Axel: Chapter 18
Getting up this morning, I know it’s going to be a hard day organizing everything for Jenks, the garage, and his house. It’s an enormous job to cover, on top of all the shit going down.
Sitting in the kitchen, I pour a coffee and take a seat at the table. Shar passes with eggs, bacon, hash browns, and toast. ‘Thanks Shar, you don’t have to be cooking for us all.’
‘I don’t mind Axel and it’s my way of paying you all back for letting me stay.’
‘You’re more than welcome to stay, Shar, you know that. Mia is so happy to have you here and you’ve got the men under your thumb already with all the great meals you keep serving.’ I tell her with a smile.
‘I know you’ve a lot going on with organizing the funeral for Mr. Jenkins, but if I, or we, can do anything to help, we would be happy to. Cleaning his house out, organizing anything in the garage. You tell us and we’ll do it.’ Shar offers, which is great of her as the club women have not even said they are sorry for our loss.
‘Actually, if you could clear out his house, only his personal effects because I’m keeping the house, it will be a good place for the brothers that will run the garage. So the furniture and stuff stays, but his clothes and stuff can go to the Good Will if they are any good.’ Rubbing my finger and thumb across my chin in thought, ‘If you see anything that you think I need to decide on, like photographs, letters, things like that, box’em up and I’ll deal with them.’
‘Okay Axel, I’ll go drag Mia out of bed and then she can drive us over. Can you let us have someone to help lift things?’ Shar asks as she places dirty dishes in the dishwasher.
‘I’ll send Brad to help you. He can drive the pickup, help with anything heavy and do anything that you need him to do, even if it’s fetching you both lunch.’ I state as I refill my cup to take with me to the office.
‘Okay Axel, thanks. We’ll be ready in an hour. I’ll get Lazy Ass out of bed.’ Shar giggles as she bustles out of the kitchen and through the common room.
Back in the office, I check the mail from yesterday and see a letter from the realtor who worked with us on the offer we made for the bar.
Opening it, I grit my teeth as the owner is now saying he’ll consider thirty grand more than our top offer, well he can kiss my ass.
Picking up the office phone, I call the realtor and give him my opinion on the offer and how the owner can stick it up his ass and not bother to come back with anymore bullshit.
Buzz waltzes in, sits with a cup in his hand and gives me his evil grin. Shaking my head as I’m not sure I want to know what the fuck he has to tell me.
‘Jewel cracked eventually, Pres.’
Seeing the door is still open, I walk around and close it, then back to my seat, ‘Who is the mole?’
‘Candy.’
Snapping my eyes to Buzz as she was not the one I was expecting to hear, Bubbles or Brandy were my guesses.
‘Candy’s brother is Alan. They are second cousins of Bloom and he found them four years ago, reined them in and now they are so far in they can’t get out.
‘What do you want me to do with the two downstairs and with Candy?’
Picking up my cellphone, I send a group message to everyone to get to the clubhouse for Church, now. I add Target and Chaos to the group, too. It’s time I pulled Chaos in as a prospect.
More knocking on the door and I shout ‘Come in.’
Mia walks in gingerly, obviously not wanting to disturb us. ‘Sorry Axel, I just wanted to say we’re going now and I’ll see you later.’
Standing, I walk over to her, take her head in my hands and kiss her thoroughly, then grin when she has this pink flush all over her face. ‘Okay baby, see you later and thanks for doing this for me.’
Nodding, she quickly leaves the office after giving Buzz a shy smile.
‘We need to get to Church and see which way the brothers want to go with all this shit, Buzz. Me, I’m happy to take them all out and they can be mountain lion lunch.’ I snarl, curling my lip..
Once in Church, I sit at the head of the table and wait for everyone to get here. It doesn’t take long for emergency meetings. Everyone closes up shop and gets here ASAP.
All seventeen brothers roll in within half an hour, then add Target and Chaos, including me, which gives a total of 20 sitting in this meeting.
‘Okay, meeting open. I know it’s unusual having Target and Chaos sitting in, but they have been doing most of the recon, so don’t give me grief, I’m not in the fucking mood.’ I look over at PT to make sure he’s ready to take the minutes, and when he gives me the nod, I look back at my brothers.
‘Yesterday, Mr. Jenkins died.’ the room bursts with comments, mainly sympathy ones, as they all know I was relatively close to the old man.
‘Mia and Shar are sorting out the house. They have Brad with them, so they are covered and safe enough.
‘The recovery and garage, plus the house, were left to me. I spoke to Jenkins, and he told me why he’d done that. Now I’ve thought about it and I’m going to put the business in the hands of the club, but I’m keeping the house and land in my name. Does anyone have an issue with that?’
