by Hazel Parker
“Makes sense,” Mr. Leslie said. “Just be careful not to burn yourself out. I don’t want to hear that you quit and disappeared.”
For the first time since I’d sat down in my office, I smiled.
“There are two things that keep me going, Mr. Leslie,” I said. “My faith, and my work. My faith will always be there. I know my work won’t always be, but it’s there for right now, and as long as I can keep it that way, well, that would be ideal.”
Mr. Leslie nodded. I rose from my chair, grabbed my sunglasses, and motioned for Mr. Leslie to follow me out. He did so, and we walked side by side, both of us with our heads down.
And when we opened the door, about a half-dozen camera people waited.
“Ms. Reynolds! Ms. Reynolds! How are you feeling about the divorce? Ms. Reynolds! Who are you dating? Amber!”
It was like a storm of flashing lights, loud questions, and enormous distractions. Even with my sunglasses on, I had to raise my hands and keep moving to my vehicle. I just needed to get home, just get to some silence. I just needed to pray, find peace, and move forward.
Mr. Leslie, thank heavens, did all that he could to keep the paparazzi at bay, but he was outnumbered significantly. There was only so much that he could do.
A path cleared to my car, a 2005 BMW that I’d had since my time at Yale. One paparazzi asked if I was going to celebrate by upgrading my ride, which I had to admit almost drew a laugh from me. Almost.
I just couldn’t do it, though.
But just before I got into the car, though, I heard something completely unexpected, something so very far out of left field.
A motorcycle headed my way.
I looked up to see a man with a blonde woman riding on the back rolling into the parking lot. He wore a jacket that said something about “Savage Saints” on it. The girl wore normal clothes; there was nothing to mark her as a biker.
I had never heard of the Savage Saints—I didn’t even know if that was a band or a club or something—but given that the biker made it a point to park himself between the cameramen and me, I had a feeling that I’d be getting to know them a lot more.
“Sorry for the dramatic entrance,” the man said. “Are you Amber Reynolds?”
“Yes,” I said, trying to hide the fact I was still sniffling from all the craziness.
“I’m sorry, sir, can I help you?” Mr. Leslie said.
“We want to hire you,” the man said. “My name is Trace Cole. I’m the president of the Savage Saints. One of my members got arrested for crimes I do not believe he committed. We need the best. Are you taking clients?”
I was so taken aback by everything that had just happened that I wondered if I was still in the office, daydreaming some sort of bizarre alternate reality where things like this happened. Though, let’s be honest, I never would have daydreamed about having a biker show up with his… girlfriend? Wife? With someone to ask me for work.
But I did say I needed work. I just didn’t know if a biker could afford me… and while I did take cases pro bono for good causes, supporting a biker group probably did not fall under that category.
“I am,” I said, reaching into my purse. “Here, take my business card. We can set up an initial consultation later.”
“Good,” Mr. Cole said, taking it and nodding his thanks. “By the way… are those assholes over there bothering you?”
I grimaced at the word, though I couldn’t disagree with its implication.
“They’re doing their jobs,” I said.
“Harassing you and your coworker when you were about to leave?” Trace said. “Here. Consider this an initial offering of our seriousness.”
“Mr. Cole!”
But before he could change his mind, Mr. Cole had revved the engine, shooting out an enormous amount of exhaust at the paparazzi, causing them to disperse, hack, and yell swears at the biker.
“Get a fucking real job, savages!”
Again, I cringed… but I was secretly kind of grateful that Mr. Cole had given me the chance to escape.
“Go,” Mr. Leslie said.
“OK, thanks,” I said, quickly getting into the front seat, turning the engine on, and backing out of the parking lot while the paparazzi watched.
Mr. Cole and his woman, for his part, followed me for the first mile home before splitting off in their own direction, heading north. As far as first impressions went, it was one of the more interesting ones I had had with potential clients—and boy, had I had some interesting ones dealing with the Hollywood types.
I had a feeling, though, it wouldn’t be the last impression I had of these Savage Saints.
I just hoped I’d be in a state to help them as they deserved.
Chapter 1: Splitter
Despite my reputation, I hadn’t actually been to prison that many times in my life.
Part of that, admittedly, was that I was usually really good at avoiding the things that would land a person in jail for a while. You know, things like evidence, witnesses, that sort of thing. Trace had trusted me as the Vice President of the club, and that meant I sometimes had to do the dirty fucking work—especially when BK, Mafia, and Krispy were busy with other “duties” for the club.
But part of that was, believe it or not, I thought that I was a good guy. I had emotional problems where I could swing from one side of the pendulum set to the other—one minute, I could be getting emotional watching SPCA commercials, and the next, I could be yelling about how I wanted to burn the Devil’s Mercs to the ground and then smoke their ashes—but those problems didn’t really manifest themselves in public issues. We had our club business with the DMs, but that was club business.
And because the Green Hills police, and specifically Sheriff Wiggins, knew full well why we had our business with the DMs, they did not really interfere. I think before this moment, I had gone to jail maybe twice in my life, once for public intoxication and once for a bar fight—and, I should mention, both of those took place when I was eighteen. I’d grown up a little bit in the decade-plus since then.
