Page 77 of Grave Curse

“Fun,” Zee murmured, eyes on the screen. “And by fun, I mean that would be about as much fun as a colonoscopy.”

“I just had one of those,” Ashtray volunteered, offering up information no one on the planet wanted. “It wasn’t so bad, you pussy.”

“That’s because you can’t feel anything from the waist down,” Ajax said.

“Not true,” Ashtray boomed out with a huge grin. “Just this past week me and Mabel have had huge progress in what we call sex therapy. The old soldier can now stand at attention and I can feel everything as she rides my hog. I’m back, baby. I’m fucking back.”

“Good for you, Ash,” I said while the men around the table cheered and those closest to Ashtray high-fived him. “But if it’s all right with you, I’d like to focus on business instead of your damn sex life.”

“Oh, dear God, please focus on business,” Tomahawk said, then gave Ash another high-five as the pair laughed.

I bit back a sigh. “What else do you have, Ajax?”

A few more taps on the laptop changed the photos. “So far, LEO’s search of the Chicago Gravedigger compound has been very thorough. They’ve discovered a fully functioning meth lab with over a hundred pounds of product onsite, nearly a million in cash, two-hundred AR-15 style rifles, over ten-thousand rounds of ammo, and half a dozen crates of military-grade small explosives, from flash-bangs, to smoke bombs to grenades. Needless to say, Hades Colgrave, leader of the Chicago Gravediggers, is now one of the most-wanted men in Chicago’s history, right up there with Al Capone.”

“Doing the family proud,” I said, my upper lip curling. “Good thing I’ve got our lawyers primed and ready to go. They’ve already sent notifications out that if any law enforcement agency wants to talk to Hades’s family—namely me—they can make a fucking appointment.”

“Gotta say, Hades’s fuck-up of not taking care of the Yoyo situation himself is really biting him in the ass.” Romeo shook his head before shooting a glance at Ajax. “What about all that weaponry? Obviously Hades was stockpiling for war. Was it all confiscated?”

“Every last bullet and cartridge.” Ajax flicked through the lineup of photos until he hit on one showing several people in front of Rooster Juice, wearing ATF jackets and carrying crates and guns toward the back of a military-style personnel carrier. “If Hades had left his dick behind, LEO would’ve confiscated that, too. They took everything that wasn’t nailed down.”

“Any retaliatory SWAT calls coming from our enemies could wind us up in the same shit storm.” I looked over at Romeo. “Where are we on sterilizing our house?”

“We’re pristine. There’s no product onsite. According to Lasso, the armory looks like nothing more than a couple of those big-ass motorhomes, both inside and out. We’re mobile, just like you wanted, so we can roll out at a moment’s notice.”

“The trick is actually getting that moment’s notice,” Zee added. “But I’ve been working the past few months to solidify our connections within law enforcement to make sure we’re in the loop. Better yet, after Yoyo fragged her daddy and the Chicago Gravediggers, people seem to be a lot more amenable to our approach now that we’re the only game in town.”

“Don’t let your guard down, my brothers.” My jaw locked against the need to bark at Zee for sounding so damn confident. They had earned the right to enjoy this victory, but we were still surrounded by enemies. The war was far from over. “We’ve got a lot going in our favor, which feels good. Scratch that, it feels fuckingamazing, and it’s all because the men in this room put in the work and never gave up in the belief that our way of running shit was the better way. We also have the shared belief that ending that rabid bastard Hades makes the world a better place. And make no mistake, my brothers, we have to end him.”

“He’s on the ropes now, “Romeo said, nodding. “Thanks to you boomeranging their psycho spy back to them, Hades now has no base of operations, no money, no weapons, and whatever dangerous personnel he had, Yoyo took care of for us.”

“Thank you, Yoyo.” Ashtray raised his cardboard coffee cup in a heartfelt toast.

