The Dirty Dozen: MC Edition

by Kay Maree

  “The only comfort I take from what happened is that the carpark was empty apart from me and Tank. We were the target, not innocents, that much is obvious.”

  “I won’t go through this again Danger, you hear me. I will arrest every goddamn member of Knights Fury if I have too. I will lock up anyone who has ever had anything to do with you to keep my town safe.”

  “You’re going to need a bigger jail and you’re going to have to arrest yourself there Chief. Don’t forget you’ve helped us on more than one occasion. We’ve had a mutually beneficial relationship for a lot of years Chief. Your hands aren’t exactly clean.”

  “Don’t you threaten me,” the Chief snapped.

  “I’m not the one threatening to arrest a bunch of innocent people to save everyone else. Remember Chief, I was not the one who shot first.”

  “Knights Fury is anything but innocent, and neither are you,” the Chief barked stabbing a finger at me.

  “In this we are!” I roared. “I was shot at. I was almost killed, and I have the fucking scar to prove it. It was an unprovoked attacked and you bet your ass I will retaliate. I’m here, telling you as a courtesy Chief.”

  The Chief may think he is in charge, but I run this town.

  Knights Fury is the true law.

  I let the police do their thing, handle the everyday legal bullshit. But stuff like this, an assassination attempt on my life - this is something I will handle.

  You don’t get to shoot me in the face and live.

  “Well I am telling you Danger, if one hair on an innocent person’s head gets moved slightly out of place, I am coming down on you hard. I will rain the full force of the law down on you and the Knights Fury.”

  “You’ve made your point Chief.”

  “No, I don’t think I have,” he snapped. “You don’t seem to remember what it was like before.”

  “I remember better than anyone what it was like. Fox fucked with everyone Chief, me more than anyone. I know exactly what had to be done to get out of the mess that asshole caused.”

  “Well I think you do need a damn reminder. The last time this town was blown apart because of club bullshit, I lost everything!” The Chief stepped into my personal space. “I had to bury my wife and son. My daughter killed herself after being captured and raped repeatedly for three weeks. Her mind and body were so broken her only way out was death.”

  Fox had pissed off some truly heinous people, they decided as payback they would take their revenge out on the town. The Chief’s wife and son were killed in a drive by. His Daughter was snatched off the side of the road walking home from school.

  I found her.

  I killed the men who held her.

  I made them suffer.

  The image of her broken body is burnt into my brain.

  I will never forget.

  “I don’t care who I have to go through to protect this town and my family, but I will do it. I will not stand by and let another innocent person suffer as a result of your MC. You might be a hard ass Danger, but both you and I know neither of us wants that on our conscience.”

  The Chief is a good man. A fair man. A man I respected. He had an epic love with his first wife. It took ten years before the Chief would even look at another woman. Then he met Kylie; he fought it. He fought it hard but eventually love won out. The man just about went catatonic when he found out she was pregnant. He had eyes on her twenty-four seven, the poor woman wasn’t left alone. He threatened to kill the doctor if he didn’t relieve her pain when she was in labour. They have two beautiful little boys that he will move heaven and earth to protect. If anything happened to Kylie and the boys, he would break.

  “You’re right Chief, sorry. Getting shot at makes me a little testy.” I rubbed my neck trying to relieve some of the ever-present tension. “Why a scaffold collapse, though?” I asked getting our meeting back on track.

  “Because an unsolved shooting involving the Knights Fury MC would bring unwanted attention from the Feds.”

  The Chief went back to pacing. He had been pacing since he stepped foot in the garage. There was something on his mind, something other than telling me the investigation was closed and that he won’t take any bullshit from me or my men.

  “Speak Chief.”

  “It’s nothing, really. I’m just being paranoid.”

  “Tell me what’s on your mind Chief and maybe I can ease your worry.”

  “Danger, this feels… this feels like something big is coming.”

  It did.

  “Chief, whatever it is, it is not coming from Knights Fury,” I assured him.

  “I’m worried Danger. I’m worried about what it could mean for this town if Knights Fury gets tangled in some shit,” his walrus moustache twitched in frustration.

  “Danger, can you please do me a favour? Give me a heads up if a storm is coming. I’d like to minimise the fallout.”

  “Chief my loyalty is to Knights Fury….”

  “Danger, please….”

  “Chief my loyalty is to Knights Fury, to you and this town. We live here, we have businesses and family here. We want to keep the peace as much as you do.”

  “Yes, but the difference being, I care about the body count.”

  Under my father’s predecessor this town suffered. He didn’t care who got hurt or how many bodies lined the path along the way, as long as it led to his success.

  “I am not Fox. I may have only been a kid when Fox was in power, but I remember what it was like. What he was like. No one wants to go through that again. The only thing that would have saved the town if that prick hadn’t died was to put her out of her misery. Burn it all to the ground. I would give up my life before I let that happen.”

  “I know Danger, I know.” Chief grinned crossing his arms over his chest. “I promise I won’t let on that I know that inside that gruff interior you're nothing but a giant marshmallow. It will be our little secret.”

