Chapter 3
DRIFTER
Fight night in Hicksville was not a place I ever thought I’d be, but there I was, standing in the shadows of some old warehouse.
The place was standing on its last leg, and all it would take was one good gust of wind to take the whole thing down.
The people streaming inside were laughing and carrying on like they were headed to the damn carnival.
Hell, there were a couple of them who were shoving each other around with the kind of reckless excitement only money could buy.
Young kids wearing their ballcaps backward and chains around their necks. Old fucks in boots and bolo ties. Women dressed like they were hitting the club, and even a couple in suits wandered in. Money didn’t matter. They were all here for the same reason.
Blood, fists, and whatever chaos passed for entertainment.
I didn’t see Hank anywhere.
Of course I didn’t. I muttered a string of curses under my breath. I had no idea what the hell I was doing there. This wasn’t me. I didn’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I was looking for a fight or a distraction. Or maybe I needed some damn proof that I still had something left in me.
Ridiculous.
All of it.
The rumble of voices drifted through the cracked doors, and they sounded fucking pumped. They were ready for a show, and they could have it. But it wouldn’t include me. I wasn’t the entertaining type. Never had been. Never would be.
Don’t get me wrong.
Back in the day, I would’ve walked straight in, dropped the first loudmouth who looked at me wrong, and let the night take care of itself. Now, I was tired, bone tired, and I didn’t have the patience for this kind of shit. I shook my head and turned back toward my bike.
I was ready to put this whole trip behind me, and then I heard it.
It was barely a whisper, like the person saying them was afraid to utter the syllables, but I’d heard it.
“Satan’s Fury.”
The name carried weight, even now. I stood a little straighter, scanning the crowd.
Whoever said it knew something or wanted something.
Either way, I wasn’t leaving until I found out.
I stepped over to the side and leaned against the metal building, hoping to catch wind of whatever they were talking about.
I have to say, hearing the name Satan’s Fury hit me harder than I expected. Most folks only knew the legend, the warnings whispered in the shadows, but I lived it. Breathed it. The Kansas City chapter was my life. My blood. My everything.
I started prospecting a month after I returned from my deployment, and in a matter of months, the brothers became more of a family than my own.
It only took a few years for me to be voted in as the club’s enforcer, and I became the man who stepped in when talking stopped working or someone crossed a line they had no business crossing.
I put my life on the line every damn day for my brothers, and I never questioned it.
Not once. They had my back just like I had theirs, and there was a time when I thought I’d take my last breath with them.
Patch on my chest. Brothers at my side. But life has a way of gutting you when you least expect it, and when my world blew apart, I couldn’t stay.
I tried. I didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t breathe inside those walls anymore. I saw them everywhere. It didn’t matter when or where. They were at every turn, every shadow, and I could hear them talking and laughing, even when no one was there.
I expected that at home, but not there.
Not at the clubhouse where I’d severed the good in me. I saved that for them. Only them. I thought their good would stay at our home. It was our sacred place. It was where we spent most of our days, but their ghosts didn’t care. They followed me.
Grief will do that to a man. It will make ghosts where there shouldn’t be any. I knew then I had to leave. It was the only way I could survive, so I decided to go nomad, getting out before those memories could take me under.
The brothers wanted me to stay, but they understood my reasons for leaving and didn’t force my hand. They didn’t take my patch, even when I insisted. They refused, telling me, "Once a brother, always a brother.” They said the road would eventually bring me home.
But deep down, I think we all knew the truth.
I wasn’t coming back. Not really. At least, not the way I was before. Not the way they remembered. That man died along with them, and I was what was left. Just a broken shell who had no choice but to leave behind the life he’d always known.
Even after all these years, they were still looking out for me.
Pres called every few weeks to see where I was and how I was doing.
And even though I didn’t ask and certainly didn’t deserve it, they never let my bank account run dry, keeping gas in my tank and a roof over my head.
I owed them, so I would stand here, in the middle of the insanity of fight night, and try to find out who had something against my brothers.
I had no patch. No cut. I was just in jeans, a flannel, and boots. Not exactly what you’d expect a member of Fury to wear, but tonight, it worked in my favor. None of these assholes would’ve ever thought I had ties to them.
