Chapter 39
KNOX
“Prez,” Sunny yells into the clubhouse as the sound of motorcycles gets louder and louder. “You’re gonna want to come see this.”
I place my coffee cup down on the bar and step out into the lot, and the first thing that hits me is the reflection of the sun off all the chrome.
Ridge is already out there, guiding the bikers into the lot, figuring out the best way to get so many bikes inside the gates.
The first man off his bike is Halo, the road captain of the Iron Outlaws, New Jersey chapter. The former navy SEAL is a good man. His father was a piece of shit who knocked up a club girl, and Halo is now raising the little girl as his own.
He drops his bandana from across his mouth and nose. There’s a dirt line across his face.
“Knox.” He climbs off his motorcycle, and when he gets to me, we hug, and I slap his back.
“Isn’t it time you got that hair cut?” I joke.
“Ari would chop your balls off for even suggesting it. How’ve you been?”
“Outside of this bullshit with Alvarez, we’ve been good. How many are with you?”
Halo looks out over the crowd. “Thirty-two. Dallas has got their own problems, didn’t think they could spare the men. Every other club sent three or four.”
Saint, the former undercover FBI agent who is now a member of King’s chapter, bounces up the steps. I know King trusts him implicitly, but I’ve always kept the man at arm’s length. Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice and all that bullshit. “Knox,” he says, offering his hand.
I take it and shake it because he came to the aid of my club. “Saint.”
“We got a lot of munitions in those two vans,” he says. “You got somewhere we can offload them?”
“Havoc,” I shout, waving him over. “Work with Saint to figure out where to put all the weapons.”
“Yippee-ki-yay, motherfuckers,” Niro says, bounding towards me, but it’s the woman to his right that has me most concerned. “Knox. Meet my wife, Cat.”
I’ve heard a lot about this woman. The former assassin and daughter of a rival club member who kidnapped Niro in a case of mistaken identity.
What surprises me about her is that she’s dressed in full club colors, wearing a 1% patch, and has a teardrop tattooed beneath her left eye, meaning she’s killed for the club.
And when she removes her leather jacket and lays it over her bike, for a second, everyone looks, because she’s stunning.
“Cat rides out with you guys in full colors?” I quietly ask Halo.
“Officially became a brother two weeks ago,” Halo says. “Best you don’t question it if you don’t want Niro to lose his shit. But I can assure you, she’s better at everything than pretty much any of us. She took Clutch down the day she met him.”
“Close your fucking mouth,” Niro says to North. “You’re drooling.”
“Babe,” Cat warns, tugging Niro away from the direction of my VP. “Be nice.” She turns to me. “Nice to meet you, Knox. King said you’re the longest-serving president ever. I bet you’ve got good stories.”
I look between the two of them. “Probably not as interesting as yours. Let’s get everyone out back by the dock so we can bring you up to speed on what we know.”
I’m about to turn to walk into the clubhouse when the doors of the black truck that followed the bikes in opens and…
“Son of a fucking gun,” I say when I see Jackal step out. I hurry to my friend and pull him into a hug. “How did you get here?”
Jackal grins. “Flew to Tampa, rented this. We’ll need weapons and a vehicle that’ll withstand a little damage. Don’t fancy returning this to the car rental with bullet holes.”
Shade rounds the vehicle. “Knox.” I shake his hand and notice the matching rings the two of them are wearing.
“Congratulations,” I say.
Jackal grins. “It was hard to make Isla stay home. We’ll bring her next time.”
“Yeah, well, hold on to your hats, because, by then, Maren Caldwell will be my old lady so they can hang out together.”
Jackal’s mouth opens. “She’s your what?”
I huff a laugh. “Yeah, that was my reaction. Let’s get everything settled and I’ll fill you in.”
It takes a minute to secure bikes, unload weapons, and get drinks served.
Every club girl has arrived, plus a couple I’ve never seen before who I send packing.
Today is not the day to have strangers around.
There’s food being served up to hungry bikers.
Burgers and hot dogs. Things that are easy to throw onto the grill, and hard to run out of.
There’s a lot of speculation and whispered conversation about Cat.
The majority of the men don’t like it. A motorcycle club has never been the place for a woman.
But when it’s revealed that she was put up for brotherhood by King, our national president, not Niro, people start to shut up pretty damn quick.
Once everyone has a plate of food and a beer, Lock secures the area, and forces everyone else back inside.
“How’s Vandal?” Jackal asks as I stand with Halo and Shade.
