Dean (Bloody Scythes MC #5)

Chapter 1

Dean

Mornings started the same, a pale strip of Los Alamos sun, sliced clean through vinyl blinds, bisected my face and the bed like a surgeon’s cut.

The light always found the old dog tags first, where they pooled cold against the hollow of my throat.

I traced them—habit, not sentiment—feeling the hard emboss of my father’s initials, the ghost of his discipline pressing into my pulse.

The bedroom’s air was sour with last night’s sweat and the barest whiff of machine oil, as if my body had been leaking all night.

I stood, inventorying the aches—the torn meniscus, the hairline rib—while my hands rolled a cigarette with automatic precision.

My father’s hands had been huge, the kind that could palm a toddler’s skull.

Mine were only broad, the knuckles worn soft from wrenching handlebars and shoving faces into asphalt.

I lit up, held the smoke, and looked at the ledgers.

Neat, precise columns. Names I both respected and would one day bury. Some nights, I dreamed the ink bled.

The apartment was two rooms and a kitchen, a shoebox for grown men who liked their lives tight and efficient.

I ran the coffee pot, rinsed out a chipped mug from some county fair, and lined up today’s to-do list: collect the club’s receipts, meet with Damron, check in on Ma.

The last always took the most psychic effort.

I did it for her because the club never made room for weakness, and she’d lost enough already.

Above the folding table that served as my desk were three photos.

My father, in his Army greens, unsmiling and sunburnt, in front of some desert blast wall; my mother, hair done up and eyes too bright, at the base graduation; and the two of them with me, age six, sulking at a minor league game.

The rest of our past was boxed up in her trailer out by the mesa.

Coffee and a cigarette in hand, I sat in front of the ledgers, thumbing the calculator, letting the numbers run.

Every tenth entry, I’d find myself thumbing the dog tags again.

I kept them out, visible, even though the sound of metal tapping against my sternum sometimes made me want to scream.

The tags caught the sun again as I bent over the paperwork, painting my wrist with a stripe of white.

The phone vibrated, a sharp, insistent rattle against the battered Formica. Ma’s name flashed up—old habit, she always called instead of texting, as if to prove she was still alive. I cleared my throat, stubbed out the cigarette, and answered.

“Hey, Ma.”

A yawn on the line, then her voice, lighter than the air in the room: “You awake, Dean?”

“Been up a while.”

She sniffed, could probably hear the coffee sloshing. “Don’t burn out before noon. Are you still coming with me to the shelter? They open at ten. I don’t want to miss the good dogs.”

I imagined her, small and sharp as a cactus, pacing her tiny living room, prepping her lines for whatever volunteer college kid worked the front desk today. “Yeah, I’ll be there. Just gotta swing by the clubhouse first, clear up some numbers.”

She went quiet for a second. “The numbers keep you up, or is it something else?”

“Nothing keeps me up, Ma,” I lied, because that’s what she needed. I fingered the dog tags again, rolling the edge along my thumb. “You want a shepherd, or what?”

“I want a dog that’ll bark when strangers walk by, but not eat my neighbors.” There was a smile in her voice, a joke stretched thin, but alive.

“I’ll screen for sociopaths,” I said.

A cough, then, “Don’t talk like that.”

I grinned. “You get the heater fixed?”

“They sent a guy, but he didn’t do anything but drink my tea and stare at the walls. I’ll call the office again.”

“Tell them if it’s not fixed by Friday, I’ll come down and kick the landlord’s ass.”

“I don’t need you getting in trouble.” Her voice tightened, old anxieties bunching up. “Just be careful, Dean. That’s all I ever ask.”

“Always am, Ma.” I said it soft, meant it. Then: “See you at ten.”

She hung up first, a power move she’d mastered since he died.

I listened to the empty line for a beat, then set the phone down and drained the mug.

The tags clinked as I stood. I shrugged on the cut, the Bloody Scythes insignia creased and familiar as my own face, and checked the knife at my belt and the day’s other armor, piece by piece.

Outside, the sun was up and sharp. The world waited—dangerous, dull, beautiful, and, for now, mine to handle.

The bike was where I’d left it, at the curb below my window.

Matte black and low-slung, a 2003 Night Train rebuilt twice from the frame up—salvage, like most of my life.

I ran my hands along the seat, checking the tension on the throttle, the slick patch where my thigh had worn through the vinyl, all before I even unlocked the disc brake.

Ritual, maybe. You didn’t ride unless you were ready for the road to murder you, and the road out here had a mean streak.

I pulled on the helmet and slid on the fingerless gloves. The air was clean, cold, edged with mountain sage and the faint copper tang of coming rain. I kick-started the bike and let the idle settle, a rhythmic thump that settled in my gut and built the day’s focus.

