HARD RIDE (The Slayers MC Book 2)

by Tara Oakes

  DAWSON

  “What happened to my new jeans?” Angel rummages through the basket of folded laundry sitting on the countertop. She grows frustrated.

  I don’t answer.

  “Fuck! I just bought those!” She throws her hands up and then slaps her palms against her thighs in exasperation. “Where the hell are all my clothes going?”

  I pretend to be incredibly interested in the newspaper that’s folded in the middle of the kitchen table. “Don’t you have to buy new work clothes anyway? Can’t wear jeans to an office.”

  I don’t even try to hide the passive aggressiveness to my tone. Angel picks up on it. “You done being an asshole today? And since when do you read the paper?”

  I scoff. “I read the paper.” Maybe not the news section. Or the bullshit about celebrities and TV shows. Or the classifieds. Sports. I read the sports. Sometimes.

  The paper crumples as I toss it aside. Leaning my forearm against the counter, I stare her down.

  “What?” She asks.

  I stare harder. Something’s different. Her hair? Nah. Her makeup? Nope. “You change something?”

  Her cheeks blush and she hides her face by bending down into the washing machine to sort through the piled laundry, still in search of the missing pants.

  “Nope.” Her response is echoed from the metal drum. “Damn. Where are they?”

  The sight of her luscious little ass bent over and on display is too much to ignore. So I don’t. I walk up behind her quickly before I lose the perfect opportunity.

  “Oh!” She’s surprised and jumps in just the right way to brush up against my dick. I burrow my head down in the crook of her neck. “Oh…”

  “Quickie?” I ask, licking her neck. “Maybe not so quick.”

  She turns in my arms. “Sorry. Gotta go clothes shopping.”

  My cock deflates. “Work clothes?”

  I’m bitter.

  “Nope. Got plenty of work clothes. Last I checked, there wasn’t a dress code down at the club.”

  I stand back, holding her at arms length. “Huh? You sayin’ what I think you’re sayin?”

  A crooked smile plays out on her lips. “I don’t have to take that job. I’ll hang out at the club a little longer. ‘Till Baby comes back to work after maternity.”

  “Yeah?” I double check.

  She nods. “But I need new jeans. And sweatpants. All my favorite clothes are missing. Been disappearing for a couple of weeks now. And I’m gonna stop by Baby’s afterward. Check in on her.”

  I reach for my wallet and take out the top piece of plastic. She slants her eyes and scowls. I know she wont take the card willingly. So I use the pressed cleavage between her tits as a slot to stick the credit card into. It stays in place as I back away quickly before she can toss it back.

  “Buy something sexy, baby.”

  ~*~

  “Talk to me,” I call into the cell phone receiver.

  “So… your plan…” Chase begins.

  Finally! “You tap that yet?”

  He clears his throat. “I’m not so sure she’s as close to her pop as you think.”

  I exhale. “You didn’t tap it.”

  “D- I don’t want to use her like that.” Pussy. There’s only one thing that turns Chase, my club’s enforcer, into a fucking sap. And that’s pussy.

  “You did tap it!” It’s about time. “Let me worry about Jimenez. When push comes to shove that fucker is a daddy. He’ll bend. When it comes to her, he’ll bend.”

  I can hear Chase’s breath pass over his end of the receiver. He clearly doesn’t agree with me. Don’t matter. He doesn’t have to. That’s why the badge on my cut says President and his says Enforcer.

  “You just keep Little Miss Kitty Cat content. Let me take care of the rest.” I give my order. “You give her the letter from her cousin?”

  “Yeah. Last night. Hit her kinda hard. Who is this guy anyway?” Chase reports.

  Truth is, I don’t know. “Works for her pop. They must be close. He was real worried about her. We’re gonna set up a face time call between the two of them. Once he delivers his end.”

  With Chase up at the cabin playing jailer, bodyguard, and seducer, he’s been out of the loop with everything that’s going on down here. “He’s gonna get Stitch out. Then he sees his cousin.”

