Ash: Devil's Crucifix MC (44 page)

Chapter 21

Even though the start of the semester was several weeks off, both of them bought the books for all of their classes and spent most of their afternoons in deep study. They wanted to finish their bachelor's degrees strong, so that getting into the master's program wouldn't be a hassle.

The first week of study was horrible for Shayla. Her mind wandered, her focus was non-existent, and her endurance was shit. Sydney was having the same problems.

"When was the last time we actually read something? I mean, 
read 
it, not just glossed over it?" she pointed out to Sydney.

"So, you don't think we blew our brains out then?" Sydney asked.

"No, I just think that the level of study we're use to, is a level you reach through exercise. We don't have blown brains, we have fat brains," she said with a teasing smile.

"Speaking of fat, we need to hit the gym too," Sydney told her, returning to her book.

"Wha
t‽
"

"Well, y'know. The last few times I've tribbed your ass, it hasn't been as tight," Sydney said casually.

"Oh you bitch!" Shayla screamed and attacked Sydney on the couch.

"I was kidding!" Sydney howled with mirth, as Shayla plowed into her.

She still purchased memberships for a local gym, and when neither of them were looking, she gave her ass a slap in front of the mirror to see if she's flabby at all. If Neil ever joked with her like that, she knew she'd need therapy. She had no idea how to take someone she loved telling her she had a fat ass, in stride. She just didn't have the tools.

Two weeks later, she sat on the couch, studying with the old stamina, a solid rock for an ass, and well defined thighs. She turns a lot of heads at the lesbian night clubs, but so does Sydney.

Lesbians, she decided, were aggressively rude. Far worse than the Miami men. Sydney would no more than leave the table to go get them fresh drinks when some dike would plop down and start chatting her up. She tells the bitch that she's with someone, and points at her ring, "Seriously with someone," — only to get a vacant look like, it didn't matter, the dike was going to fuck her anyway.

Twice Brenda, the door woman, had to break Sydney away from some large, aggressive dike.

While her stamina was back, her retention wasn't. She required more notes than she recalled having to take before their two year break. After reading through a chapter, she would go through the study questions at the end and find she hardly remembered a thing about what she just read. She use to keep her books pristine, but now she was using several different colors of highlighter and making notes in the margins, as well as using a notebook for further notes.

After showering together, Neil and Sydney came down stairs, both of them going for the office rooms; Neil to get back to his mixing and Sydney to grab her books. Sydney laid out a few lines on the coffee table mirror and offered them to her.

"I had two upstairs," Shayla said absently.

Sydney shrugged and did two of the lines, and then took the mirror into Neil. When she came out Sydney looked her over.

"Y'know, we need to figure out a way of keeping you in lingerie. That bikini top just teases me."

"You say the sweetest things lover," Shayla told her, and then accepted a kiss.

"What we need to do is to figure out a way to get Neil to wear a thong around the house," Shayla added.

"Shit," Sydney laughed. "We'd never get any studying done."

After three hours of study, Sydney looked over at her and said, "Want to take a break?"

She looked up from her notes, frustrated with her level of retention and nodded, "Sure."

What Sydney meant by 
break,
 was a make-out session on the couch, so she set her book aside and came over to lay down with her. Her bikini top didn't last long and her shorts only lasted a little longer. Naked she got Sydney out of her tank-top and boxers.

Sydney asked her, "Does it bother you, how much I want you? Physically I mean?"

"No," she told her lover. "Why should it?"

"I don't know. Just sometimes I feel like maybe it's too much. Like you might feel that I just want you for sex."

"You better want me for sex. I'm not working my ass off in the gym every day so you can ignore me," she teased, and then added more seriously, "No Sydney. Your raging libido doesn't bother me at all. In fact I love it, just like I love you."

"It's just that I feel I want you more than Neil does sometimes. Like I'm being greedy," Sydney told her. "And your ass does look incredibly nice by the way."

"Thank you. So does yours," she accepted. "Neil doesn't do a lot of making-out, or cuddling. You do. So, yes, you spend much more time physically with me than Neil does, but I'm a happy woman."

"You'll tell me if it gets to be too much, right?" Sydney asked.

"No."

"Why?"

"Because you might stop," Shayla told her.

They made-out for a while longer. Sydney felt like she was in a much better mood, and then they got up to make lunch. Dressed again, they made roast beef sandwiches and called Neil out to eat. He came out, thanked them, and took his plate right back into the studio with him.

"Must be on a roll," Sydney offered.

"Well, it can't be us, we just showered," she told her.

They were cleaning up when Shayla's phone rang. Looking at the ID she found it was Anton calling. She answered it on speaker phone.

"Unexpected," she said.

"Didn't think I would just forget did you?" Anton said.

"I always expect people to be smarter than they are. It's a fallacy of mine. What do you want?"

