Raging Barons MC – Book Nine – Knuckles

-:- KNUCKLES -:-

I can’t help but smirk at the sight of some of the brothers this morning. Hangovers of hell are what they have and look rough as dogs. Meat is handing them glasses with some green shit in them, which he swears is the cure, and the kitchen is full of groans and cursing as they try to keep their stomachs from revolting at the mixture.

Fist walks into the kitchen and gives Meat the nastiest of looks. “What the fuck did you put in that moonshine? My piss is red this morning.”

My eyes flick to Meat and the only reaction he’s giving is a slight lift on the corner of his top lip. Fucker knew what was going to happen. He calmly hands Fist a glass of the green stuff and continues serving breakfast.

Mia and Axel walk into the kitchen and it seems their argument is resolved as he has his arm around her shoulders, keeping her tight to his body. I’ve always liked Mia. She had a rough deal with her last encounter with an MC, and the prison stint she had to do, but she came out of it with her sense of humor, kindness, and courage intact.

“Knuckles.”

Turning, I give a smile to Jo, who rushes over to me, and kisses me on the lips gently. “Good morning.” She sighs against my lips and I swoop in, grasp her around the waist, and plant her on my lap, taking the kiss that one step further before placing my forehead against hers.

“Good morning.” Eventually responding and giving her my dimple as a reward for rushing over to me and declaring to the room that we are doing great as a couple.

“Give up you two lovebirds, it’s enough to turn a man’s stomach first thing in the morning,” Lincoln grumbles as he sits next to us at the table, holding his head in his hands as he places his elbows on the table.

“Oh, you’ve got a hangover too.” Jo giggles lightly. “Serves you right brother, you should know better.”

“I’ll tell you it turns your piss red.” Lincoln growls, which has the rest of us in the kitchen laughing.

Mia and Axel step over to the table next to ours with plates piled high, in Axel’s case, with scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, and the rest. Hearing Lincoln gag, we all look at him, watching his face turn white before he rushes out of the kitchen, holding a hand over his mouth.

“That’ll teach him,” Jo states calmly, and Mia giggling.

“Don’t forget church Knuckles. I want to get outstanding items covered before the week starts.” Filling his face as he speaks.

“No problem. Where’re the boys?”

“Oh, Bitty has them this morning. She took Sawyer for a walk up the compound with them. That stroller is great and thankfully, it’s sturdy enough for the compound.” Mia pushes her plate away, but I note she’s only eaten half of what was given to her, and I know Meat won’t be happy about that.

“I’m going to get my breakfast and take it to our room. I want to finish the chapter I started yesterday before the muse escapes me.” Jo kisses me lightly, then walks over to Meat, who gives her a tip of his chin before she steps over to the commercial fridge and takes out a bowl of chopped fruit with yogurt on top. She kisses Meat on the cheek as she passes, snatches a spoon, and gives me a finger wave before walking out of the kitchen. Looking back at Meat, I can’t help but shake my head at the smug look on his face.

Knowing Jo is busy, I help clean up the common room, taking orders from Heather who didn’t come over last night for the party although she had been invited. She has a major contract that Alf pulled for the company, and the meeting she was holding last night was to organize her cleaning crew. Alf has been a huge help to Heather, taking over most of the office work and she relies on him heavily.

“Knuckles, can you drag all the tables over to the left side of the room for me, please? It’s going to be easier to move them than try to go around them.” Heather asks as she has her co-worker Lina standing at her side obviously ready to get started.

The morning is quickly over, and we head into church. Chris is standing at the door taking everyone’s cell phones and any weapons they had on them. Walking in, I take my usual seat and relax while I wait for everyone to arrive, and the meeting starts.

Looking up when Beer walks in groaning, holding his head. The smirk on my face tips him off that I find everyone’s hangover amusing.

“Fuck off, Knuckles. This shit ain’t funny. Red piss, even red in my shit this morning. I don’t know what the fucker put in that moonshine, but fuck me, it was potent.” Beer gingerly takes his seat and Drag, who just walked in, laughs.

“Looks like more than the shit is red this mornin’.” The comment has us all laughing because it’s plain to see his red shit has left him with a red asshole.

Axel walks in and takes his seat, looking around to make sure everyone is there. “Okay, you drunken assholes, meeting open and I want your attention. PT, do you have Jo’s kutte?”

Now, that surprises me that Axel brings up Jo’s kutte as the first order of business, and seeing that, he grins before continuing. “I want Jo to have her kutte with her going to her first book signing on Wednesday. Wearing her kutte warns people she’s part of the MC and they don’t want to fuck with her. It’s a statement, she’s under our protection and the property of a brother. Everyone knows what that means.”

Tapping of fingertips on the table, murmurs of agreement, and a few comments of ‘let someone try’, has me thankful I have my brothers at my back. It’s what the MC is about, justice, brotherhood, and honor, and it states it clearly in the club colors.

PT stands and slides a box across to me and I feel a lump of emotion in my throat. This is such an important moment for me, and something I never thought I would have, but fuck if it doesn’t have me feeling proud and protective. I give PT a nod of thanks and place the box in front of me on the table.

“Okay, before Knuckles cries like a baby, I think we best move on.” Axel laughs, causing my brothers to rib me about growing a pussy now I have my ol’ lady. Lifting my right hand, I give them all the middle finger but grin all the while I’m doing it.

“Before Wednesday Knuckles, check in with BS regarding Jo’s security at the book signing. I don’t want us to take any risks with her safety.”

I give Axel a nod and turn to BS. “I’ll speak to you Tuesday, so we’re only hours away from the event.”