The ride across Los Alamos was a short one, half the town still in bed.

I cut down Central, engine echoing off stuccoed storefronts, past the blinking gas station and the boarded-up liquor store.

A couple of high school kids crossed at the light, eyes wide as I rolled through, club colors displayed.

I caught my reflection in a pawn shop window—mirrored visor, patched cut, jawline bruised from an old dispute—looked every inch the bastard my father’s friends swore I’d become.

I tried to care less about that, and failed.

The Bloody Scythes clubhouse sat at the far edge of the railyard, behind a chainlink and an iron gate that someone had welded a bike sprocket to for a crest. The sign was hand-painted, chipped, barely legible unless you already knew to look.

I parked in the row, next to five bikes with identical scars and histories, and shut the engine down.

The silence after was full of dogs barking in distant backyards, trains grinding against the curve, the metallic snap of a flag in the wind.

Inside, the place was as I’d left it: low ceiling, brick painted an optimistic blue, two couches that smelled like a bender left to rot in the sun.

The table by the window was littered with empty bottles and a deck of cards mid-game.

Even in the dead hours, there were always bodies—two patched guys passed out on the sofa, a third leaned over the sink, fighting a hangover with tap water and aspirin.

I nodded to the one awake enough to see me. “Morning.”

He grunted, which in this club was a declaration of love.

Damron stood at the far end, near the pool table.

He was a head taller than me, all muscle, the kind of presence that made a room feel smaller when he walked in.

He wore the president’s rocker, and even if you stripped him naked, you’d know he was in charge just by the way he looked at you.

His arms were folded, showing off the fresh ink—a barbed wire that ran from wrist to elbow, still angry red around the edges.

He didn’t speak until I crossed the floor and stood within his shadow. “Medina. You’re up early.”

“Accounted for,” I said.

He snorted, glancing at the ledger tucked under my arm. “You always are. Got a minute?”

I shrugged. “Have at it.”

He jerked his head toward the back. We walked down a corridor that smelled of cigarettes and Pine-Sol, his boots thudding against the old linoleum.

I could feel him cataloguing me as we went—his job was to know exactly how likely every man in the club was to bolt, break, or betray.

The back room was mostly empty except for a battered desk, a map of New Mexico riddled with thumbtacks, and an ashtray the size of a soup bowl.

Damron motioned for me to sit. He went around the desk, pulled a pack from the drawer, and lit up. “You hear about the fight at the Cactus Lounge last night?”

I shook my head.

“Not our guys. Sultans. The new blood from Albuquerque. Three of them jumped a loner in the lot, left him with a broken nose and a concussion.” He dragged on the cigarette, smoke curling off his lip. “They’re moving in faster than I thought.”

I set the ledger on the desk and flipped it open to the relevant page. “Saw some of their bikes at the Valero. All imports, not even broken in yet. They don’t know the roads.”

“Doesn’t matter. They know how to bleed.” Damron eyed me over the pack. “I want you on top of it. I know you got your own shit to handle, but this takes priority.”

The words hit me right in the sternum, where the tags lay cold. “I got it. Anything else?”

Damron leaned in, elbows on the wood. “Yeah. Your mother’s on my mind, too. She’s the only one keeping you from going full psycho, Dean. Take care of her. Today especially. These Sultans—if they’re looking to make a statement, they’ll target anyone close to us.”

I nodded. “She’s solid. I’ll be there.”

He looked at my hands then, the left one curled around the ledger, the right unconsciously tracing the faded compass tattoo on my forearm. My father had always said that a man needed one fixed point, or he’d drift. I’d made my choice, but the lines between duty and death were thinner than skin.

Damron’s eyes softened, just for a blink. “You got direction, kid. Don’t let anyone take that from you.”

I closed the ledger and tucked it under my arm. “What about retaliation?”

He gave a tight, mirthless smile. “We don’t make noise until we’re ready. Eyes open, mouth shut. That’s how we survive. You hear me?”

“Loud and clear.”

He stubbed out the cigarette, stood, and clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Go get your mother a dog. If you see anything weird, call me. No hero shit.”

I said nothing. Didn’t need to. He trusted me, or at least trusted the part of me he could predict.

I left him in the office and walked back through the main room, the others now half-awake and grumbling.

One of them—Dunn, a prospect with three months left on his probation—offered me a can of Monster and a joke about my haircut.

I flicked him off, let myself out, and felt the sunlight burn away the clubhouse’s chill.

At one of the club cars, I paused. The wind had picked up, tossing bits of trash along the fence line.

I ran my thumb over the compass tattoo again, feeling the ridges where the ink had gone in deep, and thought about what my father would say if he could see me now.

Then I got in, turned the key, and rode toward the shelter, the engine’s roar drowning out anything else the world might try to say.