“Tell me.”
“It's Mac, Bull, Dawg, and Sisco who've been arrested. They were caught with pot and guns.”
“How long?”
I didn't have to specify what I meant; he knew.
“It depends on a lot of things. It's really complicated, honey.”
He was trying to not scare me, but I wanted to know. “Best and worse case scenario?”
“Anything between six months and... twelve years. But it's not going to be twelve years, honey. It's not.”
I tried not to panic. “What do you think?”
“I'd say around a year if they plea bargain and Silver does his job. He'll get them all some deal. We pay him a lot of money to make sure he does that.”
Silver was the lawyer the club used. I'd met him a few times, but I'd never really talked to him. He always seemed stressed and very busy.
“Okay.”
I knew Dad had done time before I was born. It was him, Brick, and Wolf that time, and before Brick was the president. Apparently a lot of the planning for the future of the Marauders had gone down inside. Another one of those things I probably wasn't supposed to know.
They'd plea bargained that time as well. They most often did if it was a clear-cut case—like being caught with pot and guns. I honestly had no idea why. I'd never spent much time thinking about it, simply since it had been years since anyone had been arrested in Greenville.
“When can I see him?”
“We're gonna bail them out as soon as possible, sweetheart.”
“But Bull is with him?”
“Yes.” He smiled. He knew why I asked. Bull was Bull. No one fucked with him, and he'd done time before. He knew how it all worked, so he'd take care of them. “He'll be fine. Even if Bull wasn't with him, Mac can take care of himself.”
“I know, but I'm still glad Bull is there.”
We didn't talk anymore. I needed to think, and Dad understood. I didn't even protest when we turned into the compound. It was probably a part of some ritual I didn't even know about to wait there for more news, and frankly, I didn't care where we waited.
Dad took my hand as we walked into the clubhouse. The first one I noticed was Edie, and I went to sit next to her.
“How are you holding up?” she asked me, and I stared at her.
“
You're
asking
me
that?” She was pregnant, her husband had been arrested, and she asked me how
I
was doing.
“Yeah. I'm just trying focus on other people at the moment.” Then she shrugged. “I'll be fine. I know that. I'll get help and... Silver is good. It'll be fine, and it could've been a lot worse.”
“Okay.”
I kept staring at Edie. I'd never thought much about what exactly they did. I'd grown up in it, I'd known about it in theory for years, but never really paid much mind to it. I of course knew they smuggled pot and diamonds, but I'd never really thought about it for what it was. What it actually meant. That it was illegal... and just... that it was criminal. They were criminals. I'd never before thought about my family as criminals.
I should probably care that they were—but I didn't.
But Edie was... Edie. She was the only person I knew who sorted her trash, always talked about eco-friendly stuff, saved dogs from being executed, and was all morals.
“How are you so okay with this?” I asked. “What they do?”
“I decided years ago I was either with Dawg and lived with it, or left him.”
“Left him?” I couldn't imagine Edie without Dawg—or him without her. “Really?”
“Yeah. It didn't seem like a good option, so I live with it.”
“I guess those are the only options.”
“That's what I figured,” she said with a smile.
Dawg being arrested while Edie was pregnant put my situation into a different perspective. Edie and Dawg had a kid and another one on the way. It wouldn't be possible for her to just wait the way I could. If they were only sentenced for a year or so, it wouldn't be the end of the world for Mac and me. Unless they got years. That would be different and...
They wouldn't get
years
.
I couldn't even think about years as an option. They'd probably get around one year, and that basically meant I'd be around twenty when he got out and that wasn't much. There wasn't any panic. At least that's what I told myself.
I sat next to Edie for a while, then I helped with the food. While we ate, I sat next to Wolf. He seemed concerned about me, but I wasn't up for talking about it, and we discussed music instead.
When it finally felt like I might be able to sleep, I went over to Dad. I knew we weren't going to go home, and I didn't want to spend the night on the filthy couch. He was next to Brick and Mel, and the three of them stopped talking when they noticed me.
“I thought I'd go to bed. Is it okay if I take Mac's room?”
