by V. Theia
“For what?”
“We have a few questions for you.”
“And that takes four cruisers, does it?”
Hawk was shit with reading people unless it was violently charged. The woman was agitated because her authority wasn’t being recognized. He noted how she reacted with a body jerk when their champ stepped out of the club and aligned with Rider and the other boys. Tag didn’t so much as smile at his ex-piece, who was staring at him.
“We need you to come.” She replied finally, her cop buddies standing as a wall behind her.
The whole situation stunk.
This wasn’t how Timmons ran shit. If he was out of town, she was running this stunt on her own steam. Probably encouraged by the dick of a mayor.
“I don’t think I will. Busy, you know.” Rider answered.
And that’s when shit got worse because the bitch cop pulled her weapon, which started a domino effect with her buddies and their drawn guns.
Hawk and the boys didn’t react.
Not so much as a flinch.
It wasn’t the first time they were held at gunpoint.
The fuckers loved to have my a dick is bigger contest.
Casting his gaze to the door, his gut locked up seeing his Gia hovering. With a thump of his heart, he didn’t want her anywhere near guns. He motioned with his head for her to get inside. Locking eyes with Juicy. For the first time, he was going to rely on the guy. “Get Gia inside,” he mouthed. The guy nodded and all but herded Hawk’s old lady into the clubhouse. Only then did Hawk spin back into the pandemonium where Fielding had lost her fucking mind by screaming for Rider to get on his knees, her weapon pointed dangerously at the prez.
“There is no need for this.” Zara pleaded calmly.
“You need to come with us.”
“You’ve lost your damn mind.” Rider responded.
That’s when Fielding rounded on him, pushing the gun into his shoulder to make Rider drop to his knees.
“Hands behind your head,” she screamed.
Hawk and the brothers knew this routine well. They didn’t show aggression, didn’t move in, because that would escalate the situation. This bitch was on a power trip, and she’d brought her power rangers as her back up, each holding their guns and tasers.
“You can’t do this, Sofia.” Tag snapped. Though she was manhandling the cuffs onto Rider, she cut her gaze over to Tag. “You have the right to remain silent.” She started reciting.
“What charges? What the fuck are you charging me with?”
“Why is he being taken in?”
“You haven’t even told him he’s under arrest. You went right to the caution. That’s breaking your own rules.” Zara informed.
“Baby, head back inside,” Calm as ever, Rider told his old lady, though Hawk saw how the anger bubbled in his friend. “Tex, call Archie to meet me at the station house.”
A few of the boys were already mounting up on their bikes to follow them there.
The VP and Prez’s gazes held, having a silent conversation. They’d been in this position and reversed many times. Cops loved to exert their clout, this bitch more than others. Rider mouthed, “Mayor.” Hawk nodded in understanding. Then he added silently. “Timmons.”
Hawk would bet his left nut the sheriff knew nothing of this butchered arrest.
They waited until Rider was piled into a cop car, and the convoy rode out, followed by some of their boys. He prowled up to Zara. “He’s gonna be okay.”
“I know. This just pisses me off. I’m going down there.”
“He’d want you to stay here.”
“Tough. Either you take me, or I go myself.”
Hawk smirked at her ballsy warning. “I gotta make a call, then meet me out here.”
She nodded, watching the retreating cars.
Hawk had a sheriff to track down.
This wasn’t ideal, seeing how the prez was meant to get married in a few days.
FIFTEEN
“My bad kids need a time out.” - Timmons
Wedding: T-minus 2 days.
For three days, the cops wouldn’t tell Zara a thing.
Archie, the MC retained attorney, was able to find out they were holding Rider for 72 hours under suspicion of assault and battery. They were looking to throw every charge at him because the so-called victim was none other than the Mayor’s male assistant.
What a crock of shit.
Everyone knew it was a crock of shit too.
It didn’t stop Hawk from being questioned.
Or Zara being questioned too.
“I told you four times already. He was with me at home all night.” She’d explained as calm as Archie told her to be when talking to Sofia Fielding. Zara had never been violent before, but oh, she wanted to put a backhanded slap to the smug woman’s face.
“You would say that.”
“Officer Fielding, you are aware of the law. I don’t have to answer questions about my husband. The boys and I have been nothing but cooperative over this shit. You know Rider has done nothing wrong. Everyone in this station knows it too.”
“He’s not your husband, Zara, we can ask you anything.”
Zara saw red. “That’s Ms. Freeze to you, and he will be in two days. He was my husband last week and last month and last year.”
The questioning went nowhere, and Hawk was waiting for her outside when she could leave. He drove her home in silence. Grateful for his isolated demeanor because she didn’t think she could hold a conversation without screaming her frustration.
Annie was fit to kill.
Axel was the voice of reason and said to let Archie do what they paid him for. It was easier said than done when Zara had spent two whole nights without Rider in their house. It didn’t matter how she wasn’t alone. Annie and Ajax stopped over. The boys dropped by all day and night. She felt alone without him. She felt empty and not right without Rider there.
As the days went by, as the hours ticked slowly away, she wondered if they’d get their wedding after all.