  “No shit?!” He’s in disbelief. “In time for the kid?”

  I hope. Baby, Stitch’s Ol’ lady, is this close to poppin’ out their first kid. With Stitch’s original sentence, he’d be lucky if he got to see his kid’s first steps.

  “Workin’ on it. Depends when Baby is gonna go. She’s on bed rest. Angel’s headed over there this afternoon. I’ll get a better idea then.” I’m optimistic. I haven’t told Baby about the possibility of her Ol’ man comin’ home to her. If it don’t happen, she don’t need the disappointment. I haven’t even told Angel, just in case she’d let it slip.

  “God willing, brother. God willing. Just let me know when you’re doin’ the video call. I’m not tellin’ Cat about it till then in case it don’t pan out.” Chase puts together a plan.

  Cat.

  He’s calling her Cat. Since when? I guess since he started tappin’ it. “Check in in two hours. I’ll be up there tomorrow. Got shit to do today. And… you and Cat need your privacy.”

  ~*~

  This early in the morning, the club is nothing but a quiet empty building. That’s how it looks on the outside. On the inside, it’s a safe place to do the kind of business that really drives the club.

  With the parking lot empty, I have my pick of the perfectly spaced bike spots up front, but I take my usual; the one I earned. The first one. I know it won’t be long before the others begin to show, rolling their lazy asses out of bed. We don’t usually do early.

  Today is an exception.

  I lock the front door behind me. They’ve all got a key. The last thing I need today is to be ambushed by the group we’ll be doing business with. Every organization has its intricacies and complexities. The Slayers are no exception. The group we’re dealing with now, the Conquistadors Cartel, is no different.

  I knew very little about them before all this shit popped off months ago with their trouble with the Kingsmen MC over in Chisolm. Even after all that’s happened since, I feel I still don’t know that much about my enemy.

  We’ve done our searches, run our intel on them. Jimenez is practically a ghost. He’s not on the radar of any federal agency that we know of. The FBI, the DEA, and the Mexican equivalents. That tells me he’s got pull, he’s got influence.

  Sometimes the biggest crooks aren’t the ones doing the kind of business that I’ll be doing today. The guys that hide behind tainted badges and honor-less codes are the real criminals. They’re not true, not loyal to anyone. If those are the kinds of people Jimenez is in bed with, like I think he is, then this situation isn’t just black and white. There’s a whole mess of grey in there, too.

  I flip the master switches so all the lights come to life, flooding the empty main room, reflecting off the wall of glass bottles behind the bar in little sparkles. The metal of the stripper poles stationed around the raised stages looks illuminated and pristine.

  It takes nearly an hour to clean this place every night after closing. It takes that much time because of the raucousness and hell that breaks loose every day like a feeding frenzy of hungry men lining the perimeter of those stages.

  If it takes an hour, or three, to clean this place up, then that’s what it takes. This place may only be a front, not our main source of income although it generates enough to pay each of us handsomely, but I won’t have it falling to shit and looking like a busted hellhole like some of the stripper joints do.

  This is our clubhouse, our home away from home. This is our safe place. When shit goes down for a brother, this is where he turns. Me included. There have been enough nights for me to have to count on both hands where I’ve felt lost or like I was living on borrowed time. This is the pl
ace I always came to.

  Shit! The one thing I hate about this place being empty and quiet is that it leaves you with your thoughts. It leaves you alone with the ghosts that roam these halls. The ghosts of all the brothers that lived and died wearing our patch.

  Once I clear through the main room and into the back hallway leading to our bunker, I begin to see the picture frames. I don’t really know how this tradition started, seeing as Slayers aren’t exactly the sentimental domestic type. It was here long before I ever stepped through that door. The mismatched and different sized and shaped photos that clutter every inch of space from floor to ceiling. That’s how much history we’ve got. That’s our legacy.

