Chapter 4

Tav

B y the time I quickly freshen up after mine and Tank's very successful run and step into the common room, the Tombs have arrived. It's only been a matter of months that Chewy has been Rhodie's Ol Lady and yet I can't remember where the hell we hung out before we all became fixtures around the clubhouse. Shit, Pops is here all the time pissing people off and no one seems to mind. That's one reason I wanted to join, the ease with which these men accepted my family. I mean, shit, they're a lot.

"Hey man, I've got this. Go do what you gotta do, brother." I hold my fist out to Takoda and move up behind the bar, ignoring my family for the interim. I have a job to do and I know they'll step up to give me shit sooner or later, anyway.

"Thanks man," he says, bumping my fist with his before moving aside.

"Anything I need to know?"

"Yeah, there's a shit ton of ginger ale in the fridge for the pregnant women. Oh, and Pops has been barred from cornhole."

"What the fuck? It's only been here for two days! How the hell did he get banned so quickly?"

Takoda shrugs his broad shoulders. He's shorter than a lot of the brothers, but he's built like a brick shithouse. "I think he was hustling the brothers again. How the hell is he good at every game he plays?"

"The Devil is always good at everything he plays. It helps him steal souls," Judge says drily, stepping up to the bar.

Tank and Judge run the club's towing business, Devil's Big Tow. He's big and bald and even quieter than Tank.

"Hey! That's my grandpa you're talking about! He's not the devil. He's probably just a henchman or something,"

Judge smirks at my comeback and gives me a chin tip when I slide his beer to him. "Prospect," he says as before he wanders off.

"I'll leave you to it. I'm off to the gym to get kicked in the nuts by Remy," Takoda says with a wince before giving me a slap on the shoulder and heading off.

A few months back, Remy came to the clubhouse to learn how to hack from Wire and my sister. In the end she fell in love with her online best friend, became an Ol Lady, ditched her job as a librarian and now helps run self-defense classes at the Club's new gym. Dex, who left Death Riders with Savage, runs the gym. Us prospects have to do shifts there now and then. I like it; I like watching the kids who have it rough gain confidence in themselves.

I get to work cleaning the bartop and I can feel I'm being descended upon by my relatives. I know this. I have a sixth sense for this stuff. Being the youngest brother, you gain extra senses, especially the ones that tell you that your brothers are going to give you shit.

"Little brother, I never took you for a catcher," Jules' ugly face smirks at me as I glare at him.

"Pops!" I say in not quite a whiney voice. But it's borderline.

"Hey kid, you can't blame me. When you find out your grandson may have a very close relationship with his MC sponsor, you tell everyone. I can't keep that shit to myself," Pops says in the innocent voice he uses when he's causing shit.

"Well, I'll have you all know that I am not, nor have I ever been, homosexual. Even though there is absolutely nothing wrong with people being attracted to the same sex," I tell Jules and Pops, and then repeat myself when Gus, Ana, and Chewy join the group.

"Ah, cool, thanks for that, Tav. Now that that's out of the way, can you please ginger ale me and Nat?" Ana asks, smiling up at me.

"Of course I can, my very favorite family member," I answer her and get busy.

"I have no idea what he's on about. Does anyone else know?" Chewy asks no one in particular.

"I want to know why the hell you're all here and not at work. Tav, you're fine, but what about the rest of you fuckers? You know the office closes at 5pm, right?" Gus grumbles.

We all look at the Jim Beam themed clock behind the bar and see that it's not even 4pm.

"I came to collect Pops," Jules answers, quick off the mark.

"I came because I was horny," Dayz answers.

"Rhodie doesn't finish work til 5," Gus points out.

"Oh, and I had something I was working on in the Rev Room," she answers, her eyes huge, staring right at Gus, which means she is up to no good. It's Dayz's only tell when she has a secret. Instead of avoiding eye contact like a normal person, she maintains it.

"Tuesday, what are you up to?"

"Nothing,"

"I'll tell Marx," Gus goads.

"Tell Marx what?"

"Ah shit," Dayz mumbles under her breath, before turning to stare at Marx.

"Why the hell are you looking at me like that?"

"No reason, bestie," she answers in her slightly monotone voice, making the sustained eye contact even odder.

"Chewy, tell me right the fuck now what you're up to." He frowns down at her and again I marvel at how fucking oblivious she is to things. Any other person in the clubhouse would have shit themselves if they were the target of that look.

"I may have accidentally bought too much of something online. But I'm taking care of it," she says really quickly on a single breath, still staring up at Marx.

"What did you buy?"