  “I love you too Chief.” I smirked, flipping him the bird. “I’ll get to the bottom of this with as little fallout as possible. There’s only been one incident. It might be a one off.”

  “Ok, Positive Panda, when you get to the other side of the optimism rainbow and re-enter reality come see me. Both you and I know this is not the end of things.”

  No, it is just the beginning.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Danger

  “Either Mercury is in retrograde again or someone is fucking with us,” Bullet huffed walking into my office.

  “Is there a particular reason you’re talking in nerd or did you bump your head again?” Wolf my VP asked.

  Wolf was laying across my couch, he’s ankles crossed propped up on the armrest. His eyes were closed, and arms crossed over his chest. This is what he did instead of going home or to his room here at the club. On more than one occasion we argued over him stinking up the place. I’ve even tried to order him to go the fuck home, but he would always come back with, it was too fucking hard to protect his President from home. I just think he likes the couch, it’s big enough to hold his massive frame.

  “Fuck you Wolf, it was one time.”

  “You spoke nerd for a week,” Wolf retorted.

  “It wasn’t a bump; it was a concussion. It wasn’t nerd; it was computer code.”

  “Like I said, nerd.”

  “Not all of us are muscle bound meatheads, some of us actually have a brain,” Bullet shot back.

  “Enough,” I interjected hoping to stop the pissing contest. “Your both, pretty-pretty-princesses.”

  “I’m prettier,” Wolf grunted.

  “As if! Besides, I’m smarter.”

  “And I’m bored. What’s happening Bullet?” I asked.

  “I just saw Stacey at the daycare. I was riding past and thought it was weird that there were no kids around, so I stopped in to see what was going on. Stacey said she had to send the kids home.”

  “What for?” Wolf asked si
tting up giving Bullet his full attention.

  “She had to clear the kids out, so the drug squad could go over the place.”

  “The drug squad, what the fuck for?” I asked.

  “Apparently they had a tip off there was an ICE lab in the basement.”

  “The daycare doesn’t even have a basement,” Wolf replied.

  “They realised that pretty quick once they went looking for one. That didn’t stop them from tearing the place apart looking for something, anything out of the ordinary.”

  “How the fuck could they think an ICE lab would be in the daycare?”

  “Don’t know but they were out-of-towners, I’d never seen any of them before,” Bullet shrugged. “From the city, I guess. Stacey said they came in in full riot gear and scared the shit out of the kids.”

  Great, just one more fucking thing to deal with. This was not a coincidence. This was one more shitty thing that happened giving further evidence to my theory that someone was trying to destroy Knights Fury.

  “I’ll speak with the Chief and see what he says.”

  “Bullet take the prospects, Roach and Ace and go help Stacey putting things back to rights.”

  “Will do D,” Bullet said heading for the door. “I’ll make sure it looks like it never happened.”

  “Bullet.”

  “Yeah, D?”

  “Up security, cameras, sensors the lot. I want those kids to be safe. Do not leave until every trace of police presence has been erased. The kids need to feel safe there. The parents of this town need to know their kids are safe. Stacey and the staff need to know they are safe going to work.”

  “On it,” he said leaving my office. I could hear him yelling at the prospects to get their shit together in the common room.

  “God fucking damnit!” I roared slamming my fist on the desk. “What the fuck Wolf?!”

  “I don’t know Danger but going after kids, that is some fucked up shit.”

  “Call the executive to church.”

  “Way ahead of you,” Wolf said, his thumbs flying across the screen of his phone.

  “I want to know what’s going on Wolf. I will not have a return to the days of Fox, I will not have the people of this town cowering before us. Everyone else can cower away, but not our people.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Danger

  Wolf just had to ask the damn question.

  Why didn’t, whoever was behind this, go after our illegal dealings?

  Then as if tuned to Wolf’s stupid ass voice, the evil doers started fucking with things a little closer to home.

  Roach, Pepper, and Bullet were pulled over by the cops and kept on the side of the road for two hours as they searched their bikes. Tank and Dozer’s run to our friends across the border was ambushed.

  “It’s not like I knew asking a damn question was going to start shit,” he spat.

  “Next time keep your damn comments to yourself.”

  Three runs have been attacked in the last three weeks.

  Three times our security has been tested and failed.

  “Bullet will be in hospital overnight. He has a plate and nine pins in his arm but he’s fine. The doc said we have to keep him in the cast for six weeks,” Tank informed me flopping down into the chair in front of my desk.

  “Like that’s gonna happen,” Wolf mumbled.

  “That’s what I said, but the doc said if we didn’t, she would come down here and break all of our everything.”

  “Well, that was vaguely threatening,” I smirked, pouring us all drinks, handing them out then taking a seat at my desk.

  “I think Bullet might be sweet on her,” Tank grinned taking a sip of his drink.

  “Was she conscious?” Wolf asked. “If she was conscious and female, he’d be interested.”

  “This was different, like he knew her or something.”

  “We can braid each other’s hair and discuss Bullet’s love life later. As for right now, I want to hear the magical story of what the fuck happened tonight?”

  I had been enjoying a very peaceful night of drinking, playing pool and relishing the company of a few of the club girls. That was until I got a call that there had been a brawl at Fury Road, the club we own.