Maybe they were jinxed.
Maybe this was what she’d been afraid of by saying yes to his many proposals. Hadn’t she told him she was afraid of things changing in case they lost what they had? And here they were without each other.
They wouldn’t even let her see or talk to him.
She’d never been a person to hate the police, even with the latest silly harassment the club endured, but now? She could easily hate Sofia Fielding for trying to pin a fictitious crime on her man.
Unable to settle at home, she bundled the kids into the car, aided by her ever-faithful shadow, Pretty-Boy, and they headed to the clubhouse. It was busier than usual, and there was some unrest because of Rider’s absence.
It pissed the boys off, and she stepped into the role of letting them know it was going to be okay.
It had to be.
She had a wedding to go to soon. How would it look if there was no groom at the end of the aisle? Unacceptable. So she chose to think positively.
“That doesn’t belong there,” she told a prospect when he dropped a case of beers in the hallway. “Take it through to the storage room.”
He faltered at first. “Sure thing, ma’am.”
She went on like this, organizing the already well-organized clubhouse for the next few hours, needing something to keep her busy.
The boys stuck close to her, and she appreciated their care. She’d inhaled so much of their manly, pissed off testosterone in the last few days. It was a wonder she didn’t sprout a chest-length beard like Hawk.
She hated not knowing what was going on.
Archie assured her they didn’t have evidence to put Rider at the crime.
It didn’t reassure her at all.
“Yo, Z-girl.” She heard her name called a few hours later. There was a lot to be said for nervous energy. Though Erin, the house mouse, ran an efficient ship and rarely had to be prompted to do anything, Zara had completely rearranged the store pan
try.
There was no time for interruptions when she still had the cans of peaches to sort through and put in order of use-by-date.
“Yeah, what is it?” She asked Preacher, putting her head around the door.
He was grinning.
“You might wanna come through. Rider is back.”
Rider is back.
The best three words she’d heard in days.
Peach cans abandoned, she followed Preacher into the main room in time to see that man of hers climbing out of Archie’s Mercedes.
The relief was palpable.
Her grin was instant.
She let Harper run to her daddy first, followed by a toddling Knox. Then he received back slaps from his brothers and a hug from his mom, but Rider’s eyes were only on her.
“Okay, guys, give me a minute to see my girl.” He said, Knox in his arms, coming over to her, and that’s when she walked into him. Feeling his arm coming around her put Zara’s earth back on its axis and air-filled her lungs, clinging to him.
“You’re home,” she murmured into his chest.
“You okay, Icy-baby?”
“Yes, so much now. Are you okay? Did you get any sleep? Did they feed you?”
He chuckled, kissing her forehead. “My sweet old lady. You didn’t have to worry. I was okay.”
“What about the charges?”
“There aren’t any charges. Hawk tracked Timmons on his Rio Grande fishing trip. Archie threatened to sue if he didn’t spring me. We left him cleaning his house.”
Zara hoped the sheriff busted some balls for this.
She held onto him for a long time before he said he wanted to shower the cop station stink off him.
And then she got some food into her man while she hovered near.
“Do you think the rest of the week can go by without notable panic?” Zara asked with a smile later when she was sitting on his lap, the boys celebrating Rider’s freedom around them. Rider chuckled. Zara wasn’t done feeling vengeful, though. “I want to put nails in her tires,” she started, “or paint all her windows black, maybe sign her up for a magazine subscription.”
“My badass. But maybe we keep you out of a jail cell. I think we’ll let Timmons deal with Fielding.”
God, she loved that dark growl to his voice.
Three hellish days. Thankfully, their marriage ceremony was back on track.
And her surprise tomorrow would not be a disaster after all.
* * *
Earlier
When Rider stepped out of the station house alongside Charlie Timmons, he cut a blank stare at the sheriff. As soon as Charlie heard the shit his officers had pulled, it wasn’t a half-hour before they cut Rider free without charge and an apology for pulling him in.
It wasn’t enough.
That bitch had taken him from his family for three fucking days at the worst possible time. And she’d done it as a power trip, acting on the mayor’s say so to fuck with him and his club. She’d known she had no reason to keep him locked up but used the law to her advantage.
“You deal with it, or I will, Charlie.” Rider told him.
The sheriff looked pissed off. So would Rider if he had to break his mini-vacation to deal with his unruly staff.
“There’s no need for that. Shit happens.”
“My old lady was worried for three fucking days. I couldn’t talk to her. You think, for a second, I’ll let this go, you got shit for brains. For weeks, Fielding has dogged my boys for shit reasons. She’s got a promotion in her sights, and she’s doing it by fucking with my club. It stops now.”
Frustration crossed the sheriff’s face, and he shoved a hand through his hair as Archie pulled up at the curb to pick Rider up. “Listen up. You can’t do shit to one of my cops.”
Can’t he? Watch him.
“I know she’s been overly zealous lately. Believe me; it’s something I’ve had to talk to her about.”
“I’m gonna tell you something for free, and it’s up to you what you do with it. But hear me when I say, you deal with her or I will, and there won’t be evidence left around.”
