A Civilian for Silo

by J. A. Hornbuckle

  He nodded as he turned fully towards where she sat behind the receptionist desk finding her eyes were on him, her fingers still.

  “Shelly didn’t do that though because she loved being a Palmer. Of being a part of the movers and shakers within Albuquerque’s elite. No, my sister went back to eliminate any suspicion and evidence that any of our assets, both hers and mine, were not connected to Daddy in anyway. But with the FBI pulling her in for questions so often and the way her charities disengaged themselves from anything to do with the Palmer name, she was lost. And had no one to turn to.” Lulu sighed deeply. “The people we used to call friends didn’t stick around long after the crap my father pulled. And I don’t think Shelly had any experience with how lonely being alone could actually be.”

  “So that means what?” Silo thought he understood what Lu was saying but she hadn’t fucking brought anything to light that would explain Shelly’s playing him like a goddamn yo-yo.

  “Of the two of us, I was the rebellious one always going against the grain in order to do what I wanted. It used to make my father so mad. But Shelly didn’t. She toed the Palmer line and did what she was told, when she was told to do it.” Lulu’s head was cocked as she thought before speaking again. “So without a job, no support and realizing our father was a complete and utter creep, Shelly’s world just…imploded. And she’s having to build a new one. Get it?”

  “No,” Silo drawled. “Get to the fucking point, girl.”

  Lulu smiled at his bald request. “She’s never had choices before and I think she’s afraid of making the wrong ones.”

  “And I would be a wrong fucking choice?”

  “Not in my opinion,” Lulu quickly assured him. “And probably in the deepest parts of Shelly, she doesn’t think so either. But this is all new to her, Silo. Everything. The club, housework and cooking. New friends, a different way of dressing and new ways of doing things. Of being with a man that she both respects and cares for. And one that treats her a heck of a lot better than any of the bozos in Albuquerque ever did.”

  Silo thought that over.

  “She’s just scared, lost and probably confused. Give her time.” Silo thought Lulu was finally beginning to make sense. “Just keep doing what you’re doing and she’ll come around.”

  “Come around to what?”

  Lulu’s eyes went back to the monitor and she started in on the keyboard again. “Why, to recognize that she loves you as much as you love her, silly man!”

  Silo couldn’t help it, couldn’t help the relief Lulu’s declaration had unleashed inside him. Laughing, he took the few steps to get to the beautiful, black-haired girl and pulled her up out of her chair for a tight hug.

  “Is there something doing with y’all I need to fucking know about?” Hardwood asked on a low grumble from the doorway. Both Silo and Lulu shot their gazes to the other man and shook their heads in the negative. “Good. Now if you’re done mauling my woman, we need you back in the conference room, brother.”

  Silo gave another squeeze before releasing the receptionist and following the other man down the hall, feeling better than when he’d fucking left the meeting.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  “Oh hell to the no,” Reese breathed after opening the door to the small house she and I were visiting in order to inspect. She’d picked me up so that we could go through the different properties the new Hellions and families would be inhabiting. All suggested by that bitch of a real estate agent and my current nemesis, Theresa Colton.

  Casting my gaze around the tiny domicile, I had to agree with Reese’s assessment. It was awful. Not only dingy but dirty and unkempt with cobwebs in every corner and worn carpet.

  And what was that god-awful smell?

  I looked over Reese’s shoulder to the clipboard she held. Silo had given the realtor a spreadsheet with the requirements of each brother or their family which should’ve made the woman’s job easy. All she was supposed to do was provide addresses so we could vet them according to the specifications. But this was the third property that we’d done a preview on and each were worse than the one before.

  “This is fucking bullshit,” my friend growled, pulling her cellphone from her back pocket and dialing. Shooting me a look that would’ve skewered a lesser individual, she ground out, “and we’re getting to the damn bottom of what the hell is going on.”

  I held my tongue and just looked again at the miniscule space. It definitely wasn’t big enough for the Preston family. Terror and Legs had two teenagers, a boy and a girl, and had specifically requested a three bedroom but what Colton had suggested wouldn’t have been sufficient even for just Silo and me.

