Chapter 6
I AM LEGION
B etrayal is the catalyst that alchemizes empathy into ruthlessness.
It is the insidious blade that cleaves emotion from the heart, transforming one into icy steel.
I have the women in my early life to thank for the massacre of my soul.
Damien died with a chain wrapped around his throat.
It was the final breaking point that unleashed the demon within.
Seven years later, I was hell on two wheels.
T he heat of the desert highway churned with the scorching wind whipping past my riding goggles and beating against the bandana that covered the lower portion of my face as I cruised from Sierra Vista toward Gila Bend.
I had been called in to assist my brother, who’d adopted the road name Asmodeus. He was in the process of acquiring a roadhouse in one of our takeovers just outside the small city of Gila Bend.
We were the dominant MC from Sierra Vista, where I was in charge, to Phoenix, and all the way up to Sedona.
Over the last seven years, we had fought hard to expand the territory of the Devil’s Scorpions MC by overpowering smaller clubs, absorbing their surviving members, and growing in numbers until the surrounding MCs wanted no part in fucking with us.
Essentially, they became our bitch-mules to keep their cuts and clubs intact, transporting product at our beck and call and handing over a piece of every club’s revenue.
They were button men to push whenever another MC or small-time gang got ambitious.
Asmodeus and I had earned ourselves a ruthless, zero-tolerance reputation.
Our expansion had been swift and bloody.
If you grew a pair, I was often the one sent to cut ‘em off.
It was Asmo’s idea for the two of us to split.
He sent me further south to establish a new nomadic crew under the Chrome Demons MC and dominate ground in Sierra Vista.
Apparently, many found my presence a bit unnerving.
By then, my dark practices were well known, earning me the official road name, Legion .
Many were convinced I was riddled with the demonic entities of which I called upon in rituals for guidance, power, and protection.
Early on, and for a good portion of our climb to power, I barely spoke to anyone other than Asmo.
My voice, forever damaged by the incident , had become a permanent, raspy growl.
This only contributed to my mystique and threatening presence, reinforcing the superstitions men already formed about me.
My reputation often preceded me. It helped that I had become a ruthless bastard with little regard for anyone, other than my brother.
Quite often, rivals and conquests caved to our demands before the threat of my arrival on scene ever came to fruition.
I pulled my heavily chromed Indian into the lot of the roadhouse, which would soon belong to my brother.
Although the place was a pile of crumbling bricks and stucco, it was inconspicuous, and outside the already small town.
All of which factored into Asmo’s desire for the place.
It was also close to the halfway point between our clubhouse near Sedona.
Despite those reasons, I didn’t understand why he had to have it at the time.
The only factor that mattered to me then was that he wanted it. I owed my brother. Reason enough.
After removing my riding gear, I dismounted the bike, lit up a cigarette, and surveyed the row of motorcycles as I made my way toward the establishment.
My brother had his core crew with him, men who went by the road names Lust, Greed, Sharky, and Fuckboy.
I assumed the other bikes in the dusty lot belonged to members of the crew we were either absorbing into our ranks or exterminating.
When I entered the dismal establishment, I found Asmo and his guys lounging in the bar room around three men already bound to chairs. Judging by their sweat-streaked faces and bloodied mouths, they had already been worked over.
I shut the door softly behind me, drawing everyone’s attention regardless. A wide smile curved Asmo’s face. His crew chuckled with depraved eagerness, eyes darting back and forth between me and the men who were about to cave to my brother’s demands.
“Ah! Speak of the Devil and he shall appear !” Asmo bellowed jovially.
“ Legion .” Sharky, his Sergeant at Arms, nodded in greeting.
Wooden chairs creaked as the men shifted nervously at the mention of my name, watching me intently.
I grabbed a chair and sat at a table nearest them, pulling the last drag of my cigarette.
Fuckboy placed their wallets down for me to inspect.
I snuffed the butt out in the cheap, plastic ashtray and removed the contents of each wallet, splaying everything out before me.