  Some are old, black and white, from the glory days back in the fifties when this outfit started. Back then it was a bunch of vets spending time in camaraderie and support of one another. They’d seen some real bad shit during WWII. When you have that much adrenaline running through your blood on a daily basis, whether you’re running from bullets or Nazi’s, it doesn’t just go away easily. It becomes like a drug, something your body grows used to. When it’s gone, you need a fix.

  Those original men found their fix on the road, on their bikes. It was a hobby club back in those early days. Then, after a few years, some of those guys started to get creative. There was a lot of shit that happened in the army, in the marines. Especially overseas during war time. You had to get creative if you wanted certain things.

  Even today, I’m sure there’s just as much smuggling and small time rackets going on with the men wearing uniforms. Our guys used that background to help get some small side businesses going. At first, it was stupid shit. Running cheap smokes down from the Indian reservations and selling them at a profit. Using their muscles as protection for those who needed it. Finding buyers for stolen shit.

  It wasn’t long before human nature stepped in and those small time beginnings started to expand. You give people a little taste of money and it’s something that’s never satisfied. You always want more. The Slayers wanted more. Maybe not that first set of guys, but certainly the ones that came after.

  By the time the Vietnam war was over, we were at a crossroads. Our guys were disenchanted with the American dream that they’d fought hard for, bled for, seen brothers in arms die for. For what? For nothing. It was all for nothing. So, they found a way to make their blood count for something. And something don’t come cheap.

  If they were gonna risk their lives, their freedom, it certainly wasn’t gonna be for something like running a black market of cheap cigs, protection and a warehouse of liquidated good.

  That’s when the guns came into the picture.

  Back then, there was a demand and no supply. At least in this part of the country. We filled that void. There are certain things that go hand in hand. Guns, drugs, women. You can’t really have one without the others.

  That’s how our current business model began. Almost all of the original old timers were gone by then, hadn’t lived long enough to see what we’d become, what we’d evolved into. It certainly wasn’t what they’d envisioned for the club.

  As with everything in life, though, things change. You gotta change with it, let it roll you over while you’re standing still, or get the fuck outta the way. Those are your only three choices. We chose to roll with it.

  The aging black and white photos on the wall now begin to morph and change as I walk further. Bright Technicolor-like pictures of long gone men smiling, holding beers up to the camera with tough women on their laps. Pictures of antique and classic bikes with their patch wearing riders on top. The clothes change. The hair styles change. The only thing that doesn’t change though is the smile on their faces.

  Even in the mug shots that are scattered throughout the collage. There’s a single reason for a smile like that. One that’s stayed the same through each generation of Slayers. It’s the core of our club. We live by our own rules. No matter the consequences, whether it’s an eight by eight cell or a pine box six feet deep. We choose how we live our lives and we gladly accept the consequences, because it’s worth it.

  My feet stop moving as I settle on one particular mug shot smiling back at me. If anyone else would have looked at this picture, they’d swear it was me. The cocky asshole holding the black square with nothing but a convict number on it has my eyes, my grin, my face, my hair. Everything except the scar over my eye.

  It’s not my mug shot, though. Mine, or at least one of mine, is only a few inches away. This one belongs to Matt. My brother. My twin.

  A heavy weight presses down on my heart and I feel just a drop of the pain I’d felt the day he died, with a bullet through his gut. That was a dark time for me, one of the many times I’d needed this place. And, like always, it was there for me.

  I stare at Matt’s picture, at the eat shit and die grin on his face that was immortalized all those years ago. It’s like he’s smiling just for me, like he’s telling me to stop being a pussy and move the fuck on, not to dwell on shit you can’t change.

  I laugh to myself and my dead brother’s silent orders and do as I’m told, moving on down the line to the secured bunker door. He’s always been stronger both mentally and physically than I was. He was a born leader and I followed. I followed him right to the Slayers after he’d suggested we prospected for them one day.

  Without my brother I may never have found my other brothers in life, the ones I lead now. I lost one brother in order to find the rest.

  Shaking my head, I clear all the sappy shit out. Not today. Not now. I’ve gotta be on my game today. There’s another brother that’s counting on me today. Stitch. I’ve gotta pull through for him.

