Chapter 1 #2
On my way to my office I see some of the brothers just waking up, having their morning coffee and breakfast from the prospects. I grant them a stiff nod then continue to my destination.
As I open the door, I see Havoc on his phone, and by the tone in his voice, I can tell it must be his soon to be ex-wife.
“I told you I would take him tonight, Debbie! ...Then stop acting as though I’m not present in his life. …Fine! Pack his shit up and I will be there around six.” He hangs up on her and is about to throw his phone across the room when he notices me at the door.
“Prez,” Havoc quickly offers then walks over and takes a seat across from my desk.
“Problems on the home front?” I nod to his phone.
From what I know Havoc married this bitch, Debbie, because he got her pregnant when he was eighteen or nineteen. They’ve been married for about five or six years but have been living separate lives for the last two because of her lies and secrets and have a three-year-old son named Zane.
“Man, you have no idea. Biggest mistake I ever made was getting involved with that bitch,” he bites out with so much venom.
“I could tell just by meeting her that she was manipulative and conniving. And I only had met her for less than five minutes, brother, so that should tell you something. She’s rotten to the core. Be careful that she doesn’t poison your boy against you or use him as leverage,” I tell him.
“Don’t I know it. She’s really put the screws in me.” He huffs. “Did you know that I had the perfect girl before I fucked it up with Debbie? Prez, this girl was one to write home about. She was everything, and one night I threw it all away. Or thought I did…”
I can tell he is about to go down memory lane and as much as I value helping my brothers out, I’m not in the mood to be Dr. Phil this early in the day.
“What have we got as far as Gunner is concerned?” I interrupt his depressing thoughts and move this conversation to business. He can go sob to some Sweetbutt later and drown his tears into her pussy to make himself feel better.
“Gunner wants a few men to come up and help sort out what happened to their shipment. Said it’ll only take a few days to handle and then send them back shortly after. He asked Bullet for a few men also.” Bullet is the president of our Tucson, Arizona Chapter.
I let out a low whistle. “He’s hitting up the president of the Tucson Chapter too? Damn. This must be worse than I thought.”
“That’s how it sounded to me.”
“Okay, let’s send Twitch, Blade, and Diesel up to help out. I know they’ve been itching for a long ride. Twenty-one hours there should help scratch that.”
“Cool, I’ll let them know to head out once they get packed after we have church.” He stands to leave and heads towards the door. Before he opens it he spins around. “Oh and by the way, you know riding by yourself is dangerous right now, right?”
“Yeah, yeah thanks, Mom.” I wave him off and pick up some paperwork on the desk. “Tell the brothers that church is in two hours.”
With that parting shot he heads out.
Exactly two hours later I’m walking into our sanctuary that stores a massive wooden table with matching leather chairs around it.
On the main wall is our Dead Road logo of a skull inside of flames with chains circling around it.
Our founders picked our colors to be white, red, and black, so that is what we wear.
The gavel bangs hard against the solid wood as I start the meeting.
“Okay, we got a call from our Fallon Chapter; they need a few men to help out up there so, Twitch, Blade, and Diesel are heading out for a few days. Anyone object to that?” I observe around the room and find a unanimous shake of the heads, so we move on.
“Next, we need to keep a watch out for any trouble with the Vipers after what went down last night. I think we should send out the prospects tonight to patrol the town and watch for anything suspicious.”
“I agree; we need to keep them on their toes and make them suffer. They’re going to be out for revenge,” Brass, our road captain, voices.
“I second that,” Riot agrees.
Ledger gets up and walks over to our floor to ceiling vault and gets out a few thick envelopes and passes them out to each brother.
“Okay, that’s settled. Ledger has everyone’s payment for last week’s job.
With the uprise north of the border, I think we’ll be seeing more protection runs with our Wichita Chapter,” I say and nod to Ledger, our treasurer.
We did a protection run, which consisted of helping them transport some guns up towards Canada. It was a large shipment and we each walked away with over ten grand in our pockets. Transporting drugs and guns pays well, so we never pass up on them.
Loud whistles can be heard when they each open their bundles.
“Prez, we can help them out anytime if they pay like this!” Dash brags with a nod and toothy grin. He looks like a kid ready to spend his piggy bank in a candy store.
