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“Steel did a job for Don Diavonte a few years back that involved clearing out a man’s safe and getting rid of any incriminating stuff that might fall back on him. In addition to valuables, he found a long list of prominent people that were being blackmailed in LA. Steel said there were several local political figures on it. I’m certain either someone was blackmailing them already, or Don Diavonte leveraged that information to blackmail them himself in an effort to solidify power.”
“Thatisgood information, and where would one get a hold of that list,” Diego practically purred.
“Steel said he took clear images of each sheet before Don Diavonte had him burn the originals. I think he mistakenly took Steel for hired muscle and hadn’t even considered that he’d be interested in what he was photographing. Since keeping that kind of information directly on a computer wouldn’t be a very smart thing to do, I suspect he’s either keeping it locked securely in cloud storage or it’s sitting on a flash drive inside of his safe.”
“Don Diavonte has a couple of safes that I’m aware of. At least one in his home and another at his office. Both places are locked down like Fort Knox.”
“We have a member of our crew who was former military intelligence. His hot take on this is that if Don Diavonte is sophisticated enough to understand the value of using information to leverage people into doing his bidding and persistent enough to track down specific information, this is probably just the tip of the iceberg. My gut tells me that if you can access the safe where he keeps all his secrets, there’s no telling what kind of intel you might find in there. It could be enough to turn the tide of your war.”
“I do love a good challenge, especially one that will advance my cause. Give me time to work on this and we’ll get back to you.”
“My guy will see your brother on Tuesday at five a.m. The code word is Oswald. No shooting, you prick.”
Diego just laughed, then hung up.
“I thought Diego was supposed to be the crazy one. He doesn’t sound that way to me. More like someone who enjoys dark humor and poking at people to get a reaction. Those were high value traits in my family growing up,” I offered.
“Good, you can deal with the stupid fucker from now on,” Storm grumbled.
“Diego values position, power, and intelligence. He won’t take well to being asked to communicate with an underling. Pushing me into dealing with him will likely damage our alliance with him. He’ll see it as disrespect if the person in charge doesn’t deal with him directly.” After a momentary pause, I added, “Also, he really likes you.”
Storm looked at me like I had just grown a second head. “I don’t know where in the hell you got a crazy idea like that. Diego doesn’t even respect me, much less like me. He’s always trying to get one over on me and it’s irritating as hell.”
“He does. It was clear from listening to your interaction that he admires you quite a bit. I could tell, mostly because he communicates with you directly and jokes around. Most importantly, he took the time to call when he learned one of our properties had been destroyed. He offered assistance. I doubt there are many people he bothers reaching out to when things in their world go bad.”
“I don’t get his sense of humor, at all. His emotions swing back and forth in a way that seems like he doesn’t have good control of his behavior.”
“He seems like he has some kind of attachment disorder, probably from being raised by emotionally unavailable parents.”
“Jesus, Mason, have you been taking psychology classes or something?”
“Yeah, while I was in the military. It was necessary to get my head around what I went through as a kid. I also spent most of my teenage years in therapy, so I’m just basically regurgitating to you what I learned in therapy and college. Attachment disorder is just a fancy term for my parents didn’t really connect with me or spend a lot of time talking to me when I was a little kid. They say it’s a form of neglect.”
“Shit, man, I’m sorry that happened to you. My parents were assholes in a different way. They were rich bastards who tried to control every fucking thing I said and did. I haven’t spoken to them in years.”
“Same here. Thank God for the Slayers. If I didn’t have this club, I wouldn’t have anything.”
“Yeah, I hear you,” Storm replied wryly. He took a deep breath and asked, “What were we talking about before Diego’s phone call?”
“We were discussing what happened at the strip club.”
Storm sat back in his chair again, face grim. “There were five club members on site, along with seven strippers when the first shots rang out. They caught us as we were getting the place ready to open, so there were no customers. They shot the windows out first and then began tossing Molotov cocktails into the building. I’m not exactly sure what accelerant they used but it was highly volatile. Before we could do anything to respond, everything inside was on fire. We should have installed a new sprinkler system, because when we needed it, the damn thing didn’t go off.”
“They might have sabotaged it, in which case it wouldn’t have mattered whether it was a new system or not.”
“True. I guess we won’t know until the place cools down enough to get an inspection done. In any event, we were all unharmed and got the strippers out safely. I’ll be damned if the fuckers weren’t back there waiting on us. While the women made a run for it, we engaged the enemy. It was a hot mess. By the time the fifth one made a run for it, Celt and Grit had arrived along with several more brothers. My cousin and Grit immediately started tracking him down while the others sent the women home.”
“I assume someone disposed of the bodies.” All the endless death was starting to make me feel like I was on active duty again.”
“Yeah. I wish I could feel bad about killing the stupid fuckers, but I don’t. We’re not the one’s going into their territory and shooting up the fucking place. They’re the ones bringing the violence to us. If they set up shop in Griffinsford, they’ll be pushing heavy narcotics, trafficking women and running every scam you can imagine. The quality of life for everyone in our town will take a gigantic nosedive.”
Chapter 6
Aprilia
Itook a long shower, washed my hair, and took my time getting ready for dinner because I was anxious about mixing with the club members and the women milling about downstairs. It was interesting that Mason had called them club bunnies. It made me wonder if they saw them as Playboy bunnies, as in beautiful women who were meant to be gazed at but not touched, or if there was something more sexual at play. Maybe they just wanted a neutral name to call the women who hung out at the club? Bunnies was far better than what some other MCs probably called their women.
After putting on jeans and a copper-colored silk blouse that complimented my complexion, I threw my hair up into a messy updo. Then I pulled on a pair of dark leather zip up boots with a low heel in case I needed to hoof it out of here tonight. I crammed a slimline wallet with my identification, credit cards, and cash into one back pocket of my pants and my cell phone into the other. My father always joked about me carrying my phone and money around like a man rather than in a purse. But I was never the girly type—the fact that I’d packed a Smith & Wesson snub nose semi-automatic in my luggage was testament to that. Though since arriving at the clubhouse my gun had been taken into safekeeping, which wasn’t great, but I had to abide by their rules while I was here. Nicco had pointed out that they were not outlaws, but I didn’t know if his perception of the Dark Slayers MC was accurate, so I had wanted to be ready for anything.