  “No, I said immediately,” I heard Reese exclaim. “Miss Colton, do you want the commission for the Hellion rentals and purchases? Good. Then I suggest you get your ass in gear and get over here as fast as your fuck-me pumps can do so!”

  Reese disconnected the call and gave me a chilling smile. “The bitch is on her way over.”

  “Silo calls her a piece of work,” I said apropos of nothing as I drifted into the postage stamp sized kitchen only then realizing there wasn’t any place to fit a table and no dining room space. And the sink? Oh dear god, the chipped, stained sink wasn’t just filthy but smelled like it had been used as a toilet!

  “He was playing nice-nice. The woman’s a complete ass.” Reese hitched her purse further up on her shoulder and went down a short hall that I thought contained the bathroom and bedrooms. Although she stomped back to where I stood with fire blazing in her eyes. “Are you freaking kidding me? Two bedrooms? One small bathroom with only a shower? Oh Christ! Terror would fucking freak over this shit!”

  She was, I could tell, beyond angry.

  I couldn’t wait to watch her work the real estate agent, who had originally set her sights on my man, over the coals for her ineptitude.

  ‘So he’s your man now? What ever happened to…’ the voice in my mind questioned.

  “Just wanna warn you. I’m not prone to bloodshed but I’m so pissed it could go that way.” I whipped my head to look at Reese with my heart in my throat. And with just a glance at her livid face, I took every word she said as god’s truth. “Hope you have my back, Shell.”

  “Absolutely,” I muttered, but felt my knees begin to shake.

  *.*.*.*.*

  “We’ve got shit going down, brothers,” Trey said and from Silo’s view of the laptop screen, propped at the end of the large conference room table, he saw both his former president and his old council were scowling into the camera at their end.

  “Tell us.” Brand voice, while quiet still held the edges of a demand.

  Silo saw Trey glance towards Dare who was sitting slouched in a chair, his fingers interlaced on top of his head. “Well…it fuckin’ started with me, right? I was just comin’ back from Willis’s construction site when a truck pulled out in front of me, sudden-like. Found me fuckin’ laying down my ride and muttering more than a fuckin’ few Hail Marys.”

  Both councils couldn’t help their chuckles as Dare’s description. Known as the mouth of the Missoula chapter, Dare was almost always good for a laugh even when recounting a scene that Trey felt was worthy of sharing with the men in Billings.

  “Lucky for me, Johnny Law was just comin’ the fuck back from lunch and witnessed the whole thing. Chased the bastards, red and blue lights blazing with me limping along behind.” Dare shook his head and dropped his eyes to his hands that were now on the table in front of him. “When they forced the shitheads outta the truck, lo and behold, the two fuckers inside were sporting a VD patch on their cuts.”

  Silo found both of his own hands were fisted on the table as Dare completed his story.

  “When the hell did it happen, dude?” Pagan asked and Silo thought it was a good question.

  “Friday, late afternoon,” came Dare’s reply.

  Trey rubbed a hand over his face before speaking again. “It gets worse, brothers.”

  “I’d taken Rin
se out on one of his first rides with his new bike,” Huff started, and Silo’s gaze shifted to the big blonde Hellion sitting next to Dare on the screen. “You know those tips the kid accumulated when he was in the Youth Program doing laundry for the single brothers? Got himself fucking enough green to buy a ride straight off the fucking showroom floor.”

  There were more than a few guffaws from the same men that had used the laundry facilities at the Missoula clubhouse and because of the care and concern Trey’s brother-in-law-to-be had taken with their threads, had added to the kid’s tip jar.

  “A beautiful Saturday morning, perfect for a ride and when we were done with the lesson, I treated the kid to one of those frozen drink thingies at the mini-mart place Snake’s girl works.” Huff’s voice went from lighthearted to dark with his next words. “Just as we were getting in line to pay, two armed VDs entered and demanded all the fucking dough in the clerk’s drawer.”

  ‘Hole-lee shit!’ Silo mind stuttered.