“Try not to spend it all in one place, Dash,” Hawk taunts then snorts at the dreamy look in Dash’s eyes.
“And by place he means pussy at Forbidden, Dash,” Reaper, our Sergeant at Arms, speaks up. Our brothers like to visit the local strip club we own right outside of town.
We all get a good howl because we all know that Dash is the only one who would pay for pussy, instead of getting it free here at the clubhouse.
Ledger slides Blaze’s envelope over to me, and I nod. Blaze is currently serving time in prison but should be released within the next few weeks. We’ve all had a stint at one time or another. This was his first time going in.
“I’ll make sure his Ol’ Lady gets this,” I say and everyone at the table nods.
Blaze took a massive hit for the club two years ago and for that we own him his share of everything we make.
He has a family who needs to be taken care of while serving time and we take care of our own.
Blaze is one of my younger blood brothers, and I’d never leave his family in a lurch.
My sis-in-law and niece will never have to worry about anything while her husband is prison.
She’s had to put up with plenty of shit over the years from her side of the family for being part of this club, and we’ll never add to her stress. That’s not what we stand for.
“Anything else we need before we start our weekend?”
“Yeah, how’s Crusher doing?” Twitch asks about my dad.
Crusher is actually my dad’s road name, but he can no longer ride.
He was one of the founders of Dead Road MC that started the mother chapter in Tucson, Arizona.
He was president until about five years ago when he and our brothers were ambushed by an MC and hit with several bullets.
He’s been in a wheelchair ever since. Right before that all happened I was sent here to Sweetwater to start up another Dead Road MC Chapter leaving Tucson.
Dad had only been here a year with us. He’s has been trying some new therapy and is starting to get a small amount of feeling back in his feet.
He isn’t convinced that it is working, but my stepmom, Melissa, thinks that things might be looking positively for him.
“He fine. Yells all time at Mom,” Rocky, my little brother who has Down syndrome, says.
He’s been part of our club for a while and did his stint as a prospect just like everyone else.
He might not go on a lot of the dangerous runs with us often, but we keep him in the loop with a lot of the dealings.
He helps out a lot around the clubhouse and the auto shop, which takes a huge chunk of stress off me.
“He’s doing well. Melissa has him doing some kind of new therapy and seems hopeful this go around. Anything else?”
No one submits anything so I slam the gavel down.
“Adjourned.”
* * *
The rest of the day I’m spent bent over paperwork and keeping everything up to date with each of the businesses and doing payroll for our employees.
Not realizing how long I’ve had been hunkered down in the office staring at numbers, I peek over at the window to find that it’s dark out.
Just as I was about to stretch my legs, Dash bursts through the office door.
“What the hell?” I utter jumping out of my chair ready for whatever attack we’re under.
“Prez, I think that you should come out to the garage and see what the prospects found tonight.” He looks a tad nervous which puts me on high alert.
We walk down towards one of our buildings we hold guests in when we haul them in for a visit. As we approach the closed bay on the far side of the auto shop, I hear yelling. The closer I get the louder the yelling match coming from behind the closed door gets.
Christ! So much for not drawing attention to the compound. If we were any closer to town, it’d wake everyone up.
“What the hell is going on in there, Dash?” I grab for his leather before he opens the door. “And why is there a female’s voice yelling?”
He shrugs, “The prospects were out patrolling like we wanted and found one of the Vipers’ men and this female down an alley. They picked them both up and brought them here.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose feeling a headache coming on from the lack of sleep I got last night.
Taking a deep sigh, I walk in. The scene before me is something out of a comic book.
The prospects have a woman tied to a chair, while one of the prospects is in the corner with a bag of ice over his balls.
Everyone else is standing around watching this female berate him.
The closer I get in the open area the more the female comes into view. When I finish scanning over her stunning body in bright orange, tight workout shorts and matching sports bra, it hits me like a ton of bricks.
Fuck!
It’s the woman from this morning when I went for my ride. I examine her face again and out of nowhere my body starts to buzz. Then I see her sapphire blue eyes turn toward me and I’m dumbstruck
It’s also the woman who ghosted me up in South Dakota after the best sex of my life.