Outlaw MC Bear (19 page)

“
N
o matter
what goes down this afternoon, she’s your priority, got it?” Silas told Axe and nodded over to the prospect. He breathed in a huge hit from his cigarette and looked at all the faces of his brothers. “We keep her safe and out of Giovanni’s hands at all costs.”

Axe squeezed Silas’s shoulder and cleared his throat. “Uh, does this mean that things are finally official, my pussy-whipped Pres?”

Silas shrugged him off and glared at him. Now was not the time for levity. The executive members of the Beartooth Brotherhood, their officers, plus the Texas charter were standing a half-mile away from the warehouse where Silas was about to meet up with the padrino and Giovanni.

“Nothing’s changed, asshole.”

“Excuse me as I remind you, you wouldn’t give me the time of day to tell you about this reward idea, yet you sat and let her tell you about it. Not that I’m mad, bud. You just need to accept that women have influential ways.”

Silas exhaled and stamped out his cigarette. “The only reason I heard her out was because you warmed me up first, but whatever.

“Very noble of you,” Cole chuckled to himself and Silas rolled his eyes. “But remember her father will want an explanation.”

“And he’ll get one before we get down to business. Cole will roll with me. Everyone else, you have your places.”

“We’re all set,” Tate leered, chewing on a licorice twist candy. “I say we do a hands-in huddle and quick cheer to seal the deal.” Everyone glared at the brother.

“This is not that kind of meeting, kid. Get your head out of your ass.”

Silas walked back toward the group of parked bikes and nodded over at Sabrina. It was strange to see her getting along with Sophie today. He’d found them chatting together this morning over coffee as if they were old college roommates. The image was unsettling, but better that than at each other’s throats again.

“Time to head out, dollface.”

Sabrina came over to him and slid on the back of his motorcycle. “I don’t think I’ll get used to that. Then again, I may not see you again after today.”

“You like it that much, huh?”

“Maybe now’s not the time to talk about what I like, cowboy,” she whispered against the tip of his ear.

Silas started up the bike and drove off down the short stretch to the warehouse. If he had his way…

He cracked his neck and helped her off after he parked. “Is there any chance you’re going to let me do all the talking?”

“What do you think?” Sabrina cocked her head to the side, running her hands down his abdomen. She sure knew how to get her way. That was exactly how she’d touched him before she got on her knees last night and wrapped her warm mouth around his cock.

“Now is not the time to have me thinking with that head, Sabrina Rizzo.”

She smiled briefly then got a stern look on her face. “It’s my father. He’ll listen to me.”

“When it’s time for me to do the talking, you will step aside. Understood?”

She huffed out a breath. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

Silas headed toward the warehouse door, guiding her inside. Cole was right behind him. He didn’t bother looking back, already imagining the wicked grin on his VP’s face after hearing Sabrina’s bickering. All of that was forgotten when Silas came face to face with Mr. Rizzo, the padrino, flanked by Lorenzo Giovanni and more than a dozen bodyguards.

Predictable.

“So, how is this going to go down, Mr. Rizzo?”

“Let’s skip the pleasantries and get straight to business. I can respect that from a Corrigan.” The padrino took a step forward, buttoning his three-piece suit. “Now, if you’ll kindly give me back my daughter, everything else will go quite smoothly.”

“Dad, I wasn’t kidnapped. Not by Silas or his men, anyway.” His gaze snapped over to Sabrina, who took a deep breath and put on a child-like, imploring expression. “I’m fine. I don’t need to go anywhere.”

“He took you from your condo and has had you for almost four days.”

“No, Dad. If you can believe it, Silas has been about as overprotective as you during this whole mix-up. It’s a big misunderstanding.”

“So you were there voluntarily?”

“Not exactly. It was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He thought I was in trouble at the condo. I got darted by Lorenzo’s thugs, or someone else’s thugs… the point is Silas rescued me. It was all well intentioned. Since then, his MC has kept me safe. They’re decent people, Dad. All of them are loyal, caring in their own way. They defend their own. I know you can appreciate that.” Sabrina swallowed past the tightness in her throat and crossed her arms, blinking back tears as she held herself together by a thread. “And Lorenzo is not the upstanding person you think he is.”

“You’re confused… traumatized,” Giovanni shouted and sputtered, his face turning twelve different shades of purple. “That must be it, because you’d never dare to disrespect me that way in front of these heathens. They’re street rats, not worthy to kiss your boots, and yet you praise them? You’re mine. You
will
respect me. I am the only man that deserves your affection, do you understand me?”

Silas bit back his inner beast as the asshole strode forward and grabbed Sabrina by the hand. His animal wanted to swat Giovanni’s face off, then throw Sabrina over its shoulder and bolt out of there. Resisting the instinct took everything out of him. Sabrina gave him a slight head nod and moved beside Giovanni.

“Corrigan, you don’t think I’d let Lorenzo lay a hand on my daughter, do you?” the padrino drawled out the question, then clicked his tongue.

“That’s a tough question to answer when we spent the last four days protecting her and my clubhouse from attacks he ordered.”

Sabrina shouted out, “Lorenzo has been holding Addison prisoner to make sure I follow through and marry him, Dad. And he had his men shoot Silas’s mother last night.”