"Yeah, kid, what did you buy? Something for the Rev Room? Have you had a new idea?" Pops asks, abandoning the beer I handed him and excitedly standing in front of his granddaughter, inserting himself between Dayz and Marx. The Pres moves him to the side so he can keep eyeballing my sister.

"Wellll, it wasn't originally for the Rev Room. I had a cool idea for little party favors for my friends cos the girl gang will throw baby showers for the preggos at some stage-"

"Did she just refer to me and Nat as preggos?" Ana asks, knowing full well Dayz did.

"- so I may have ordered some fun penis favors."

"Wait, why would you hand out penis favors at a baby shower?" Rider asks out of nowhere. That's when I look up and, as usual, see the club brothers gathered for another Chewy Show.

"Well, the babies could have penises," Chewy answers, as if that makes sense. I mean, it kinda does. The babies could be born with dicks.

"OK, so you have penis favors. What's the issue?" Marx gruffly asks.

Chewy looks around the building, as if the framing is incredibly interesting.

"Chewy!" Marx barks.

"OK, OK, sheesh. Cool your jets, big guy, you'll give yourself a heart attack."

"What. Did. You. Do?"

"I accidentally ordered the wrong size and have been delivered 100 anatomically correct silicone dicks," she says with a completely straight face.

"That's a lot of party favors, girl," Nat says with a laugh.

"Wait, when you say anatomically correct…" Rider starts off,

"Yes, they are all average sized male dildos in every ethnicity you can think of. I have white dongs, black dongs - they're larger, of course, I have-"

"Enough! You need to get rid of them. I do not want, or need, 100 human-sized dicks all over my compound Chewy! Sort it out!" Marx says before taking a breath, closing his eyes and shaking his head. He opens his mouth, closes it, and then heads into his office.

"You know, I will never get used to how this place works," Dex says, before taking a swig of his beer.

"Me neither. Everyone looks so badass, and then the scary little lady orders 100 dildos," Flack, Remy's father, adds.

The Chewy Show always draws a crowd, especially with the brothers all returning home from work. The best part is no one teases her about it. They just accept that weird shit happens when Chewy is involved.

"Why the fuck is everyone crowded around my girl?" Rhodie barks as he pushes Fox and Nitro out of the way, trying to get to his Ol Lady.

"Rhodie!" she squeals before jumping up and kissing him like he's been away at war, essentially grossing everyone out. She pulls her lips off him, making a gross wet sound that makes me want to barf.

"My package arrived today, but it was incorrect. I have 100 dicks in the Rev Room. Want to help me with them?"

Rhodie pulls back, looking slightly concerned, "Will any of them go near my ass?"

"Fuck's sake, why are they like this?" I hear grumbled from somewhere in the crowd. I think it was Sniper.

"No! Of course not. I'll be sending most of them back. But I might keep a couple in the Rev Room for when we have guests," she says, wiggling her brows up and down.

"No guests, Chewy!" Marx's voice yells from his office. "This is a no torture, no murder zone til we get that Officer Martin fucker off our asses!"

"I really don't feel like rubber dongs are torture," Chewy grumbles under her breath.

"Depends how you use them. Some of them are quite heavy. I bet you could bludgeon someone with one of those things." Nat offers, everyone slowly turning to look at her. "What?" she asks, all innocent like.

"I like the way you think! Baby, put me down. One of you preggos go get Remy and meet me out in the Rev Room. We have girl shit to do." Chewy clicks her fingers and Rhodie lets her slide down his body while Ana and Nat roll their eyes and then waddle their way down the hall to get the other girl gang member.

"I remember when we didn't have any women in the clubhouse. Things were a lot simpler back then," Rider remarks sadly, shaking his head.

"What the hell are you on about? Before them, we had the club girls," Fox points out.

"They don't count. They did whatever we wanted them to do. These ones don't at all. If you ask them to do something, they go all wild on you and threaten your balls," Rider says with a shudder.

The brothers all grumble in agreement, dispersing to whatever it was they were doing before Chewy announced her shipment of dicks. I see Pops edging his way to the cornhole board before Tank and Judge silently shake their heads at him. His shoulders slump a little before his head snaps up, and so do both middle fingers.

Laughing to myself, I go back to checking to make sure all the brothers' drinks are topped up, Savage indicating the need for a refill.

"I saw what your woman did to her cousin, you know," he says, taking a long draw of his beer.

"Yeah? What of it?" I answer in a measured voice. I know I'm meant to respect him, given I'm a prospect and all, but I won't have him talk bad about Blanche.

