Page 57 of Twice the Rivalry

“Business is up at the bar this month,” Ice announced. As their Treasurer, he was responsible for their books, though Rogue often handled his own from the garage. “We might even want to look at expanding or buying out another bar in town. The one on the outskirts is doing well too, so we wouldn’t be spreading ourselves too thin.”

“Not like we won’t have people wanting to drink,” Jax chuckled. “But if we’re going to do that, I say we should expand and look at opening a strip club. The only other one in town is run by that sleaze, Jerry, and from what I’ve heard, it’s going down the tubes.”

“Instead of opening a new one, we could just take his over,” Ice said with a thoughtful expression. “Saves us from having to front out the cost of renovating and establishing a whole new building and business. That place would need a major overhaul, but we’d already have the building, and most of the bones of the place could stay the same.”

“How much are we thinking?” Savage asked. Ice thought it over for a moment and then named a figure. Code arched a brow at the number, but he could imagine that a well run strip club in this town would bring in a ton of money, so they would probably make it back quick enough. “Anyone have any concerns or objections?” he asked, looking around the table.

“Does that mean we’re in charge of picking the girls who strip?” Jax asked with a gleeful smile. The fucker was more excited than a kid at Christmas.

Savage rolled his eyes. “Yes, you can be part of it, but remember that we need them to work for us, not run the other way screaming when you and your cock walk into the room.”

Jax scoffed. “Don’t worry, Prez. They’ll be screaming, but it won’t be from panic,” he assured him with a laugh.

Fury looked at Doc. “You better keep some damn good antibiotics on hand for the amount of STDs he’s going to pick up.”

Doc snickered. “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be on the phone with my supplier as soon as we’re finished.”

“No glove no love,” Jax sing-songed. Everyone laughed and scoffed at him.

“Alright, alright, let’s put it to a vote,” Savage interrupted loudly. “Everyone in favor of approaching that asshole Jerry to buy his place and set up our own strip club, say aye.” The room was unanimous and he nodded. “Alright, Ice, get it done. Fury, maybe you can go with him and press the point, since you have some history with him and Esme.”

“My pleasure,” Fury said with an anticipatory glint in his eyes.

“Good. Now, where are we at on our runs?” Savage asked.

“Everything’s going out on schedule,” Rogue answered. “And we just got approached by a dealer a couple towns over, wanting us to help transport his shipment to its final destination.”

“Guns or drugs?” Fury asked.

“Guns,” Rogue answered.

Savage looked at Code. “Is it possible to do that in the next few weeks without too much trouble?”

Code pulled up his system and took a look at the route Rogue gave him. After checking a few things, he nodded and said, “Yeah, should definitely be possible. How many people do we need on this one?”

“Probably four or five,” Rogue answered. “It’s a bigger shipment and the pay is going to be damn good.” Rogue gave them some more details on how the dealer wanted the run to go, and when he finished he added, “We can pay off the cops to make sure they don’t hassle us.”

Code nodded. “I’ll start plotting that out and getting everything clear on my end. There don’t seem to be too many cameras along the way but any that I find, I’ll make sure they don’t see anything they shouldn’t.”

“Good,” Savage said with a nod. “Rogue, reach out to your contact and let them know we’re good to go.” Then he turned back to Code. “Let us know when you have everything ready so we can send it to those going and make sure we have things in hand.”

“Got it,” Code said with a nod.

“Alright, any other business?” Savage asked.

“How are things coming along with Glitch and finding the Ghost team?” Steel asked curiously.

“Brother,” Razor groaned. “My woman is already pissed off because she’s out there, not being allowed in to talk about it.”

“Women shouldn’t be in fucking Church anyway,” Ink blustered. “At the rate we’re going, pretty soon we’ll be in here braiding each other’s hair and shit.”

“Glitch is a patched member of their MC,” Code reminded them. “So she’ll be in here if the team is here or if we need information. No way around that. Trust me, I’ve tried to think of one,” he added with a sigh.

“Right now, they’re not here, and if they ask what was discussed, they get the standard line of Club business,” Savage announced darkly. “I agree the women have gotten far too involved around here, but on this kind of thing, we’ve kept them out of it, just as we should. As for Glitch, it’s a dilemma on how to handle her, but she isn’t part of our club, and we wouldn’t invite her club in on this either unless we needed them for some reason. We don’t, so as always, anything said in here stays in this room.” He gave Razor a hard warning look, which Razor returned with a sharp nod of understanding. Savage looked back at Code. “What’s the progress on finding them?”

“We’re not any further in finding them, but Glitch had a thought last night when we were discussing them. That Slip guy uses an old piece of code that most don’t use anymore, even back when he was learning it. And from what she remembered, he was still using it then, so it stands to reason that he’ll be using it now. We have also expanded our search into crimes that have been committed both domestically and internationally that could possibly be linked back to them. They seem to be hiding out and haven’t gone anywhere that we can find them using facial recognition software,” Code added.

“Any chance they’re out there in a disguise or something?” Razor asked.

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