“Yeah, that works for me,” BS responds.

“Next up. TwoCents has reported that the wine shop is doing great, and is a huge success. It was good that Shar allowed us to steal the idea from her. I know she’d wanted to do the shop, but she didn’t have the money. It was our gain, and it’s bringing in a nice income. Billy has suggested we take on two assistants to help him out, as he’s working far too many hours. Living above the shop has helped him, but none of us can expect him to work 24/7. Give me a show of hands that you’re all okay with Billy employing people.” Axel looks around and every brother lifts their hands in agreement. “Okay, BS update Billy on this decision.” BS takes his pencil out of his pocket and makes his note on his notepad, which has most of us smirking.

“Buzz, how is the tattoo shop?” Axel turns to give our enforcer an enquiring look but frowns when he sees the pissed-off expression on Buzz’s face.

“Cocksuckers at ‘Total Tats’ are gonna be meetin’ my fist anytime soon. They’ve not stolen any more designs, but they are talkin’ shit about us, and we’ve had three cancellations this last week.” Buzz is grinding his teeth, and it’s easy to see how wound up he is about what’s going on.

“Let’s get Jo’s situation handled first, then if we need to we can have a ride over, give the fucker’s a show of strength.” Axel gives his toothy grin. That tells all of us he can’t wait for that to happen.

Drag is grinning, but shaking his head at Axel and Buzz, knowing as well as the rest of us that we’ll be taking a visit to ‘Total Tats’, whether or not they back off.

Buzz taps the table with his knuckles. “Rolling Thunder is good. The figures are better than I expected, and the designs Reuse is kicking out are attracting a lot of attention. We have taken down all his designs from the website and they are only available to be seen on posters we’ve placed around the shop. As soon as one of the designs are used, the poster is replaced.

“Reuse is a great artist and I can’t see an issue with him taking over the shop given time. I’ll be more than happy to hand it over to him when it’s time.”

“I love that name. It just suits our MC so much. Rolls off the tongue too. ‘Rolling Thunder Tattoo Shop’.” Brag states and it’s unusual for him to say much about anything while in church, so many of us turn our heads and give him a smirk.

Axel gives Stitch a side-eye, which has my interest peaking. When he mentions Bianca everyone looks at Stitch, which has him scowling back at us.

“Vitale is coming to collect Bianca tomorrow. She wants to go back to the mafia family. Not to her father, but to a relative of Vitale that will help her recover from what has happened to her.” Axel sighs as he sees the look on Stitch’s face, and we all know he’d gone into protection mode around Bianca, but it looks like he’d hoped for more. “There is nothing we can do to stop her leaving, and now she is over her injuries it’s best she moves on, with our best wishes, of course.” Stitch stands, gives us all a foul look, then leaves the meeting. Axel shakes his head and rubs the back of his neck.

Meat and Wings stand and look at Axel for permission to leave, and when he gives them a nod, they walk out and hopefully will be able to support Stitch, who it seems had hoped that more would happen with Bianca.

“Hey, just askin’ how is everyone’s ol’ lady reacting to Jo’s books because I’ve gotta say the more Carrie reads, the braver she’s gettin’.” Fox grins and waggles his eyebrows.

Grunts of agreement and smirks follow, which tells me Jo’s books are riling up the women and getting the brothers some good nights behind closed doors. I think I may have to start reading myself and find out what all the fuss is about.

Axel hoots. “Mia had me cornered in the shower and I’m not giving you the lowdown, but brothers, you’ve got to read book one.”

“Yeah, that was a good chapter. Have you tried book three yet?” Grease grins. That sets off a roll of what’s in book three, and boy, did I not want to know what my brothers are doing when they read my ol’ lady’s books.

“Okay, get yourselves under control now. I want to bring up the prospects because it’s going to be coming up soon where we have to patch them in, and we’ve no others fit to be brought in. We’ve had some inquiries, but none we’d want to take up. Finding our prospects was a one-off for us, I think. They’ve each been worth having, and each one is filling the role perfectly. Maybe we shouldn’t have allowed Sharp to have those prospects, and kept them for ourselves?” Axel knows as well as the rest of us that we didn’t need them at the time, and they wanted out of our area, so we’d never have held them here.

“We can keep our eyes open, Pres.” Clay states. “As long as everything gets covered, do we need a ton of prospects anymore?”

BS speaks out. “The new gate system is working, and if Sentry wants to make sure the fencing is maintained and the compound is secure, then the automated gate should stop the need for a prospect to be standing on gate duty for hours on end. Any brother could go to the gate if needed and Specs can monitor it, as we said when we first spoke about it.”

Specs grins. “I can watch the gate on my system. But whoever comes to the gate needs to press the button to speak to me for entry. I’ll see the brothers and can open the gate for them with no problem.”

“Okay, so is everyone happy we don’t push for new prospects and we look at patching these in, probably in three months?” Axel asks, looking around for everyone’s reaction. The murmurs of agreement quickly flow around the room.

“Lastly, I’d like to vote on Colton getting the club name ‘Rage’, because it fits him perfectly, and we’ve all seen him going into the mode when he’s on any type of security duty. It just fits him so well that I’d like us to have it ready for when he is patched.” Bringing this to the table early is unusual, but Axel never did stick to rules all the time.

“I’ll second.” Drag states.

“Show of hands.” Axel asks, and every brother in the room votes for Colton becoming ‘Rage’.

“Okay, that’s it, unless anyone has any other business they want to discuss.” When no one speaks out, Axel taps the gavel and we all haul ass out of church, and I go find my woman. I want to spend some time with her before it’s back to work tomorrow.