17. Bram
seventeen
Bram
“Who the fuck is it?” I said, glancing at the sleeping Julie, wanting whoever was knocking on my door to go to hell.
Like most clubs, the Barstow chapter had rooms for each officer.
The rooms were basic bedrooms, and each had a bathroom.
I kept mine about as clean as any biker could keep their room.
“We got trouble outside,” Kodiak said. “Looks like the Colonel came for a visit.”
Hearing that name, Julie’s eyes popped open. “The fuck is he doing here?”
She threw off the covers, and Kodiak stared, smiling like a kid in a candy shop.
“Get the fuck out of here,” I said. “I’ll be right there.”
“I’m gonna kill that asshole,” Julie said. She grabbed my Glock from the dresser.
“Stop, Julie.” I eased the gun from her hand. “You’re gonna stay right here.”
“You’re not my father!”
“No, I’m not. But I am your Daddy.” I lifted her chin and waited for a smile. She grunted between clenched teeth.
“Asshole.”
“Me or him?”
“Both.”
I pulled her naked body against mine, my dick hardening against her stomach. I would have loved to fuck her again, but a kill waited. I dressed and shoved the Glock in my back waistband.
“Stay here, babe.”
She nodded, and I didn’t believe her.
The black limousine sat outside our front gate like a hearse with better paint, engine off, desert morning sun turning the windows into dark gold mirrors.
Six men in Desert Scorpion colors had fanned out behind it, three on each side, guns holstered but hands low, their formation neat.
They didn’t look nervous. If anything, they looked bored, the way you get when you’ve already run through every scenario and none of them end with you walking away.
The Colonel stood out front, silver hair crisp against a suit that probably cost more than any vehicle in the yard.
His shoes were polished, the kind of shine that says you don’t ever walk through the same dirt as your men.
He stood perfectly still, posture parade-straight, waiting for us to come to him.
Rusty was already on the porch, coffee in hand, scanning the scene with that quick, flat calculation he never tried to hide.
The rest of the Jackson Brothers had drifted out in ones and twos, posting up in the yard or at the edge of the drive, each picking their own spot of hardpan.
Nobody said a word. You could hear the wind rattle the security gate.
Someone in the back of the compound started an engine, then killed it, like a threat that didn’t need to be stated.
“You got about two minutes,” Rusty said. “Then I’m going to walk down there, shove my gun in his mouth, and blow his fucking brains out.”
“Give me five minutes,” I said. “We need to do this clean.”
“Four minutes.”
“Stay here, brother. I’ll handle it.”
I waited until the silence was good and thick before stepping out. No kutte, no colors. Just boots, jeans, and a T-shirt, sleeves rolled up over scars and the new healing line where a Scorpion blade had opened me a week ago. I didn’t bother with sunglasses. I wanted the Colonel to see my eyes.
He clocked me the instant I cleared the porch, but he didn’t move, didn’t raise a hand or tip his head. Just waited, the hint of a smile at the edges of his mouth. He thought he was cooler than the other side of the pillow. That was because nobody had ever properly called him on his bullshit.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to. This was the meeting, and he knew it. I stopped ten feet inside the gate and crossed my arms. Rusty took up a post at my right shoulder, hands visible and empty.
“I told you to stay back.”
“When do you remember me ever following orders?”
“He’s mine.”
“What he did to my daughter. What he did to Julie.” Rusty took a step forward, and I stuck out a hand to stop him. He and the Colonel locked eyes. “Not here, Rusty.”
The Colonel spoke first. Of course he did.
“Mr. Jackson,” he said, giving the name its full measure, like he was reading it off a contract. “I was hoping we could have a civilized conversation.”
His voice was pure performance. Each word landed slow and deliberate, the way you might talk to a child with a history of violence.
“We don’t do tea parties,” I said. “You have business, speak it.”
He nodded, as if I’d just proven a point he’d been making to someone else. His men didn’t twitch, but one of them shifted weight from left foot to right, boots crunching gravel in the dead air.
“I’m here for my daughters,” he said. “I understand you’re holding them.”
Rusty smirked at that, the smallest flex of lip before he locked it back down.
“Go fuck yourself,” Rusty said.
The Colonel smirked, and when I saw Rusty’s hand easing toward his Glock, I pulled him back.
“You need to check your minions, Bram.”
I gave a subtle signal to the other patches and twelve men sidled up next to me, fanning out.
