Page 35 of Axe
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Axe
Within ten minutes, all of us had dumped our phones into a big crate that was currently sitting locked up in Cal’s office. Bocca would take care of that later as well as collect the ones from all those that weren’t here. We took our seats around the table. Cal included Brand in this one even though Tank was back. I had an idea that there was something going through Cal’s head but now was not the time to go asking.
The outrage was thick in the air after Bocca stood and repeated everything he’d said in Cal’s office. To know that someone had been watching us and digging into our shit, for a fucking while, too, put us all on edge. Bocca was still searching, trying his hardest to find out who was behind the whole thing. Even if he didn’t say it, I could tell that whoever it may have been was actually better than him at all that shit.
“What’s the place?” Crow asked after the room calmed down. Bocca looked over at him with confusion plastered on his face. “The email, the place you ordered from. I just want to know what I’m on the lookout for, ya know, if I’ve ordered from there before.”
Bocca’s face actually flushed for a second and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Brand bring his hand up to cover his mouth as if he was trying his best to hide a smile or maybe even choke back a laugh.
Then it clicked in my mind and I almost chuckled myself.
“Uh, I’m sure you haven’t,” Bocca said doing his best to cover that shit.
I knew.
Oh, did I fucking know.
I’d had the misfortune to witness him wearing that shit he ordered.
“For fuck’s sake, man,” Cal said looking at Bocca and pinning him with a look that said he needed to answer.
“Man huggers,” Brand supplied from the corner.
“The fuck?” Cal asked, his brows pinched tight in confusion.
“Banana hammocks, cock holster, brief floss, cucumber smuggler…” Brand went on and the whole room erupted in laughter. Which, given the tense situation, I think we kinda needed.
“Man thongs. Okay, I wear man thongs sometimes,” Bocca barked and we laughed even harder. Then he looked around and busted out just like the rest of us. That shit was fucking funny.
“How the hell you know what he wears?” Tank asked with humor in his voice as he looked at Brand.
“You forget I was a prospect not all that long ago? I had to pick his packages up from the gate and bring them to him. I got curious. With a company name like Hug ‘em Tight, who wouldn’t,” Brand said with a slight shrug. “To be fair, they are more comfortable than you would think,” Brand said, shooting Bocca a half-smile. I doubted Brand had ever actually tried a pair, but it was his way to take some of the heat off of Bocca right then.
That was the kind of guy Brand was. He was decent and loyal. And he would have any one of our backs if we ever needed it, for whatever we may have needed.
“Alright, Alright. Back on track. I think it’s safe to say that none of us have ordered from that place,” Cal said slapping his hand on the table as he calmed his laughter. “What’s next?”
“Toss out all our phones. I’ll go through everyone’s computers and tablets, everything. And I will keep searching for who the fuck did this.”
“That’s all I got for now,” Cal said, eyeing each of us to make sure no one else needed to add anything.
“Um,” I said, my brain thinking too fast for me to really process what I wanted to say.
Truth was, I’d been thinking about it for a while and I was sitting on the fence about the whole thing. I knew Cal had pretty much set it up to where I would take his place when he stepped down or if he…well, let me not even entertain that idea. So, I needed to start thinking like a leader. And while I knew Cal was trying to push the club in a new, and more legit, direction, I kinda questioned if we would never be able to completely do that. We’d been outlaws for a long time, longer than I’d been around, and while the idea of going one hundred percent legit was nice in theory, I couldn’t help but wonder if we could maybe do some good by keeping our toes in the water.
“Yeah, son?” Cal asked after a long pause had passed.
“Okay, hear me out.” I sniffed, suddenly itching for a smoke and some more time to put together what I was about to say. As if reading my mind, Crow tossed his pack at me. I didn’t make it a habit to smoke in the clubhouse, but fuck it. “So, say we go up against Savage and wipe him and his club out. What happens to the docks?”
“Been thinkin’ ‘bout that. I have some ideas I was goin’ to bring to the table when the time came. You got somethin’ to say, we’re all ears.” Cal nodded at me to keep going.
“So, what ifwetook over the docks? We have grown, I know we have a bunch of good men throughout the chapters. What if we opened a chapter on the coast, set up shop, and in a sense take that shit over after we end Savage. I have a feeling that if we take him out, with as much as people want him down, I think we wouldn’t get too much of a fight from other groups.” I paused, letting the idea sink in.
I wasn’t only talking other MCs. In the bigger cities, you had more than one syndicate. On the coast, there were quite a few. The Russians, who already told us that they couldn’t help us for whatever reason. Then there were the Irish, the Italians, and a few other smaller groups that we knew about. As of right now, most of those groups got along. They had a weird dynamic where they often helped each other out, so I was pretty sure they wouldn’t fight or be so quick to go to war if we stepped up. They all seemed to have their own things they were into and didn’t want bloodshed. As long as no one tried to step on the other’s toes, things were quiet.
“Well, if we had control of the docks, we would know what was coming in and going out. We would know how much and to who it was going to. We’d also be able to make sure that nothing was coming in or out that we don’t want…” I let it hang there, hoping like hell they got what I was getting at.
