Tread: Biker Romance (Ronin MC Series Book 1)

by Morrow, Justin

  I stayed silent, shocked that Tread knew the whole time there were people watching.

  “Did you show any nips? ’Cause I might have to pop him one upside his head if he took ’em out,” Tatum yelled with a slap to the air. A phantom Tread, no doubt.

  “No, thank God. Everything was above the clothes,” I said in relief.

  Marley held out a hand to me. “High five, Gracie. You’ve officially gotten to second base.”

  I rolled my eyes, laughing as I batted her hand away. The conversation turned to their exploits until we pulled off into a field. There were no markers. It looked completely random, but I didn’t question it.

  Once we unloaded the UTVs, Marley handed me a huge gun. I put my hands behind my back reflexively. “Nuh uh.”

  She rolled her green eyes. “Come on, Grace. This is serious shit. We aren’t letting you go out there unarmed. This has a small caliber. Whatever you shoot won’t be killed. It’ll just slow it down enough that we can get to it. Think of it as a bb gun almost.”

  “It won’t kill anything?” I asked dubiously. The gun was probably three feet long.

  “Well, a squirrel, sure. Or a possum if you get them in the right spot. Snakes for sure—”

  “Snakes?!”

  “What do you think we made you wear steel toed boots for, dummy? Keep up.” Marley tossed the gun in the air towards me. I had visions of it hitting the ground and going off, shooting my toes away, or maybe an ear, so I caught it. Unhappily. I sent her a glare, but her back was turned already.

  Tatum sent the dogs out in pairs. Marley took two to set out from the west, while I stayed with Tatum and we loaded them up in the UTV to release from the east. The headlights broke through the pitch black of the night like light sabers. There wasn’t even the moon to give ambient light. In front of us, I could see thirty feet ahead, but to the sides, not even a hand twelve inches from my face. It lent a claustrophobic feeling to the night.

  When Tatum deemed us in position, she handed me the GPS for the dogs’ vests and let them loose after radioing Marley to do the same. They took off faster than I’d ever seen a dog run and disappeared into the black.

  Tatum jumped back into the driver’s seat and stomped on the gas pedal. We shot forward, causing me to bobble the GPS. I saw Tatum give me a dirty look.

  “Do not lose that, Grace. Two hands!” She dodged a scrub bush that came out of nowhere as the speedometer climbed.

  I tried not to squeal at every bump and pothole we hit, almost going airborne several times, I was sure of it.

  “Which way?!” Tatum yelled with both hands on the wheel.

  “That way,” I yelled, pointing to my side with one arm.

  “What?” she glanced over quickly then made an adjustment.

  “Now go straight.”

  We followed the dots, having to backtrack several times before Tatum slammed on the brakes so hard the seatbelt cut into my body.

  “Right or left, Grace. Jesus Christ, no more this way or that way. Make an L with your hands if you can’t figure it out. You almost broke my nose with the last one!” she yelled in frustration.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  She growled and we set off again.

  “I thought you said this was a farm!” I yelled over the wind.

  “Well, we aren’t going to be tearing them up now are we? Tell me where my babies are!”

  I studied the screen. “They’ve stopped.”

  “Good. Grab your gun now, Grace.”

  Oh poop.

  I held the wooden stock of the gun strapped to my body like a crossover purse, and before I could figure out what to do with the GPS, Tatum slammed on the brakes again and cut hard on the wheel.

  Suddenly illuminated was something out of a living nightmare.

  The dogs were biting huge black masses anywhere they could reach, but mostly going for their back hooves. The masses swung massive heads around, their enormous teeth illuminated by the headlights while the dogs dodged around them to bite somewhere else.

  The sound was frightening in itself. Growling, squealing that sounded like hurt children, snarling and snorting. I fought not to put my hands over my ears.

  Then Tatum jumped out of the perfectly safe vehicle and into the fray.

  Oh crap.

  Marley showed up and jumped right in, too. Some of the dogs had neck holds on their prey, the muscles clear in their jaws as they locked down.