“Julie and Emma,” the Colonel said, putting the names out in the open where they could start to rot. “You know they belong with me. I’m prepared to be reasonable.”
“Emma’s not yours,” Rusty said.
I let the silence run. The Colonel could outlast most men, but I’ve had decades more practice. He filled it, eventually, as I knew he would.
“Whatever you think you know about me, about my family—” he paused just long enough to make me want to spit—“I’m asking you, man, to man, to do the right thing. Return them to me. There will be no further escalation. This doesn’t need to go any further.”
I kept my arms crossed, left hand curled tight enough that I could feel the pulse thump in my wrist.
“No,” I said.
The Colonel didn’t flinch, not even a blink. He’d been expecting that answer. His eyes flicked to Rusty, then back to me, calculating the room, adjusting his approach like a man switching forks at a formal dinner.
“Julie is not well,” he said, voice softening.
“She believes things that aren’t true. I’ve had specialists see her in the past. You must realize by now she’s not in a position to make her own decisions.
I’m sure she’s told you things. Painted me as a villain.
She always did have a flair for the dramatic. ”
“You have thirty seconds,” I said.
The Colonel held my eyes for three of those seconds, then straightened, if possible, even more. “Be careful, Bram,” he said, and for the first time it was just the two of us. No audience, no posturing. “You don’t understand what you’re stepping into.”
“I’m not stepping,” I said. “I’m standing. You’re the one at my gate.”
That smile again, just the corners of his mouth. He looked over my shoulder, surveying the compound, the men, the patched bikes and half-restored muscle cars. When he spoke again, his tone was different. Quieter, almost casual.
“I want this resolved without blood,” he said. “You can walk away. All of you. Take the club, take the money. Start over. All I ask is that you give me back my daughters.”
“And if I say no?”
He nodded, like he’d been waiting for the real negotiation to start. “Then you force my hand. And we both know what that looks like.”
I let the words hang. I could feel the yard tensing behind me: the weight of bodies, the anticipation, the cold-blooded certainty that if a single hand twitched for a gun, the whole day would go up in smoke and bone.
The Colonel finally took one step forward. It wasn’t a challenge. It was a courtesy, a signal that the conversation was over.
“I’ll expect your answer by tomorrow,” he said.
“You have it now,” I said.
“Where’s Sally?” Rusty said.
The Colonel stepped sideways, only the fence between him and Rusty. “I know you think she belongs to you,” he said. “But I’ve made other arrangements.”
“You touch her…”
“You mean the way I did Emma?” He turned, a clean pivot, and signaled to his men. They fell in behind him, perfect parade line. I watched them file back into the limo, each one scanning our yard, hands never far from the hardware.
When the car pulled away, nobody said a word. The dust hung in the air, heavy, blocking out the sun.
Rusty waited until the taillights were gone before speaking.
“You should have let me kill him,” he said. “You owe me that.”
I shook my head. “He’s waiting for us to crack.” I nodded down the street. “There’s an unmarked Barstow PD cruiser down the street, watching every move.”
“Fuck,” Rusty murmured.
I looked at the gate, then at the clubhouse. I could see the shape of a body in the window, the curtain moving just enough to betray the watcher.
“Nobody in or out,” I said. “If someone so much as sneezes, I want to know about it.”
Rusty only nodded, still pissed. I didn’t blame him. I still needed to make up for Millie’s murder. The Colonel belonged to me regardless of what he’d done to anyone else.
The yard emptied like the aftermath of a funeral—nobody wanted to be the last one standing around the casket, not even the hard cases.
Most of the men drifted back inside, eyes scanning the perimeter one last time for threat, but really it was to avoid catching mine.
They didn’t want to know what was coming next.
I stood there, arms crossed, waiting for the static in my blood to burn off. Rusty stayed beside me, his silhouette knife-edged against the sun, both of us staring at the road where the limo had disappeared.
That’s when the door of the clubhouse slammed.
Julie stepped out, blinking into the desert glare, her hair unbrushed and wild, face set in a mask so cold it could’ve iced the steel railings.
She’d been told to stay inside, to keep Emma inside with her, to let the men handle the part of the day that might end in a body count.
But Julie didn’t give a fuck about orders—she never had.
She walked to the top of the stairs and stopped, shoulders back, hands loose at her sides. She wasn’t holding a weapon, but her whole posture was like a loose canon.
Her voice carried over the gravel and heat. “He’s gone, right?”
“Gone for now,” I said. “He’ll be back.”