Licenses… Family photos... Leverage.
I studied the items, methodically glancing up to make eye contact with the contents’ worried owners, one by one.
Asmo clapped his hands together. The abrupt sound made our captives flinch in unison.
“So, gentlemen, have you decided whether or not this is going to be an execution, or a patching over into our ranks?” he asked, playing up the excitement in his tone.
“Will we be slicing off Rockers, or body parts?”
When the men remained silent, Asmo’s smile twisted into a sneer, and he nodded at me.
My turn...
I stood, removing the two hook-style blades concealed within the sheaths beneath my cut. Karambit knives, vicious and efficient weapons in close combat, able to rip and slash with ease and fluidity in a fight.
I shifted my focus from our captives’ widened eyes and bobbing throats to the photos on the table, and speared the wallet-sized portrait of a woman standing beside a motorcycle. I held it up on the tip of my blade.
The room fell to complete silence when I spoke. “Your Ol’ Lady?”
Their president didn’t respond. I twisted my wrist around, allowing him to observe the way I studied every detail of her.
.. Allowing his imagination to run wild with darkening worry over what I might have been contemplating about his woman.
I couldn’t have given a shit less about her appearance or what pleasures of the flesh I could derive from her leather-clad body.
The twisted grin pulling at my mouth had nothing to do with her.
It was the mental mind fuck… The anguish in his expression as I slid my dick into his psyche and fucked his darkest fears to the forefront of his mind.
“You have a choice to make.” I stepped closer to him and held the photo of his woman at the tip of my blade, directly in his face. “Bend to Asmodeus…or die knowing your families will share a similar fate to what happens here tonight.”
“And what’s that?” The tremor in his voice discredited his brave facade.
“I christen this place in your blood, and that of your men… Have you ever seen a man skinned alive?”
He swallowed hard.
“ Flayed , to be precise. Is that something you would subject your loved ones to?”
He only stared at me in horror.
I lifted the other blade to the center of his forehead and dragged the tip along the edge of his hairline. Blood trickled from the incision, seeping into the creases of his sweaty brow.
“I’ll wear your fucking face while I slaughter your family... The last thing your Ol’ lady will see will be her blood spraying across your face … Only it will be my soulless eyes she’s staring into when the life fades from hers.”
“Jesus Christ…” he barely whispered.
“Quite the opposite, actually.” I smiled.
The Devil’s Scorpions laughed with sick amusement.
“Alright… I give up… Whatever you want…it’s yours,” he relented with a hopelessness that pulled a dark chuckle from my brother.
Asmo cocked his chin at him and grinned. “ Welcome to the Hotel California of MCs .”
THREE YEARS LATER
T he constant hum of the giant neon lights mounted atop the roof nearly drowned out the obnoxious music blaring from within the establishment below.
The heavy bass reverberated through the soles of my motorcycle boots as I stood, staring out across the dark desert scape.
The Morning Star Gentlemen’s Club was one of our mostly legitimate businesses.
I permitted our girls to fuck and suck for cash in the private dance rooms—at their discretion—so long as they kept their traps shut about it…
and kicked a percentage back to me, of course .
I’d been running this shake shack on my own.
The local LEOs were frequent flyers, both on and off duty, all too willing to turn a blind eye in exchange for a little bump and grind action with a girl or two of their choosing.
Bump as in coke , that is. Grind …well, that’s where the girls came into play.
We didn’t deal out of the club, though. A small amount of the shit was kept on hand for the cops and cunts, which in turn kept our employees happy, peppy, and less inclined to jump ship.
Not that The Morning Star was a dump. Quite the contrary.
This particularly significant night, the roof door swung open behind me, and my relatively quiet retreat flooded with the shit music these borderline whores loved humping a pole to on stage.
“Legion, there’s a hot piece of ass here looking for you,” Vein announced.
“Let one of the other guys sample her.”
“She specifically asked for you. Besides, she’s more your type .”