But tell that to the county police, the ones who had me in jail, and all you would get is laughs and disgusted looks.
“Biker boy.” “Criminal thug.” “Gangster.”
God, fuck that last one! They wanted to associate the Savage Saints with a gang, to call us gangsters, but that was about the worst fucking insult in the world. We were not gangsters. Gangsters took what they wanted, did whatever they wanted, and operated only on a code of self-interest and self-preservation. The Savage Saints had our fun, sure, but we operated on the basis of protecting Green Hills outside the boundaries of the law. When Sheriff Wiggins couldn’t get involved or didn’t have the evidence to get involved.
And now here I was, sitting in a goddamn cell, the place looking like the insides of a rusted pan, waiting for the book to be thrown at me for a crime that…
Well, let’s just say if Sheriff Wiggins were here, he would understand the very valuable distinction between club business and public business. And this fell square under public business.
The fucking county attorneys did not know that, though. And while Trace, my good friend and the club president, had promised he would get me out sooner rather than later, given that “later” was life in prison, sooner wasn’t exactly expected to be just a couple of days. We were looking more at weeks, maybe even months.
Oh, well. At least I had a chance to get some weightlifting in. I already was a fucking savage-looking man, and the chance to make my biceps grow even bigger would help.
Too bad it came at the expense of making the club look bad. Of making Trace look bad. Of betraying the club image by landing behind bars.
Goddamnit, Splitter, you fucking moron. Why, why, why…
I corralled myself and reminded myself the emotional volatility was a net negative, not a positive, just as I heard footsteps approaching the door. While some of the members had said they would never hesitate to talk shit to a cop or to a prison guard, I felt it in m
y best interest to keep my goddamn mouth shut. Not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because I knew all it would take was one taunt back for me to berate them so harshly I’d wind up in a worse spot.
Seconds later, a key latched into my cell. I stood facing them, my hands by my side, my lips shut.
“You’re Splitter?” an older man with a goatee whom I did not recognize said. “You’re supposed to be the big, bad ‘Vice President’ of a criminal organization?”
I had to bite my teeth down extra hard to avoid saying anything that would remotely be construed as threatening.
“I am Splitter,” I said, adding nothing more.
“And your role as Vice President?”
I said nothing to that. The guard just laughed.
“Well, luckily for you, I’m not your judge, nor am I the DA,” he said with a chuckle. “But someone who is does want to see you. Congratulations, Shaun Reddings.”
No one uses my real name anymore. That’s a name I left behind when I joined the club. Why the fuck… Why the fuck!
“It’s time to learn what you’ve been charged with.”
I bit my lip so hard that I felt sure I would puncture my skin any second now. I put my hands out in front of me in a very rigid fashion, trying to quell my anger. The guard put the shackles on me and told me to march forward. I very nearly told him he should go first so I could fuck him in the ass as he was doing so with me, but thankfully, I only let my emotions get the best of me in situations I knew I could win.
Well, usually.
I went down the winding hall of prison cells in the drab blue area, hearing the taunts from other, real criminals who laughed at the sight of a Savage Saint in their midst. Unfortunately, we weren’t the most welcome crowd, probably because of everyone in the damn building, we were the most wholesome ones of all.
Fuckers were just jealous. Fucking jealous!
Two guards awaited me at the end of the corridor. They opened a door for me, and goatee man ordered me to walk left. He then opened a door for me that had a desk with four chairs at it and an obvious one-way mirror. He ordered me to sit “like the good dog that I am.”
I couldn’t help but glare at him at that moment, even if such an act carried a serious risk of punishment. This wasn’t the America where gazes could get you nothing more than a stern warning. In this fucking prison, the guard was right—he wasn’t the judge. He was God.
Perhaps fortunately for me, the guard just laughed as he slammed the door.
“Your kind is finally getting what you deserve!” he cackled as the slamming echoed a couple of times before dying down.
“Motherfucker,” I groused.
But then I nearly hit myself in stupidity, aware that anything that I said in that room was being recorded and would be used against me. It was time for the good boy Splitter, the one who volunteered at animal shelters and was a “yes, sir, no, sir; yes, ma’am, no, ma’am” man when at such events. It was like I had gone to church, albeit one where I sure as hell wasn’t about to confess my sins.
Hah, gone to church, sure as hell. So fucking good. So fucking good!
However, the priest of said church did not seem interested in making a timely entrance, as for what felt like a good dozen minutes, no one entered the room, leaving me by myself to twiddle my fingers and gaze around the room, analyzing every speck of dust, every ceiling tile, and every part of the mirror in which the “one-way” aspect of it had failed. I’d played this game before, although the past couple of times, it was the DA or prosecuting attorney coming to tell me I was free to go.
Given that a good deal of Los Angeles probably saw or heard about that warehouse blowing up, I didn’t think I was going to escape with such ease this time around.