  Tatum jumped onto the pigs, grabbing ties from her back pocket like some sort of police officer. She pushed the dog away once the hogs were immobilized, before moving on to the next. Marley did the same while I sat with my seatbelt still on.

  “Where did Hooch go?” Tatum asked, barely out of breath. Marley looked around.

  “I hear him over there. I’ll grab him.”

  She ran off into the pitch black night.

  “Grace, give me a hand with this. I’m almost out of ties. I need yours.” Tatum beckoned with a hand, and I clenched my jaw against the terror of getting close to those things.

  Tatum’s little body thrashed with the force of the animal’s struggles. “Hurry, Grace!”

  I ran awkwardly over the uneven ground, my gun bobbing. Then I got a closer look at the beast. I got a good look at its gaping, salivating mouth.

  “Now, Grace!” Tatum yelled, her perch precarious at best. But how did I get it there? The hooves looked razor sharp from where I was standing, kicking out wildly against the dog. Tatum’s arm had blood on it.

  I tossed the ties.

  Tatum eyes met mine with such rage, I felt immediately sick. “Yeah, that’s perfect. Let me just feel around in the dirt while you stand there and block the light. That’s fucking perfect!”

  While she was yelling, the beast got traction.

  He tossed her aside, with a dog hanging from its chest, and she went flying. Then it turned.

  I only had a heartbeat before it lunged for Tatum on the ground, and I made my decision. I shot.

  The blast made me stumble back then fall, twisting my ankle in a pothole. My teeth clanked together hard at the force of my butt hitting packed earth. I rolled onto my knees with my ears ringing. “Tatum!” I yelled.

  She emerged like the bringer of death, wielding a knife as long as my forearm, covered in blood, and eyes as black as the devil just as the skies opened up.

  “Oh shit!”

  AT SEVEN IN THE MORNING, I exploded out of Marley’s SUV, almost twenty-four hours exactly since we’d left. I slammed the door as hard as I could and stalked towards the saloon.

  “Hey! My car didn’t do anything to you, Grace!” Marley yelled from behind me.

  “Well, it would be the only one!” I yelled back, shoving the door open.

  “What?! You wanna talk about who did what to who, little girl? You shot at me!” Tatum said, right on my heels.

  I turned, my hands balled into fists as I stood a few feet inside the door and yelled at the top of my lungs, “I SAVED YOUR ASS!”

  Tatum squared off in front of me, ready to take me down and yelled in my face, “You almost killed me!”

  I threw my hands up in exasperation just as the people actually in the bar caught my attention.

  “What the fuck?” It was Tread, back from reconning or whatever. I was mad at him, too. I pointed a finger and glared as I advanced on him.

  “Don’t you start on me, too.”

  His eyes grew wide, but not in fear.

  “What did I do? And are you cussing now? Was that the first one, or did I miss it?” He turned to Alt next to him. “I feel like I could have missed her first steps or something. An important milestone in her life.”

  “Shut up. I am up to here with snarky comments from your bloodline today.” I slashed across my neck violently then reached for his orange juice.

  “Wait, is that blood? Are you bleeding?” he asked in alarm.

  Tatum stomped over. “Oh sure, Grace gets a few drops and everyone wants to call an ambulance. You didn’t see
me dowsed like Carrie after she shot me!”

  I leaned over to yell across Tread’s lap. “I didn’t shoot you! I saved your life. You should be thanking me!”

  “You shot a gun?” Tread swung on Tatum and glared. “You gave her a gun?”

  “Yeah and it’s a good thing she did, since your sister’s still breathing.” I set his glass down and tried not to burp out loud.

  “Trust me, it’s a mistake that won’t happen again,” Tatum ground out through her teeth.

  “Someone tell me what the hell is going on!” Tread yelled in frustration.

  “We had a little run-in—” Tatum started with an eye roll. I cut her off with big hand gestures.

  “With a huge beast. Huge!” My hands were as far apart as they could go for demonstration.

  “A male boar—”

  “Satan, as black as night. With fangs—”

  “He had some four inchers on him. Probably three hundred pounds.”

  “He flings Tatum off of his back like she’s in a rodeo and charges—”

  “That’s another thing that’s seriously annoying about your girlfriend. This way, that way,” she mocked me in a high-pitched voice.

