Page 38 of Grave Curse

“It damn well better be. Don’t go anywhere,” I told Yoyo, stuffing my dick back in where it belonged, pushed to my feet, and fastened my jeans in quick succession. “Like I said, you’re not leaving this room until you’re thoroughly fucked.”

“Okay.” With another high-pitched giggle, she bounced into my vacated chair. “Do I get a kiss goodbye?”

“Ever seen the moviePretty Woman?”

“No. Are you calling me pretty?”

Jesus. “What you are is unbelievable. It’s about a whore who refuses to kiss anyone until she falls in love. I’ve always remembered that part, because I get it. I don’t kiss just anyone.”

She let loose a scoff that sounded like the real thing, unlike all her other annoying little-girl laugh-track giggles. “Don’t tell me you believe in love.”

“Don’t tell me you want to put that mouth of yours on mine. I don’t know where the fuck it’s been, and I doubt you know either.” Ignoring Romeo’s eyes screaming red-alerts at me, I glanced back at Yoyo, who began to spin the desk chair around in never-ending circles, before shutting the steel door firmly behind us. “Records, now.”

“You are playing one helluva dangerous game.” Romeo pitched his voice low as if fearing Yoyo had bionic senses and could hear us through the steel door, when he knew better than anyone she was now locked in a room where nothing couldescape, not even sound or a cell phone signal. “You know who that is.”

“’Course I do.” I stepped up my pace and pushed into the Records room, a converted supply closet that now held our onsite servers. Every nook and cranny of the Gravedigger compound was recorded around the clock, and all of that could be accessed in either the Situation Room, or here in Records, with its single terminal. The system ran automatically with weekly maintenance from Romeo, so this room was empty when we entered. “I want to make sure we’re recording.”

“It’s recording. It’salwaysrecording.” Romeo took the vacant chair in front of the terminal and began typing. In a heartbeat, the Situation Room popped up on the screen. There was Yoyo, spinning aimlessly in the chair before coming to a stop and going so still I thought the feed had frozen. “Yolanda Thibideaux, AKA Yoyo, nineteen years old. Daughter of Sheila Ingersol and Bruce Thibideaux, AKA Radar. Radar is now Hades’s VP after Hades’s only son and heir, Marvel, treated himself to a permanent dirt nap.”

“At the end of your blade,” I couldn’t help but add. “I know Marvel was my cousin, but damn, thinking about how he got his ass dispatched from this world always brings a smile to my face.”

“Good riddance is all I have to say about that piece of trash.” My VP’s mouth curled in grim satisfaction as he worked the mouse, his eyes on the screen. “As for Yoyo, she was a Chicago Gravedigger princess until about three years ago, when she aggressively turned herself into the ultimate queen of easy-fucks long before she was officially of age.”

“Parents are proud, I’m sure,” I muttered, watching her swivel the chair toward the door and cocking her head in a weirdly owl-like move. Listening for any hint of movement. “Either she’s living a life that was taught to her at home, which is equal parts sad and sick as fuck, or she’s sending her folks theultimate middle finger and having the time of her twisted-up life doing it.”

“Why can’t it be both?” Romeo zoomed in as she slowly reached inside her thigh-high boot for her cell phone. “Fuck, if she gets a signal—”

“Chill, Romeo. You set that room up yourself to be a SCIF-level secure bunker. You know better than anyone that she’s not going to get a signal in there.” Romeo’s inherent paranoia made him the perfect security chief, but there were times when I had to step in just to keep his damn feet on the ground.

He took a slow breath. “By all the reports we’ve been getting from our guy on the inside, Yoyo has become Radar’s biggest embarrassment. Apparently every brother in the Chicago Gravediggers has fucked Radar’s daughter, a fact she crows about, usually in the middle of the Clubhouse itself. He’s become a laughingstock over the past year or so, so for him to become Hades’s vice president—”

“Means Hades doesn’t have that deep of a bench.”

“Exactly. Putting a shamefaced cuck that no one respects into a position of power isn’t exactly a flex for your uncle.”

“No, it’s not.” I smiled. “Not even a little.”

“This also might give us a glimpse into what Hades’s power structure is like. Since you’ve been running your own chapter for well over half a decade now, you know better than anyone that to be a successful club, you’ve got to have quality people at the top who know their shit. You know, like me.”

“Damn straight. Though I still think you cheated on that race the first day we met.”

“Have I ever told you that there are sloths faster than you?” He leaned forward as the crafty little spy on the screen stood up and slowly executed a circle with her phone held high.Good luck in finding a signal, bitch. “She’ll go for the computers next.”

“Good. Let her.”

He spared me a glance. “You are so fucking weird.”

“We’re being attacked, dude.” I sent him a mild glance. “Rules of engagement, yeah? Things between the Chicago Gravediggers and the Gravediggers have calmed down for a while—they killed one of ours, then broke into our territory and we had no choice but to kill one of theirs, which happened to be Hades’s son Marvel. Marvel’s death was his own damn fault because he was in our territory trying to kill you, your woman and her brother. He failed, got planted six feet under for it, and that should’ve been the end of it, because everybody in our world understands one thing—an eye for an eye and a death for a death should have put it to rest.”

“But Hades is a fucking madman, and we knew he’d never stop trying to destroy us after Marvel’s death. I mean, he fucking told us as much at Arthur’s funeral.”

I nodded. “I know that and you know that, but many of our brothers who now call our chapter of the Gravediggers home used to belong to Hades. Dozens of them have come to us over the years, and while I trust them, I also know a lot of them are still reluctant to declare outright war on their old club. What we need is proof of aggression from Hades, because according to our bylaws, we can’t launch an all-out attack on our mother club unless they attack us first. And that bitch right there is proof that we’re being attacked.”

Realization dawned in his eyes. “Fuck.”

“Once we show this to our brothers, anyone still on the fence about attacking our mother club is going to see that our enemy thinks we’re so goddamn limp they sent in a baby-faced easy-fuck to slit our throats. If we don’t defend our turf, and our goddamn honor, that makes us the weak-ass bitches Hades obviously believes we are.”

“And if they can’t see that we now have an obligation to defend ourselves, they don’t deserve to wear our patch. That’sfuckingbrilliant.” Then his attention sharpened as Yoyo did as predicted and went for the computers. “How much longer should I let this play out?”

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