“That’s disappointing, but I’m much more discouraged to know you think so little of me. I’ve been busy, but not too busy to find out the highlights.” He turned to Giovanni. “Son, your father and I were inseparable friends and allies for more than half a century before he died. He was made of honor through and through, which is why I gave you countless opportunities to rise to the occasion and be like him. I see now that’s not in the cards for you. Had I known of your ulterior motives where my daughter was concerned, we would have had our own private discussion long ago.”

“You can’t do this, Mr. Rizzo.”

The padrino ignored him, looking over at Silas now. “Thank you for protecting my daughter. You’ve also inadvertently saved my organization from an immeasurable amount of blowback by returning Governor Riley’s boy. I can’t tell you the number of times I reiterated—wrongly now, I realize—that my organization had no involvement in his son’s abduction. I put too much faith in Lorenzo, expecting him to live up to our way of life. Yes, we’re waist deep in crime, but we have a code. I can see you understand that, just like your old man did, Corrigan. We’re cut from the same cloth…” The padrino looked over at Sabrina, then back at Silas. “It’s sweet that you care for her as I do.”

“I want her to be safe.”

There. That was as close as he’d come to telling the old man he wanted more with his daughter. It had to count for something, because what he really wanted to say would damn this meeting all to hell. It took everything inside him to bite his tongue. If Rizzo cared so much about his daughter, why would he sell her off like cattle to a man who had no respect for her? She deserved to be worshipped and adored. But then again, had all of this never happened, Silas would have been wifed up in a similar business transaction with the Texas charter. It was day and night compared to what Sabrina faced, but he really had no right to judge.

All of a sudden, Giovanni lost it. “I’ve had enough of this,” he shouted out. “Get in position, men.” His dozen or so bodyguards moved up in front of him and Sabrina, and held their weapons at Silas, Cole and Rizzo. “Sabrina is mine, old man. Once we get married, she’ll have no choice but to do as I say, and you can fade into the background when I take over. Or you could have an unfortunate accident right now. If you think Silas Corrigan can replace me, you’re wrong. He will not get his hands on what’s mine. Not Sabrina, and not the empire my father spent his life building up with you.”

Silas was about to ignore the potential gunfire and pound Giovanni into the goddamn ground, but Sabrina jerked away from Giovanni. “That was a bad idea, Lorenzo. I’ve had conversations like this my whole life. I’m really sick of it, so I’m only going to say this once. You just buried yourself for thinking you can talk to me like this, and for being insane enough to believe you can defy my father.”

Giovanni reared his hand back and swung a brazen slap across Sabrina’s face that echoed throughout the warehouse. Sabrina staggered backward from the force of the blow. Time stopped and sped up all at once. Cole launched himself toward the padrino and threw him to the ground, covering his head and chest from the gunfire he expected would originate from Giovanni’s bodyguards. Silas moved through the bodyguards like a bowling ball through ten pins, grabbing Sabrina and pulling her down to the floor behind him.

“What the fu—” Giovanni shouted, but it was too late.

One solitary gunshot snapped through the thick tension. Silas’s gaze flicked across his body to look over at Cole and the padrino behind him. None of them had been hit. His brow furrowed, muscles jumped, and his nails bit hard into the flesh of his palms from his tight fist. He looked at the padrino. The man had a stone cold, satisfied expression on his face, gun still in his hand. Silas blinked and looked at Giovanni. Shit. He was rolling around on the floor, bleeding from a wound in his upper right chest.

“That was your third strike, Lorenzo. No one touches my daughter like that. Consider this an early retirement due to injury. If you defy me again, I’ll accelerate your retirement…to a funeral.” The padrino snapped his fingers and a small army of thick-necked Italians came rushing in. “Boys, take out the garbage. Make sure I never run into Lorenzo Giovanni anywhere west of Chicago again.”

Three of the padrino’s men snatched up the whimpering Giovanni from the floor, dragging him out of the warehouse.

“Now, let’s talk about my original reason for this meeting. I could go on at length about demand and economics, but the bottom line is my business needs have skyrocketed in New York and overseas in Europe. What this means is I need your goods supplied there. Obviously, that directly impacts our business as much as getting Giovanni off the table, so I’d like your thoughts.”

Silas was still trying to control his beast when he got to his feet and helped Sabrina. She nodded that she was fine, and Cole took her to have a seat in a small enclosed office near the side of the open warehouse space.

“Removing Giovanni sounds a lot less complicated, but shipping to New York will require a heck of a lot more logistics. It also bumps up our risk, crossing so many state lines with weapons…”

“Name your price.”

Silas couldn’t even pretend. This development complicated matters a thousand fold. Sure, eventually, he would have liked to get out of the business and into something that was more lucrative while being legal, such as some of the ideas Sabrina had brought to him and Axe. The problem was they weren’t at that stage yet. Nowhere near—and his boys still got a huge say in everything.

“My first thought is that we’d like to continue doing business with you. I’ll just need some time to get a better sense of how it can work for us both. I’m sure you understand I’m fair, and a man of my word.”

“Understood and I can relate. Take the next few weeks, and let me know at least two weeks before our scheduled monthly arrangement.”

“Thanks for the time.”

“Of course. But, Silas? I don’t feel confident you’re able to assess your options with my daughter in the mix. She’s an unneeded distraction, so she’s off the table if you choose to continue our business relationship. Our partnership can flourish into bigger and better opportunities as soon as you cut off all contact with Sabrina and never see or speak with her again.”