Naked Dirty Love (3 page)

Part One

Bastard Saint

Chapter One

Trey

“W
hat are we going to do about Carlito?”

Trey looked up from his spot at the table with his brothers. They were all present: Dizzy, Cillian, Quinn, Bookie, Cricket, Kink, Sean, and Brendan. Ronan had left the parent chapter to take over the Glendale charter with their uncle, Hardy.

Although the club had gone through tough times over the past year—between Cillian’s trial for the murder of a Federal agent, and Dizzy’s heart attack—everything was back to business as usual. It was simply a part of the life; shit happened, they all rolled with the punches and moved on. Outlaw club status aside, the brothers still had a business to run with a semblance of order and competence, no exceptions.

Cillian’s case had been thrown out of court due to footage Gisela had gotten ahold of thanks to his ex-wife, Brianna. The Feds didn’t plan to re-try, budget cuts, but according to insider sources, were going to try to bust the club wide open with RICO—Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The federal law was every criminal organization’s personal nightmare—the government could shut down any syndicate it deemed “criminal.” They could also impose the strictest penalties, seize all financial assets and impose the most severe of prison sentences. Whether they would be successful in their endeavors was anyone’s guess.

However, for the time being, the government had set its sights on a new, ever-growing and powerful target. The Saints were in the clear for the moment, barring the Feds didn’t drag them into their investigation by association. It was Trey’s job to monitor all talk due to his hacking skills and there was no mention of the Lucifer’s Saints, though the government was still interested in trying to curtail the violence caused along the border.

The cartels were doing more than their fair share to keep both the United States and Mexico governments busy. Violence was an accepted part of life along the border and the cartels were getting bolder. None more than the notorious
Aztecas Infierno
, which the Saints had a solid—if rather tentative—relationship.

One that could come back to bite them on the ass.

Several weeks ago, when Trey returned from Northern Ireland, the club was supposed to discuss the MC/cartel, but the idea was shelved by Dizzy. The parent chapter was in flux, gaining a member and losing one at the same time. Trey had been officially voted in as Sergeant at Arms while Ronan stepped down and became Hardy’s VP.

The Saints helped bury their current Prez and VP of the Glendale charter to appease the government before Hardy took over with Ronan underneath him. They’d moved to L.A. while everyone in Birch Tree had to adjust to the sudden changes.

Trey settled into his new role while he and Cillian came to an understanding and although they weren’t best friends, there was camaraderie between them that hadn’t existed before. His best guess regarding the change of heart from the VP, his half-brother, had more to do with him losing his woman in Northern Ireland than anything else. Cillian had lost his first love in Belfast as well. It didn’t matter that he and Gisela were now back together, engaged, and expecting twins. The sting of the initial betrayal by their parents would never completely heal.

Trey and Cillian had more in common than he cared to admit. While his half-brother had fallen in love with Raymond Jackson’s daughter, he’d fallen in love with Nel Decker’s illegitimate progeny. The fact that the parent in question was a crazy ass psychopath who had his own daughter murdered had no bearing on Trey. He still lost Keri in the end and she was gone forever.

He swigged from his beer before lighting a cigarette as maudlin thoughts faded from his conscious, and he tried to concentrate on their current meeting.

It was late autumn, a cold time in Northern Nevada. The fireplace was actually turned on and in use while the top brothers gathered at the table. It should have been a time of peace in the club but nothing was certain in their world. Violence was a way of life and couldn’t be ignored, no matter how much they wanted to keep everything as civilized as possible.

Trey sat at the chapel table with the Lucifer’s Saints insignia inscribed in the dark oak wood, and faced one of the founding brothers. He stared at Brendan as he spoke about the threat to the brotherhood and the club as a whole.

“Men like Carlito have no code. He won’t listen to his Prez or VP—his father or his Uncle Fernando, respectively. Now that we have solid intel he’s dealing with the White Knights, we have to ask ourselves whether the product we buy from them has been compromised. What’s his end game? Is he trying to start a war or does he want his own cartel?”

Sean lit a Cuban cigar. “Trey, how sure are we about this intel? How did we get it? Where is it coming from?”

Trey had no intentions of revealing his sources but decided playing coy wasn’t the best option to approach the situation either. “I gathered the intel a number of ways. Ronan had begun the preliminaries but the suspicions have been there for…a while.”

His eyes glanced furtively at Cillian who nodded his head in his direction.

“I’m the one who initially told Trey about my doubts when I tested some of the latest product against past samples,” the VP spoke up as he folded his hands together on the table. “The levels of methamphetamine went from trace levels in the past to thirty percent in the most recent batches.”

Dizzy’s crystal blue eyes glared at his son. “Why am I just hearing about this now? This is horseshit.
Aztecas Infierno
haven’t changed the price of the product, have they? They’ve been charging the same amount for something that has become inferior. We can add meth to our
own
shit, thank you very much.”

