Chapter 12 – Christian Shaw
Chapter Twelve
Christian Shaw
Montana
There are other ways to express brutality, despite what the times might have you think.
I landed this sick gig because I’m the youngest Shaw to recently initiate into the organization.
Wyatt doesn’t trust anyone else but family with Tylee.
If she comes out pregnant, he’ll have two people to kill.
Tylee has a way with men that doesn’t work on family, even if our folks are from Missouri. We were never cousin-fuckers.
Not on purpose, at least.
If I didn’t know better, I would think Wyatt sent me out here because he hates my guts.
Truth is, he’s indifferent. When you spend your entire life as somebody important, you don’t even bother to look at the men beneath you.
I don’t mind living in the shadows. I feel more like Ruger that way. The shadows are quiet.
For the next two years, I’ll be out here in the shadows doing what Wyatt asks.
I have to feed Tylee Shaw 1,400 calories a day on a balanced diet.
I have to keep her medicated. I have to ensure she has access to a clean cell.
I have to make sure she doesn’t escape. While she might be in mostly-solitary confinement, I am to allow her letters.
She doesn’t know where we are, exactly and I have no need to tell her.
Scrap and Steel put her in the basement.
I didn’t even have to do that, which I’m grateful for. Tylee fought the entire way down and her howls were something like I’ve never heard before. Imagine a mountain lion getting fucked in the ass. Something like that. I swear, that’s what it sounded like.
The pay for this shit job isn’t bad – I’ll give them that.
I get paid $25,000 a month as Tylee’s prison warden.
I can flip that into a million – easy. Same way most of the Shaws end up making money in the end – playing to win and knowing when to stop.
I like games as much as my cousins, but I don’t like the attention you earn at a card table or slot machine.
It’s better to gamble in the shadows. Easier to win when nobody knows what or how you think. I like sports because they’re easier to predict. The sense of control you have over the game when you know the plays intuitively makes it easier to see outcomes that nobody else can.
No betting apps in Montana – backwards fucking place – so while I’m out here, I’ll have to find a way to keep playing.
Since I turned fifteen, I’ve never gone a week without sitting at a poker table.
I know, I said I don’t like the attention.
It doesn’t mean that I don’t play. I’m pretty good at poker – not as good as Ethan. Far better than Owen.
Wyatt is too clean to care about my plight, but believe me, it’s very much a concern. I’ll need to set something up with the hicks out here or I’ll lose my fucking mind.
The first night in the basement, Tylee screams and howls on the door all night. I lie awake listening to Tylee scream and there’s something freeing about the way she howls.
I end up bringing her oatmeal for breakfast with water in the morning dosed with a sedative just so she gets some sleep in there. Don’t feel good about it, mind you. Thanks to the sound-proofing in the basement, her howling didn’t necessarily keep me up. I did that all on my own.
I grew up the eldest of seven and we only had two bedrooms – one for the girls and one for the boys.
Three of my siblings share my dad and the rest mom had later.
I don’t think I realized how quiet it would be when I moved out.
Montana is even worse. I can hear every bug lifting its skirt to take a piss.
Outside in the daylight for the first time, I scour the extent of my property here.
I have a solid three acres with a little farm land, space for a horse if I choose to get one, three partially cleared gardening beds and an empty chicken coop.
The summers I spent with my dad always involved a little farm work and a lot of fixing motorcycles, so I got pretty much used to doing both with my time.
I get started clearing away the mess and scheming up some plan for the landscape.
I’ll have plenty of money to get a horse, I think.
The question is how badly I’ll want to care for the damned thing when the temperatures drop.
We’re eight weeks away from serious winter out here and I suffer no illusions about how hard that will be out in the sticks.
I have a sore back and smell like a horse myself by the time I’m done with my first day of work.
I might not get to keep this land, but I still want to make it mine while I’m here.
I have to be more alone than Tylee. The more I bond with her, the more I open myself up to her manipulations, which I have no interest in.
Shit, I might need more than a horse. I might need a dog too.
What more does a man need, anyways? A nice house.
Decent land. An income. A poker table. A horse.
A dog… and his cousin locked up in his basement.
Shit, my life turned out pretty strange, even for a guy born into a biker family who barely graduated high school.
I like it. I was born for adventure – like my father, like my uncle, like my cousins.
I’m a biker to my core and this is how you become more than a member, but a part of the family.
I want this more than I have ever wanted anything.
The job might be tough, but Wyatt chose me because he sees the value in putting me to the test. I could go on to do big things in this club.
I wouldn’t be such an idiot to squander this opportunity.
Me and Tylee will be just fine up here, I’m sure of it. This is my chance to prove myself to the Rebel Barbarians MC and I’m not going to screw it up.