It gave me the chance to think about how I would make it up to Trace, but funny enough, there did not seem to be much in the way of things the club needed right now. Killing Diablo had decimated the Devil’s Mercenaries, and we’d also managed to procure a significant portion of their drugs and guns. Business was really good, at least in the short-term. I’m sure we had some long-term questions we needed to answer, especially as the value of small-town Green Hills faded, but…
Fuck, that was a tough one. Especially with how much I loved Green Hills. Some things really—
The door swung open.
I did not flinch, though the suddenness of the DA’s and assistant attorney’s arrival had admittedly shocked me. There was no indication, no outside footsteps, nothing of the kind to warn me that they were about to enter. I supposed it was my fault for falling too deep into the self-pity hole and not paying attention to what was about to happen.
The DA, an Asian man with short hair and a grumpy expression, sat down. His assistant, a white man with brown hair, seemed no more interested in being here either.
“Shaun ‘Splitter’ Reddings,” the man said, not even pretending to want to be here—then again, who the fuck would want to be here. “Do you know what you are here for?”
“No, sir.”
I decided then that my answers would be limited to about three things. “No, sir.” “Yes, sir.” “I want my lawyer.”
Of course, I did not have a lawyer; the club had said they would procure one for me, but lawyers weren’t exactly like ordering fast food. They would cost the club a shitload of money that we either did not have or would barely have, essentially rendering our raid of the DM’s drugs and guns a net zero. And it’s your fault, Splitter. Your own goddamn fault.
“Well, ignorance might be bliss in your spot, because you have just about everything in the book on your head right now,” the DA said, smirking as he finally looked me in the eyes. “Let’s see. For starters, we have… property damage… arson… public disturbance… oh, and these are just the minor ones, by the way: the ones in which we have such a slam dunk case that not even a drunk DA could mess up.”
That seemed like an odd comment to make, but I just silently stared at them, trying not to make my gaze seem like I was trying to fuck with their heads.
Which would have been great for the sake of fighting them, but not so great when I was trying not to be a goddamn lifer.
“Oh, and here’s the good one, yeah, the real good one. First-degree murder. Ohhhh.”
I figured that they would have thrown everything at me, most especially since the DA probably would have loved to make an example of a Savage Saint, especially one who looked like me—tattoos, slicked-back hair, and everything else that suggested “dangerous.” What DA wouldn’t have loved the opportunity to parade a man like me in front of everyone, make an example of me, and then use it to get re-elected to his position?
“What are you going to do, Shaun?” he said.
He had to have known that calling me by my real name was bound to piss me off. I just looked down, hating that I was being less of a man by not making eye contact… but then again, that fucking guy was being the opposite of being a man, being all passive-aggressive as he was. He didn’t deserve the courtesy of a look in the eye.
“Hmm? For all the things you’ve done here, don’t you think you might want to have a plan of some kind?”
I almost cracked, having to give a sigh of some kind, but I kept my temper in check.
I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out, though. I mean, seriously, fuck this guy—what sort of a pansy prick like him got to be in a position like this?
“It seems to me that you have an awful lot on your plate, Shaun,” he said. “An awful lot of things that you did.”
“I didn’t do them!”
Fuck. Shouldn’t have slipped. You goddamn fool.
I scowled, not letting my facial expression reflect the fact that I severely regretted the fact that I had “cracked,” even though this crack was nothing more than a standard denial. It was more the fact that I had swore I wasn’t going to say anything but had.
Fucking DA. Fucking DA’s assistant. Fucking everything in this fucking building!
“
Is that so?” the DA said, yawning. “You see, for all your claims, the amount of evidence that we have is just so overwhelming against you that you are in no real position to thrive. Your best bet is to admit to it, take a plea deal, and maybe in a couple of decades, when you and your little gang—”
I felt my fists clench at that and my toes curl.
“—are outdated and gone with the wind, as the old movie title goes. Or, you can fight the charges, pretend that you’re innocent, and then you can either get executed or spend the rest of your life in solitary confinement.”
Somehow, I found the inner strength to remain calm and not talk back, which was just as well, because this asshole was really getting to me. All his talk about the Savage Saints being outdated? Fiction. Fake news. Whatever fucking term you wanted to use.
The Saints had been around since almost around the time I was born. Though the days of social media had made our presence less mythical and more in your face, we still played a major role in Green Hills, and that was not about to change. What, was Green Hills suddenly going to sprout into the second Los Angeles?
Admittedly, the prospect of the Savage Saints disappearing was so emotionally terrifying for me that I never contemplated it sober; and when I thought of it drunk, it usually resulted in me having to leave the room out of fear of looking like a pussy before all the men. When I did think of it…
But sober, here? Nah. I was good. I was fine.
And as for the rest of the charges, well, I had already anticipated the fact that they would put a murder charge on me to try and get me executed or life in prison. I was well aware that they’d do that; what I would be more interested in seeing was how all the shit played out over the coming weeks.
“I can see that I bore you, Shaun,” the DA said. “Which I suppose is only fair since you bore me too. This case is so cut and dry that I’m not even sure why I’m giving you the courtesy of this meeting.”
Then he looked to his assistant, who gave him a nod, and the DA laughed. The whole thing could not have looked more pathetically staged, and I even smiled at how bad it looked.