The Killing Ride

by Michelle, Christine

  “Shit!” Sandman hissed out. He knew what that meant too. Bypassing the president of the clubhouse was a pretty big fucking deal.

  “Might be time to finally make that move on up the ranks,” I mentioned.

  “Yeah,” he said as he slicked his hair back out of his face. “Missed the mark not taking Ghost up on the Georgia Chapter.”

  I grinned at him. “I heard about you pining for Angel Girl.”

  “That woman is smokin’ hot. She has these turquoise eyes and mixed with her dark hair and all that attitude…” he huffed out a deep groan. “Man, fucking Sweet is one lucky asshole.”

  “Damn, hope I get to meet the chick one day. She sounds like something else.”

  “Hell, J-Bird, she’s smart as fuck too. You should see what she’s built out there. It’s a fucking empire waiting to happen.”

  “I met a couple of her guys when I was working on tour with Valhalla Rising with Phoenix.”

  “We took the bodies out to the wood line. Did you want us to actually dig a grave for them?” Chuck asked.

  “Nah, man. The bodies can’t stay there. We’re just getting them out of sight for now until the local brothers can get on top of disposal.” He nodded his acceptance of that and then moved to sit by the back of the van that they’d had the forethought to bring around.

  My cell rang once before I picked it up and heard my father’s voice. “Sit tight, Crusher and some of the others are on their way to you.” He hung up before I could say a word.

  Sandman had been sitting close enough to hear him. He glanced at me, startled. “Wonder why the boys from down here didn’t come handle this shit personally then, instead of sending us?”

  “Because,” I pointed to the van. “That is our trash, and they didn’t need to take it out for us. The rest is theirs.” I turned to Sandman then. “You sure you’re thinking of taking this shit show over? This mess is going to fall into your lap and those two bangers going missing after they were supposed to be here tonight making a pickup won’t go unnoticed.”

  “Pretty sure that makes it my mess to pick up. I’ll bring the crack shot prospect down with me to help deal.”

  “Not even going to ask if he wants a transfer?”

  Sandman shook his head. “He wants in the club; he wants the transfer. Simple.”

  I laughed. It really was that simple for the men who wanted to be a part of the club. You rolled with the punches, no matter where they took you. “You’ll probably need him at your back when the men from the club here find out what’s been going on. They’re not going to know who the hell to trust at first.”

  “I ain’t stupid, J.” He grinned at me. “Did you see how quickly the kid popped those shots off? Hell, I thought they were calling him Target for an entirely different reason all this time.”

  We both laughed as the man in question came to sit with us at the edge of the adjacent loading dock while the other prospect stayed down by the van guarding the asshole we were holding inside.

  “You think the rest of the club will be back while we’re sitting here waiting?”

  I shrugged at Target. “The guys from Tallahassee should be here in about two hours. That’s not long to wait. If the club shows up between now and then, we’ll get to see firsthand who might be dirty too.”

  Target’s eyes went wide momentarily, no doubt thinking about the fact that there were only four of us and about 12 regular members and prospects of the Jacksonville Chapter right now. Then he simply nodded his head and started keeping watch a little more intently. Good to know he wasn’t going to buckle under pressure. Damn shame that Sandman was going to snap him up and take him out of Charleston. The guys in Charleston could use more good men like that.

  It didn’t escape my own notice that I didn’t include myself with the Charleston Chapter any longer. There was a part of me that wished I had just taken Phoenix up on his offer to stay on the road pulling security for another band for six more months. Sure, I needed to come face the memories I left behind, see family, and let them all know that I was relatively okay, but Charleston didn’t feel like home to me any longer. It felt more like I was a stranger going to familiar places that held no real value to me. It didn’t help that my brother had been right about Lindsay and the more I thought about having to go home to her, the more I dreaded doing just that. The clubhouse would always have a room for me, but that didn’t feel right anymore either. I was lost.

  “You could come here with me,” Sandman offered quietly, as if he had read the thoughts swimming in my mind. I turned to get a good look at the man sitting next to me and nodded.

  “Not sure what I’m going to do just yet.”

  “You’re not sticking there anymore though, are you?” I shook my head this time. “I didn’t think you would.”

  Staring the man down and trying to silently make him cough up his reasoning for saying something never worked with Sandman, so I had to go the direct approach. “What makes you say that?”

  “You don’t fit anymore,” he offered up simply. I bristled a bit at the thought. He narrowed his eyes on me then. “It’s not that you aren’t wanted there, J. It’s that you no longer feel it. It happens to some men. They think the club is going to be it for them, and for a while it is, then it isn’t. There’s nothing wrong with that. You’ve outgrown it in your own way. It doesn’t help that you and T-Bone had plans to take over the club together, and that can’t happen now. Stands to reason that you wouldn’t be too keen on keeping to that track without your boy by your side.”

  I grunted an unintelligible response to him that made him chuckle. “Don’t know what I want to do with my life though, to be honest.”

  “What were you thinking about a minute ago, because you got this wistful look on your face for a bit?”

  “I was thinking I shouldn’t have come off the road when I did. Phoenix offered up another six months.”

