Man of Steel(20)

“I have a great idea, why don’t we get Holly a cute little ring of her own?”

Huh?

“That way she doesn’t feel left out.”

“You want me to buy my three year old daughter a diamond ring?”

“No silly, they make rings for little girls too you know. I just thought it would be fun and she can feel like part of what we’re doing today.”

“That might actually be a good idea.” This way we can undermine any sabotage Deanna might have in mind. She has been known in the past to pull some shady shit to try to make Holly hate Lily. I never want to go through that fucking headache again.

It wasn’t easy trying to convince your baby daughter that daddy loved her more than anything when someone else that she trusted had filled her head with bullshit. I’d had to put the brakes on my relationship with Lily for a few weeks that time. It was the first time I’d realized the lengths my ex would go to to get her way. After I’d convinced my little princess that no one was going to take daddy away I had had to work on smoothing that shit out. In the end it had backfired on her mother though, because their bond was now stronger than ever before.





A three-year old diamond shopping would put your ass in the poor house, just saying. She liked the big shiny ones, typical girl, and Lily wasn’t much better. Lucky for both their asses daddy came prepared with the black card or there would’ve been some embarrassed people walking around that store.

My places are doing well enough that I could afford to get my girl the ring she wanted. In fact we were doing better than I expected after the stories I’d heard about how long it takes a new business to be in the black. The money I was banking now made my cop’s pay look like child’s play even though as a detective and then later lieutenant that hadn’t been too shabby either.

But these days, the kind of money I made could cover the four and five carat rocks my girls were mooning over. I know this was going to be a problem for Deanna now too, and I was going to have to deal with her shit in the coming weeks until things settled down again. Every time she thought I was doing something for Lily that I hadn’t done for her during our marriage she loses her shit, which makes no sense to me whatsoever.

She never wanted for anything when she was with me, but she knows had we made it she would be able to live way above what she was now. The only reason she could afford to live where she did now was because of my daughter and she knows it.

You see we live in one of those states that says if a man or woman is caught fucking around on their spouse, then that spouse pretty much gets to clean their clock in the divorce, basically she’s ass out. You’d think with that shit hanging over her head not to mention the fact that I won sole custody of Holly that she’d straighten up and fly right, but no. Every once in a while she shows her ass and gets slapped down.





When my girls were through picking out their baubles and I’d fed them I ran them back home. Holly wanted to stay a little longer so I called her mom and dealt with her bullshit while I was on my way to a meet. Sid and Dwayne were on ice but that didn’t mean our jobs were done. One of the things you never see on the news or in the TV specials is the fact that these assholes have family and friends that believe in their innocence and are sometimes willing to go to great lengths to get them out of whatever jam they find themselves in.

With the court date just days away the heat was on. We had a list of his nearest and dearest and there were eyes on the few we thought might be trouble. So far no one had done anything to raise any flags but there were whispers about jailhouse talk. One of the best grapevines in the world could be found in prisons across the country. I don’t know how these fucks pulled that shit off, but more than once they’d proven to have more information than those of us on the outside. As a cop I’d pulled on that thread plenty, now as an MC leader I had other uses for it.

I run my crew like PD. I have a fugitive task force, a S.W.A.T. team and men and women in place who are trained to deal with victims of domestic violence and child abuse.

Each team has a lieutenant who reports back to me, because since we keep expanding that’s the best way to handle shit. Every OP is run like a well-oiled machine and there’s no room for fuck-ups. If shit goes south, which it seldom does, and I have the need for protection for my boys, I call in Jake.





Deke, D’angelo, Stryder, and their boys Marcel and Nate were waiting for me at the clubhouse. The house was more like a compound with a few buildings scattered here and there. There was a safe house for those severe cases when we were dealing with an especially vicious asshole who was set on total destruction.