Heart of a Rebel: Rebel Aces MC Part 1

by K. D. Latronico

  Here I was, wrapped up in one of Ward's massive dark gray towels after we shared a bath, padding barefoot into his bedroom to change into clothes that I had brought over, knowing that I would spend the night. And there hadn't been a night that we weren't together since this all began. It had been so easy to fall into this pattern with Ward because of how comfortable I was with him. Things weren't tense or awkward, we didn't have to force time together. During silence or conversation, it was comfortable and natural for us.

  And we still had our own lives. Ward had his club, and I had mine. We had things that had to be taken care of, responsibilities to stick to, but this relationship just fit right along with everything else.

  "So, where are you taking me?" I asked as I pulled my clothes out of my bag.

  "Silverwater Cafe. Figured I'd take you out to eat, we can take a ride, and see what happens."

  I'm already seriously impressed. "Really? You don't need to impress me with fancy food, baby. You could take me to McDonald's and I'd be happy."

  Ward laughed, removing his towel from his waist and grabbing a pair of dark boxer briefs. "Oh, if that's the case then I can roll with that. You're a cheap date."

  "I'm not serious!" Grabbing a pillow, he tossed it at me, which had me dodging and laughing.

  "Hey! I don't know, you could have been!"

  Ward stalked over to me then, picking me up around the waist and dropping me onto the bed in just the t-shirt I had put on. He climbed over me, wet hair hanging down around his face, his massive frame pinning me to the bed. "Woman. Get it through your head. I'm gonna spoil the shit out of you, and you're gonna like it. Got it?"

  Trying to hide the smile that is fighting to show, I roll my eyes, sighing heavily. "I guess..." Ward's fingers start to tickle my side and I screech, jolting up against him and nearly kneeing him right in the balls. "Crap! Sorry, don't tickle me! I'm gonna end up hurting your junk, and I need that for my own use on occasion."

  Shaking his head, Ward climbed off of me, hands in the air. "Alright, heard loud and clear. Please don't kick me in the dick."

  I roll around on the bed until I'm shimmying myself underneath the covers. "Now come get in bed so I can use that dick for good and not evil."

  Running his fingers through his hair, Ward eyed me from where he stood before grinning. Stopping to flick off the lights, he walked towards the bed, climbing right on top of me again. "I think that sounds like a much better way to end the night.”

  CHAPTER 25

  WARD

  LEAVING THE CLUBHOUSE EARLY the next morning, I headed over to Morgan-Albright Construction to meet with Bear and Tank, who were the owners of the company. While they had been prospecting and starting out with the Aces, the pair of them had worked together in construction. Eventually they were able to start their own company. They both worked hard on physical labor from time to time, but they were running the show now. We used them for all our builds and repairs to the clubhouse, businesses, and homes.

  That morning my business wasn't with them, exactly. Bear had texted earlier to tell me that one of their workers may have some information for us, and I was headed there to see if it was worth anything.

  Pulling my bike into the lot of their office and warehouse, I parked next to the other few bikes lined up along the side of the building. Not only was this Tank and Bear's business, but a few of our members and prospects worked here as well. It was a good place to find guys interested in the club, as well as having some of our new guys show us what they were made of. Both Moose, Bear's brother, and DT were employees, and from what I knew, they were good at their jobs.

  "Hey, brother," Bear greeted me as I walked inside the main office.

  "Brother, how's it going?" Bear and I clasped hands firmly in a shake once I stopped in front of him.

  "It's going. Chuck's out back in the warehouse."

  I nodded. Woodchuck, or Angelo as his birth certificate said (we assumed), was a retired former contractor from New York - Queens, to be exact, which his heavy accent gave away. He was older, maybe somewhere between sixty and seventy? No one actually knew, and he liked to keep people guessing. The guy had been around for about five years and despite how slightly off he could be, the club warmed up to him quickly and he became an honorary member. He wasn't actually a member, due to the fact that his only attempt to ride a motorcycle ended with him hitting the side of a building, though walking away without a scratch.

