Page 22 of Patching Over

“Gotcha. I’ll put the feelers out and see where they’re at, may have a quicker route for them, y’know?” he states.

“You do that, let me know if they have an ETA,” I prompt, gathering silverware and a napkin. “Gotta bounce. Oh, Leathyr?”

“Yes, Brick?” she asks, her voice sultry and breathy. She never stops moving on Arrow’s dick, which has me shaking my head. I know they’ve got their place in the club, they’ve been around since I was growing up, but I think there’s a time and place. The kitchen, where we all walk through isn’t it, but no one’s being coerced, so I keep my mouth shut.

“You need to pass it on to the girls to step up their game around here. Y’all know the deal. To stay here, y’all keep the clubhouse clean, take care of the brothers’ rooms if they ask, and ensure the bathrooms are stocked. Been told y’all are falling down on the job.”

Her face drops before she says, “I’ll talk to the others, Brick. I’m not sure what a few have been thinking, but you’re right. We’re dropping the ball, so I’ll apologize on behalf of the rest of the girls. It’ll be taken care of, you have my word.”

“Appreciate it.” Leathyr has been around the longest. She’s the daughter of a former club whore who got pregnant by one of the brothers from years past. I actually remember her being around when I was a kid; we all played on the same playground. While my dad gave her a choice to stay or go, she figured her options were limited so she stayed. Now that she’s getting older, I suspect I’ll need to figure out another way she can stay with the club once she gets tired of spreading her legs.

Fuck, the work is never-ending around here. With thoughts of what the older club whores will want to do, I head off to my office. Time to get some work done in between thinking about Rayleigh and wondering what she’s doing. The bottom line is, I miss her. Even though she hasn’t been around very long, I grew used to her being in my space. I also saw the spark of independence start to show in her and can’t wait to see how being on her own has helped her come out of her broken, fragile shell.

“Brother, you gotta stop with the fucking snow,” a voice says from my office door. Looking up, I see Grim and behind him, Rael, and Shadow. “We live in the fucking desert, you know? Hot, arid, sandy, and dusty as fuck. This cold shit that settles in a man’s bones is pure bullshit.”

“It’s that time of year around here, Brother,” I huff, smirking at the trio with snow covering their cuts. “Glad y’all could make it. Once the Ankeny brothers arrive, I’ll call Church so we can plan what’s going to happen to good old Laura and Dave. I’ve got a few ideas, but am definitely receptive to everyone’s input.”

“You want them to suffer?” Shadow questions.

“Without a doubt,” I snarl. “The shit they put her through? They deserve that returned tenfold as far as I’m concerned.”

“We can help make that happen,” Grim advises.

“Let me see if the girls got rooms ready for y’all. I’m sure you want to get into dry clothes. If you give them to Leathyr, she’ll get the wet stuff dried for y’all.”

“Yeah, I wanna get out of these soaked jeans. Fuckers are drenched and causing me to chafe,” Rael complains.

“Can’t have you chafing, Brother,” I tease, chuckling at the drawn look on his face.

While it still feels a bit strange to have brothers with supernatural abilities, I’ve come to realize that there’s a lot I don’t know, so I’ll accept it simply because they’re on my side. “Then let’s get y’all sorted out.”

“So, she’s got her own place now?” Grim asks as we sit at one of the tables in the common room.

Tossing back a shot of Fireball, I nod. “Yeah, got her working at the bar and tattoo shop. She goes in before they’re open and cleans them for us. Gotta pay her cash though since she doesn’t appear to have a social security card. Once we deal with her parents, I think I’ll see what Hawg can do about getting one issued.” I mentally wonder if the brothers gathered anything from the parents’ house, such as paperwork, which would help us get things moved along for Rayleigh.

“Figured she’d be your ol’ lady by now,” Shadow remarks, pouring another mug of beer from the pitcher Sunshine delivered just a few minutes ago.

Shrugging, I reply, “I’ve told her she’s gonna be my ol’ lady, but she’s never had any kind of freedom, Brother. Didn’t want her to feel as though she was going from one prison to another, y’know?”

“Makes sense to me. Hopefully, if you’re giving her that kind of space, you haven’t left her unprotected,” Grim implies.

“She lives in the apartment above the bar, sees Brew every day as well as Phantom. Not only that, but other brothers have been around when she’s been working. All of them say she already appears to be growing stronger. Brew said the other day when the mop broke, she showed him some cleaning machine which would do the job much faster and actually disinfect shit. He went ahead and ordered it for her to use. The fucking thing is so efficient, we went ahead and ordered one for all the businesses as well as the clubhouse.”

“Sounds like she’s finding herself,” Shadow muses. “Good to know because she was knocking on Heaven’s door that night.”

“If not for Angel, we’d have been left with a total mystery on our hands as well as three motherfuckers still breathing who could do it to someone else,” I mutter, my jaw so tight at the thought of Rayleigh being dead causing my voice to drop even lower than normal.

“Voodoo too, Brother. Wasn’t it his grandmother who told him there was a woman in danger?” Grim inquires.

Grabbing my beer, I think about the events of that day. They’re still so sharp in my mind, likely because of the fact we were patching over. “Yeah, seems she was approached by someone beyond the veil who said she needed help. Glad we listened because she’s already something else. Can’t wait to see what freedom and independence do to her.”

“I suspect she’s going to be a force to be reckoned with as she comes into her own,” Rael says.

The clubhouse doors open, and I watch as the Ankeny brothers stroll in, a diminutive woman in the midst of them. “Holy shit,” Rael whispers, gawking at the newcomers. “That’s Madame Laveaux.”

CHAPTER

TWELVE

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