Total pages in book: 212
Estimated words: 207966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1040(@200wpm)___ 832(@250wpm)___ 693(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 207966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1040(@200wpm)___ 832(@250wpm)___ 693(@300wpm)
Fork was working his angle with Larsen in the Jackals, complaining most of us were pussies and not willing to step outside the confines of the law to earn, that he needed more action and had caught wind of upper echelon shit that Deke was hiding from the club. He was playing the guy, knowing he was being played right back. He dangled the carrot saying Deke and his sons were keeping money from the rest of the brothers with a big drug deal disguised as a Harley shipment. He told Larsen that whoever intercepted it would be half a mill richer. Fork told Larsen he was looking for someone he could trust to help him intercept it. And Larsen bit saying when they got the money time would be ripe to destroy the brotherhood, because when word flew that Deke and his sons were keeping action from the rest of the club, living dirty instead of clean, it’d be the beginning of the end of the Dominion Brotherhood.
We were working on a plan to draw them out for that, then take them out by getting the rest of them arrested after they stole another shipment of motorcycles and accessories that would not include saddlebags filled with drugs and cash as expected. And that could get them out of our hair for good, particularly given that Alec Wylde was not well liked in prison and Torque told us he’d heard word that Jackals inside would not last long because of ongoing beefs with inmate gangs related to the cartel the Jackals had pissed on.
Deacon and I had wasted some time trying to help the cartel. We wasted time strategizing and then driving to Casper for nothing. The goods they wanted, the hostage they wanted back was a dead end. Deke hoped our efforts of planning, traveling, and updating them on it all would eliminate the favor we owed. But they told us they’d need our help with something else instead, which did not make Deke happy.
***
Gigi was phoning me. It was early, before seven in the morning, and I answered the phone with a miserable, “Yeah?”
“Shoot, did I wake you up?”
I rubbed my eyes. “Don’t worry about it. What’s up?”
“It’s that obvious?”
“You usually call me with a sweet ‘good morning, Jesse’ in that breathy voice that I feel in my cock. That’s not how you greeted me just now. So, what’s up?”
She sighed.
“Spit it out, G.”
“I wanted to call you last night when I found out, but you said you were busy yesterday, and… and… I hoped you were up already for work. Sorry to wake you up.”
“I’m up now. Found out what?”
She said nothing.
“G,” I pushed.
“Sorry, I’m just… flabbergasted. She… I don’t believe her.”
“It’s too fuckin’ early in the morning for this. Spit it out, woman.”
“Never mind. I’ll just call you later.”
“Do not pull that martyr shit on me, Gianna. Fuck.”
“You’re bein’ prickly when I’m already frazzled. Maybe I should just call you back.”
“Woman…”
“It’s Aunt Francie,” she blurted.
“Who else?” I muttered. “What she do?”
“Get this: she has over three hundred thousand dollars in the bank.”
“Huh?”
“She got denied for a free nurse. And she wasn’t telling me why. Trying to play it off. I found out from Delia who found out from Trudy it’s because she can afford a nurse.”
“Ah.”
“She can afford a nurse! Ten nurses. And she could’ve afforded a lot. Including helping me with Kailey’s cremation. It was only a little over a thousand dollars for the cremation, not that she should have to pay for something like that by default, but she told me she wouldn’t be able to pay even if it was me that was murdered. She actually said that. You heard it, didn’t you?”
“I heard it.”
“I wasn’t sure where she could’ve gotten that money. Had to be that Great Uncle Billy left it to her when he died. Timing checks out. She moved into this place a couple months after he died. Seems Uncle Billy inherited money when his wife died years earlier from her life insurance, but was a simple guy so lived like he had nothing. If that’s where this came from, which… I think it has to be; this means she’s had it for like… almost ten years. So she’d let someone else worry about my final expenses if it was me, just leave me in a drawer in the morgue and wash her hands of me. So that’s just… infuriating. Complains about money constantly. Always talking about having trouble making rent. I’m so angry I’m not even whispering, and I don’t even care if she hears me.”
“I can see why you’re pissed.” I got out of bed and pulled a pair of workout shorts on, then wandered down the hall to take a leak. “But good news. She doesn’t have to be your problem anymore. You can go from being her hostage to comin’ back to be mine.”