  Woodchuck was a talkative son of a bitch. He'd just chew your ear off sometimes, but he also had this way of getting people to talk back. There was something about his odd, aggressive charm that got a person to spill secrets without even knowing. Maybe he lured them into a false sense of security by being so friendly and open himself, who knew. But he was open, that was for sure, though we were never fully convinced that he was telling the truth with some of his stories.

  "Ward! Hey-o, buddy! How's it goin’?" His loud voice boomed throughout the warehouse, carrying all the way from the back where he stood surrounded by tools and workbenches. He didn't go out on jobs anymore because of knee problems, but the guy was a genius when it came to custom woodworking. In fact, he had a fairly popular YouTube series called Woodchuck's Woodshop. That was not a lie. People love the cigar smoking, real talking Yankee.

  "Hey, Chuck. It's pretty good. I hear you might have some information for me?" I was matter of fact, ready to get down to business.

  Nodding his bald head, the short, slightly round man grabbed a rag and started to wipe his hands as he spoke. "Right! Right, so yesterday after work I went to Morton's like I usually do. It was around happy hour, I love the chicken cutlets they make. Dee, in the kitchen, she usually makes me chicken parm, and it's as close as I can get to home, you know? So I was there eating, at the bar, my favorite stool. And I hear this guy asking the bartender questions. Willy, that sour old jamoke, he was just gruntin' and tryin' to ignore the guy, but he was a pushy bastard. And not fuckin' smart, let me tell you. I heard him mention you guys, so I started listening."

  The last part piqued my interest - since I really didn't care much about his after-work routine - and I raised an eyebrow. "Us guys? The club? Did he mention any names?"

  Woodchuck shook his head. "He started off asking about the biker gang in town. Makin' it sound like he was curious, didn't really know much about you all, but he started mentioning shit that just didn't add up. Willy never mentioned the name but then he asked about the Rebel Aces, who was in charge, where your clubhouse was."

  My blood pressure rose slightly, and if the hair on the back of my neck wasn't so long it would probably be standing up. "Did anyone tell him?"

  "No, no way, boss. Willy just grunted and said no one goes there without bein' invited. And the guy kinda got his back up and was like, oh I'm just lookin' to maybe join. Where do they hang out usually?’"

  "What did this guy look like?"

  "Oh, he was a Mexican for sure. Long black hair, kinda greasy. Tan, no facial hair, kinda short but he was sittin' on a stool. He didn't have no accent though, but I could tell he was Mexican. Just looked like one, you know?"

  Ignoring his slight inherent racism, I continued with my questions. "So he wanted to know where we hung out, not what businesses we owned? And asked who's in charge? You didn't get a name, did you, Chuck?"

  His face lit up then, and he was grinning ear to ear. "No, man, but I did plant a seed. When he mentioned wantin' to join, I piped up and told him I knew a few of the guys and that I could probably see where they were gonna be if he wanted to go by to chat. First, I asked him for his name and number and he was real shifty about it. Said he'd rather just come by to get a feel. So I told him I'd be there - Morton's - today, same time, and probably would have an answer. You know, I figured if you wanted to set him up or something, stage an ambush, I could feed him the info."

  I had to hand it to the guy, he was quick and pretty clever. "Good job, Chuck. That's a great idea. Let me talk to the other guys and see what we want to d
o and I'll get back to you. Don't say anything unless we tell you, okay?"

  Woodchuck nodded eagerly. "You got it, Pres. Won't say a word unless you give the signal."

  The signal. Like he was Batman. If I wasn't so pissed off at this new development, I'd probably laugh. "Thanks, Chuck." I extended my hand to shake his, which he took. "See you later."

  Heading back to the office, my mind started to race. There was someone poking around town about us, at the very least, which that in itself is not a good sign. But if I took Woodchuck's word for it and assume it was a Mexican guy, it could possibly link back to Los Chingados. This could finally be our first step in the right direction.

  "What'd he say?" Bear asked, looking up from his desk once I walked inside.

  "Some guy was asking about the club at Morton's. Chuck says he thought he was Mexican, asking about the clubhouse location and where we hang out."

