Page 81 of Mischief Mayhem
“The Roses feel the same way.” I clapped him on the shoulder and brushed my hand over his Tom Ford, smoothing away a piece of lint. “Including Bear.”
“Answer me this, Hollywood,” Leo said, dropping his voice an octave lower. “Will he be good to my sister? Will he treat her with the respect she deserves?”
“Yes,” I said immediately. I didn’t even have to think about it. “He doesn’t date very much, but when he does, he’s serious . . . and he’s serious about ending this war.”
Leo nodded, seemingly appeased by this answer. “Well, then. I suppose we ought to get going.”
A few brothers had come with me to escort Leo to church today, and if all went well, we’d arrange for a bigger meeting with the underbosses Julia had managed to sway to her side.
Of all the people in this mess with us, she walked the tightest rope. But Saint and Leo both assured us Julia had been playing this game for a long time. She’d be able to do it for a little while longer. Leo walked with a cane these days, but that added to his reformed mobster enigma.
I helped him into the back of the SUV before going around to the other side and hopping in so a prospect could drive us the few minutes to our clubhouse.
When I’d first gotten out of the hospital, the SRMC’s home away from home had been wrecked by the Feds. We weren’t morons, so we didn’t keep anything valuable lying around there, but they had smashed everything to shit. Now all these weeks later, we’d set most of it right, but the place still didn’t feel back to normal without all the brothers it had once housed.
Crow’s and Aris’s absence sat like a heavy weight on our chests, not to mention the people we’d buried only a few weeks ago. We’d lost five brothers in one day, and Hollister still had a shaved head, showing off the scar he would carry around for the rest of his life. He’d gotten lucky that Gabriella’s hand had jerked from the recoil. Any lower, and he would have died, too.
We’d gathered for our first church since the change in leadership. And words could not describe the mix of excitement and pressure in my heart that this group of motley motherfuckers had elected me as their road captain. I’d never be able to replace Slip, but I was damn sure going to try. I sneaked Leo in through the back door, keeping him hidden in one of the back rooms until the time was right to bring him in.
Some of the Roses still had mixed feelings about the Caputi kingpin, so I didn’t want him wandering around just in case anyone got a wild hair up their ass and decided to ruin this whole thing before it started.
“Is he secure?” Thor asked when I walked into the meeting room. As sarge, it was his duty to keep the Roses in line, and between the two of us, we needed to get Leo back to the safe house in one piece.
“He’s secure, and he’s ready,” I said, walking to my spot at the SRMC table to the right of Bear. I nodded to KC across from me, who sat in the VP spot while Aris was in the pen, and looked at our enforcer, Doc, to my right, smoking a cigarette while he talked to Wheels, who had taken the treasurer position as Coins’s replacement.
“Everything okay?” KC asked while the other brothers filled in around us.
“Peachy keen,” I said with a smile, and once the rest of the MC had taken their place, our new veep stood to bang his rings on the table and bring church to order.
“Brothers,” KC said, silencing the chatter around us. “We have a quick meeting today, so everyone shut the fuck up and listen in.”
“Thank you, KC,” Bear said, standing in the spot at the head of the table where his father had once led these meetings. “You know why we’re here and what we have to do next. After what happened, we need to be more careful than ever. The pigs are breathing down our necks, just waiting for us to make our next move. The Hell’s Knights have refused our offer of a truce. And there’s a Caputi bitch that needs to be repaid for what she took from us.”
Hollers of approval came from around us, and I caught bits of “Kill that bitch,” and “Hang her head from the fucking rafters.”
“The last time we met, we talked about an alliance with Leo Caputi,” Bear continued, and a hush fell over the group, the tension increasing with each passing second. “I agreed to marry Julia Caputi if it would bring an end to this blood feud.”
“You don’t have to do that,” someone shouted.
“I agree,” Doc said. “We should kill the entire family and be done with it.”
“A war cannot be brought to peace with more blood,” Bear said, glaring at Doc in a challenge for him to say more. “They own DC, and we’ll never be able to take over the territory without their help.”
Doc pursed his lips and inhaled deeper on his cigarette.
“So, I’ve invited our houseguest here so you can hear it from him,” Bear said, giving the prospects at the back of the room a nod to bring Leo in. Leather rustled as the door opened to reveal the Caputi heir, looking every bit his namesake in his suit and diamond-encrusted jewelry. He leaned on his cane while he walked closer, but other than that one sign of weakness, he kept his head held high, exuding the confidence he’d need in order to stand tall in this room of killers who all wanted to bathe in his blood.
“Roses, this is Leo Caputi,” Bear said, gesturing Leo to come stand next to him. “My future brother-in-law, our only hope to end this war.”
My heart pounded, arguably the loudest sound in the room, when everyone went quiet and stared at him.
“Are you sure we can trust him?” another brother asked. “How do we know he won’t kill us all the moment he gets a chance?”
“I could ask the same of you,” Leo said. “Of everyone in your club, how many of you have killed my family?”
“No more than your family has killed ours,” Doc sneered, returning his gaze to Bear. “C’mon, Prez. This is fucking batshit cr?—”
Bear slammed his hands down on the wood, interrupting whatever Doc would have said after that, and leaned closer to the dissenting brother.