  “I don’t sound like that!”

  “It’s fucking left or right, Grace! I can’t see hand gestures in the middle of the night! Go back to Kindergarten!”

  Tatum plopped back down in her stool when Tread pushed her shoulder then he gave me his undivided attention.

  “How big was it again?” he asked quietly. I moved my hands to explain the enormity of my night. “Show me one more time.” That’s when I caught the twinkle of amusement in his eyes, and my face lost all expression.

  “You’re not being cute right now. I want you to know that.”

  “No, but you are.” He leaned in like he might kiss my face. He was searching for a clean spot that didn’t have mud or blood, but reached to take something out of my hair instead. “Sorry. You had a bug.”

  My shoulders sank in exhaustion. “I have bugs in my hair?” I asked on a whimper.

  Before he could answer, Veesa came in with full breakfast plates and handed them to the men. My eyes zeroed in on one very important thing.

  “Is that bacon? No bacon!” I yelled, slapping the plate out of his hand before he could react. We all stared down at the perfectly good food on the floor in silence.

  Then the hoover showed up, also known as my once precious baby, and inhaled everything, bacon first. I leaned down over her.

  “Oh, that’s just fine, you traitor. Just eat all the hog meat so you can be in a Benadryl coma all day, you junkie!” Tread stood and pushed me towards the stairs.

  “Okay. You’re done.”

  But I’m not done. “Is that how you want to live your life, Bella?! Sleeping your days away?”

  Tread wrapped a hand around my shoulder and steered me upstairs. “Do you think she needs rehab, Tread?”

  “No, babe,” he said in amusement.

  “Someone needs to give her a pill,” I said after a few steps.

  “Someone will.”

  “I’m sorry about the bacon. It was too soon. They are vile creatures.” We were quiet for a few more steps. “I have bugs in my hair.”

  “We’ll get you a shower right now. It’ll be okay.”

  “Please don’t make me go back there. They made me field dress one.” I shoved my hands in his face. “It’s not perfume. It’s death and intestinal fluids.”

  He recoiled, but kept me pressed to his side. “You don’t have to go back.”

  “I don’t know where my keys are.”

  “It’s all right. We can still get in.”

  Tread did some kind of shoulder bump, twisty thing on my door and it popped open. “I should probably be worried about that, but I’m just too tired.”

  “Go take a shower. I’ll bring you some clothes.”

  If I wasn’t exhausted, that sentence would have gotten some attention. As it was, I just shuffled forward, stripped, and lathered, almost asleep on my feet. I did remember to wash my hair twice, but that was all I had in me.

  There was a t-shirt and panties set on the counter when I got out. I pretended the Sandman brought them to get me to snooze town faster.

  Tread passed me silently, closing the door behind him. I sat on the bed, still swaying when he emerged a couple of blinks later.

  “Why aren’t you in bed yet?”

  “I didn’t want to get the pillow wet. I think I may fall asleep here.”

  Tread grabbed a towel and I closed my eyes and leaned on him as he dried then brushed my hair.

  I absently felt his torso jerk as he brushed his own hair then I was falling. Tread rolled me into him, and I used his hard chest as a pillow. It was oddly soft, though. Not what I expected.

  “You’re all relaxed. Like Jell-O.”

  He grunted with his hand in my hair. “That’s probably because I just jacked off in your shower.”

  “Wha—” I squeaked and tried to raise my head. He pushed it back down and petted my head in a move that I was positive was supposed to be annoying. He succeeded.

  “It helps me sleep. Just close your eyes.”

  “Trea—”

  “Don’t worry. I was thinking about you.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Shh, shhhh, no more talking.”

  A LONG WALK LED TO a small Afghan Border Patrol compound on a high hill surveying the surrounding qulats, orchards, and route Montana. I hated this fucking valley. The sun was just coming over the high peaks of the mountains barely two clicks away. As it rose, it was already causing sweat to pour into my ballistic sunglasses.

  We entered deliberately, as we had done before, bringing food and paychecks to the ABP troops there. They were more than happy to get some food, bread, and cash. So happy in fact that they devoured the bread as they gave my interpreter their intel brief.