I shake my head. “Not good. He’s stuck in the hospital. Got to have his orbital bone reconstructed. Bone fragments put back together using a metal frame attached to his skull. They’ll literally pull his face away from his skull to do it. Same shit on his cheek. Alvarez shattered his face up bad.”
“Fuck,” Halo curses as everyone starts to come to attention. “That sucks.”
“I feel responsible,” Jackal says. And Shade reaches out to squeeze his shoulder.
“Don’t,” I say. “Vandal wouldn’t want you to.”
I don’t tell him how one of the nurses told me he’s been having nightmares. But seeing we made up a story about a bike accident, we can’t tell them the truth of what they’re dealing with.
Jackal huffs. “Not sure he’d have a song for this.”
“Brothers,” I say, finally, to the assembled crowd. “It means a lot to all of us that you took the time to ride down here.”
There are murmurs of it not being a problem and being happy to help because that’s what chapters are supposed to do.
“When I messaged King about the problem we were having with Mateo Alvarez, he was clear. We could pay our way out of this, effectively giving in to his demands. Or we can hold our ground, with your help.” I look out over the water I’ve protected for nearly two decades.
“But I honestly believe that if we don’t take this fight to Alvarez, we’ll be his bitches forever. ”
There’s hearty agreement from the crowd.
“Damn right,” Niro shouts.
“Fuck paying that prick,” someone adds.
I let it build, for a moment, the agreement. The aggrieved feelings that will help fuel an attack on Alvarez. It’s the fine thread of violence that binds all one-percenters together.
Then, I lift my hand, and the deck comes to order. “He gave us seven days like it was a fucking courtesy. But I’m not interested in sitting on my hands while he decides how he wants to come at us.”
I glance at my men. All of them nod in agreement. Halo does too. So does Cat.
“We move first,” I say finally.
“How?” Saint asks.
Sunny chuckles. “Lock’s girlfriend works at the FBI.”
Lock shakes his head. “Not my girlfriend.”
“You guys dancing with the FBI?” Mallow, the enforcer of the Nashville chapter, asks.
His road name came from his momma, an old lady, who, upon accidentally finding out her son had killed three members of a rival gang with a baseball bat, said that he was a natural-born killer but was a marshmallow on the inside.
“Not dancing with anyone,” Lock mutters.
“Yet,” Sunny says.
Lock flips Sunny the bird.
I roll my eyes. “Just explain it.”
Lock sighs like we’re all idiots. “Alvarez has a main operation in Miami that everyone has their eyes on. But my contact suggests there’s evidence he’s running a secondary operation out of a marina about ten miles south.
Smaller crews, less security. He rotates through there every few days.
They suspect the most valuable cargo flows through there and the bigger, showier op is just to throw the Feds off. ”
“Which it obviously hasn’t if they’re aware,” Saint says. “If they’ve got eyes on it, how do we go in there without getting caught up in an FBI sting?”
“Spoken like a true former FBI agent,” Halo says with a chuckle.
Lock takes a swig of his beer. “It’s new intel. They’re trying to get all the right sign-offs for a takedown of the location. We have a three-day window before they start, but based on the shipping details, they’re going to come through tomorrow night.”
Saint crosses his arms. “It’s a bad sign if the FBI is dotting and crossing everything. Suggests that Alvarez has money and power and connections, so they want to do everything right.”
Mallow huffs. “Is the former Fed agreeing that they don’t usually do everything right?”
Saint turns around and grins. “Wouldn’t be a biker if they did.”
Mallow slaps Saint’s shoulder and laughs. “Fucking right.”
“Still don’t like being in bed with the Feds,” one of the older guys says.
“Good job Lock does, or we wouldn’t have the intel,” Havoc jokes. It’s good to see him smiling. He looked ruined when he came back from taking Vandal’s mom to the hospital to see him.
I turn to the group. “We hit him tomorrow night. Hard and fast. En masse. We take out his men. We take out his product. We decimate his op. I don’t want to start a war, but he brought it to us when he pulled that shit on Vandal and then demanded a quarter of a million bucks from us because of some guy who hasn’t been an Outlaw for four years. ”
“What’s the plan?” Saint asks.
“Most senior ranking member of each club come to church to figure out a plan. Ridge will be road captain because he knows this area better than anyone. The rest, enjoy our hospitality. Would like to think we have the best clubhouse out of any of them, especially on a day like this.”
Niro stands. “Do you have any airboats?”
Halo rolls his eyes. “Told you you could go on one when we were done.”
Cat throws her arm over Halo’s shoulder. “He’s probably not going to be able to focus until he’s been on one.”