“Sure,” Dad said and stood up to give me a hug.
“Wake me up if you hear anything.”
“Of course.”
Brick took me to the office and gave me the spare key to Mac's room. He gave me a hug, and it was a bit strange, because he didn't usually hug me.
“He'll be fine, kid, and it won't be for long,” he said and patted my back. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
I brushed my teeth and went to bed. If felt wrong to be in the room without Mac, and it took me a long time to be able to fall asleep.
-o0o-
Bear, Brick, and Wolf were the last ones still awake in the bar.
“I think we can safely assume they'll do time,” Wolf started.
“I'd say so,” Brick agreed.
“Which means we have a few problems,” Wolf continued. “Both Bull and Sisco have priors, so they'll probably get a longer sentence than Dawg and Mac. Which means we'll have our Sergeant at Arms inside, which isn't
that
much of a problem, but also our Treasurer, and that is a problem.”
Sisco'd been one of the treasurers who'd helped set up the entire system with the money transfers. It'd been built it in collaboration with treasurers from all the clubs involved in the pipeline. He knew it all, and there probably weren't all that many in the club who
could
do the finances even if they tried. Brick and Bear obviously knew some of it, but none of them had a head for finances
or
computers—or much of a brain at all. They were good at leading others, making sure shit got done, but they didn't get involved in the details.
“Since it's just us and no hysterical women,” Bear said, “What do we think? Best case scenario? Eighteen months for Mac and Dawg, and two and a half years for Bull and Sisco?”
“Silver was aiming even lower,” Brick answered. “Possibly a year for Mac and Dawg, but he didn't think he'd be able to make it less. It depends on the DA, too.”
“So who do we make the treasurer while Sisco's inside?” Wolf asked.
Brick sighed. “Mace?”
Both Bear and Wolf shook their head. They all knew who had the brains to deal with it. Who'd be able to understand it in the short time necessary. It was Mitch. He was already helping Sisco with some of it. Brick just didn't want to admit he was the only option.
“I know he's smart, but he's been a member for less than a year.”
“He's not just smart,” Bear said. “He's a genius.”
“Yeah, when he uses his head, but look at him.”
They three of them turned and looked at Mitch sleeping on a couch with his dick hanging out, and his hand inside a sweetbutt's panties. He was probably piss drunk and stoned out of his mind. He often was.
“With four of our brothers in jail, he doesn't have much of a choice,” Wolf said. “You need to shake some sense into your son, because he needs to step up.”
Mitch hadn't been that bad. At least not much worse than most of them had been around that age, before Old Ladies and kids, but Wolf was right. They needed Mitch now, and he better fucking step up to the plate. Brick took another look at his youngest son with a sigh.
“I think I'd better wait until tomorrow,” he muttered. “Not sure he'd even understand what I'm saying if I wake him up now.”
“Probably not,” Bear agreed with a chuckle. “You know, sometimes two daughters doesn't seem all that bad.”
“Hey! My other kid never did that.”
“That you know of,” Wolf pointed out. “He did his first year in Emporia. It's during the first year most guys really let loose.”
“Mitch's still not even close to what you were like,” Bear laughed.
“I wasn't that bad!” Brick protested.
“Yeah, you were. You just kept it in your dorm, since you were married and knew she might come looking for you,” Bear reminded him. “I was the one who banged your door so you'd have time to get them out through the window.”
“Fuck, I was a real ass, wasn't I?”
“How's Mel doing?” Bear asked, since he'd decided to let Brick off the hook. No matter what he was like back then, it didn't matter anymore. Brick stuck to his Old Lady these days.
“Okay,” Brick answered. “Had to tell her to stop calling Silver, though. She was all worried about her
little
boy.”
“Wow!”
“Tried to tell her he'd be fine. Then she called Donna and all hell broke loose.”
Donna was Mac and Mitch's mom, and the wife Brick used to cheat on. Bear liked her, and her divorce from Brick had been pretty drama free. As drama free as divorces could be. It had been a lot of yelling about Brick dipping his dick in every set of lips he could find—which was true, and that he didn't give a shit about his kids—which
wasn't
true, and even Donna'd admitted it once she calmed down. Brick was a good dad.