“For fuck’s sake, Rider.”
“Look at her association with the mayor. She’s his lapdog.”
Charlie frowned. “What you talking about?”
“What I said. She doesn’t know how to bark until he tells her to.”
Rider slid into Archie’s car with that warning, leaving the sheriff to chew on the info. It was up to him what he did with it. Either way, they would deal with Sofia Fielding.
SIXTEEN
“There’s always a way to spring a surprise on a Prez.” - Zara
Wedding: T-minus 1 day.
After the last few tense days, Zara was pleased to be doing normal things again.
She was busier than a bear in mating season for a woman who had something important to do today.
Going through a comprehensive check of the kitchen pantry to stay busy, writing out a huge shopping list for the house mouse to collect later today. The club held accounts with all the local stores; the invoices were sent directly to Texas's office to deal with at the end of every month. It was a good system and one that Zara had perfected over time. Before she came along, the domestic side of the club was in shambles.
Now that Zara had taken over that side of things, she’d put some order into place by hiring a house mouse who saw to every aspect of housekeeping.
Speaking of, the woman, who hadn’t been with them a year yet, came through the kitchen door holding a tray of empty coffee mugs. She smiled when she saw Zara. “Let me guess. You had to hunt down mugs again?”
Erin rolled her eyes, smiling. Two neat French braids hung in wheat-blonde ropes on either side of her head. She was probably the only other woman around the clubhouse who was Zara’s height.
“Every damn day, I have to go on a mug hunt like I’m the Easter bunny. I tell them all the time to bring my mugs back. Do they listen? Not a chance. It drives me crazy.”
“Bikers are hard of hearing,” amused Zara. “Unless it includes bikes, booze, or boobs.”
After spending a few minutes with Erin, Zara checked her watch again for the millionth time.
She wasn’t good at surprises. She’d wanted to tell Rider all morning what she was planning, only holding her tongue because he left early for a meeting with Jamie Steele.
Skittish, like a cat wearing snow booties, she was about to organize behind the bar when raised voices caught her attention.
It wasn’t the usual raucous noises of bikers making bets or fighting through a video game. This time it was female voices throwing around name-calling.
“Just because you dress like a skank doesn’t mean you can have every man in here.”
“Pot meet kettle, you whore. Wasn’t me who was putting my ass in Coop’s face last night hoping for a good fuck.”
“You’re jealous ‘cause I can have anyone I want.”
“Please, bitch. I’d slit my wrists the day I was jealous of you.”
On and on it went until Zara was standing in front of three women. They were regulars around here, and not the first time Zara had seen them backbiting with each other either.
Girls came and went. Most of the club groupies from when Zara first came to the club were no longer around, save for Ellie. These women transferred from another chapter. They’d come with their bikers for a rally last summer and never left. Today of all days when she was going for calmness, their bitchiness grated on her last nerve.
There was no way they’d hear her over their cattiness, so Zara stuck two fingers in her mouth and emitted a high-pitched whistle.
“It’s not even 10 a.m. on a Friday. It’s too early for this crap, ladies.”
“But she…”
“It was her…”
Zara sighed and arched one blond eyebrow. Was this high school?
“If all you can do is bitch at each other, then don’t hang out. Go home, go to work. Or do something useful around here. Erin c
an find chores for you to do. We’re not a social club, and everyone has their duties. Find yours or leave.”
The three women snapped into order, each picking a direction. She didn’t care if women came to the clubhouse only for the dick, but she was tired of them hanging out and not contributing other than tantrums and bitchy fights. She’d mentioned it to Rider recently, who smirked and told her to do whatever she wanted.
Well, fine. She would.
Rider was looking into more properties. If these women wanted to keep hanging out, then they could interview for job positions. She’d put a notice on the bulletin board as soon as she knew what jobs would be available.
“Queen kicking ass again.” An entertained voice said, and Zara turned around to look at Grinder. She flushed because it still made her shy to know the boys thought of her that way.
Zara chuckled. “Would you be so pleased about me kicking them out if you were still footloose and fancy-free?”
Grinder grinned, rubbed his thick beard, clipped tight around his lips. “Maybe not, but you gotta do what you gotta do, Z-girl. The groupies' respect when the alpha dog speaks.”
She didn’t know about that, but she wasn’t making friends with these women if they couldn’t abide by the rules. This wasn’t high school fighting over a good-looking boy.
It came as a shock to her sometimes how much she loved this MC life. She loved going to the summer rallies on the back of Rider’s bike. Loved meeting all the different Souls chapters and seeing how they respected Rider, turning to him for advice.
Office work was satisfying, especially this past few months, while Rider got her input on the new business ideas. The day to day running of the club took a lot of hands. Rider at the helm. And she enjoyed being at his side.
Her confidence had grown.
She probably wasn’t the best MC queen the club had ever seen, but there was no other woman who would give everything to her club family either. Other clubs might not approve of a woman influencing how a motorcycle clubhouse is run. She knew some clubs across the States saw women as only something to stick their dick into. Never thinking they’d have a brain and something to contribute to a conglomerate.
