"She give you any trouble? Try to drag you to the mall for a quickie shoe purchase?"

Brian smiled lightly, "Not at all and no signs of any problems on the horizon either. I'm sure that will change in the morning when the smoke clears around the outriders activities tonight, though."

"Yeah," Cole agreed, "I got the impression from Rat that they are going to stir this pot up and shoot up the town."

"In so many words, those were the orders. There are a couple of party dens they are going to hit and a couple of red-light houses, as well. They aren't hitting Gabriel directly, though."

"You sound concerned about that," Cole noted as he put a twenty on the bar and signaled that Hank should keep the change.

Brian made a gesture of agreement, "I am. If you are going to start a war, don't flirt around with it. Kick them in the nuts, put a bullet in the brain, and go home. This tactic tonight only ups the scale of combat, which Gabriel probably assessed as minor. He'll assess it much differently in the morning."

"I've heard that tactical advice before, from trusted and experienced sources," Cole agreed, then added "I believe what Jim's thinking is, if we actually show that we are committed to action and impress Gabriel with the fact that we aren't putting up with his crap anymore, then he'll wise up and drop this shit -- not only with Nicole, but the other crap he's been pulling. If it works, then what the outriders achieve tonight will be all the violence that happens."

Brian looked unimpressed and ordered a beer. When he turned back around to Cole, he said, "First off, I'm behind Jim. Whether I agree or not, I'm in. That said, you can't impress an idiot. I've only met Gabe a couple of times. He's good at business and brilliant at finding talent and promoting for new clients. His call girl service is the best in the city, but since his promotional skills are so high, it really doesn't matter if it is or not. By reputation, it is, which in areas of business such as his, where real evaluations and comparisons can't be made, reputation is reality. He's also vicious and protective of his territory, and makes powerful friends. However, his idea of self-worth is blatantly delusional; it is clinical. Medication is definitely required. He's insane and I mean that literally. He won't be impressed with the action; he'll be furious that we dared to act, at which time, he'll overreact – and, God, I hope I'm not right about that. In his mind, having Nicole back is not only what he wants, but it is also his God-given right. When you threaten a man like him, you have to be ready to put him down a second later."

Cole thought about what he knew of Gabriel Morelli, which was only what he heard from others. He never met the man; his only contact with that group had been Antonio and then Nicole. Brian had also said earlier that Antonio was the one who kept Gabriel in check and the only one who could. With Antonio dead, the Horsemen might discover just how crazy Gabriel really is. He glanced at Nicole, who had the look of agreement on her face.

Nicole looked up to meet his eyes, "Brian is right. Gabriel simply doesn't believe that he can be wrong or that his little empire can be taken down. These kinds of failure thoughts simply don't register in his mind. He'll be furious at the audacity of what the riders do, not the damage. He literally has no doubt that he can not only engage in a war with you, but he's obviously going to win the war. The first thing he's going to do in the morning is begin making calls and gathering resources. Then he's going to hit the Horsemen. He'll hit you hard and publicly. He'll want the world to know that he doesn't take shit, even from a group like the Horsemen."

Cole downed his shot and then took a long drink from his beer. "God, I hope you two are wrong, but my gut tells me differently. Either way, I've just passed exhausted, which I was at when I got home this evening and I'm now in a new and unexplored fun park of total depletion." Then to Nicole he added, "I think I need a rain check on the monkey-sex."

She smiled and leaned into him, "Monkey-sex can wait. Well, it can wait until morning anyway. Let's get you to bed."

"I'm in the room next door, to the East. If you two decide to hit breakfast before the noon meeting with Jim, I'd like to join you."

"Sounds good. Let's plan on hitting Jacob's Diner at nine," Cole offered.

"Sound perfect," Brian agreed. "See you in the morning."

Cole's last conscious thoughts were on the prediction Nicole made, wondering what would be hard and public enough to attract Gabriel's attention as a target tomorrow. As he went through his inventory of Horsemen real estate, the one place that stood out was the club. It would take some serious balls to hit them there, but if Gabriel was seriously delusional, with a firm belief in his divine right to do as he pleased, it was the only place that made enough statement for the God of Pimps to hit. All of the other places – the strip clubs, the pawnshops, and liquor stores – were minor compared to the club across the street. Nicole was on her laptop, clicking keys. He listened to her for several more minutes, intending to call her to bed, but never made it that far. His weariness from the long ride and everything after washed over him.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Nicole finished her accounting and was both happy with the results and a little sad about them, too. Once she crawled into bed beside Cole, she put her plan out of her head and curled up beside him. If she was forced to admit it, the one thing she did enjoy about the call girl life was that she didn't have to sleep alone most of the time. Being alone in bed was miserably lonely to her.

Having Cole's muscular warm body next to her was so calming and soothing; it surpassed basking in a hot tub. For those long nights she was alone while he was running cocaine from the Chicago Harbor into the mid-west cities, she was not only worried about him, but alone with that worry in bed. Her sleep was fitful and she woke often in the dark by imagined noises and threats.

She had planned out his homecoming much differently than it turned out. It was amazing to her that Cole and Jim were risking so much for her. Maybe she should have left for New Orleans, but after playing the scenario in her head, she realized it wouldn't have changed anything. If Antonio would have found Cole home, without her, then the conversation would have quickly turned to torture and the pain wouldn't have ended until Cole was forced to tell them where she was. The moment he broke, Antonio would have killed him. Cole would have been caught flat-footed at the door with no chance against Antonio and Davis.

The bottom line was leaving Gabriel had no meaning if she couldn't be with Cole afterward. The only place she felt the safe, recuperating sense of belonging was as a child with her mother. When her stepfather came into their house, he ruined her safe refuge from the world. After a few years of his presence, being away from home felt safer than being in her own room. But now she had a new refuge and he was stronger than a house. Now, Gabriel wanted to take this from her. Another insane man was ruining her refuge. She couldn't let that happen.

When shit with her stepfather began, starting close to her fourteenth birthday, she was too young and too inexperienced to do anything about it; she had no means of fighting back. Mama had already shown that she wasn't a refuge against her stepdad. He ruled with his anger and his fist, and Mama couldn't fight back or leave him. Nicole spent many hours before sleep wondering why Mama didn't tell him to go away. It made no sense to her at all.