These days, she was married to a regular Joe in Phoenix and worked as a hairdresser. She was doing well, and kept in touch with Brick and her sons. They'd lived every second week at her place until they were in their early teens, and kept staying there for weekends until their late teens. He knew Mac'd brought Vi to see her, but she hadn't said much about it. She'd been to her to get her hair dyed lately, though. He couldn't tell the difference from when Edie did it, and Vi'd simply said it was easier than doing it at Edie's, since Travis kept trying to eat the dye.
“And how's Edie doing?” he asked Brick.
“She's Edie,” Brick shrugged. “She'll be fine. She knows we'll all help out, and she fucking adapts to anything. It's probably worse for Dawg.”
“Yeah,” Bear agreed.
He was just happy he hadn't done any time since before Vi was born, which was something of a fucking miracle.
All of the older members had done years, and they'd all been arrested a number of times, but had a good lawyer who had wangled them out of most of it. Compared to a lot of clubs, they didn't have many years between the lot of them. The system they were using for smuggling worked, and they'd been lucky this time around, since they'd been carrying smaller amounts. It was still the worst hit on the Greenville Marauders in a long time. They just had to cross their fingers and hope that the huge amount of money they paid their leech of a lawyer would pay out.
-o0o-
Mac was relieved. It didn't take long for them to get out on bail, and since it was late, they decided to wait with church till the next morning. It was dark in his room, but he knew Vi was waiting for him. She'd probably just fallen asleep.
He took a quick shower to get the prison smell off him. He already loathed that smell, and he didn't even want to think about probably being forced to get used to it soon. For now, he was going to
not
think about it, and just enjoy the shit out of what time he still had on the outside.
When he came back out from the bathroom, the bedside light was on, and Vi was looking at him.
“Hey, baby. Thought you were sleeping.”
“Are you okay?” she said and lifted the cover to let him in under it.
“Am now.” He pulled her naked body closer to him. That was what he needed. His girl, naked, and right next to him. When she noticed his dick against her thigh, she threw her leg over him with a smile. “I need you close, Katze.”
“I know,” she mumbled and tried to move even closer to him, and he tasted her lips. “I need you, too.”
He moved her over to her back and started to gently rub his dick back and fort in her slit while kissing her. It was all calm, slow, and just the two of them—holding each other close.
He'd expected a lot of things from her, like her crying or even arguing, but he hadn't expected this. Not her just being there for him and welcoming him. His main concern had been how she'd take it. How she'd react to the possibility of him being sent away for years.
In his head, it had spanned from her telling him to fuck off, with this reaction at the other end of the scale. He'd known the club, his dad, his mom, and even Mel would be fine, but he'd been worried about Vi.
When he could feel her wet seeping over his dick, he changed the angle and pushed inside. She buried her face against the side of his neck and groaned.
He moved up to an elbow and held her chin. “I love you, Vi.”
“I want you closer.”
She wrapped her legs around him and kissed him. He managed to nestle his arm around her neck. It was as if they couldn't get close enough to each other.
“I love you, I love you,” she whispered into his ear over and over again.
As always, it felt so right to have her close, and it was such a relief. The relief of knowing that she might wait for him, because it didn't seem as if he was about to lose her because of this.
What they had together had always been for the long run to him, but somewhere in the back of his head he hadn't been sure it was the same for her. There were a lot of reasons for that tiny doubt. Her age, that she didn't seem to even want to consider moving in with him, and how it sometimes felt as if she was holding back.
He grabbed her butt cheeks, which seemed designed to fit perfectly into his hands. He inhaled to catch as much as possible of her scent and groaned.
“Fuck, Vi! Cum with me.”
“Yes!”
To help her, he moved his hand between them and found her wet nub. He rubbed it and finally felt her clench around him, moaning into his neck. It felt as if her insides were trying to suck him deeper into her. That did it, and he felt his balls getting ready and a few thrusts later he released inside of her.