He studies my face a moment before smirking. "She'll fit in well with the rest of the girl gang. If you can convince her to be your girl, of course." The smug bastard winks at me before wandering off to join Sniper and Flack at the pool table.

After bar duty finishes, I step out into the parking lot stretching my arms overhead. Monday bar duty always finishes early, the brothers liking to turn in early for work the next day. We may be bikers, but we all have jobs and businesses that need to be run.

I'm too wired to turn in just yet. Tomorrow I need to see Blanche and break it to her that I claimed her. It's going to take all the negotiation skills I have to leave her place with my balls intact, so I'm going to need to come up with a plan. Which means I need some time to empty my mind.

Striding over to my bike, one I bought in the early days of Tombs Security, I straddle her and sink into the leather. She's a classic Harley softail, and I only got her because I had seen some guys riding in a group through downtown Rose Grove and thought they looked so fucking cool. As a witness on the sidewalk watching them all travel as one, it was awe-inspiring. Since I've been prospecting I've been on short runs with a brother or two, mainly doing business stuff, dropping off payroll, that sort of thing, but I know that Flack is organizing a Poker Run to raise funds for the local library so the whole club will ride as one, and I can't wait.

Starting my girl, I let the vibrations roll through my body before shaking out my arms, gripping my handles and rolling toward the main gates. Jimmy is on gate duty and I tip my chin at him as I get closer. The sound of the bike rumbling gets exponentially louder, and as I look to my left, Tank gives me a single nod before he roars out of the gates, me hot on his heels. All the worries of how I'm going to break it to Blanche that I claimed her melt away as the road stretches out before me.

Blanche

Dropping into a seat at the reasonably tidy dining table, I flip open the top of my laptop and wait for it to wake up. My quick trip to Louisiana put me a little behind, but seeing the boys and rescuing Lovely and Baby Blanche made it all worth it. Now to get back to my actual job, catching cheaters.

I have six active cases at the moment, all of them medium ugly men with varying degrees of hair loss and bellies. It will never cease to amaze me how married middle-aged men will jump into the first young, gold digging vagina that shows them any attention while their much hotter wives are working, looking after the home and the kids. Case in point, Wayne Cross; the supermarket manager who is unimaginatively having an affair with Louise, the much younger check out operator. Why? I have no idea, but I know it's not for his looks. I shudder to myself as I watch him on the home camera his wife Lacey asked me to set up.

Most cheaters book a seedy motel room. Not Wayne. He's cheap, so he brings her to the house he shares with his wife and bangs her in the walk-in closet. I watch as they make their way to the bedroom, and I swear I see the bored look on Louise's face as he mauls her neck.

The doorbell rings at the same time my phone vibrates with the incoming video. Glancing at the screen, my stomach flutters a little when I notice that my unannounced visitor is the man that has plagued my dreams for months now. Tav Tombs. Standing in my doorway. Judging by his outfit, he must have been in the office today. I know that some days he works at the MC compound. On those days he wears his leather cut. Not today, though. Sure, the camera distorts him a little, but there is no denying his broad shoulders in his t-shirt with the Tombs Security logo on the front. His slim waist tapering down the thick thighs encased in tactical pants. If I zoom in and squint, I can almost see the large bulge between those thick thighs.

The doorbell sounds again, snapping me out of my ogling. Get it together Blanche! Standing, I shake out my hands, arms and legs, and make my way to the door. Swinging it open, I'm met with Tav frowning at me.

"What's with the face?"

"Why did you open the door?"

What? Tipping my head at him, my brows pull down in a mirror of his own face. "You rang the bell. I opened the door. It's kinda how this thing works."

"You should have spoken to me through the camera. Make sure that it really was me."

"Why would I do that when I saw it was you?"

"But how could you be sure it was me?" He presses hands out as if trying to get me to see his point.

"Tav, I know what you look like. From all angles and in all positions."

A small smile grows on his lips and he runs his gaze up and down my body. My nipples pucker, and I know I'm in dangerous territory. It's the only territory I'm ever in when it comes to this man. The slight clenching in my underwear reminds me I'm not doing this right now. No men. I need to concentrate on my kids, my job and Eden's Keep.

"That you have, Pixie," he answers me, his voice husky before he coughs to clear it. "I'm not here for that. I just wanted to make sure you're all good."

So. Goddamn. Thoughtful. I may not want a man, but I enjoy Tav's company, which is why I invite him in. His large body follows me down my hall into my open-plan kitchen dining.

