Ridge: Great Wolves Motorcycle Romance

by Blue, Jayne

  Ridge

  Great Wolves Motorcycle Romance

  Jayne Blue

  Contents

  Text copyright ©2019

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Up Next

  Also by Jayne Blue

  Join my newsletter for a free gift!

  Text copyright ©2019

  Jayne Blue All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law or for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  One

  Ridge

  I was leaving my club behind. My brothers. My life.

  I’d always served my club.

  And now that meant leaving.

  When it came time to sacrifice, I knew every member of the Great Wolves would do the same. They’d all take a bullet for me and I would for them.

  I had.

  Things had changed though. My closest brothers, Steel, Hammer—shit, even Ryder—were all settling down with old ladies. It’s not that they were getting soft, but it was different. They were different.

  I didn’t have a woman in my life and that was the way I wanted it.

  So, when the club asked, I answered.

  I got on my bike and rode. I thought about where I’d started with the Great Wolves. I’d changed and so had the club.

  I was a probie back when the Great Wolves still ran guns, hookers, and drugs. I was young, pissed off, and itching to make anyone who got in my way pay.

  The Great Wolves was so much more now than when I started. And I had helped make it happen. I helped turn Great Wolves M.C. into a legit enterprise. No more running guys; now we ran mixed martial arts gyms, repair shops, and security.

  It happened with blood and muscle. It happened with oil and sweat. And it happened because I was willing to kill to make it happen.

  Getting clean required removing a lot of dirt. I hadn’t shirked from one bit of that. And I wasn’t alone. The Great Wolves M.C. brothers I fought with all did the same. We turned it from something that was eating us alive into something we could all survive on: thrive in.

  Going legit.

  It had saved our lives; more than that, it gave us all hope for a future other than prison, or death.

  Well, it gave everyone else in the club that future.

  Somehow, I hadn’t found that. Maybe I never would.

  The rage and darkness that fueled my violent youth and was channeled into my work for the club, was still there. I knew I’d learned how to control a lot of what used to cause pain for me, and for those around me.

  But still, I wasn’t the settling down with an old lady type. I was the fuck ‘em and leave ‘em type. Don’t get me wrong. I was happy for my brothers, and their women. I’d do anything for those fierce sisters who’d made the decision to enter into our world and stay. But I also knew no woman deserved my temper, my moods, my past.

  No woman, less reason to pull up stakes and answer the call.

  When it was time to step out and crack heads in Chicago, I didn’t hesitate. I was ready to go.

  I traveled west—not far. It was only four hours from west Michigan and my home club, to Chicago and the Great Wolves there. It gave me time to think about the past, and to get my head straight for what was ahead.

  The Great Wolves Chicago was fucked up. While the rest of the GWMC chapters were making money above board—a lot of money—the Chicago Wolves were fighting, resisting, getting killed, and getting thrown in prison.

  It was a mess.

  My mission was to get them straight or get them out.

  The Great Wolves cut stood for more than gang banging these days, and if the dumbasses in Chicago didn’t understand, they wouldn’t wear the cut. I’d rip the rockers off along with kicking their asses.

  I didn’t know what I was driving into, really. I’d been with the Great Wolves in Grand City most of my life. I knew them better than I knew myself.

  Sawyer, my Prez, was giving my officer title to Hammer for a while. I had done stints as treasurer and secretary and probably was up for Veep, eventually, if I’d stayed. But it was because I knew the club from top to bottom that Sawyer trusted me with this.

  “You’ve seen it all, Ridge. You know what I do, mostly, as Prez. They need someone there that does.”

  The Great Wolves Chicago didn’t have a Prez, and their most recent Veep was in prison now, after a lot of dumb shit went down. I was voluntarily stepping into chaos.

  I had one condition for Sawyer, and he answered it the way I needed him to.

  “And I can take cuts, if they don’t fall in line.”

  “Yeah, you can. I hope it doesn’t come to that. But yeah. You have full authority. All the approved charters agree. They’re making us look like shit and they’re using the name to do whatever the hell they want. They can destroy themselves if they want, but it won’t be as a GWMC.”

  “Got it.”

  It wasn’t lost on me that this scenario was how I met Sawyer, back in the day.

  The national had sent Sawyer to Michigan and installed him as Prez when our club needed it. And now, the exact same thing was happening to me.

  “I know what this is like. You know that. They’re not going to trust you at first. There is going to be resistance, even from guys who might otherwise not be assholes.”

  Sawyer lifted an eyebrow at me. He was describing his first days here. We didn’t know what to make of an outsider who’d bossed us around like he owned the place. I was a dick to him back then. I winced at the memory.

  “Yeah, we did give you shit like it was our job back in the day.”

