The Devil’s Bastards MC:
Destiny Dallas Callaghan
Kendra Plunkett – Witt
Copyright 2018
I dedicate this book to all my wonderful readers. To each one of you who have followed me and supported me since my first book. Helping me pursue my dream of becoming an author one book at a time. I appreciate all of you more than words can say.
Much love, Kendra Plunkett-Witt
1
Dark thunderheads started to gather up over head and there was a slight chill in the air. The Texas weather decided to break its August dry spell while on a ride down Interstate 20 from Fort Worth to Sweetwater. Of freakin’ course.
A newer model Chevrolet diesel hauling a horse trailer pulled into the gas station where Destiny was filling up. The cowgirl in the passenger seat jumped out and gave her a sneer.
Destiny smiled.
It was always something with the cowgirl type or most people in general. Destiny didn’t know if it was her natural deep red hair that looked as if it was highlighted in black from a genetic error gifted from her mixed Irish-Mexican blood. Or was it her tattoos? Most of them where covered now except the one on her wrist and one that peeked out from her chest. Was it the fact she sat astride a Harley with the screaming skulls painted on the gas tank? Or the cut of the Devil’s Bastard she wore on her back? The pair of 9mm Glocks in her shoulder holsters?
Probably all of the above. People didn’t like her in general. She wasn’t right, she wasn’t normal. Not to anyone inside or outside her lifestyle.
But the problem with the cowgirl was most likely the fact that she made Texas look bad. That was normally the case.
Most cowgirls didn’t know she knew how to ride a horse, or that she was a former Marine or that she was as Texas as they were. After all, she was Destiny Dallas Callaghan. Most commonly referred to as Double D to those who never knew her full name. Not to mention the fact that her chest size had lived up to its expectations.
Destiny gave the cowgirl a little wave as she strapped her helmet back on and kicked her Harley to life and rode away.
Just fifteen more miles.
Fifteen more miles and she would be home. For good. Or at least the foreseeable future. This time there was no leave hanging over head, stating a time she had to go back. No orders waiting back in Fort Worth, at least not for the moment.
Destiny patted the front of her cut. She felt the papers inside the inner pocket for the hundredth time. Her transfer papers. From the Fort Worth to Sweetwater chapters. The vote had been unanimous, as it must be, in Fort Worth to send her back home. Now if only she could get a solid unanimous vote around the table at Sweetwater. Earn her right to sit at the family table. The table her father and “uncles” built. Then all would be okay.
With skill that had come with nine years riding her own Harley, Destiny pulled out a smoke and lit up. The intake of nicotine helped soothe her wild thoughts as she sped toward town, hoping to outrun the rain and make tonight’s church at seven.
She wanted to be able to have her vote tonight. She never expected to pass the first time. It just wouldn’t. But she wanted to know who was against her. Who she had to work on before it could make table again in a week.
She might have been handed the prospect cut due to some bylaw about her father, but she had earned her patch in Fort Worth. And she would earn her right to sit at the mother charter’s table. Like her father had, like her brothers had.
But just because Fort Worth had patched her and taken responsibility for her didn’t mean the home chapter would. She was a girl after all. The first girl to ever prospect and, because of that, the first to girl to ever patch as a Devil. And possibly to ever patch to a motorcycle club like the Devil’s Bastards anywhere.
It might be sexist but there sure wasn’t any women burning their bras in the streets to rightfully join a bunch of heathen outlaws. It just wasn’t done.
She had done it—joined the club, not burnt her bra—with only a little help. They may have had to let her prospect but they didn’t have to let her patch.
But she had.
That itself was a major battle. She was still young and she wanted to earn the club’s respect. Earn her place at the table. And she wanted to earn it at Sweetwater.
She would earn it.
Destiny had talked to her “Aunt” Kristy three days ago when her transfer papers were signed by the Fort Worth President Ray N. The club already knew she was coming. Kristy hadn’t.
After thirty-five years being a biker’s old lady, and thirty years of being an old lady of the club, you would think Kristy got it. But she didn’t.
Destiny respected Kristy and Stella, both aunts, both old ladies of the MC. Both had raised Destiny since her mother’s death and taken on sole responsibility of her after her father died a few years later. The paperwork said Destiny’s legal guardians were Kristy and Alec Vandergriffen.
But it was the club who raised her, taking responsibility for all three of them. Especially after Alec took his place at the head of the table as president when her father died, stepping down only after a mild heart attack four years ago so her older brother Austin could step up to the plate.
Alec returned less than two years later to the gavel after her brother was killed.
Destiny shuddered. Maybe a trip down memory lane wasn’t what she needed right now. With Austin’s death still fresh to the club and Houston (their mother thought it necessary to name each child after Texas) leading the Nomad Outlaw charter, the group of misfit bandits who held patch but no home chapter, there was a good chance that the family would be overprotective of her.
A damn good chance.
Eric supported her coming home. As a table elder and a patch member for twenty-five years, patched the year Destiny was born, he had some pull. He had also convinced his old lady Stella that since the rebel girl they raised was so insistent on wearing the patch, they could better look out for her here at home.
