THRUST

Chapter Ten

Jake POV: This picks up the morning after he and Bella had an "office meeting"

With all the heat lately, we haven't been sleeping at The Clubhouse, but last night, we all crashed here so that we can get to business first thing this morning.

Around the table we all sit, tired as fuck, sick of this heat, and sick of constantly looking over our shoulders. Briggs sits to my right, Chaz on my left and across the table, Seth, Embry, and Quil are pulling up chairs. I rub my eyes and start in my normal fashion.

"Pete got pinched around three am," I point across the table and continue, "I'm gonna need you three to handle that."

"What are we gonna do about Salizar?" Briggs asks.

"I'm still workin' on that. I've got eyes and ears out for right now, we'll get together later tonight or tomorrow on that one." Briggs looks uneasy about leaving Sal free to roam but I can't make any moves until I know for sure that we won't be tailed.

We go over the most important tasks, the ones that need immediate attention and when most of the heavy issues are covered I wave the three across the table off.

"See you guys back here later, let me know how it goes."

Once the door is closed behind them, me, Chaz and Briggs go over the situation with Chavez and the delivery up coast this afternoon.

After we've done a walk through of the events, Briggs speaks up in his normal fashion, "I got this," offering to handle the drop off.

When shit gets heavy and the heat is at it's highest temp, Briggs is always the one to step up.

"Alright," I slap my hand flat to the table,"Briggs is set for the drop off around one, Chaz is handling the books and I'll be putting Chavez on the pad tonight. Let's break."

We separate, each of us off to our duties, and I hang back to take care of some stuff around the bar.

I think about Bella for a minute, and I want to kick myself for letting her leave without getting her number. She took me by surprise last night, sitting at that bar, being beautiful. There's a familiarity about her that I can't quite place.

As I make my way out of the room, I make a mental note to get in touch with Alice about her.

I walk the long hall through the compound, passing through the warehouse and into the front.

Today is no different than any other day at The Clubhouse, except the heat. This new lady Sheriff is trying to rack my balls any way she can, so we've had to change things around a bit, but other than that... business as usual.

When I press my fist to the door it swings open, and I see Ginger and Katie are handling the bar. It looks like they've got everything ready.

I take the bag of cash and coins to Ginger to put in the register and the door opens.

Right on time.

"Look what the cash dragged in," Ginger speaks, cutting a jealous eye at the girl coming in the door and continues stocking the beers.

Katie looks up, but goes right back to inventory.

The least of my worries are the bullshit cat fights that go on around here all day long with the girls. There's this pecking order they establish among themselves and though it's unspoken to all of them and to us as well... it's crystal clear who's at the top and who's at the bottom.

I've never laid a hand, much less my mouth on any of my girls, but if I were to go that route, it would be with Irena.

She's just come in to get her check and she looks nice, wrapped in a skin tight dress. It shows off her cleavage, and her long legs. Her lips are a deep red and her shiny blonde hair is so platinum it almost shines silver, she looks good.