Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
S triker…
Kash and Enigma had me up in the Uber they’d ordered. Kash’d been taken to the hospital for a chunk of glass he’d had stuck in his forearm from a bottle coming down on him. He’d blocked, so it could have been a lot worse. He reeked of tequila when I got into the back of the car with him and Niggy, and we were off to St. Augustine.
We needed to pick up the shop van we used to transport our shop guys who didn’t ride to bike shows to get the boys at the Ormond Beach jail and then head on over to the impound lot to get our bikes out.
That was going to cost a pretty penny in towing and storage fees, but that was just the cost of doing business for something like this. Renegade and the Bishop were more than good for it.
Kash and Nig had been far more in the loop at the hospital than I’d been at Rarity’s place and filled me in.
Enigma had a concussion, but ain’t no worse than anything he’d had before. He wouldn’t be riding or driving, so we would have to figure that out but that was easy enough. Switch was still in the hospital. He’d broken his hand so badly on a Scorpion’s face, they were talking surgery and waiting on an orthopedic surgeon to come look at it and make a final determination.
The Scorpions had five in the hospital, the rest in lockup, and one of their numbers was a goner – from friendly fire. One of the dipshits who’d started popping off had hit one of his buddies and taken him out.
Our lawyers were eating investigators for fuckin’ breakfast, and our boys were free to go now. Kash and Enigma were both saying how they’d had cops at their bedside all night and how they’d been cuffed to the bedrail until the word had trickled down that they were free to go.
“I tell you, the hospital was a lot more comfortable than lockup, brother, but I could have stitched this shit myself. I didn’t wanna go.”
“Yeah, but they would have been all sorts of up your ass in lockup. At least in the ER you had pretty nurses to look at,” Enigma said, his head laid back and eyes shut against the bright sun.
“I hear that,” I said, leaning back to show the butterfly bandages holding my own slash mark closed.
“Eh, what did that?” Kash asked.
“Knife.”
He nodded, but he was already thinking and hard.
The Jacksonville chapter had come up smelling like roses out of the lot of us. No injuries enough to go to the hospital, but all of them had been picked up.
The rest of the day was spent in a logistical nightmare of getting everyone where they needed to be and matched back up with their bikes.
Renegade and The Bishop were power teaming the impound lot, arguing with them about the jacked-up rates and the fuckin’ damage to several of the bikes from their careless handling.
The lot backed down pretty quick and gave the two presidents what they wanted by way of cut rates to pretend some of the damage didn’t happen. Our shop would take care of it, no problem, for the cost of parts. It was the least we could do.
By the end of the day, we’d all wound up at this burger place, stuffing our faces, having a laugh over some of the more stupid shit and swapping war stories about the night before.
“Then this motherfucker right here…” FOCUS stabbed a finger in Pud’s direction. “Pretty much drops trow and starts pissing all over the poor fucker he knocked right the fuck out. And all I can think is get a load of that dick! ” He held up his hands and leaned back in his seat like praise be to the good lord above for bringing him this bounty. “Swear to God, if he ain’t got a boner and he’s that fucking big. Fuck , we gotta get him in front of some lights, get the cameras rolling – you know what I’m sayin’? We could make some damn good money.”
All the guys from every chapter were falling out laughing except Kash, who was squirming in his seat and looking downright tempestuous.
“What’s the problem, Kash?” Renegade asked, and Kash’s expression soured further.
“Man, I just wanna get back down to Ocala and inside my ol’ lady. No offense, but after a scrap like that, it’s all I can fuckin’ think about.”
“Don’t you worry. We’re heading right on out from here,” The Bishop told his man.
“Speaking of pussy,” Sundown said with a grin. “I heard you made off with the blonde bar chick. How’d that go?”
All eyes were on me, and I shifted in my seat.
“Man, it ain’t like that. She’s barely twenty-four,” I said with a shrug.
“So?” Highway, the road captain for Jacksonville, said.
“Last time I checked, anything over the age of eighteen was both legal and acceptable,” Creed, the Jacksonville president, said.
“I know,” I said with a laugh. “But it wasn’t like that.”