"Take a seat and you can let me know how the kids went the other night. Oh, and don't touch Elio's stuff, he's teaching us to play a game he made up," I point where I want him to sit, away from the different Lego pieces Elio has in some type of grid pattern and away from my laptop and files. I need to keep client privilege and all that jazz. Once my investigation is over and his wife has taken him to the cleaners, I'll then yell it from the rooftops if anyone asks my opinion on Wayne Cross. But until then, it's a no-go zone.

"The kids were fine. The little ones were their usual selves. Niko and Sage were a little more wary, but that makes sense because of their age and what you do." He nods at me, not in the least concerned about what I do. "Niko, of course, was protective of you, and um, I don't think he's happy with me."

I suck in a breath and stare at Tav who is trying very hard to avoid eye contact. "What. Happened?" I don't want to come out and ask what he did, because I know my son, and no matter how responsible and grown up he can be, he's also 17 years old and can be a bit of an ass hat.

Before Tav can answer the door handle rattles and then little feet pound on the wooden floor until they hit where I'm sitting.

"Tav!" Cove yells as she launches herself into his arms, where he catches her. Of course.

Elio follows close behind, choosing to climb onto the lap that Cove isn't sitting on, quietly saying his hello.

"You know guys, Tav isn't a climbing frame," I say drily as I stand to get their afternoon snack prepared. If I don't feed them a little something now, they will absolutely riot later.

"They're fine, Pixie. We're old buddies, huh guys?"

They both nod enthusiastically and then talk over each other to tell him what they did at school today. I watch their interaction as I peel, core, and quarter apples for them. They've been like this with Tav from the very first moment they met him. There's just something … easy about the man. I can't imagine anyone not liking him. Women included.

The number of women I'd overhear at the conference talking about how hot he was and how they had tried to get his number and he would rebuff them gently was in the tens. Which is loads for a security conference given most of the people there are of the male variety. Anyway, tens of beautiful women and to think he ended up with me that night is crazy. So crazy, in fact, that even before I set out on this journey to rid the earth of the Landry cult, I had tried to cut it off. Tav was not convinced. He's spent every day since that morning after our tryst wishing me a good morning and a good night. He brings me little things that he says reminds him of me and if I'm honest with myself, I was well on my way to getting rid of my "No relationships" rule. Then my father fell ill. I thought I had more time to put my plan into place. I want him to know that it's me dismantling his dream. I want him alive while I kill the evil, one by one, leaving him for last.

"Mom? Did you hear?" Cove's sweet voice asks, and I don't have the heart to tell her I wasn't really listening.

"What was that, baby?"

"Can Tav stay for dinner?" She pleads, her eyes huge in her face, her pigtails wonky from her day at kindergarten.

Looking at her brother, I notice he's still impeccably dressed. It's hard to believe they are the same age. Elio spends all day in the same kindergarten class as his sister and somehow gets nowhere near as messy.

"Baby, I haven't even decided what we're having," I stand at the counter, paring knife in hand as I try to think what we have in the fridge and pantry to whip up.

"Pixie, let me take care of this. You've had a busy 48 hours. I know that as soon as you got home from your trip, you got straight back into work and mom mode. Let me take care of you." He smiles gently at me, then the kids as they cheer in his arms.

Shit. Every time he does things like this, that little wall around my heart gets weaker and weaker.

He wraps one strong arm around both kids on his lap and leans slightly, pulling his phone from his pocket, scowling at it before sliding his thumb over the screen and putting it to his ear.

"Yo?….It's Tuesday. We don't eat dinner together on Tuesday." his eyes flick to mine before he rolls them. I wave my hands trying to get his attention, whispering that if he has dinner plans it's OK. "Well, I have people, so you better put out extra settings………Yup, yup, you got it…..Kbye,"

"Tav! You better not have pressured your family into having us at family dinner! I can order in perfectly fine you know. I don't need you coming in here bossing -"

"Pixie. It's OK. My family wants to meet you, and I want you to meet them. Meet the people that kept the kids safe. Well, some of them."

"You're sure?"

"Um, I think so." his dark brow furrows and his perfect white teeth bite down on his plump bottom lip.

"Taaaav?"

"OK. Maybe I didn't think it through. My family is nuts. Sometimes not in a good way, either."

"I like Chewy. She said it's OK to not like people," Elio says in his soft voice. I look at Tav in question.

"My sister is on the spectrum. So, she's special? Different?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"No clue. Let's just say she's unique. But lovable. And very excited to see Elio again." Tav smiles down at my youngest son before ruffling his hair.

Elio struggles with people, so knowing that two from the same family have him feeling comfortable and happy helps me make my decision.

"OK. I'll let the big kids know. Looks like we're going to dinner," Blowing out a breath, I roll my eyes as all three raise their hands in victory and cheer.