  It was short lived though. Sawyer was a tough son of a bitch, fair, and smart. We all learned fast that he was the real deal. I looked up to him, and our club was strong because of him.

  I hoped I could be half of what he was for the brothers in Chicago.

  “And the biggest dicks might turn into your best friends, remember that.” Sawyer was talking about us.

  “I’ll miss you, brother.”

  “Phone call away.”

  Sawyer and I locked hands and then bumped shoulders.

  “Thanks.”

  “Try to save ‘em, but remember, no regrets if you can’t. It might be too late,” Sawyer said.

  “I got it. I learned from the best.”

  Sawyer nodded and I turned and got on my bike.

  The time for soft sentiment was over. It was time to show Chicago what it meant to be in this club.

  I rolled closer to the city and set my fucking jaw.

  If I was going to leave my brothers behind in Michigan, it was going to count.

  They’d fall in line, or I’d burn it the fuck down.

  The hot summer sun
was setting on the south side of Chicago as I rolled in. It was finally giving me a break. That was good.

  My mood wasn’t summer and sun. It was dark, determined, and with zero room for excuses.

  I clenched my teeth and shifted gears.

  It was time to go to work.

  Two

  Frankie

  “You’re pouring too heavy,” I said to Kevin, veteran bartender at Kaminski’s Bar and Grill.

  “Walter says it’s just fine.”

  Kevin still thought my Grandpa Walter was the boss. Technically, he did own Kaminski’s Bar and Grill but let’s be honest, he was running it into the ground, and I was running on a hamster wheel trying to keep it afloat.

  I was proud of Kaminski’s. Locals shortened it up to Ski’s half the time, or The Ski Bar. It was founded by my Great Grandpa, the original Walter, in the 1920s. I never knew him. But I knew the stories. How he came over, as a kid, with no English, how he built this place, and how it became the best Polish Bar in Stickney Forest—heck all of the South Side.

  I grew up here, my sisters did too, but they’d left, along with my parents.

  “You’re nuts to say here with Dziadzia. Move with us, get out from under it.”

  They were tired of the uphill battle. They were tired of winters in the Midwest, and they were tired of taking care of Dziadzia.

  What used to be a thriving neighborhood had been overrun with crime, turf wars, and worse than any of that, a bad economy for anyone trying to make a living.

  They said on the news the economy was turning around. I hoped so, but so far, in Stickney Forest, it was at a dead stop.

  Back in the day, Kaminski’s Bar and Grill was where you got your beer and a shot after work. It wasn’t on the hipster trail; it wasn’t a place for a fancy dinner; it was a place for the best kielbasa and pierogi in Cook County. It still was, I was proud of that. Even though it was harder and harder to fill the tables and bar stools.

  In my memory, there was a time this place was packed every night. I wanted that again. I was sure I could make it happen. My sisters and parents were not so sure, but it had always been my dream.

  I learned how to make the pierogi before I turned ten, from my Busia. I learned a lot form her. And I’d promised her, when she was dying, that I would take care of this place, of Dziadzia.

  “You know he’s got no business sense; he gives away things for free, he can’t do laundry, it is up to you. Your sisters and parents are useless.”

  There had been a fight, the new generation and the old. And somehow, I was on the side of the old.

  “You’re the same as my mother Frances, my sweet Frances.”

  Busia had died with me holding her hand, and Dziadzia drowning his sorrows. With her went the last reason for my parents to stay in the neighborhood.

  But I promised her. I promised myself.

  I couldn’t let this place die with Busia, and I couldn’t let Dziadzia be alone.

  Even though he was currently undermining me with Kevin Marziniak, our longtime bartender who was pouring too much vodka in the Szarlotkas, I was trying to add to the bar menu.

  “You can listen to the old man, or you can get a paycheck. Pretty much those two choices.”

  I said it under my breath. It wasn’t a threat to fire him; it was a reminder how tight our current profit and loss numbers were. I had to be tough, or we’d all be on the streets.

  “Vodka isn’t a mixer!” Dziadzia barked at me. I understood how it all used to be vodka shots were served cold and straight. But younger people liked Szarlotkas, which they called Polish Apple Pie, so I needed Kevin to learn, and I needed him not to overpour. Ugh. Most days it was an uphill battle with Kevin. He was firmly in the old school camp.

  Kevin, our new cook Lamont, and our two waitresses, Terry and Sherry, were the sum total of staff.

  I supposed you could count our busboy Baby Paul. He was fifteen but looked twelve, so Dziadzia stuck him with that nickname. Baby Paul thought the schedule I posted was a suggestion. I never knew when he was going to be in or not.

  “My sciatic is acting up. You need to call Baby Paul; he needs to get in here.”