  “It wasn’t until their eyes turned to me and Rinse, their weapons gesturing towards our wallets, that I realized who the hell they were and what the fuck they were after.” Huff stopped and took in a deep lungful of air before bringing his face back up to the camera. “They didn’t fucking force anyone else face first on the filthy floor or rob any other customer. We were the motherfucking targets, real and true.” His gaze slid away and the blonde biker’s face went to red. “I couldn’t even fucking reach for my gun or knife to prevent it.”

  Fucking shit! Silo slammed one of his tightly clenched fists onto the tabletop, his insides burning at the humiliation Huff was describing. For a Hellion to be restrained by both weapons and the possibility of innocent by-standers hurt in a biker-to-biker doing was fucking messed up to the max!

  Silo’s gaze went back to Trey’s image only to see the man nod towards Bishop.

  “My turn?” Man, his long-haired brother looked tore up from the floor up with sharply defined cheekbones and more pale than Silo had ever seen him. The dude’s voice even sounded weak. “When I went to leave for church, I did like I always fucking do and set the sprinkler for the front garden, dig?”

  Yeah, Silo remembered.

  Bishop’s thing was working in his yard. Weeding, mowing and even ‘feeding’ his lawn whatever the hell that meant. Bish liked and took pride in his outdoor spaces. Had even roped Silo into digging in the man’s dirt on more than a few occasions.

  “But when I cleared the stairs of my porch, I saw patches of yellow in the front spot of grass and flowerbeds close to where it meets the sidewalk.” Bishop stopped and swallowed deeply while running a thin hand over his waist-length braid that fell over his shoulder. “At first I thought it was kids playing a prank 'til I viewed it from the street.”

  Something was seriously wrong with Bishop. Silo’s heart skipped a beat with not only the view of the once strong but now frail man and weak voice.

  “It was words only written in Spanish,” Bishop continued and Silo couldn’t take his eyes off the other man as he spoke. “Perro cobrade. In English, it translates to ‘cowardly dog’. They even fucking tagged it on my front door.”

  “Fucking hell,” Hardwood breathed at Bishop’s retelling and that echoed the shit that was churning inside of Silo.

  “The worst part is, I never heard them, had no fucking clue they’d fuckin’ gotten that close to me,” Bishop mumbled with a head shake. “Don’t have any motherfucking idea how they even knew where I fucking lived.”

  Trey looked around the table in Missoula before directing his eyes back to the camera. “Yesterday afternoon I received a call from Dallas’s dad. He had a concern because his Mary is afraid to go to the mailboxes at their condo. Says there are bikers she doesn’t recognize eyeing her from the street every time she goes outside. It makes her nervous.” Trey’s tone gave evidence to the concern the big man had about the safety of his fiancé’s parents. “I can’t fucking protect them 24/7 but…Christ! The woman has a heart condition and…” The big man’s voice wound down as if unable to continue.

  Silo’s heart went out to him knowing that Trey and the Hellions were supporting his girl’s parents and felt responsible for their well-being.

  “Which fucking explains a lot about my and my Reese’s encounter with the four VDs at the diner last night,” Brand added. All eyes were on the other man as he took up the list of wrongdoings the VDs had inflicted over the course of just sixty short hours—from Friday night through Sunday.

  “We were having a nice dinner at one of the local diners and before I knew it, four men in cuts were surrounding our table. They spoke Spanish but I got the gist of what they were saying.” The large commanding man swallowed thickly. “They surrounded our table and told me that the Hellions were cowardly, not worthy of the machines we ride.”

  Silo knew that was the biggest slam another biker could give another verbally, club-to-club.

  “But then they began to talk of my wife’s chest and body in ways no man should ever speak of another biker’s woman. But because of our venue, of where we were, I could not react as a man should. Not without the possible loss of an innocent’s life. So I held still.” Brand’s fingers gripped the edge of the table so hard, Silo could clearly see the knuckles whiten. “But it fucking cost me, brothers.”

  “This is fucking bullshit!” Pagan yelled and Silo’s head swiveled quickly to view his other brother’s enraged face. A look that was repeated by every Hellion on both councils. “They’re goading us in order to pull us into their war with the Czars.”