"To make you a deal," Anton told her.

"Not interested. You kill people you owe money to, you shoot at little girls. Your credit is no good here," she answered.

"Look, I know where you are now. So, if you start selling again, and do at least six a week, I won't kill Neil. Alright? You have twenty-four hours, and then all bets are off. Bye," Anton said, and broke the connection.

Sydney looked up at her, and asked, "Think he knows?"

"All of our mail goes to the post office box. We haven't been over to the apartment since we left. No reason to. This place isn't in our names, it's in our new names, Jackson, and Neil isn't on the papers. Not yet anyway. I was going to do that, but decided against it for this exact reason. We haven't given anyone our new address," she reasoned.

"What about those guys who come over every once in a while to talk with Neil?" Sydney asked.

"If he didn't trust them, he wouldn't have them over," she said.

"True, but he wouldn't be the first person to trust someone who betrayed him," Sydney pointed out.

"So, what are you saying? You think we should go back? Sell for someone who will probably kill us as soon as we poke our heads out?" she asked calmly.

Sydney frowned, "Yeah, that could be true as well, and more likely than him finding us."

"Look," she explained, "the bottom line is, he can't be trusted. If we go back, he has all the cards. He can stiff us on quality and quantity and what are we going to do about it? Complain? He'll just laugh in our faces and soon we'll be sucking his cock, and getting fucked in the ass. If we are going to deal again, it won't be for him — and Neal and you are the only ones who get to fuck me in the ass."

"So, what do we do?" Sydney asked.

She looked down that the phone and then back at Sydney and said, "We tell Neil about the call, and then you have twenty-four hours to teach me how to fire a gun. That's what we do. After that, we need to give Anton a bigger problem to worry about."

Sydney followed her into the studio where they waited until Neil acknowledged them and found a place where he felt like he could pause. He saved his work and then gave them his full attention.

Shayla told him about the call, and the threat, and what they had discussed already. Then she outlined a plan to give Anton something serious to worry about, which would take his attention off them.

Neil listened closely, in that way he had of making her feel like she was the only important thing in his life. It felt good to have him pay that close attention to what she had to say.

Sydney had a few things to say about the plan she just outlined and they talked between themselves for a while regarding consequences if they were caught, by either the police or the Knights. After that, they both waited for Neil to say something — anything, since he had been quite the whole time.

"Well?" she finally prodded.

"First, he doesn't know where you are. He has no patience, and would have shown up, not called," Neil started. "Second, you're probably right, he's hoping you'll pop up so he can either kill you or exploit you, and then kill you. Third, don't make the mistake of underestimating him. He didn't become president of the Knights by being stupid or weak. He's tough, tenacious and crafty if not out-right intelligent."

Neil got up and stretched his back, "As for your idea, it would be effective, and could even result in a vote of no confidence being called, and passed. It would be the first time in club history that such a thing was done — which means it would make him mad as hell and the first chance he got he would focus every resource available to him on finding you and killing you — well, us. That's not to say it shouldn't be done, just putting the danger into perspective. But, I need to give it some thought, because it's not just going to affect him. It's going to hurt the whole club, and it's treason."

"What about just killing him?" she asked.

Neil looked at his computer monitor, and then said, "That's an option, except I'm not a murderer. Not yet anyway. So far, I've only killed in self-defense and even then, the actual death of the person wasn't the primary goal of my actions — just stopping them from killing me would have been just fine."

"Even those Imperial Gangsters who jumped you?" she asked.

"As far as I know, none of them died. They all made it to the hospital, but maybe one or two of them died there. I don't know. I'm not that concerned," he admitted.

"Oh. Is that why you
 missed
, when you shot Anton at the apartment? You don't feel the need to kill?" she asked.

"Maybe. I usually hit what I'm aiming at. Looking back at it, I don't consider threatening me to be a capital offense. So, maybe. Yes," he mused.

She nodded to this and paced a little, saying "Well, I think he proved that he's serious, and a lethal threat when he decided to gun you down with your two sisters on the back of your trike. He may have thought it was me and Sydney, but does that matter? He pulled out his gun, chased you, cornered you and took several shots at you, with no regard for where he was at, witnesses, other possible victims of his actions, nothing. So, we need to do something. Waiting for him to make the next move is foolish. We can't be defensive any more. We've moved, you've retired, we quit dealing, we've gone off the grid, we've done everything we can except move out of state, to give him his space and the opportunity to leave us the fuck alone. He's not going to do that. So, we need to deal with him in a direct and aggressive manner. My plan doesn't involve killing him, or endangering anyone else. Yes, I agree, it will hurt the club, but it won't kill anyone, or get anyone else arrested, and the club will recover."

Neil stood and put his hands on his hips and looked at the floor for several beats, and then nodded his head, saying, "I agree, but I still need some time to think it through. Is that alright?"