what had been done to her nephew. She’d even stood in the shadows for the first of the job today. Weird, but whatever.
“Oh, good. Thought I was gonna be last in again today,” said Angel as he hurried in the door behind Raptor. Ghost laughed. The only ones who were exempt from cleaning shitters were the old timers, P and VP. Of course, Blade because he was occupied, but Venom would fill him in.
The pounding of boots across the floor was followed by Chains rushing in and looking around before he dropped his head. “Fuck,” he muttered as everyone busted a gut.
“All right, Chains, shut the door. Everyone listen up. We got the information regarding the De Luca job. Once we go over the details, we’ll vote as to whether we want to take the job. Blade already gave me the okay to vote for him by proxy.” Venom motioned for Facet to continue with the info he’d received from Lorenzo De Luca.
Facet cleared his throat. “First of all, I found the info about that guy and Mule.” He then went on to elaborate and let the rest of the brothers in on what the guy had said earlier. Turned out it was legit. None of us was overly worried, because the Scorpions would never be able to tie Mule’s cousin to us.
Except I didn’t like that they kept popping up in shit for us. That was twice in one day. I didn’t like it.
Then he tapped away at his computer and opened the file he’d received from De Luca.
“Okay. So evidently Grishka Kalashnik killed his youngest son, Francesco.”
“He knows that for sure?” Venom asked in surprise. While we might’ve known it wasn’t an accident, to hear Kalashnik had been that ballsy was unnerving.