  “Agreed,” Trey confirmed tightly. “Ideas on how to handle this?”

  Silo opened his mouth but soon shut it, a move that was echoed by not only his Hellion brothers in the room but by those on the computer screen.

  “We do not know where they are originating from. Nor their agenda other than the meth money.” Silo took in Brand’s set shoulders and downturned mouth which only echoed the Missoula’s president on the screen.

  “But that ain’t our fucking fault…” Silo sputtered. “Let ‘em go after the goddamn Czars, for fuck’s sake.”

  “I fucking think the agenda is the key,” Dare offered boldly, stabbing a finger into the table that Silo knew almost as well as the back of his hand. “If we could figure out what they fucking want with the Hellions then we could get down with the doings.”

  Silo thought in the space of silence that had settled over both of the Hellion chapters. “Any word of fucking VD activities in Sheridan or Spokane?”

  “Didn’t think of that,” Trey murmured, pulling at his goatee before turning to Bishop’s chair. Somehow, the other man had exited the room without any of the other brothers noticing.

  “Goddamn,” Huff grumbled. “This is getting fucking ridiculous!”

  “Whatever shit the dude’s got going on is getting worse.” Dare’s words were only an echo of what had flashed in Silo’s mind.

  “I concur,” Brand agreed before turning to the computer. “Pagan? We need you to take up the slack, brother. Are you up to the challenge?”

  “On it.” Pagan affirmed with a head nod. “Will connect with Acer, the IT specialist in Sheridan and let everyone in on the other chapter’s doings.”

  “Excellent,” Trey responded but there was no hope, no Hellion glory in his voice. “In the meantime, I’ll contact Shark, allegedly the new prez of the Czars, though I gotta fucking say, if he’s the goddamn head, I’d hate to see the fucking tail.”

  There wasn’t a brother on either side of the screen that didn’t nod in agreement at Trey’s assessment.

  *.*.*.*.*

  David Moore’s heart boomed in his chest as he beheld all the beauty of Michelle, albeit through binoculars that were trained to her figure through the half-cracked mini-blinds of what he was calling a small shack on the edge of Billings.

  It wasn’t that she was just pretty, beautiful in her own fashion. No, it was the way she carried herself, gestured gracefully as she interacted with the comm
oners, those people who were less than her and most especially him, even though he was dressed in the uniform of the masses.

  Glancing down at himself, he took sight of the new-to-him worn jeans, the t-shirt and well-used hoodie. He’d paired it with a ball cap that he’d turned backwards so as not to interfere with his viewing of the object of his desire. Of his fixation.

  He’d been following her and the other slut for most of the morning, gleeful that neither of them had spotted him as he’d both trailed and stalked them as they had visited more than a few empty properties.

  But there was something about the latest residence that had both his Michelle and her slut of a companion upset. Feminine hands were waving and chins wagging in the view with the binoculars from across the street. What had the women so upset?

  He saw a bright, shiny Acura pull up in front of the house and watched as the beautiful woman who’d graced Michelle’s table, exited a car he’d love to own. But by the black-haired beauty’s carriage, by the sharp, strident sounds of her boots against the pavement, David knew there was trouble brewing.

  He shivered in anticipation, wanting to see Michelle confronted by someone, anyone. He needed to see how she dealt with conflict since his plans included taking her from beneath the nose of that ridiculous scum she was staying with. Which he knew would probably be a fight.

  But he was up for the task.

  Dropping the binocs to his chest, the former federal agent took in a deep, prideful breath. He was more than up for the challenge of both claiming and naming Michelle Palmer as his. And, he admitted with a body skim of goose-pimples, he was more than ready for the task.

  More than ready.

  *.*.*.*.*

  “I don’t understand how this happened,” the real estate agent mumbled as she looked over the printed sheets on Reese’s clipboard. I wasn’t sure if I believed the woman or not. She was giving off all the right signals of confusion though: blushing, stammering and fidgeting with her earrings.