Alec felt the same way. Kristy was unconvinced. Destiny should have never patched in her eyes.
That was the war Destiny was fighting. Everywhere she went, every charter she visited all over the country, every other MC and gang they dealt with. A girl in the ranks. It was a laugh.
Fort Worth had worried about her but before she even made patch a little more than fifteen months ago, she had proved her worth and her ability to handle her own. The government thought she could handle herself and a transport team in the Iraq war-torn desert, so what was a few street thugs?
However, Sweetwater, Sweetwater was closer to her. The MC was one big family but Sweetwater was the closest to the Callaghan’s. Not only was she the only girl, she was also, in a way, the last one left. Houston was in the wind, lost and crazed. Left to lead the pack only because he was their father’s son.
Others in his mind state might have been put down. They were a liability and a threat to others and themselves. Not only could he end up with the law on their asses, he could get himself killed, his brothers in patch killed, or worse yet, bring wrath down on the families that loved the men and woman who wore the leather.
Sweetwater pulled into view and Destiny started to feel the first of the rain drops she had been outrunning hit her skin. She worked her way through town and passed the signs showing people to the strip club a few miles outside of town. Devil’s Stomping Ground.
The reason why people in Sweetwater so loved the Bastards. Their quiet and somewhat wholesome town destroyed by the MC-owned strip club.
Home sweet home.
The custom bike shop and store was already closed for the day, an hour early.
Kristy and Stella apparently had better things to do.
Two blocks down sat the compound, for better lack of a word. The clubhouse housed a kitchen, a bar, the church where all business was attended, and four small apartments that homed tiny private baths and single dorm-sized bedrooms.
This was home.
This was the mother charter of Devil’s Bastards. One of eleven that were scattered throughout the states. The only other local one was in Fort Worth.
The parking lot was full and there was a band warming up under the big pavilion. Destiny drove through the crowd and under the protective overhang roof of the clubhouse that offered protection for the bikes.
“Double D! Welcome home!” Stephan Ames shouted. A product of Eric and Stella and graciously named “Fabio” due to an attempt at the hairstyle while a freshman in high school, Fabio was two years younger than Austin and a year older than Houston in school, although he was closest with the younger brother.
Fabio had been one of Austin’s right hands when he held the gavel. Although he wasn’t vice president or sergeant, he was close to him in club business. When Austin was killed, Fabio had left the Sweetwater chapter to follow Houston.
Unable to help her other brother or stay away from his family and chapter, Fabio returned just weeks before Destiny was patched in Fort Worth.
Destiny killed her bike, tossed down the kick stand, and was picked up in Fabio’s strong arms in the soft sprinkle of rain.
“Good to have you back home, sister.”
“It’s good to be home,” she gasped out as he squeezed her tightly. “What’s the party about?”
“It’s your welcome home party.”
Throngs of people surrounded Destiny. All hugs and laughs and smiles. For the most part. Most patched members hung back. Not against her returning home, but quietly concerned about her transfer to the charter.
Stella and Kristy pushed their way to her side and Stella shoved her son out of the way.
“Welcome home darling,” Kristy said, kissing her cheeks.
“My baby’s back!” Stella exclaimed and pulled Destiny close.
“I didn’t get that much excitement from her when I returned,” Fabio muttered.
“You’re not the baby though, are you?” Stella said, swatting at him with a smile.
“Alright folks!” Alec’s voice boomed out. “Clear the way for her. Church is about to start!”
Destiny offered a weak smile to her aunts as she pulled away from them and followed Fabio to the other patch members and from there into the heart of the clubhouse and the table.
2
Following the members of the Sweetwater charter into their clubhouse felt right. If Destiny was honest, it scared her to death, but still, it felt like home.
She had grown up here. In this bar, in these halls. Spent time sitting with her father as a young girl in the church room and had asked him about the pictures on the walls. Mug shots of the members. Most of them she knew and considered family. Few she did not as they had been incarcerated, de-patched honorably or taken to their graves before she was old enough to remember, in a war that was bloodier to her than the one she served in for Uncle Sam.
Her father would tell her stories about the Devil’s Bastards. The symbol that was on the cuts and now tattooed on her back shoulder.
The few memories she had of her father were here. In this place.
One by one the members emptied their cell phones into the bowl next to the door and walked into the room. Leather office chairs surrounded the huge oak table with the screaming skulls carved into it.
An American flag draped over a cross stood at one end of the room.
Same as it had been for as long as Destiny could remember.
Same as it would be forever.
Alec took his place at the gavel. Flanking him was Riccardo the Sergeant and Bryant the VP. Eric, Fabio, Vat, Vince, Jay, Charlie, and Drew rounded out the table.
Vince was the eldest, although not one of the five founding members. Alec was the only one of those five left in the Sweetwater chapter. Riccardo was a legal immigrant to Texas, as Mexican as Destiny’s mother and as crazy as Batman’s Joker.