I explained the whole thing, how she was just trying to make it, about her mom and three siblings. How she’d helped me out. Not just keeping me from getting shot, but also how she’d lied to the cops and fudged some of the details. How she was going to bat for us on our side as a witness, for all the good it might do, seeing as she’d been smacked around by a Scorpion the night before. I mean, biased much?
Some impressed looks went around the tables that’d been pushed together to accommodate three chapters of the Royal Bastards in the joint we were at, and some silent and thoughtful nodding threaded through, too.
“Still, I’d like to shoot my shot I think – if y’all don’t mind,” I said. Mostly because Rarity was a rare beauty, and I didn’t want too much competition nor any of these guys bugging the fuck out of her when I was already half sweet on her.
“So you going to see her again?” someone asked, but I couldn’t tell who.
“Yeah, I think I might,” I said.
“Not at the Iron Horse,” someone else said, and Renegade snorted.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“We’ve been ‘trespassed’ off the property,” he said, putting trespassed into air quotes with his fingers.
I laughed. “Like they’re gonna remember any one of our faces if we go in there slick-backed.”
“That’s what I was thinkin’ too,” Shadow said, grinning.
The Bishop stood. “Well, gentlemen, it’s been a good time. Let us know if you need anything. Gotta get in the wind so this big beast can get his dick wet.”
“Yep, it’s been swell,” Creed said. “But the swelling’s gone down some and it’s time for us to make for home, too.”
There were nods around the table and we settled up our bill with the establishment, tipping well above board for all their hard work in feeding our hangry horde on the fly.
We rode home, Ocala splitting off to go their way, Jacksonville riding with us as far as our exit before waving and heading on up further to their home base.
Renegade gave the signal as we hit the St. Augustine city limits that we could all fuck off back to our respective homes if we wanted to. I was relieved about that. I just wanted another shower and to put something on the developing sunburn across my shoulders and down my arms from riding with no shirt all damn day.
I lived in a small but neatly kept apartment in a big house two streets away from the lighthouse.
The house was owned by a rich fuck who owned a bunch of fast-food franchises. He and his wife only wintered down here in Florida, a pair of regular snowbirds. All spring and summer the place was a vacation rental through one of those online deals. They liked having me around to make sure that shit was kept low key and respectful in their home. Other than the odd rager I called in to let ‘em know about, I was pretty well left to my own devices in the carriage house apartment set back and to the left of the house.
I went in and dropped my keys in the bowl on the table just inside the front door. I hung up my cut on the hook I’d set in the wall above that and set about emptying my pockets. Change? In the bowl. Receipts? In the little trash can I kept by the door. Wallet? On the table. Random cash? In the bowl.
I kicked off my boots on the tile and padded across the living room carpet, sweeping up the remote off the coffee table, and switching on the seventy-five-inch television.
“– Horse Saloon is closed tonight and until further notice after two rival motorcycle gangs decided to fight it out which resulted in a shooting last night,” the male television anchor said. “We’re going live on scene with Cocoa Abrams.”
“Yes, hi, David. We’re here live in Ormond Beach, where the investigation is still ongoing into the incident that took place here last night that sent multiple people to the hospital and left at least one dead.”
I dropped onto the couch and watched, looking past the reporter into the background, although for what, I had no idea. Maybe a glimpse of Rarity? Which was stupid. I had to bet she was nowhere near the place.
“It all started when two rival groups of bikers showed up to party and drink at the well-known biker bar that’s popular here during bike week. Things were civil to begin with, according to management, but then things took a sudden turn for the worse…”
The scene cut to a guy named Charlie, who looked upset as he stood hands on his hips to talk to the reporter and give his side of the story.
He threw both the Scorpions and the Bastards under the proverbial bus, which I expected. Talkin’ how we showed up in numbers flouting the ‘ no colors’ rule of the bar. He wasn’t necessarily wrong in how he framed things up. About how his security staff was outnumbered, and how everything had seemed to start out well enough.
Still, he didn’t paint a flattering picture – which big fuckin’ surprise there.
His loyalty was to keeping his ass employed, after all.
I watched the news in a bit of a daze, fucking tired as hell, and waiting for any indication we might be somehow fucked. But all they said was that the fight and subsequent shooting led to multiple felony arrests and that charges may still be pending for some individuals involved.
I wasn’t worried about us.
Renegade had it handled. Shadow was probably already doing his thing. It was all above my paygrade from here.