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She eyed me with a frown, clearly not happy with my ongoing refusal to tell her about my personal life. I took a sip of my own coffee. “It’s seven forty-five and we agreed to meet with Storm at eight downstairs. Can you be ready to go in fifteen minutes? If not, I can push it back another ten minutes.”
She pulled the blankets back to reveal white silk pajamas with tiny black polka dots and black trim around the pockets. “If you leave me to it, I can be ready in ten minutes flat.” That sounded almost like a brag.
“Alright,” I responded. “I’ll be waiting in the living room.”
I headed out to the living room and stared out the window. The prospects were at the gates and two more were walking the back perimeter. Everything seemed as it should be—except a large guy had just squeezed under the back fence and was now running away. I pulled out my cell phone and sent a message to all the brothers.
Just saw an intruder get under the fence at the far back of the property and run off.
Storm answered immediately.We’re on it. The last thing we need is another tweaker sneaking onto our property looking for shit to steal.
We’d had several of those lately, so I understood his concern. The lights began blinking and the security alarm started buzzing. It was to alert everyone who wasn’t a brother that we had a crisis.
Ten minutes later, Aprilia walked out of the bedroom looking fresh as morning dew. She cut her eyes to the blankets I left scattered on the sofa but didn’t say a word.
“What’s going on with the lights and the alarm? Is the building on fire or something?”
I jerked my chin toward the window. “I just spied an intruder squirming under our back fence line.”
“Are we supposed to shelter in place until they give the all clear?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary. It was one large dude wearing a khaki shirt and pants who was exiting rather than trying to get in. Sometimes we get local lowlifes looking for things to steal. Grit and my other club brothers will track him down.”
The security system was off before we made it downstairs. When we headed onto the back patio, I could see half a dozen brothers in the distance talking with Storm. “They’ve set up a table for us. Why don’t you have a seat while I talk to my club brothers.”
Aprilia glanced nervously around before agreeing.
I gestured to Rob. “Come sit with our guest. I’ll be nearby. It won’t take me a minute.”
Rob scooped up a large platter of food and walked over to the table Storm claimed as his own long ago. He put some food on her plate and poured some juice into her glass. Once I saw she was alright, I sprinted over to Storm. “Did we find him?”
Storm grimaced. “No. He was smart enough to have a pickup truck waiting. He managed to evade Grit and Celt by a minute or two and the fucker had thrown a stinger across the road—luckily they saw it in time. The dumbass had the balls to stand up in the back and salute them as he sped away.”
“Did they get a glimpse of the driver?”
“They were too far away. Neither Grit nor Celt recognized the man, and they know almost everyone in this fucking town.”
I rubbed my chin as I thought it over. “Well, he wasn’t wearing leather or a suit, so he’s probably some random dude.”
Storm’s head whipped around to look at me. “Some random dude with a getaway driver at the ready, using a military issue spike strip? I think fucking not. This guy is going to be a problem for us. Mark my words on that.”
I tried to redirect the conversation. “We need to calm down so we can be ready for our meeting with Steel.”
Storm’s head whipped around to look at Aprilia. “Did you talk to her about being polite to the old ladies? I didn’t like how she talked to Zoe last night.”
“Me either. She was upset about Lux distracting me from watching over her. She told me off and went to bed. I’ll talk to her about it later.”
“See that you do, brother. If I have to do it, there will probably be tears.”
“Oh, I know how it usually goes when you talk to women. Don’t know how Zoe tolerates you.”
Mentioning his pretty wife immediately wiped the irritated look off Storm’s face. “I got lucky with my Zoe. That’s for damn sure.”
Rob got up to excuse himself the moment we sat down. Storm stopped him, held out his hand, and gestured for Aprilia to give him her phone. She sighed and did so reluctantly. Storm gave it to Rob, who slipped it in his pocket. Rob went back to the grill on the other side of the patio so we could talk without anyone overhearing in case her phone was actually bugged, rather than just having the spyware that monitored texts and calls. Unlikely, as Hacker had given it the once over for any unauthorized software, but it never hurt to be wary as far as the mafia went. Don Diavonte would surely find it suspicious if she simply turned the phone off. This way, if they were listening, they would just hear random conversation and it would still seem like she was present.
“Sorry about that. As you know, the cell phone Nicco gave you has spyware, so everyone involved can monitor the communication going back and forth between the two of you.”
“That’s why Nicco came up with the list of code words, so we could communicate without Don Diavonte knowing what we’re talking about. I think it would have been better to just use a burner phone,” Aprilia responded quietly.