Bryant was steady. Ex-military like her, although he was a Marine sniper first and a SEAL later. In his mid-forties now, Bryant had been a patch member for ten years.
Vat was clinically insane and was also a certifiable genius. His IQ was through the roof but he preferred guns and motors to colleges. Five years patched now and like her he had started his Bastard career in Fort Worth and had just transferred to Sweetwater before Destiny had started her prospect. She didn’t know him that well but Destiny guessed if one could help keep him in control, he would be a loyal and valuable asset to anyone.
Vince, who was pushing sixty, had been a patch member for the Bastards for just over twenty years. Formerly from Boston, he still hadn’t quite settled into Texas, even though he had been living here since before he patched.
Jay and Charlie were in their late thirties. Both prospected and patched when Destiny was in high school and were the only ones to prospect between Austin patching and Houston prospecting. They had come to fill out a dwindling club when numbers meant guns and fear of war was always on the table despite those being the peaceful years.
Drew was calm and quiet and the youngest of the Sweetwater’s, aside from Fabio. He couldn’t have been more than thirty-three. He was also relatively normal, which was a word scarcely used among Destiny’s family. Everyone had their crazy quirks. Drew was just himself. Quiet but deadly. Typically fun and a laugh once you got to know him.
Once a cop in Detroit, Drew had left the badge to join the ranks of the Bastards. He left after patching and transferred to the Nomad Outlaws before settling into Sweetwater just six months before Destiny had left the military.
With everyone seated in their spot around the table, Destiny in a chair slightly back from the rest, Alec slammed the gavel down and the table was open.
“First order of business, welcome to the Sweetwater table, Destiny,” Alec said with a smile and the table generally burst out in their usual rowdy cheers and laughs and Destiny was slapped on the back by several rough hands.
“But before we get to the business of why Destiny is here,” Alec continued when things had calmed down. “The usual. Eric, how are the funds?”
Eric served as treasurer, for lack of a better word. He collected dues and handled funds and money washing when needed. “Dues have all been collected. Payment on the clubhouse, standard utility bills all good. Bar is stocked, although it probably will need re-stocked after tonight. Envelopes from the Apache run are here. Pass them around.”
“Apache?” Destiny asked aloud, even if it wasn’t any of her business until her charter patch changed.
“We’re picking up some side work for them. Protection mostly,” Alec said without bothering to look at her while the boys passed around their pay.
“Since when?” she asked. The Apache was a MC made up of a few Native Americans, but over the years they turned into a misfit group, no real premises for joining. You could be five percent native and patch, unlike most of the other gangs still dictated by race.
The Bastards had never dealt with the Apache to Destiny’s knowledge. And Destiny had studied her history and she kept up on the other charters. No charter had ever done business with a charter of the Apache or its brother cuts. They weren’t always at war with them, but they didn’t run in the same circles so to speak.
No one said anything.
“Is the income from the club not good enough?” she pressed.
Alec sighed. “We get by well enough. You know that. This is more of a… security type. A working treaty with the Apache. Hopefully it opens up other means of work for our brothers in other charters.”
Destiny stared her uncle down but let it go. It wasn’t her place to challenge him or question the reasons behind the work for the Warriors, as the Apache patches called themselves. She wasn’t a member of
Sweetwater yet and even if she were she had a sinking feeling that the Apache business was something stickier than it looked.
With the envelopes passed around, Alec cleared his throat to command the undivided attention of his men and Destiny.
“Now it is time to bring up the matter of business that we all know we have been called to this table to deal with.” Alec raised an envelope up for his men to see. Destiny knew what they were—her transfer papers from Fort Worth. “They are all in order and Fort Worth has voted in favor of the transfer. The letter of recommendation for transfer from President Ray N states, and I quote, “Destiny Dallas Callaghan took her opportunity granted by the by-laws of the Bastards and prospected here in Fort Worth under my Presidency. After fifteen months service, she earned her patch, every stitch’s worth. She has been honorable, dutiful, and brave and shows all those qualities of such that a Bastard must possess before taking his or HER patch. She was welcomed into our family and during the time she spent here she proved herself even more.
“However, we all know that Fort Worth isn’t the charter she was born to serve. Unanimously we vote her the privilege of her transfer papers and know that Sweetwater will suit her and the goals of this club much more than Fort Worth ever could. Her talents would be of great use to any charter.
“The Bastards are about brotherhood. Family. And Destiny deserves the opportunity to serve in her home charter and be surrounded by her family. With that I sign these papers with much recommendation, Ray N., president of the Devil’s Bastards, Fort Worth, Texas.”
Destiny shifted nervously in her chair but would not lose her composure at such an important time. Ray N. was not a man of many fancy words but what he had said about her filled her with pride. She had earned her right at his table, same as she would earn it at her uncles’.
This vote wouldn’t be the decider. She wasn’t naïve enough to think that she would be voted a Sweetwater Bastard at first vote. If being a woman wasn’t against her, the chances would be slim. Many transfers waited weeks after joining another charter before requesting their transfer go before a table.
The Devils Bastards MC: Destiny Dallas Callaghan Page 1