Silver speaks up. ‘I’m sorry about Jenkins, Pres. I know he was really close with your parents. I think it is generous of you to turn the business over to the club, but I also think we should stipulate that you get more of a cut from that business because you could as easily have kept it to yourself.’
Nodding and agreeing went around the table, then I slap the gavel down. ‘Okay, let’s check out the books, see what the business is doing before we decide on any of that.’
PT taps on the table with his knuckles. ‘We need to make sure all the legalities with the business are transferred correctly. I can do that if no one objects?’
We all agree he can deal with all the paperwork bullshit. None of us understand half the crap, anyway.
‘Next. We have two out in the shed, Nigel and Jewel. Yes, they talked for Buzz, eventually.’ I grin as everyone knows what talk means.
‘They are working for Cara’s uncle, who is Sydney Bloom. He is fucking livid that Cara was murdered, and he also has built himself a little gang. He wants to take over our club with said gang.’ I’m smirking as everyone of the brothers is up in arms. I can even see Target and Chaos are itching for a fight.
‘What the fuck, Pres, do we know where this fucker and his little posse of assholes are?’ Knuckles shouts out. He is more than ready to show us why he got his name.
‘Not yet Knuckles, Specs will find out, I’m sure. Nigel and Jewel do not know where the uncle is hiding.’ Buzz tells us and he leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.
‘We need to vote on what we’re going to do with Nigel and Jewel? We can hold them for now and let them loose when it’s all over. We can take them out and let the wildlife feed or any other suggestions?’ I’m all for taking them out. They are filthy pieces of shit, in my opinion.
‘Do they have any family? Anyone who will miss them? Report them missing?’ Rock asks, looking around to see if anyone has a clue.
‘Nigel has no one. I asked that. Jewel has her uncle and this Alan who she’s shacked up with, but he won’t be a problem for long.’ Buzz informs everyone. We all nod, understanding what he’s telling us.
‘Did you find out from Jewel where the $8,000 of stock disappeared to?’ Knuckles asks.
Buzz growls, ‘She sold it all on the black market, none of the money is left of course, so something else to take out of her hide while I was at it.’
‘I vote we take them out.’ Brag states clearly, ‘No point letting scum like this loose, they’ll only come back at some stage with another vendetta.’
The vote goes around the table, excluding Target and Chaos, otherwise the vote is unanimous. I look over at Buzz and he nods. He’ll sort it out.
‘Moving on, it appears our mole is Candy.’ Shouts and cursing ensues. The brothers are not happy at this point. We’ve already got two to take out to trash and another by the looks of it.
Target coughs, getting my attention, ‘Pres, I think we should leave Candy for now, keep a close eye on her, follow her, see if she can get us a lead on this Bloom.’
‘I’ll follow her. When we came in here today, no one was around so she doesn’t know me. If you all make sure she’s not around to see me leave, then I’ll do the recon.’ Chaos states he clearly knows what he’s doing, and he understands the risks of any kind of undercover operations.
‘Okay, I think that is a good idea, we need to know where they are all based, how many of them there are and what the next step in the plan will be.’ Drag says, ‘But if you need me I’m up for it Chaos, I’ll have your six.’
‘Anything else to cover?’ I state, and when everyone looks around, I stand and behind me I pick up a prospect kutte. ‘Okay, Chaos, we’ve got you a kutte, you can prospect same as Target, for six months, but you gotta come onboard today, so what do you say?’
Chaos looks shocked, but a second later, grins, nods, and takes the kutte. ‘Thanks Pres, brothers, I’ll earn the full patch.’
As we leave, we all slap him hard on the back and I’m sure he’ll have a bruise tomorrow, but he takes it all with a smile. Drag literally drags Chaos out the back exit so no one sees him leave, and Target quickly leaves via the front.
Everyone gathers in the common room, eyes alert and as I note Bubbles and Brandy are now sitting in the common room, I say loudly, ‘Okay brothers, make sure you are all available for Jenkins funeral, I’ll let you all know the details as soon as I have them.’
The room clears and the brothers return to the job at hand. I, on the other hand, go stand at the bar and lean over to speak to Beer, who is filling shelves and general barman duties.
‘Keep your eye on those two and Candy, I’m not convinced they are as innocent as they make out to be.’
Beer nods, ‘Sure will, Pres.’
‘You two, I’ve already told you about sitting around doing fuck all. Now get your skanky asses moving. There are bedrooms to tidy, bathrooms to clean and in here reeks. Get it all cleaned and get Candy moving with you.’ I shout, but make sure I have a snarl in my voice.
Heading back to the office, I’m going to give Sharp a call, see what the fuck he knows about this so-called uncle.