Chapter 13 #2
I scoffed. “Of course not. I just want the women to walk away with skill, not a phone number.”
As the women drifted away, I gathered the guys near the picnic tables. I brushed a stray curl from my face as I tried to find the right words. “Seriously, thank you. You made a real difference today. Some of those women walked in scared and left looking like they could take on the world.”
Hatchet, Fuse, and Archer walked toward their bikes while Coast helped Rhetta break down the registration table.
“Nice work today,” Merrick said, his voice low and warm.
“Thanks,” I said with a grin. “I just wish I could do more. I was worried about one of them.”
“Callie?”
“Yeah.” I frowned. “Something was off. She seemed ready to bolt. I don’t think you caught it, but she flinched when you moved too fast—like she expected to get hit.”
His eyes darkened. “I saw,” he said solemnly. “Maybe next time you can bring Maisie. She volunteers at the women’s shelter.”
“Maybe. Our community needs more than a shelter. A place to sleep isn’t enough. They need a place to heal, physically and emotionally. I don’t think there’s anything like that here.”
“So build it,” he said simply, as if it were as easy as opening a door.
I scoffed. “Do you have any idea how much it would cost? Equipment, technology, a website, marketing. Not to mention the security you need for a facility that serves victims of domestic violence.”
He grinned. “I know a good marketer,” he said, an eyebrow raised.
I rolled my eyes. “Funny. I’m a great marketer,” I said with a laugh. “But I don’t know a damn thing about running a nonprofit or fundraising.”
“The club would back it,” he said softly. “We raise money for causes all the time. And Maverick Security could post someone there daily. I happen to know the guy in charge.”
“Would the club really support it?”
Merrick nodded once. “You should talk to Thane and Reaper about it. They’d get behind it. Reaper’s mom is a domestic violence survivor. Mavericks have always stood to protect women and children.”
“Well,” I said, clearing my throat. “Guess I have some homework to do.”
My stomach dropped as I skimmed through the news on my phone while sipping my morning coffee.
Fucking fuck.
I took a screenshot of the headline and sent it to Eva.
“Motorcycle Club With Violent History Teaches Women’s Self-Defense Class”
My pulse pounded in my ears as I skimmed the article. Some of the facts sounded plausible, the story supported by police reports. It detailed instances of missing prospects, drug dealing, and highway shoot-outs. But the sentence that made my blood boil lay right below Fuse’s prison headshot.
“One instructor, Flint ‘Fuse’ Wood, served seven years in H.H. Coffield correctional facility on charges of assault and attempted murder of a single mother.”
Red-hot fury coated my gaze. I’d told Eva we should be more worried about the prison biker. But she’d urged me to trust her. To trust them.
My heart raced as I hopped in my Range Rover and peeled out of the driveway. I glanced at the clock. I’d arrive just before their weekly Church meeting. Good. I wanted them all in one place.
When I reached the clubhouse, I stormed through to Thane’s office without knocking.
The scent of cigars hit me in a wave as I threw open the door.
The men were already seated around the round table in the corner, their faces turning toward me in surprise.
I shoved my phone in Thane’s face, the Chronicle article on screen.
He glanced at the phone, then to me, his expression unreadable.
“Did I fucking invite you?” Thane snarled. “Get the fuck out.”
“How much of this is true?” I demanded, my voice shaking.
I glanced around the table, my gaze landing on each face—Reaper, Hatchet, Linc, and Fuse.
I showed my phone to each of them, my hands trembling.
“I need to know what I’m defending—or if I even can defend all of you.
Rangers bleeding out on the highway. Prospects going missing.
Probably buried in a swamp. You’re selling cocaine to kids?
And Fuse beat a woman nearly to death? Is this the kind of club you are?
Is this the kind of men you are? You’re no better than the Jackals. ”
Thane narrowed his eyes at me.
“Disrespect me or my club again, little girl, and you might just go missing.”
My jaw dropped at the threat. I felt a tug on my arm and glanced back to see Merrick, his stoic expression betrayed by the storm in his eyes.
“Come with me,” he commanded in a voice that left no room for debate. A voice he’d never used on me. He tugged on my arm again, half dragging me from Thane’s office into another small room with a sofa and two large filing cabinets. An assortment of guns hung on the wall.
“You can’t speak to our president like that,” he said, his voice tight.
“He’s not my president. You’re criminals.” My voice cracked.
Merrick’s jaw flexed. “We never claimed to be Boy Scouts.”
I clenched my fists. “I can’t represent a club that allows men to beat up women.”
Merrick pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose and exhaled sharply before turning to open the filing cabinet. He dug through the folders before pulling one out. He opened it, rifling through the pages before bringing one to the top and handing it to me.
It was a doctor’s report—cold, clinical, detached.
A seven-year-old female with poorly healed breaks and a recent head injury, all indicative of child abuse.
I flipped through the papers to read a Child Protective Services report.
I flipped to another page. Despite the clear abuse, the state granted the mother custody again.
Then a police report, two months later. Of all of them, this one was the worst. Unspeakable.
Tears glistened in my eyes as I glanced up at Merrick.
“She’s Bayou’s daughter,” he explained. “He has custody now. But the shit the girl’s mother and her boyfriend put the kid through will haunt her for the rest of her life.
