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“Well, I agreed to sing one more song,” she said, leaving me with our babies.
As my brother and Maddie took the floor, I watched Eve do her thing. I wasn’t at all jealous of all the attention she got. I was enthralled with her as much as the crowd was. And we may have missed the first dance, but we had the second one. I took her in my arms and whirled her around.
“This is kinda nice. No smoke or fights. Just sophisticated people, dancing.” Just as I said it, Prince screamed in the background. Turning my head, I saw him throw his food.
“He’s such a handful. Just like his dad,” Eve said, leaving my arms.
Since we were keeping Johnny, too, we made excuses to leave early.
Chapter 7
Kingpin
The next night, while Eve was fast asleep, I sat in our music room working on my vows for her. I couldn’t put into words how I felt. I crumbled page after page. Going for another pad of paper, I found her notebook full of songs. Flipping through it, I got an idea. I’d write a song for her. Putting her notebook away, I started humming a tune.
I stayed up all night planning a short ballad for Eve to work as my vows. So, when Opry knocked looking for me, I was half asleep. Eve had left me sleeping and had gone about her day, leaving a note saying Haven had all three of the kids over at hers. Poor girl. Eve said I’d need to relieve her soon. She’d be back after she ran her errands.
“Aren’t we going to Shakey’s today?” Opry leaned on my door frame chewing on a toothpick, wearing his cowboy hat and big belt buckle like this were the old west.
“We’ll head out in fifteen minutes. I’ll meet you out front.” Opry and I had a plan to get back at Ralph Getty, a man who had fucked with us one too many times.
Opry thought he had a mole working on the inside as I had kicked Paisley out of the club for showing that video of me and Eve to everyone a couple of years ago. And the whore went back to where she came from, to Shakey’s. Since then, Paisley had been trying her best to wiggle her way back into our good graces by spying on the mob for Opry. Something they were always trying to do to us with all the strippers they sent our way. I didn’t trust Paisley as far as I could spit. But she wasn’t essential to our plans. Opry was just using her to test the waters. To make sure they weren’t onto what we knew.
Opry and I were simply gonna give the mob bad info on Noah Fond. We’d made a pact with them before to hand over our intel on the man in exchange for the files Sky had given to them so long ago. But the info we planned to give them today didn’t lead to Fond’s empire in Music City. It hopefully would land the mob in a pile of shit with the Feds.
We were setting them up, telling them about a heist that we claimed was Fond but was actually an undercover pig setting a trap for the asshole. The mob would fall into their trap instead. Opry had discovered the Feds were sniffing around Nashville because they’d been nosing around Royal Road. We’d spent more than a year making sure he was right about the agent. And I knew Opry. The man crossed his T’s and dotted his I’s on this one. All we had to do was continue to hand over what we knew to Ralph, and by all accounts, we weren’t supposed to have figured out about the Feds, no how.
Even though we were doing something dirty, our hands would be clean. If Ralph and the mob took the bait, had the balls to try to take down Fond, with this intel, the Music City Syndicate wouldn’t know what hit them. They’d blame us, sure, but we’d have deniability on our side. There was no way we could know the Feds were involved. We were simply keeping our deal to tell them everything we learned about Fond’s dealings. It should fall on them to figure out if they can trust us or not.
I always hated meeting Ralph at his shit hole strip club. But this time, he really pissed me off.
“Kingpin, I hear you’re getting married again. Maybe I can knock up this one, too.”
It took everything in me to play nice and give him the info. “Ralph, as always, you got more beef with me than in your refrigerator. Look’s mighty empty out front.”
But then, I thought twice. He’d grow suspicious if I didn’t react. So, I stomped his foot where I’d shot him before and rammed him with my head, headbutted the fucker. That caused a fight, and Ralph landed a punch right in my eye before I took the fat fuck down.
Our skirmish didn’t matter when it came to our deal. Eventually, Opry broke us up and Ralph took our intel. He wasn’t the big boss, but we knew this would reach his uncle. We left out of there burning rubber.
Later, watching another fight, Irish and Viking, from our Charleston Royal Bastards, I held a bag of frozen peas to my cheek.
When Eve saw me, she rushed to me, wondering what happened. “Were you in the ring?”
“No.”
“Kingpin, really? The wedding’s this weekend… You have a black eye.” Her voice went all high, grating my ears.
“I couldn’t avoid it,” I said, knowing I couldn’t explain what happened. “Club business.”
“Club business, my ass,” Eve started, though keeping her voice down. “Who beats on the president?”
“Sometimes I have to deal with other organizations, Love, ones who don’t like me much,” I said as much of an explanation as I could give her. Then I walked with her to a more private corner.
Kissing her forehead, I asked her, “What’s really bothering you, Love?”
“Are all the guys from Charleston staying for the wedding, staying all week since they’re already here for the fight?”
“Just Murder and Viking and their ol’ ladies staying the week to catch the wedding, Love. Don’t worry, everyone else is heading back after tonight.” The Charleston chapter had turned up in droves for the fight.