  “I think you coming off the road was meant to be. You needed the perspective. Why don’t you go work security on the concert scene full time if that’s what you want to be doing? Seems like the travel bug bit you in the ass.”

  I grinned then. “Yeah, it really did. Never wanted to leave Charleston before, you know? I thought I had everything at my fingertips there in my own small little corner of the world. When I went on the road with Phoenix, it was something else. Hell, I saw so much of the country, and the world, that it was unbelievable. The things I’d been missing out on without realizing it,” I told him and hell, I did sound like a wistful fucking bitch in love with the open road.

  “Why’d you come back, J?”

  “I thought I was homesick. I think I just needed to see everyone and get myself right with not wanting to be there, you know?”

  “You gotta let go of what you think everyone else wants you to do and follow your gut, brother. No point being unhappy in this life when you don’t need to be. If we only get one of these bitches, better make it count.”

  “Amen to that,” Target sighed out, reminding me that he had been listening all along.

  “What made you join?”

  “A life spent traveling all over the country with no roots,” he told me as he winked. “Ain’t it some shit when we basically wanted to swap lives?”

  I had to laugh, because yeah, it was one of those ‘the grass is always greener’ scenarios. The other side always looked more appealing to those who were looking over the fence. We had been shooting the shit and sitting in quiet for just under two hours when the rumble of bikes in the distance caught our attention. It seemed a bit too early for the Tallahassee Chapter to be rolling in, but then again, I wouldn’t put it past them to haul ass here to back us up in case we were dealing with the entire chapter being rotten to the core.

  Sandman, Target, and I jumped up and scooted around closer to the van where the other prospect had fallen asleep while we’d been shooting the shit. I kicked the door to wake him up, and he groggily lifted his head to meet my eyes. It took a moment for the soun
d of the pipes roaring closer to catch, but when they did, he hauled ass out of the van and came to stand with us.

  The minute the group of six bikes pulled into the lot I noticed Sandman’s shoulders lose the tension they’d been holding. “It’s Crusher,” he announced. Well, thank fuck for that on one count. On the other hand, I was really curious to know why the Jacksonville Chapter had left their vice president and one prospect behind for the night. Where was everyone else?

  “What’s up, assholes?” Trick called out. He was the road captain for the Tallahassee Chapter. “You guys the only ones here?”

  “Seems that way,” Sandman told him before turning to address Crusher. “We still need to clear the entire building, but I wanted to wait until we had backup here just in case. No bikes around. It’s looking like they were sent on a run or something.”

  Crusher nodded and the rest of his men branched off and started going through the clubhouse behind us, checking every room while we gave Crusher the play by play of what happened after we rolled up here. He glanced around, noting the drying blood in spots when he climbed up onto the loading dock. “Where are the bodies?”

  “Only live one is Crow,” I told him, tipping my head toward the van. “Other four are dead and awaiting disposal out back in the trees.”

  “Got it,” he mentioned as he glanced toward the boxes we had lined up and waiting for him. He moved over to one and lifted the lid enough to see inside. I watched as he shook his head back and forth and hissed out a quiet, “Fuck!” He turned to address us then. “These fuckers could have gotten my entire chapter killed over this shit. This means we’ve been light on more shipments than I thought.”

  “Hey man!” Court called out as the men started trickling back from sweeping the place. “We have a bit of a problem in here.”

  We all followed behind him as he led us back to one of the two giant cooling storage units the building had in it. The tightness in my gut told me this wasn’t going to be good, and I was not wrong.

  “What the fuck?” I growled out as the door was opened and we saw three men frozen in the freezer with bullets in their heads and Aces High MC Kuttes on their backs. “What the absolute fuck?”

  “That ain’t all,” Court called out as he moved to open the other freezer door. Inside were three Harleys, obviously stowed there to be out of sight, and most likely belonging to the three dead men in the other freezer.

  I glanced over at Sandman who shook his head and sighed. He pulled his phone out and dialed someone. It took a few tries to get someone to pick up. “Trench,” he called into the cell. “You’re needed back at your clubhouse. We came rolling in and there was no one here.”

  “Crow should have been there along with a prospect to hold the fort down. We’re out looking for three of our brothers who went missing.” I could barely hear him, but when I realized they were probably looking for the dead men in the cooler, I called out to Court.

  “Get me the names on their kuttes.” Court didn’t hesitate and went in to check, calling the names out so that Sandman could repeat them.

  “You looking for Hugo, Table, and Green?” He listened for a moment. “Yeah, we just found them. Get back here and bring the rest of the club with you.”

  “Hell, I think most of their chapter is dead now,” Trick called out as he moved out of the freezer space and back into the hallway. “Did anyone even know these jokers? One of them has Hell’s Wraiths MC ink on the back of his hand.”

  “Didn’t they disband?” Crusher asked.

  “Looks like Trench and Crow picked them up without running it by the club. Aren’t all the chapters supposed to be alerted when we patch old clubs over?” Court asked. Both Sandman and Crusher nodded.

  “So, they have three men down, a prospect dead too now, and Crow is going on up to Charleston for retribution. Who do they even have left besides Trench?” I asked.