  Sherry was forty but acted eighty some days. Thank God for her, though. If everyone showed up, then I could do all the other jobs that needed to be done to keep Ski’s running. If she didn’t, I was waiting tables. If Baby Paul didn’t show, I was the one bussing tables. That was in between trying to do the books, find new customers and order supplies. I swear there were nine-hundred things a day to do. Please let Baby Paul show up!

  “I’ll call him.” I dialed him on my cell.

  “Where are you?” I’d taken a chance hiring the kid. I liked him, but he was unreliable, and probably on drugs. I hoped it wasn’t the hard stuff. I had seen too many kids lose too much thanks to that.

  “Sorry, sorry, on the way, Frankie.”

  “Good, ‘cause I have to get the deposit in, now.”

  It was no joke. Money needed to be put in, or the checks they all needed would bounce like a foul ball at a White Sox game.

  If I got the bag in before the end of the day, the money would be in the account by Friday. That was key. I couldn’t afford insufficient funds charges, or the emotional turmoil involved if Sherry, Terry, Kevin, and Lamont didn’t get paid.

  Baby Paul better hurry dammit. I couldn’t leave Sherry without a busboy.

  “Here!” I heard him yell from the back room.

  “You’re on her last nerve,” Lamont said to the out of breath Baby Paul as Lamont dropped a new batch of fries into the grease.

  I took a look and found, happily, that the grease was new, and that the kitchen was as clean as Busia always insisted.

  Lamont was new too, and I thanked God for him as well. He was the farthest thing from Polish you could get, and he was the closet thing to saving this place as I’d had since Busia died. He was six-four, looked like a first-round draft pick for the NFL, and knew how to make everything on the menu better than I could. That was all in less than a month’s time.

  Maybe, just maybe, I could turn things around here.

  That was, of course, if—only if—the neighborhood crime situation calmed down.

  Robbery, vandalism, arson, and muggings were keeping people out of Stickney Forest. While the rest of the Southwest side of Chicago was moving on up, the shit was trickling on over here. And it was keeping the customers away.

  There was gang violence and had even been a murder, and it was bad for business. I had decided to draw a line. I wasn’t going to buy into it anymore. I didn’t have cash to spare, and I had gotten zero return from the Great Wolves in Chicago.

  If I was going to save Kaminski’s Bar and Grill, I had to start with the neighborhood.

  I had called for a new neighborhood watch group of business owners, community leaders, and able-bodied retirees to meet, tonight, at the banquet hall attached to Kaminski’s. I was going in a million directions, but all were designed to save the bar, and help Stickney Forest. Everything I did was fill with hope, and I really did think it could work.

  I totally understood that the cops had their hands full, so we needed to do it ourselves, clean up the mess here, or we’d all be out of business.

  It was a lot, but I had the energy, I could do it. I knew I could.

  But first, I needed to get the deposit to the bank. My to do list had to start with that if I didn’t want a full-scale revolt at Kaminski’s Bar and Grill.

  Three

  Ridge

  The high-rise congestion of downtown Chicago thinned out. The stop and go traffic got more go than stop.

  Downtown Chicago was bustling, it was filled with buildings, vehicles, and people.

  People that did not flow into this part of town, apparently.

  The Stickney Forest neighborhood was stuck in time: old houses, an old commercial section, and old streets.

  Great Wolves Chicago were based in this part of town. They didn’t even know I was coming, and tha
t was good. I wanted to see a little of Stickney Forest before I announced myself. If they were smart, they’d know. I didn’t exactly blend in. If it were my town, I’d have eyes on the main drag most of the time.

  I was their Prez and they’d never met me. I was going to take over and they had no idea. Sawyer said their last Prez was killed, and the Veep was in prison for the killing. A real nice bunch of dudes.

  The sun was low in the sky, but it would be a while before night fell. I suspected day and night were two different crowds around here.

  During the day, business owners struggled against the night that encroached. Hard working residents tried to make ends meet and keep their kids out of trouble. But at night, all those folks were behind a deadbolt if they wanted to stay out of that same trouble they tried to steer their kids away from.

  I pulled up to an intersection with a sign that read: “Zablocki’s Five Points.” I didn’t know who Zablocki was, but the five points were easy to figure out. It was the intersection of East End Avenue and Woodrow with a third road, Zablocki, angled across the typical four-point intersection. I parallel parked my Harley and took it in.

  It looked plucked from the 1950s. Brick commercial buildings stood next to one another; each roofline was a little different. And there wasn’t a sky-high office building in sight.

  Half or more places had “For Rent” signs in the window. But still, there was a butcher, a bar, a barber, and a bank. I also spied a resale shop and a laundromat.

  I imagined this was busy as hell back in that day. I imagined a packed neighborhood once did all their shopping here; now, it was gap toothed. Business owners were competing with blight and boarded up windows. Graffiti littered the brick buildings that looked like their best days were decades gone by.