  “They say, all is quiet, but we should leave now. The one guy says he counted thirty men gathered around the purple house across the valley,” Jon, if that was his real name, the interpreter said.

  “Good, we brought Carl today,” my Platoon Sergeant grumbled.

  Carl, referring to the Carl Gustav, was an anti-tank weapon named after a guy that developed the charge that defeated the Nazis in Norway during WWII. A 90mm charge that could be set to air detonate and penetrate the dense orchards in the direction of the purple house.

  Two hours passed, my gun teams had the high ground, and were scanning the orchards around us. Nothing. All was quiet. Time to head back and grab some rapidly going cold eggs and bacon. My Platoon Leader popped a yellow smoke grenade and that started the march in formation back to some chow.

  As it was my teams turn to leave the compound, the smoke had cleared.

  “There’s no way. We’re not getting back without so much as a popshot,” my medic said off to my front left.

  Seconds later, I felt it before I heard it. I felt air push past my face in front of my nose and I snapped my head back in time to hear the loud hiss and whoosh of a narrow miss. My M240B gunner to my front right fell in a heap, managing to fire his weapon in the general direction of the rounds. Was he hit? I didn’t know. There was no cover. What call should I make? No cover, getting shot at, get to cover, cover was ten meters back the way I had come. I called my men to get back inside and squeezed off rounds as I bolted. Reaching cover, I easily burnt another magazine, providing cover fire for soldiers trying to find some piece of earth that would separate them from the hot lead filling the air.

  When the chaos settled a micrometer, I found that half the platoon and my other gun team were pinned down in a qulat compound to the north. The sounds of outgoing and incoming RPGs throbbed in my head. A migraine was coming. I looked around and my gun team was heading back up a shoddy tower made out of galvanized sheet metal. Before I turned to look away from the men climbing, a cloud materialized, followed by a thud, followed by my ass on the ground.

  I realized wha
t happened. The tower where my guys were had been hit with an RPG, and all I could let out was a futile word.

  “No.”

  A cool breeze from the window sent a chill down my spine, so cold that I shot up from a dead sleep. I was back in Grace’s bed, and the sheets were soaked in sweat. I tried to wipe my face clear, only to smear it more. I tossed the sheet off of me and rolled out of bed. Grace wasn’t there. Where was she? Was she hurt? No, no she couldn’t be. We were home. I was home. My eyes darted around the room, everything dimly lit by the slowly rising sun. The room was immaculately kept. That confirmed it. All was normal, besides the bed that felt as if I’d pissed it. I let loose the corners of the mattress cover, pulled them together, and tied a knot, trapping the sheet, cover, and pillows. I had to get rid of them.

  After getting my pants, socks, and boots on, I sneaked out to peek over the banister. All was quiet in the saloon below. It was dark, but the lights from the kitchen dimly outlined the furniture.

  “Secret Squirrel time,” I thought to myself.

  Sneaking towards the stairs, I shot a look towards the bar. No movement. I sneaked down the stairs, cursing at every creak. Not very ninja, but after what seemed like an eternity, I was at the bottom. I took a hard right and shot down the hall out the back door. I tossed the linens in the nearest dumpster and lit a cigarette. A long inhale and a slow, slow exhale.

  I needed that cigarette to get my bearings. I needed to get in the shower and get this stink off of me. Back inside, I grabbed my go bag from the cleaning closet and was headed back upstairs. As I put my foot on the bottom stair, the overhead lights of the bar came on behind me. I froze, hoping it was a T-rex behind me that couldn’t see if I didn’t move.

  “Tread?” a soft, feminine voice asked.

  I looked over my shoulder in super slow motion. Behind the bar was Grace. She wore a plain white shirt with a bar towel tossed over her shoulder and a clueless look on her face.

  “You’re up early. Did you get a shower?” she asked.

  “Uh, had to get my clothes. Gotta hit the showers early if you want hot water, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” She was still skeptical of a biker, shirtless, sneaking around the saloon at sunrise. “Do you want some breakfast?”