Kink cleared his throat. “Cricket and I have both spoken to Chantal. She and Marian Decker are friends. Marian has really climbed the ranks thanks to her close relationship with her cousin, Jake. The new VP trusts her implicitly and no longer goes on runs without her. She’s admitted they’ve been moving big numbers of product to Carlito—”

“How do we know we can trust her?” Brendan questioned in his thick, Northern Irish accent.

Kink stretched back in his seat and replied calmly, “Because we’ve spoken to Marian and she’s confirmed this herself.”

“Since when are we so fuckin’ buddy-buddy with the Knights?” Dizzy mused, clearly irritated. “I understand Chantal is friends with Marian but how don’t we know she doesn’t have her own ulterior motives?”

“We don’t.” Trey paused before he continued, “I’m watchin’ her ’cause I don’t trust the Knights but now that everything between us and the Bastards has gone to hell in a hand basket, our relationship with them is somewhat strained right now. We don’t have to like Knights, or their philosophy about life, but a business relationship with them right now would be invaluable. It’s not like we don’t buy from them anyway. We can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

“Nel is full of shite but he makes a quality product we can easily offload.” Dizzy glanced around the table before his eyes settled on the VP again. “What do you think, Cillian? Should we set up the meet?”

“Do we have a choice? Besides, Trey’s not finished. There is a…
coup de grâc
e
that’s yet to be revealed, so to speak.”

“Listen to this motherfucker over here—
coup de
grâc
e
—since when the
fuck
did ya start speakin’ French?” Cricket questioned followed by a hail of laughter from the other brothers in the room.

“Shut the fuck up. You’re just mad you don’t speak it. Maybe you can ask your potential old lady to help you out since she seems more of the educationally inclined.”

“Go fuck yourself,
Killer
,” Cricket mumbled before he lit a cigarette.

“Jake and Marian both insist they
aren’t
sellin’ to
Aztecas Infierno
,” Trey said as he glanced in the Prez’s direction. “They insist Carlito is the only member of the cartel they have a relationship with and well, business isn’t just good—it’s fuckin’ booming.”

“So, if we report Carlito to the Prez and VP of the cartel, what happens? They’ll lose a lucrative client. Surely they’ll want something from us,” Brendan stated before dragging on his cigar.

“You’re right. They’ll want us to pick up the slack and buy what they were selling to Carlito,” Trey stated, pulling from his cigarette, offering nothing further.

“Shit. This is so fucked.” Sean sighed out loud. “I suppose we can do that…pick up the slack but what happens to Lacey? She’s Brendan’s daughter and my lass’s best friend. She’d be devastated if Lacey got caught up in all of this—”

“Not to be cold but how is that our problem?” Bookie asked from the corner where he sat quietly. “Lacey knew what she was gettin’ into. I understand she’s a part of the family—she’s Brendan and Cricket’s blood after all, but…we can’t run the club based on what
might
happen to girlfriends of cartel members. She understood that motherfucker was dangerous, yet she chose to stay put. I think we should let the chips fall where they may.”

Trey didn’t say anything. He didn’t have a daughter but if he did, no way in hell would he give her up without a fight. The thought made the acid in his stomach churn. Keri had been pregnant when she died - she hadn’t told anyone but him in fear she might jinx it.

His girlfriend and his unborn child …someone he loved and a little person he would never have the chance to meet.

This wasn’t the time to go down memory lane. Not in the middle of chapel—during a club meeting—when major decisions were in the middle of being decided. He needed to snap the fuck out of it and man up. Keri was gone and she wouldn’t ever come back, no matter how much he missed her.

“Time for a club vote.” Dizzy looked around the table, his blue eyes settling on Trey. “We handle this Carlito situation by not only striking a deal with the Knights but arranging a meeting with Emilio and keeping him abreast of the situation. The man is his son…he may not want him to go to ground and to be honest, it’s not really our concern. We only want what should have been delivered in the first place.”

Cillian shook his head. “What are the chances that Navarro is going to make up the product we were shafted on if he didn’t know what was going on? Even if he did, he’s gonna play stupid. There’s no way we’ll ever see what we’re owed. Hell, we don’t even know how long Carlito’s been dilutin’. As far as we can tell, maybe since July or August, but it might’ve been around the time I got tuned up and put on trial.”

“Well, since we don’t know, we can only take a guess. Let’s just say since August. It’s November. That’s three months of product that’s been less than the quality we were promised. Personally, I think something has to be done about it,” Sean spoke up.

“Agreed,” Kink said, nodding his head in solidarity with his father.

“Time to vote then.” Dizzy looked to his right and faced Cillian. “We handle the situation with the cartel and speak to the Knights about increasing the amount we’ll buy from them. That’ll make up what they lose when their deal with Carlito goes south.”