  “Couple older guys. Dust and Barrel. Not sure about the newer recruits they had or how many there were. Considering they patched in a bunch of assholes from another club without letting on to anyone, I’d say be prepared just in case.” Sandman’s response put everyone on edge once more. This was turning into an even bigger shit show than we had imagined.

  “I need to let Merc know what’s going on. Someone should probably handle contact with Ghost too,” I suggested.

  “I’ve got that handled,” Crusher told me as he stepped aside to get some privacy. “Really wanted to get the fuck back home tonight,” he grumbled.

  “Don’t worry, your old lady ain’t going nowhere,” one of his men called out. I hadn’t even realized Crusher had an old lady. I guess I’d been out of the loop far too long.

  “She isn’t taking the status seriously yet,” he mumbled to Court.

  “She will. Give it time.”

  “That’s all I can do before some asshole like you tries to step in and take what’s mine.”

  I didn’t catch the rest of their conversation considering they walked too far off, but it didn’t sound like Crusher had the best of situations going on with his woman. Damn if I couldn’t relate to that shit.

  Instead of dwelling on things I considered trivial at the moment, I walked off to call my dad and have a chat with him about what was going on.

  “Crusher and his crew arrive?” He asked when he picked up.

  “Yeah, but we have a bigger problem than that.”

  “What’s going on?” The background noise, signaling that he was at the clubhouse, died away as he moved to a less populated part of the property, probably his office.

  I told him about the dead bodies, the fact that they appeared to be patched into the Aces High Jacksonville Chapter, and that they were sporting ink from a defunct club. For a solid two minutes he said nothing, and then he exhaled loudly and huffed into the phone. “Fuck!” It took another minute, and a string of curses so long I wasn’t sure they all really fit together before he became coherent again.

  “Crusher put in a call to Ghost,” I informed him while I waited for what he had to say.

  “I’ll do the same, but son, I want Crow back here to answer for shit. We gave him his second chance by sending him down there. His discipline and departure will be on us.”

  “I know. Already mentioned that to everyone earlier. He’s still trussed up in our van.”

  “Good. Get him here as quickly as you can. What’s Crusher doing with the situation there now?”

  “We’re waiting on the rest of the Jacksonville club members to get here. Once they do, I’ll try to keep you abreast of the situation.”

  “Do that. Text if you need to, or better yet, just call and put me on speaker when they all get in. I want to hear for myself what Trench has to say. He had to know they were patching over another club’s members. Doesn’t matter if their club died first. We have a protocol for that shit for a fucking reason.”

  It took another fifteen minutes before the men started trailing into the clubhouse. I didn’t miss the worried looks we were receiving mixed in with the simply curious ones from most of the members. There were six in total. “This everyone?” Crusher asked.

  An older man glanced around then and nodded but spoke anyway. “Everyone except the men we were out looking for, my VP, and a prospect.”

  I had dialed my father and placed the cell on speaker so that hopefully he’d be able to pick up on the conversation. “Prospect’s dead,” Crusher told him. “Crow will be leaving with the Charleston crew today.” Several eyes started shifting nervously among the crowd. I was already reading their names off of their kuttes as this happened. Trench, the older man and current President of the newest chapter of Aces High MC was also shifting from foot to foot and looking more than a little uneasy with this situation.

  I had to hand it to Crusher’s men. They hadn’t missed any of the signals either. Each man started closing ranks on the shifty eyed club members as we waited for Crusher to divulge the last of the news to Trench. “The men you were out looking for were here
all along with a few bullets to their brains. He tipped his head back toward the cooler units. “They’re back there in a cooler and their rides are in the other one.”

  That announcement had the room exploding. “They were like that when we arrived,” I called out, voice booming and echoing back to me from the vast open space of the clubhouse.

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Trench asked.

  “It means the poor fuckers you were out looking for were here all along. Dead. In your fucking freezer. Now, how about someone here start trying to explain that one.” I was definitely overstepping considering Trench was a chapter president and another was present as well. Crusher didn’t seem to have a problem with my outburst though. He simply nodded while crossing his arms over his chest and waiting for the answer.

  “How the hell are we to know that? We were the ones out looking for them, remember?”

  I cocked my head to the side, taking the man in, and wondering just how dirty this chapter really was. I glanced at Crusher who gave a slight shake of his head and then moved to Trench, throwing his arm around the man and pulling him off so they could speak in private. I glanced between all the men who were left. A few of them, three to be exact were having a hard time staying still, and focused, especially since they picked up on the fact that the Tallahassee members were closing ranks on them.

  They weren’t the only ones to notice. “What the fuck did you assholes do?” A man called Ratchet asked through gritted teeth.

  “Shit,” one of the guilty-looking bastards hissed. “I’ll tell you,” he started to say before Trench spoke up.

  “You fucking rat bastard!” He yelled it before attempting to catch Crusher off guard. He went for a sucker punch and ended up flat on his back as Crusher swept his legs and took him to the concrete floor before the man could understand what was happening to him.

  “Let me guess,” Crusher hissed at him. “You were working on your retirement plan, and fuck the club members that got burned in your wake?” He laughed then. “We’ve seen this one before, haven’t we boys?”