Page 27 of The President

“Vivi could be expecting too,” Popeye muses, plucking the thoughts from my head as he continues staring straight at Carter. “I mean, I know it’s early days since y’all completed your mate bond, but if you’re anything like these two,” he continues, pointing to Stealth and Chaos, “it won’t take long at all.”

“There’s probably something you should know about us,” Stealth says, as if he and Carter are getting to know each other over a few beers. “The first thing is, we’re a family through thick and thin. We may be dysfunctional as fuck at times, but most families are. That being said, we protectourfamily from any and all threats. You heard what I did to someone who threatened the welfare of my mate, but what they didn’t tell you is, every single fucker who was involved was treated the same fucking way as the instigator. No one survived long enough to tell that particular tale. In fact, we wiped out that whole scumbag club. Second of all, not only were you targeting a fated mate, but you were after ourpresident’sol’ lady and fated mate. That’s a death sentence, Carter, on both counts.”

“I don’t see anything particularly redeeming about him,” Chaos adds. “I mean, right now, our mates are being watched over by our prospects, they’ve had their good weekend getaway spoiled, and where are we? Here dealing with trash, plain and simple.”

“Maybe his mother should’ve swallowed,” Popeye says. “Isn’t he the alpha’s son or some shit?”

“He is, but I sure don’t get that vibe off of him,” I reply. “Speaking of, where is Daddy Dearest?” I ask Carter, who has now pissed himself.

Because Carter may have brought his father with him and that’ll mean more cleanup. After all, we don’t leave a job done half-assed.

“Let me look into that really quick,” Popeye suggests, going over to where his laptop is set up on the table. Stealth hands him the wallet he slipped from Carter’s back pocket, and I watch as Popeye works his magic on his keyboard, his fingers flying. “Uh huh. Hmm. Okay,” he mutters, which is driving me fucking nuts.

“Popeye,” I bellow, hating this stalling shit he does sometimes when he finds something intriguing. “Get to the fucking point!”

“His father is in town with him, in fact, he paid for the hotel they’re booked into and staying in, Pres,” Popeye replies, his eyes never looking away from his monitor’s screen. “Damn, y’all some stingy fuckers, not tipping your waitress. Not cool, asshole. Not cool at all. Okay, got it,” he states, jotting down some information before ripping off a piece of paper from the pad of paper he always carries.

“Go get him,” I instruct, handing the information to Stealth. “As for you,” I tell Carter, “we’ll give you a few more love taps to remind you of just exactly who the fuck you’re messing with while we wait for your daddy to get here.”

“Ogre, you’re with me,” Stealth says to our club’s road captain. “Attila, you too.”

“Guess that means we need to get our licks in while we wait, huh, Pres?” Lobo asks. He’s one of our newer patches, but definitely a capable brother.

We’re not a huge club, which is fine with me. I suppose if we need to, we can add more members eventually, but I’d rather keep it small, so we don’t lose the family vibe. Still, if a shifter wants to prospect, we’ll put them through their paces.

“Absolutely. Just make sure you don’t hit anything vital, so he doesn’t bleed out before we’re ready to end this,” I decree.

While we wait for Stealth and Ogre to return, I pull out my phone to text Vivi.

Me: Hey, babe. Still here dealing with things, but we’ll be back. What time’s the dinner tonight?

Vivi: We’re meeting around 7:30, do you think you’ll be done by then?

Me: Definitely. Why don’t y’all get some rest. You especially since we’re gonna have a long night.

Vivi: We are?

Me: I remember promises of naked gratitude, babe.

Vivi: You’re such a biker…lol.

Me: All day, every day. Later, Vivi.

Vivi: Okay, Fox.

“That look on your face says you’ve been texting Vivi,” Chaos says, moving close to me while keeping an eye on the brothers.

Carter is definitely looking worse for the wear at this point. Each limb has long, shallow gashes, and his shirt is in shreds, as are the jeans he was wearing. Even his feet didn’t escape unscathed. And while I’m somewhat inured to the various ways my brothers torture anyone who threatens our club or livelihood, I wince when I see Lobo pour salt on his gaping wounds. Then, Popeye adds insult to injury when he takes the bottle of rubbing alcohol and uses the spray bottle to cover Carter’s body.

“Yeah. They don’t have the dinner until around seven thirty tonight, so I told her to take a nap,” I reply. “I figure it won’t take long to finish this up once the alpha gets here.”

“Same. I’ll go up and talk to Warren to see if he can reach out to anyone from his old pack and make sure there’ll be no blowback on the club. If the alpha has gone rogue, they may just replace him, and everything will be copacetic.”

“I’ll make sure they don’t go too far,” Chaos promises as I head back upstairs.

“Warren, anyone you trust from your old pack that you can reach out to and see what’s going on? We found out your old alpha is in town as well,” I say as I sit next to Warren at the bar and signal Teeny for a beer.

“Yeah, I can call the beta. He was my brother-in-law. Well, maybe he still is? Hell, I don’t really know to be honest. It was my mate’s brother,” he replies, pulling out a phone.

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