  The electronic punch pad set in the wall next to the bunker door is some serious high-tech shit. Some very expensive high-tech shit. Yet one more reason why we run the business we do. You need to earn real cash to pay for security like this, and we need it.

  The eight-digit code is entered and my thumb print placed on the monitor. Next, there’s one last step, a hidden security feature, one that, thank God, has never had to have been used.

  If a brother is forced to open the door against his own will, all he has to do is tap his thumb on the pad. The codes will be overridden and the door permanently sealed until I reset it.

  There’s only one drawback to a feature like that.

  Me.

  No one can reset it if I’m gone. If I’ve got a gun against my head and my thumb on the pad, there’s only one thing to do. I take the bullet. It’s a vow I had to make the day I accepted my post as President. It’s ‘till death.

  The control pad beeps, accepting me, and the door opens automatically. Sensors in the overhead lights turn them on before I even step foot inside. The large wooden oval table in the middle of the room struggles to shine under them, with the old layers of protective wax having been worn off years ago. The dull wood adds character to what the table symbolizes.

  King Arthur had his round table. Well, I have this.

  There’s a seat for every ranking member of this charter. And one empty one. We leave that there to remind us of all the brothers that have passed and all the brothers that are yet to come. We have a responsibility to them, just as much as to each other, whenever we sit here.

  About once a week we take our place in these seats to have Church. It ain’t the kind your granny goes to on Sundays. It’s our own. Paying homage to the club that holds us together.

  Today’s not Church though. Today’s a sit down to do some serious shit. Today we get our brother Stitch outta jail and home where he belongs.

  We all get jammed up from time to time. We serve our sentence and then walk out the front door when it’s over with a smile on our faces and a crowd of waiting brothers ready to ride with us home.

  This time’s a little different, though, with Stitch. The charges are usually spot on, but not this one. It’s a bullshit rap, one that was fabricated in order to get him to turn on us a little while back. He did the right thing, the thin
gs his oath to the club required him to do. He took the time. He also took a shank in the chest on the orders of Jimenez to get to me. He’s paid his dues. It’s time for the club to honor its vow to him and do anything we can for him.

  Two days ago, that opportunity arose when Catarina’s cousin, Mateo, stepped inside the club. He wants something. I want something. The only thing I can’t figure out in all this is where Jimenez is. Is he behind this? Is it a trap? These are all the grey areas I have to balance in order to make sure I keep my club safe.

  “Hey, D. You start the coffee yet?” Gryff strides into the bunker not long after me with red tired eyes and messy hair.

  I stare at him. “Do I look like a prospect?”

  He rolls his eyes. He walked right into this one. “No.”

  I nod. “Do I look like I have a pair of tits?”

  “No”

  I smile. “Then why the fuck would I make coffee?”

  He shrugs. “I need fuckin’ coffee.”

  As if his ears were ringing, Esè joins us. He’s not a prospect any more, but he’s not much higher, wearing a rookie patch that hasn’t even gotten dirty yet.

  “Coffee. Black.” Gryff greets him, then takes his rightful place at the right of my own chair at the head of the table.

  It isn’t long before the rest of today’s crew turns up. Uno, Black Jack, and Twisted. The only ones missing are Chase, who’s stuck up at the cabin, and Stitch, who’s in the pen. At least for now. I’m hoping that situation changes very soon. The rest of the brothers that aren’t here today don’t hold the rank to be privy to what’s about to go down behind these doors.

  The only reason Esè is sitting in on this is because he’s bilingual. The kid speaks Spanish better than he speaks English. From my meeting with Mateo the other day, I know he speaks English just fine, but I want to make sure nothing slips by between him and his men.

  I’m sure he’ll bring at least one, probably the one who accompanied him the other day. Hopefully whoever he brings for muscle isn’t a hot head. I’ve got enough of them on my side of the table that I’ve got to worry about, I don’t need any more variables in this thing.