When Bayou found out, Fuse was there. He made the call to make the guy pay, and then the goddamn woman attacked them with a shovel.
She was more concerned about her deadbeat boyfriend than the hell the man was putting her child through.
Fuse took the fall so Bayou wouldn’t go to prison. Gracie needed someone to raise her.”
I swallowed hard. My anger dissipated like a tornado sucked back into the clouds.
“Sometimes the truth isn’t in the headlines,” Merrick said quietly.
The pages trembled in my hands. “What about the other reports? The missing prospects? The Rangers? The drugs?”
Merrick’s expression remained unreadable.
“I can’t explain it all. But we have a reason for everything we do.
Sometimes prospects leave on their own. Sometimes we make them.
And sometimes we have to defend ourselves.
We don’t go around looking for trouble, but sometimes it finds us.
The drugs, though, were the Rangers. And we put a stop to that a few weeks ago. ”
“How?”
Merrick’s eyes hardened as he stared into mine. “If I tell you, I can’t take it back. It becomes your secret to keep, too. We don’t share club business lightly.”
“I want to know,” I insisted. “I need to know. Besides, I signed the NDA, and I can’t protect the club’s reputation if I don’t know what’s happening.”
Merrick paused for a beat before relenting. “We went to Austin a few weeks ago and told the Rangers they needed to stay out of our territory. Stop dealing. Their president pulled a gun on Reaper and shot him in the leg. So, Reaper shot him in the chest. The new president agreed to a truce.”
“And the missing prospects?”
“Usually, they skip town if we kick them out. Easier to live life if we aren’t the monsters in the dark. We only make them disappear if they’ve done something unforgivable or that puts the rest of us at risk.”
“Like what?”
“Feeding information to law enforcement.”
“And by making them disappear, you mean …” I trailed off, uncertain I wanted to hear the answer.
Merrick only gazed at me, his silence giving me the confirmation I needed.
I stared at the report until the words blurred. It would be so much easier if the world were simple—bad guys, good guys. No gray, no in-between.
My phone pinged with a group text from Eva. I tilted it so Merrick could also read the messages.
Eva:
Looked up the reporter’s name. It was one of the girls in Hatchet’s group at the self-defense class. She’s an intern at the paper.
Hatchet:
I went out with her, but I didn’t tell her shit.
Eva:
I’ll text the editor. He asked for an exclusive for the anniversary, and then he let this shit fly? She didn’t disclose that she was a reporter, and she never called us for comment.
And really, Hatchet? A college student?
I grimaced at the message. Hatchet was single. He wasn’t obligated to any sort of exclusivity with me. I’d told him I wasn’t ready to date. But it still stung that he’d gone out with one of the flirtatious sorority girls from the self-defense class I coordinated.
“You should go,” Merrick said, breaking me out of thought.
“How fucked am I with Thane?”
He rubbed his jaw, considering. “Give him a few days to cool down. Maybe let Eva handle the Mavericks business for a bit.”
“And what about you?” I asked, my voice small. “Do you think I was wrong?”
Merrick sighed. “I think you care. That’s not a bad thing. But you can’t storm in here like that. Thane’s only going to give you a pass once. He’s not the forgiving type. And if you’d pulled that shit in front of the entire club, I’m not sure I could have stopped him.”
“Stopped him from what?” I asked, my voice rising.
“You don’t want to know. I don’t want to even think about it. Just … don’t trust everything you read about us. There’s always more to the story.”
“It’s hard to trust this club when I find out shit like this from a newspaper, not you guys.”
He nodded. “Fair. You want answers, ask me next time.”
I swallowed, my anger deflating. “I just want to do the right thing. Be on the right side of the story.”
Merrick’s expression softened, just a fraction of a second. “So do we. In our own way.”
“Thanks. For showing me the file. For answering my questions. And for not letting Thane kill me.”
He gave a slight shrug. “Go home, Kenna. Try to stay out of trouble for a few days.”
I managed a weak smile. “No promises.”
Merrick’s lips twitched.
I drove home in silence, no music or true crime podcasts. Just the hum of the engine and the echo of Merrick’s words. There’s always more to the story.
Merrick hadn’t given me the whole account, but he’d trusted me with pieces of it so I could understand.
In a twisted way, it was almost comical how the Mavericks could be so gentle and so brutal in the same breath. They were the kind of guys who’d change your tire in the rain. And yet, I’d also seen the violence simmering just beneath the surface.
The Mavericks weren’t saints—not even close. The headline painted them as monsters, but the truth was messier. Sometimes the violence was their way of serving justice in a world that failed to offer it.
And at least they were honest about who they were. They wore their sins like tattoos. Visible. Real.
The people I grew up with would stab you in the back over a petty slight, all while pretending to be your best friend. At least the Mavericks owned it. They’d stab you in the front, and then tell you why.
Maybe that’s why I liked them. Because here, in this brutal, broken world, there was a kind of honesty and honor among the Mavericks I hadn’t found anywhere else.
But it scared me, too. Every step closer felt like shedding another layer of who I used to be. I wasn’t sure where the line was anymore—between right and wrong, between justice and revenge, between being an outsider and becoming one of them.