  “White Rabbit showed up,” Wolf started, pushing at a growing bruise on his cheek.

  “So? Members of White Rabbit have been drinking at Fury Road for years. What made them put on their big boy pants and pick a fight?”

  White Rabbit is a tinker toy gang who have watched one-to-many episodes of Tokyo Drift. They zip around town and the city in their crackerjack toys with their shitty taste in music cranked, annoying the shit out of everyone. Petty criminals selling stolen merchandise to fund parts for their cars.

  “Maiko came in with his balls on fire spitting some bullshit about receiving hot merch,” Wolf explained.

  “They deal in stolen merch. Stolen merch by nature is hot, so again I ask, what the fuck?”

  “According to Maiko, the merch was stolen from an evidence lock up. They were all tagged and numbered. The second the merch started moving their clients began attracting heat from the cops. They're saying it’s a setup.”

  “What the shit?”

  “Exactly, but Maiko didn’t want to discuss it or see reason so…” Wolf pointed to his rapidly blackening eye.

  “Bar fight.”

  “Bar fight,” he sighed returning the icepack to his eye.

  “How much damage was done?” I asked rubbing a hand across my forehead.

  “To the bar not much. A few broken chairs, a broken window; Ace is replacing it as we speak,” Tank said getting up to refill our drinks. “As far a human damage, well, Bullet’s in hospital, Wolf here has a shiner, there are a few fat lips and cut up hands. White Rabbit copped the most damage.”

  I picked up my phone and dialled waiting for the call to connect.

  “You’ve got some fucking nerve calling me.”

  “August, remember who you are talking to,” I cautioned the head of White Rabbit.

  “I’ll talk to you anyway I like bitch! Thanks to your fucked-up merchandise four of my boys got busted,” he seethed.

  “August, if you would like to continue enjoying having your balls attached to your body, I would watch how you fucking speak to me,” I warned. I would not let this little shit disrespect me. “Your last shipment did not come from us.”

  “The hell it didn’t!”

  “August, you’re on speaker, Tank can hear you being less than respectful to me. You know how he gets when his President is disrespected.”

  Tank has his nickname for a reason. The guy is built like a fucking tank and his fists have the power of a shell strike. August is shit scared of Tank.

  “Tank hi how… how are you?” Tank growled in response. Wolf covered his mouth to hide his snickering. “Sorry Danger, no-no disrespect. It’s been a stressful few days,” August apologised.

  “As I said,” leaving his apology unaccepted. “Your last shipment didn’t come from us. Your shipment is sitting in the warehouse waiting on payment like normal.” There was silence on the other end of the line as August decided if I was telling the truth. I could hear his brain ticking over. “What the fuck happened August?”

  “I got a text from Bullet. At least I thought it was from Bullet. The message was from a number I didn’t recognise, when I questioned it, he said it was a new number. Apparently, the jackass jumped in the pool without emptying his pockets.”

  “It does sound like something the shithead would do,” Wolf agreed.

  “The message said to bring cash and to meet at the abandoned textile plant at the edge of town. I know that’s not how we normally do things, but it was Bullet, so I figured….” He figured the message was from Bullet, everything seemed on the up and up so why question it.

  “I’m sending Ace over. August, give him everything, show him the messages, any of the merch you have left, answer
his questions. You’re a good customer August.” I said rolling my eyes, feeding his ego. “You’re one of my best customers because you listen and do what you are told.” Reminding him of how things worked was for the best. I didn’t want the little shit to start getting ideas that he had any kind of power in this relationship. “I wouldn’t mess with you unless you gave me reason to. I will get to the bottom of this,” I assured him.

  “Thank you, Danger thank, you.”

  “August, Maiko walked into Fury Road swinging his cock around bitching about shit he didn’t understand, fucking up my bar.”

  “I’ll see to it that he pays for all the damage,” August assured me.

  “August, White Rabbit is banned from Fury Road for the next three months. Any of you fuckers come anywhere near my bar and you will have to deal with me, personally and I’ll bring Tank.”

  “I understand Danger, I understand. Thank you. Thank you for your mercy. Oh, and Danger?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My balls?” He asked.

  “What about them?”

  “Do… Do I get to keep them?”

  “And deprive the ladies all you have to offer? You can keep them; for now.”

  I ended the call, picked up my glass emptying it letting the whisky burn down my throat. I refilled my glass three times working through everything August said.

  “Tell Ace to get over to White Rabbit now. Tell him to get a copy of everything, Bullet will want to look over it all when he’s back.”

  Wolf and Tank left my room leaving me to my thoughts.

  Shit.

  I did a shot of whisky.

  Shit!

  I did a shot of whisky.

  Shiiiiiiiitttttttttt!

  I drank straight from the bottle.

  Shit-fucking-shit-tits-shit!

  I drained the bottle

  I can’t fucking believe I’m about to say this….

  I need fucking Aries.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Leo

  Brrrbrrrbrr.

  “No.”

  Brrrbrrrbrr.

  “Go. Away.”

  Brrrbrrrbrr.