AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I fucking love it.” Everyone laughs as they look at the new sign hanging over the tattoo shop that now reads Bleeding Ink with roses that look eerily similar to the ink that now marks the bodies of everyone in this room.
Mikey rubs the back of his neck. “We thought it was funny, but we didn’t think it would act as such a beacon for business.”
“No kidding,” Ronan snorts.
I grimace. Even through the jokes, I can see the exhaustion lining their faces. Not that any of us are free from that. “How’s the other side of things?”
“It’s slowed down since the auction,” Mikey answers and I breathe a sigh of relief. “We’ve had a few rats we’ve had to clean up, but not as much as before.”
Noah nods. “Since the shutdown of Steel Roses, we haven’t had any new plants in our legitimate businesses.”
I can’t say I’m surprised. That was part of the whole reason we decided to shut down Steel Roses for now.
“Mainly people trying to infiltrate the fights and we’re seeing a few crop up around Thorns, but not on the staff.”
Rachel sits up a little straighter at the mention of her headquarters. She hasn’t been back since we lost Alec. A sharp pain spears through my chest at the thought of him. Against my will, my eyes flick to the board that still has all of our points from the game we’ve now abandoned.
I can almost hear his laughter in the echoes of the defining silence. The space where he’s missing is the loudest thing in the room. The rush of guilt is almost enough to make me gasp for air as I meet Rachel’s eyes and see another piece of her crumble away.
The room collectively holds their breath as she sags into Jade’s side. J is quick to wrap her arms around her, holding her together with pure force if nothing else will work. She catches Kade’s eye over Rachel’s head and nods for him to continue.
He clears his throat. “He’s right. Things are going almost too well at Thorns on the business side of things. No one has questioned our role there or our authority. It’s been running smoothly, all things considered.” He finishes with a cough as he catches the way it sounds.
Jade throws him a dirty look and he gives her a sheepish one back. I bite my lip as I consider his words. I hadn’t really thought to stop and think about it, but it is odd how easy the transition has been.
Rachel doesn’t run her operations the same way we do. We’ve vetted some of the people who work under her so we know what she values. She’s meticulous in her background checks when bringing someone on board, but her circle of trust went no further than Alec. They’re a business, not a family.
There’s no reason for anyone to be understanding about what her loss would mean to her. To be understanding about outsiders coming in and taking over the day to day operations. Even making calls without her approval. Ryder and Kade have had full authority without her around. To have met no resistance raises some red flags.
“Nothing out of sorts has cropped up in the numbers,” Rachel says softly. “I have been reading your reports and tracking the projected numbers. Everything is exactly where it should be.”
The words sound like they should be a good thing, but I can hear the skepticism in them. She expected for there to be some pushback, she even went as far as to warn the guys when it was decided they would step up for her.
“We’ll keep looking into things, but anything specific you want us to watch out for?”
Rachel hums under her breath as Jade rubs her hand up and down her back. There’s a lot Rachel hasn’t opened up to us about, but I get the feeling Jade has gotten at least some of it out of her.
“My father’s men,” she finally answers. “I had expected them to start acting out with Alec gone.” Her voice barely rises above a whisper as she admits to this. “It was never me my father planned to have succeed him.”
We’d had the feeling that was the case based on the information we had gotten out of her when she was first interested in Jade.
“Was it Alec?” Tyler asks, earning a hard smack in the chest from Holden. At least someone in that trio has some sense of decency.
“Ouch! It was just a question!”
“An insensitive one, you prick,” Holden scolds.
Rachel chuckles, pain and humor evident in equal measures as she does. “It’s okay,” she soothes, placing her hand on Jade’s arm. Probably stopping her from throwing something at Ty. “It’s nice to hear his name,” she admits before clearing her throat. “But no, it was Nic.”
The whole room grows tense and I practically snarl at hearing that fucker’s name. Rachel places her hands in the air to placate us. “He never tried to steal it out from under me. He never even wanted it.”
I roll my eyes and give Noah a meaningful look. He winks in acknowledgment before turning his attention to the computer in front of him. Apparently we need to keep a closer eye on dark and douchey than I thought.
“They settled for Alec and I because they had no choice, but they never liked the way he deferred to me.”
Ian scoffs, “And they liked dark and douchey because he refused to?”
Rachel snorts, sounding more herself than she has in ages. “Nic wouldn’t know how to defer to a bus even as it ran him over.” She sighs and shakes her hair from her bun as she sits up a little straighter. “I expected them to start trying shit with him gone and my not being around. I was even hoping for it. We’d been trying to weed them out for years.”
