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“Come on then. I’ve got nothing better to do for an hour or so. Show me what you remember and where we got to. Got a knife on you?” I slip my throwing knife from my sleeve and launch it at a tree trunk 10 feet away. It lands cleanly, and I’m pleased with that.

“I always carry now, and not just one.” He throws one from his sleeve, which lands next to mine. He takes one from his waist which hits in line but above mine, and one from his boot that is in line but below mine.

“That’s not bad. We need to start you on moving targets.” He laughs at this.

“I can’t hit a barn door when it’s moving. I’ve been trying on my own. Spirit is far better than I am. I’d starve before I hit a rabbit on the move. She hits ‘em two out of three.”

“She hits a moving rabbit with a knife? Seriously?”

“Hell yeah.” Mateo laughs at my incredulous look.

“We keep her and Allegra apart. They don’t need to be teaching each other shit.”

I spend a pleasant hour with Mateo, and we finish with some fancy knife flips and spins. For the most part, they are not useful, except to intimidate someone or impress the hell out of them. They sure as hell are fun, though.

Chapter 23

*~* Allegra *~*

Sitting in Pres’ office, I look around at all the officers gathered here and give each one a smile. They all give me one of those things they do with their chin. They sort of poke their chin in the air. We do something similar in Italy, but we flick our fingers under our chin. For us, it means anything from ‘I’m not interested’ to ‘fook off,’ depending on the situation! I don’t think this is the same thing.

The old lady from the other day is here, too, which I find surprising. I didn’t think outsiders were welcome in club meetings, from my limited experience of these things. I was told to be here to explain Marisela’s part in Cottonwood’s attempt to get the ranch. I don’t see why I need to explain it. It’s not difficult to understand.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a problem. It seems the tentacles of Cottonwood Glades are longer than we anticipated. Mary has reached out to her contacts and believes, from their reactions, that they may well have been compromised. The chief couldn’t make it here right now, so we’re going to have a brainstorming session without him and see what alternatives to federal involvement we can come up with. Let’s do it in an orderly fashion and with as little cussing and killing as we can.” He nods at me and Mary as he says this.

“You can cuss as much as you want for me, I don’t give a fook, and if we have to kill some people to save a town? They should have stayed the fook away.” I give a look that I hope shows my defiance for Cottonwood Glades and its thugs.

“Same here. I’ll echo those sentiments. Although I don’t generally use profanities myself, if you wish to, you go the fuck ahead.” Mary looks around the room, and I see the men grinning at her. She continues, “I suggest we try to hit them in their pockets. If we can disrupt their cash flow, or better still, steal their banked finances, we might be able to encourage their ‘backers’ to do our dirty work. I understand that’s what happened to the last asshole that tried to criminalize our town?”

“Who do…” Pres begins to say something, but Mary gives him a look that shuts him up.

“Oh please. Don’t insult my intelligence. You weren’t the only ones having trouble with Stephan Haroldson. His business associates had links to my dead husband. It wasn’t difficult to let them know he was jeopardizing their interests.”

The energy in the room shifts and in a good way. It seems they all know something I don’t, but I’m good with that.

“We have a more immediate problem, Pres.” Bull looks up from a laptop he has on his knees. “Someone has changed the ownership of the land by the pet crem. On the land register, we no longer own that parcel. It was ours yesterday, but not today. I’ve been watching for this.”

“If this has been done, it had to have been done at the county offices, yeah? Take Cannon and Hellion, he’s always hanging around here these days. Get over there and stop whatever it is they’re doing.”

“I’ll need Banks, too. He dealt with the purchase of the crem and its adjoining land.” Bull looks at Bank and nods toward the door.

There is some murmuring from the side of the room, and everyone looks around. Mary is on her phone and points to Bull. “Wait a moment, young man.” She goes back to her phone conversation, and after a few more mutterings she hangs up. “No need to rush over there. Check your details again in a few minutes. Everything should revert back to normal.” We all look at her, waiting for an explanation.

“What? You don’t think my husband built his business empire without considerable help from yours truly, do you? He was good at manipulation and bullying, other than that he was a waste of fresh air. He couldn’t take care of the financial side of things to save his life. He kept hiring people he thought were his friends, and as fast as he hired them, I fired them. He promised them exorbitant salaries and benefits, and they hadn’t got a job title or description. I soon put a stop to it, I can tell you. Anyway, back to the issue at hand. What were we talking about?” Mary looks directly at me and I have to smile.

“Apparently you have just reversed a land grab attempt on club land, which I’m sure they are all very grateful for.” I watch as she remembers the conversation.

“Ah, yes. I would suggest, however, that someone go over there and take a moment to watch. If they think they now own that plot, they’ll move quickly and try to build or improve the land to cement their claim.”

“Good thinking, Mary. Cannon, take Hellion and a couple of others. Let’s play it safe.” Pres looks around the room as if searching for someone. “Mary, who did you speak to at the county land registry?”

“Franklin Harrison. He’s a slimy so-and-so who’d sell his own mother for a dime. He was on my husband's payroll for years. I don’t know how the man is still working in that same job after all these years. He must be over sixty by now. With the money he’s had from all the dodgy dealings he’s been involved in, he must be worth a fortune.”

“Bull, take Bank and have words with this Franklin character. Encourage him to retire somewhere warm and very, very, very far away. In the meantime, how do we hit them in their pockets? We can’t just rob their bank and walk away with their money. If they found out it was us, they would most definitely want our blood.”

“We need a scapegoat. A patsy, as my husband used to say. Someone to take the fall, take the hit. A fall guy, somebody to take the rap. Someone we can leave holding the bag while we stay clean and untouched.” Mary seems to all the guys to be rambling, but I see where she’s going with this.

“A perfect pasty would be Brandon Smiles, but how do we turn him into a pasty?” I mutter more to myself than to the room.