The whisper came again. This time it was followed by a whole mouthful of drunken arrogance. I shifted just enough to catch sight of one of the guys who was running his mouth. He was a skinny dude, in his mid-twenties, and like the men next to him, he was wearing a leather cut.
From where I was standing, I couldn’t make out the embroidery, but he was a member of a club. They all were, and he was filling them in on what he’d heard.
“I’m tellin’ you, man, Skynyrd said these Fury assholes did a real number on them.
Fucked up their bar and killed four brothers,” he yapped, chest puffing with each word.
“Those Fury assholes think they’re hot shit, and they can do whatever the fuck they want.
We gotta go there and show ‘em what happens when you mess with the Coyotes.”
The Coyotes.
They weren’t as big or fierce as Fury, but I’d heard of them.
They were growing in number and in casualties.
They had no code, no true loyalty, and that made them both a joke and extremely dangerous.
And the mere fact that they were talking about club business out in the open showed just how stupid and dangerous they really were.
Some were clearly pissed, while others seemed more interested in the women passing by than anything their brother had to say. But the one standing at his side seemed the most invested. He took a long pull from his beer before asking, “You talked to Prez about this?”
“Hell yeah. I told him all about it, and he was even more pissed than I was,” the skinny dude answered. “He’s calling Rizz and some of the other chapters, and we’re gonna meet up and take care of these Fury assholes once and for all.”
“That’s good. We don’t need to wait on this.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking… We need to move now, while we got the upper hand. We gotta show them and everyone else that Coyotes bite the hardest.”
Hearing them talk about Fury was one thing.
Hearing them talk about taking them out was another.
Preacher. Creed. Grim.
A few others drifted through my mind as I stood there listening to these assholes talk about their plan to invade Little Rock.
They might’ve been from another chapter, but these men were once my brothers.
I’d shared beers with them, swapped stories with them, and even though I hadn’t spent a great deal of time with them, I knew they were good men.
Preacher was a man with a presence that filled a room without him having to say a damn word.
As VP, Creed stood by his side, quieter but just as sharp, and he kept a tight watch, making sure nothing got by him.
And Grim, the club’s enforcer, reminded me of myself.
Fierce, loyal, and a spine of steel and a temper you didn’t want pointed in your direction.
They ran their chapter a lot like Stone and Ace had run ours. Straightforward, no bullshit, and fiercely protective of their own. You always knew where you stood with them. You knew the line between family and enemy, and you knew what would happen if someone crossed it.
Thinking about what that loudmouth kid had said about going after them had rage burrowing in the pit of my stomach.
I didn’t want trouble hitting the Little Rock boys, didn’t want any kind of fallout landing on men who’d never given me anything but respect, but wanting it didn’t stop the reality of what I’d just heard.
Trouble was headed to Little Rock, and I had to do something to stop it.
I could’ve just pulled out my phone, dialed Preacher’s number, and laid it all out.
But that wasn’t how things like this were handled.
I had to play it safe and make sure the Coyotes had no way of knowing that I’d overheard their conversation.
I needed to deliver the information face-to-face.
It was the only way to make sure the Coyotes kept thinking they had the upper hand.
The Coyote’s loudmouth finally wound down his bragging, the last of his bullshit. The asshole next to him clapped him on the shoulder and asked about the fights, wanting to know who was betting what and who was the first stepping into the ring.
And just like that, the whole damn group shifted gears, and their attention was drawn to the warehouse doors. I took that as my cue to get the hell out of there.
I eased off the wall, moving slow and steady, making sure to stay off anyone’s radar. Darkness fell around me as I slipped between cars and beat-up trucks, making it harder to see with each step. I caught sight of my bike and thought I was in the clear until I heard Hank call out, “Hey, Walker!”
Damn. Leave it to Hank to fuck up my grand escape.
I didn’t turn around. Hell, I didn’t even slow down.
I just kept trucking it to my bike. I kicked my leg over the seat, thumbing the ignition, and my bike answered in a deep, familiar rumble that drowned out the cheers spilling from the warehouse.
Hank yelled something else, maybe my name or maybe a curse, but I ignored him and rolled toward the dirt road that led me here.
Twenty minutes later, I was hitting the highway, and the wind was cutting through my flannel. I had a long haul ahead of me, but maybe, just maybe, I could help the Little Rock boys stop a war before it ever got started.