  Brow furrowed, Bear shook his head, leaning back in his chair. "Fuck. That doesn't sound good."

  "Nope," I replied with a shake of my head. "Luckily Chuck thinks on his feet, so he set it up that he'd let the guy know where he could find us if he shows up today. I'm calling an emergency executive meeting this afternoon to figure out if we want to set the guy up and get him talking."

  ~

  "Alright, what are we thinking? How should we approach this?"

  I looked around the table at the other guys, having just relayed the information that Woodchuck had given. With many of the board members being older than myself, I trusted these guys with everything having to do with the club and beyond that.

  "Well," Hawkeye started, "it doesn't make sense to have Chuck tell him one of the businesses while it's open, in case they're planning to blow something else up."

  "Exactly," Bear chimed in, "that's a complete liability. I don't think we should be bringing this to any of the businesses, anyway."

  Tank, who had been quietly thinking next to me, sat forward, leaning his massive arms on the table. "We shouldn't have them come at us. For all we know this guy has all his buddies from jail waiting to take us out. What we should do is have a few of our guys waiting at Morton's, have Chucky signal us if he gets there, and we take him to the box and let Jekyll and Hyde do their thing."

  "Perfect. I don't see why that wouldn't work." I grabbed the gavel. "All in favor of having a group at Morton's ready to grab the guy for info?" That was met with a complete round of "yay's", and I banged the table once. "Okay. I want at least four guys in a cage. No bikes. Get a prospect front keeping an eye on the bar. Jek, Hyde, I want you both waiting here. Who else wants in?"

  Tank raised a hand, followed by Kang and Joker. "Great. You three, and take DT with you. Choose whatever Prospect you think won't fuck it up." There was murmured agreement, and I hit the table with the heavy gavel again. "Meeting adjourned." I turned to Tank. "Get with Woodchuck and let him know the plan."

  This plan left me feeling a lot better about the situation than I had been the past few days. This was the first lead we had gotten since we received the news that the jailed members of the gang were getting out. They had all been disappearing into the wind as soon as they were released, but we now had a chance to get ahead of them and find out whatever information we can get.

  I was the last one out of church, and as I strode out of the double doors, Silver was standing there waiting for me.

  "Hey, Ward, can I talk to you for a minute?" Long gone was the punk kid from five years ago that couldn't stop getting himself into trouble. After his parents died when he was only eleven, things started to get really dark for Eddie. As he grew up, he grew angrier, more resentful, disrespectful to everyone around him. It was hard for my mom to handle him sometimes, even when Crow was trying to whip him into shape. I watched his sisters struggle with it, but I also watched him getting worse and worse. Most wouldn't think that introducing him to a one percenter group while he was handling things the way he was would be a good idea, but with my forcefulness, it ended up being the best thing for him. And now he was a fully patched member, knew his place, and was a great help at all times. I was proud of him, especially since he was like the little brother I never had.

  "Sure, Silver." I nodded down the hall and started walking to my office, his heavy footsteps following me closely. Once inside, I motioned for him to shut the door and leaned against the desk, opting to remain standing. "What's up?"

  The six-foot-three, broad and bulky twenty-three year old looked almost uncomfortable, his hands shoved in the pockets of his worn jeans as he looked anywhere but at me. "Listen, I know you've got a lot going on, and you're doing what you have to do about Paco's guys but." He trailed off, thinking about what he was trying to say. "I don't want to be kept out of it because of my connection to it. This is my life, my shit situation. I want to be out there, finding where these motherfuckers are. I want to be in on the plans to take them out. I know I'm not an officer, and I've only been patched a few years, but come on, man." His expression was pained but also pleading. "I can't just sit back with my thumb up my ass and let everyone else take care of my problems. I gotta do something. Please."

  Quietly I listened to him talk, my expression not changing, just taking in his words. It clearly had taken a lot for him to actually come up with the courage to talk to me about this. And I fully understood where he was coming from. But I also had my own reasoning to keep him at arm's length when it came to what was currently going on.

