Channel's Commitment (Ozark Ridgerunners MC #16)

Chapter 1

Limestone and Cottonmouth were already moving toward the entrance, their cuts catching the last orange light of sunset bleeding through the tree line. Still sat on his bike at the edge of the lot, engine idling, watching everything and nothing at the same time.

Channel's job was simple: watch the door, handle anything that came through it wrong, and don't fuck up.

Three months prospecting for the Ozark Ridgerunners, and he'd learned that simple didn't mean easy. Simple meant you had one job, which meant zero excuses if it went sideways.

The bar's owner owed the club twelve thousand dollars and three months of excuses. Tonight, the excuses stopped.

Channel positioned himself to the left of the entrance, back to the wall, sight lines on the parking lot and the door simultaneously.

Marine habits died hard—two tours in Helmand had carved certain instincts into his nervous system like knife marks in wood.

He didn't think about positioning anymore.

His body just knew where the threats would come from.

Inside, he could hear Limestone's voice. Not the words, but the tone—that quarry-foreman authority that made men twice his age step back and reconsider their life choices. Cottonmouth would be flanking, those snake-cold eyes promising violence if the conversation went wrong.

A truck pulled into the lot, headlights washing over Channel's position.

He tracked it without moving his head. Two men in the cab, neither reaching for anything.

They parked at the far end, took one look at the line of Ridgerunner bikes gleaming under the security light, and decided to stay in their vehicle.

Smart.

The door banged open and a man stumbled out—mid-forties, beer gut straining a fishing tournament t-shirt, face red with cheap whiskey and bad decisions. His eyes were glassy, unfocused, swimming with the particular belligerence of a drunk who'd convinced himself he was tough.

"The hell's going on in there?" The drunk squinted at Channel's prospect cut, at the patches that marked him as club property still earning his place. "You with those assholes shaking down Billy?"

Channel didn't answer. Didn't need to.

"Hey." The drunk stepped closer, whiskey breath rolling off him in waves. "I'm talking to you, boy. You hear me?"

"I hear you."

"Then answer the goddamn question." Another step. The drunk's hands were balling into fists, his body language screaming what his mouth was working up to. "Who the hell do you people think you are, coming into—"

The swing was telegraphed from a mile away. Sloppy, looping, the kind of haymaker that worked in bar fights between other drunks but had no business being thrown at someone who'd spent two years clearing buildings in a combat zone.

Channel moved.

He stepped inside the arc of the punch, caught the drunk's wrist, and used the man's own momentum to take him off his feet.

The drunk hit the gravel hard, air whooshing out of his lungs, and Channel was on him before he could process what had happened—knee in the center of his back, wrist cranked up between his shoulder blades, face pressed into the rocks.

"Stay down."

The drunk struggled, because drunks always struggled. Channel added pressure to the wrist—not enough to break, just enough to communicate.

"I said stay down."

The struggling stopped.

Channel held the position for three more seconds, then released and stepped back, creating distance. The drunk stayed on the ground, breathing hard, gravel embedded in his cheek.

"Go home," Channel said. "Sleep it off. Forget you were here tonight."

The drunk pushed himself up slowly, shame replacing belligerence as the adrenaline faded and the pain registered. He didn't look at Channel again, just stumbled toward his truck at the far end of the lot.

Channel checked his hands. Gravel scrape on his right palm, nothing serious. He resumed his position by the door.

At the edge of the lot, Still was watching. The president's expression hadn't changed—same weathered patience, same eyes that had seen three generations of Ozark trouble come and go. But as Channel met his gaze, Still nodded.

Once. Brief. Acknowledgment.

Heat spread through Channel's chest like whiskey burn, and he had to force himself not to grin like an idiot. A nod from Still was worth more than a medal. A nod from Still meant you'd done something right.

The door opened again and Limestone emerged, Cottonmouth behind him. Both men looked satisfied in the particular way that meant the conversation had gone well.

"Billy's gonna make good," Limestone said, loud enough for Still to hear across the lot. "First payment Friday, rest by the end of the month."