“My uncle is definitely down, but don’t think for a second that he’s out.” I looked around the table at my brothers, the fiercest motherfuckers in all of Chicago, and felt a surge of pride. They were the reason this club had come so far so fast, and by God, they would only get better from here. “My uncle’s got nothing left to lose, so this makes him the most dangerous man alive. He’ll want to hit where we’re most vulnerable, soft targets that he knows will break our hearts and crush our will. That leads me to the next order of business—the party tonight. What’s the status on the perimeter around Vixen’s Den, Tom?”

Tomahawk, a man who would have looked right at home as Paul Bunyon’s stand-in with a full beard, bushy brows and a never-ending assortment of flannel shirts, leaned his thick forearms on the table. “We couldn’t get the permits to block off the road like we’ve done in the past whenever we get our party on. Not enough time, since Ginger wasn’t throwing this party until the last minute. Next best thing we can do is monitor it ourselves. At either end of the street I’ve assigned a mix of brothers and prospects to clock each vehicle going in and out of that road during the party. Say a blue Chevy Malibu rolls in on the west side. It gets reported. If that Chevy Malibu doesn’t come rolling out on the eastside in the next minute, I’ve got another team in the middle to hunt it down. Eyes will be on that road at all times.”

“That includes the guys at our front gate,” Romeo added, his ever-present phone in hand. “We’ll have four guards up front, as well as four watching over the back service alley. I’ve also got a drone over the street between us and Vixen’s Den, so if any car suddenly veers off, we’ll see it.”

“I’m placing two of my enforcers on Vixen’s Den’s doors,” Ajax said. “One in the front, and one in the back. And as for the rest of us, every Gravedigger at that party will be carrying, just in case.”

Ginger would love that. “Can’t be helped. My gut tells me a party is exactly the kind of soft target my uncle would go for, because he’s a fucking coward. But if he sees me there, hopefully I’ll be too tempting of a target for even that coward to resist.”

“In a crowded space that could mean a lot of casualties.” Romeo frowned. “We could always cancel the party.”

He was thinking of Shiloh and the baby she carried. I felt it too, knowing Ginger was going to be there, but all I could do was shake my head. “If we cancel because I’ve got a gut feeling, what then, Romeo? Misty and Lasso are putting togethera charity auction at Ride Or Die for kids with cancer in a couple weeks. It’s going to be a huge event, at least a couple hundred people will be inside our perimeter. Do we cancel that, too? Let those kids down and fuck up the goodwill we’re actively trying to build within this community? Then we’ve got the holidays to get through and all the social shit we do that makes us not just a club, but afamily. Should we cancel the holidays? Should Ginger cancel the baby showers she wants to throw for Ana-Sofia and Shiloh, because my fucking asshole uncle may or may not show up? When do we stop canceling our lives because of that cocksucker? Talk to your women and be totally open about what the risks are, but I say the party goes on. I’m done bowing my head to Hades. If he wants to put Gravediggers security to the test, I say have at it. It’ll be the last goddamn mistake he ever makes.”

“Hell, no, we are not canceling shit.” Ashtray pounded a beefy fist on the table, looking so fierce I wouldn’t have been surprised if he started growling like a bear. “We’re men, for fuck’s sake, not pussies. More than that, we’re fucking Gravediggers. That should mean something, not just to us, but every fuckin’ biker in Chicagoland. If we can’t protect our women, friends and loved ones at a fuckin’ birthday party—when our goddamn HQ is right across the fuckin’ street—then we don’t deserve to wear the patch.”

Damn. Who knew Ashtray could spit that much truth like it was pure fire?

“We’ve got the personnel and the firepower to stop one old man who’s on his last legs,” I said after letting Ash’s words sink in like the good medicine they were. “We can win this war once and for all, and build an epic life for ourselves. Retreat is not an option. Talk to your girlfriends, your ol’ ladies, your wives. Let them decide for themselves what they want to do. But I’m livingmy damn life. Let Hades crawl out from under whatever rock he’s hiding so he can try to take it.”

*

Ginger

“It’s ridiculous how nervous I get whenever I throw a party.” With the last tiny braid secured away from my face, I stepped back and examined my reflection in the breakroom’s mirror on the back of the door. “I’m not sure. Do I look like Freya, Norse goddess of war?”

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