  "I'm not trying to keep you out of this on purpose, brother. Believe me, if I was in your position, I'd be coming to my president with the same thing. But you are too close to the situation. I can't risk you becoming emotional and losing your head."

  Silver's jaw clenched. "I won't! And you're close to the situation, too. You think you won't get emotional if one of them threatens Leah? What if they come after your parents? You think Joker won't be the same way?" His hands left his pockets and he lifted them to drag his fingers angrily through his shortly cropped dark hair. Clearly, he was trying to hold it together, but I could see that he was close to losing that battle.

  "You're right," I answered him calmly. "You are right, I'm almost as close to the situation as you are. But I'm also the President, and there's nothing I can do about being involved. It's my job to keep my club and my family safe. And you fall into both of those categories, Eddie. This is me protecting you, too."

  "Don't! You know how you can help me? Let me in on whatever plan you guys got today. I heard Tank telling DT he was coming with them on something. Does it have to do with those fucks? Because if so, take me. Please. I'll prove to you that I'm not gonna be too emotional. I just have to do something or I'm gonna go out of my goddamn mind. There are only so many hours I can spend in the ring or in the gym."

  Fuck. I really wanted to avoid this, but I should have known better. I pushed off the desk, unfolded my arms, and stepped towards him. "Okay. You go instead of DT. You listen to everything Tank has to say, you don't fuck around, period. They're gonna give me a full report, and if anything happens that makes us think you're too close to this, your ass is mine and I’ll make the time that you prospected for the club look like a walk in the park. Do I make myself clear?"

  Silver, while clearly struggling not to protest about a few things I said, finally nods. "Okay. You have my word, Ward."

  Clasping my hand on his shoulder, I squeezed it reassuringly. "I know, brother." Stepping around him, I headed out of the room and down the hall.

  "Tank!" The VP turned around at the sound of his name, jerking his chin at me in question. "Slight change of plans. Silver's going instead of DT."

  Tank raised an eyebrow but nodded. "Got it." He eyed the younger man. Lucky for everyone involved, Tank knew exactly how to handle the more inexperienced, hot-headed guys. I was confident that nothing crazy would happen.

  CHAPTER 26

  LEAH

  NO ONE EVER ACCUSED me of being quick when getting ready. I would never even try to fool someone into thinking that I
didn't take long.

  Luckily for everyone involved, Ward had given me enough notice to start dolling myself up for our date tonight, and I had gone all out. This wasn't an anniversary or any kind of celebration, but it was the very first real date we'd ever go on, and I wanted to look good.

  Feeling clean from head to toe, I eventually moved on to gussying part of the evening. Seated at my vanity, which was easily my favorite thing in my bedroom, I went the whole nine yards with hair and makeup. All I wanted to do was look perfect tonight, so I didn't miss a single step. Once I was satisfied with the way I looked from the neck up, I glanced at the clock to check the time.

  Six forty-five. Perfect timing.

  Since there was an absolute guarantee that Ward would be taking my clothes off, there was no question that I was going with sexy underwear. I could have gone with black, but since I was opting to wear an all-black outfit, I decided I'd give him a little surprise. A red lace thong and a matching red strapless bra completed the set. The outfit I decided on was a black, straight legged jumpsuit with spaghetti straps and a low cut, lace bodice. It was sexy, form hugging, and would be okay if we were riding on Ward's bike - which I figured we would be.

  Opting not to wear heels, I slipped on my red patent leather ballet flats, which would go perfect with my red leather jacket for the ride. Satisfied with the way I looked, I did a little spin in front of my floor mirror and headed out of my room just as I heard the bell ring downstairs.

  I hurried to open the door and what I found on the other side made me stop short. Did my eyes deceive me, or was this beautiful creature in front of me my actual boyfriend?

  Oh. Oh no. He was not my boyfriend. This was no boy. He was all man, and fucking hell, he was all mine.

  Apparently, I wasn't the only one left in awe, because Ward's blue eyes were wide as he took me in. "Holy shit," he spoke first, his gaze raking over me hungrily. "I'm the luckiest S.O.B around."