Still nodded again and killed his engine. He swung off his bike and walked toward the bar—not going inside, just claiming the space, letting the lot know whose territory this was.

"Prospect handled a situation," Cottonmouth said, tilting his head toward Channel. "Drunk with more balls than brains."

Still's gaze flicked to Channel, to the gravel scrape on his palm, to the empty space where the drunk had been.

"Clean?"

"Put him down, let him up, sent him home." Channel kept his voice level. "No damage, no witnesses, no problems."

"Good."

That was all. Good. But from Still, it was enough.

They mounted up, engines roaring to life in a thunder that echoed off the tree line and rolled across the lake. Channel fell into formation at the back—prospect position, earning his place—and felt the familiar rightness of riding with his brothers settle into his bones.

This. This was what he'd been looking for since the day he stepped off that transport at Camp Pendleton and realized the Marines were done with him. A unit that stayed together. A family that didn't sell the house while you were gone.

The lake road twisted through hills that Channel had known since childhood, though the view from a Ridgerunner bike felt different than it had from his father's fishing boat.

Table Rock spread out below them, water catching the last light like hammered copper.

He'd learned to swim in that lake. Built a dock with his father the summer before he enlisted.

That dock belonged to someone else now, along with everything else he'd left behind.

Didn't matter. The compound was home now.

They rolled through the gate just as full dark settled over the cove, bikes rumbling up the gravel drive to the main lot. Brothers were scattered around the fire pit—Proof cleaning a rifle, Tailwater nursing a beer, a few others Channel didn't know as well yet.

Cottonmouth swung off his bike and stretched, joints popping. "Heard some shit in town," he said to Still. "Vacation home burglaries picking up across Table Rock. Third crew this month hitting empty rentals."

"How organized?"

"Organized enough. Three to four properties a week, clean entries, professional fence work. Somebody's running them, not just tweakers grabbing what they can carry."

Still absorbed this with the patience of a man who'd watched trouble brew for forty-five years. "Keep ears open. They hit our territory, we handle it."

"Copy."

Channel hung back, listening. Prospects didn't speak in conversations like this unless directly addressed. But he filed the information away—vacation home burglaries, organized crew, Table Rock territory.

His territory now. Or it would be, once he earned his patch.

The compound settled into its nighttime rhythm. Brothers drifting toward the clubhouse, bikes lined up like chrome soldiers, the sound of laughter and music leaking from the lodge. Channel headed to his cabin—one of the smaller ones, prospect quarters, but his own space.

He stripped off his cut and examined it under the bare bulb. Gravel dust on the leather, a small scrape where he'd gone down with the drunk. He grabbed a rag and worked the dust out, careful with the stitching, treating the leather like it deserved.

The nod from Still played on repeat in his head. Not a smile, not a slap on the back, just that single acknowledgment. You did something right.

Channel had earned medals overseas. Commendations. A Purple Heart he kept in a box somewhere. None of them felt like that nod.

He hung the cut carefully, checking the prospect patches, making sure everything was squared away. In the Marines, you learned that how you maintained your gear said everything about how you'd perform when it mattered. The principle held.

Somewhere across the compound, a woman laughed and a man's voice rose in mock outrage. Brotherhood sounds. Family sounds.

Channel killed the light and stretched out on his bunk, staring at the ceiling he couldn't see.

Tomorrow, there'd be more work. More chances to prove himself. More opportunities to earn his place in a unit that didn't scatter when the deployment ended.

Tonight, the nod was enough.

He closed his eyes, and for the first time in months, sleep came without the dreams of sand and gunfire and friends who didn't make it home.

Just before he went under, Cottonmouth's words drifted through his mind—vacation home burglaries, organized crew, Table Rock territory—and some instinct he couldn't name whispered that simple club business was about to get a lot more complicated.

His last conscious thought was of the drunk's telegraphed swing, how easy it had been to put him down, and how much harder the next threat might be to see coming.