Outlaw's Ride: An MC Romance

by Carter Steele

  Outlaw’s Ride

  An MC Romance

  Carter Steele

  Copyright © 2021 by Carter Steele

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Table Of Contents

  1. Wreck

  2. Jezebel

  3. Wreck

  4. Jezebel

  5. Wreck

  6. Jezebel

  7. Wreck

  8. Jezebel

  9. Wreck

  10. Jezebel

  11. Wreck

  12. Jezebel

  13. Wreck

  14. Jezebel

  15. Wreck

  16. Jezebel

  17. Sarah

  18. Wreck

  19. Sarah

  20. Wreck

  Epilogue

  1

  Wreck

  “You alright, big man?” I asked Yoga.

  His hammock swayed as our tractor trailer truck slowed to a stop. The muscled, mountain of a man shifted uncomfortably from the abrupt motion. Waves of pain from the gunshot in his leg snarled their way through his facial features.

  “Had better days,” Yoga replied at length after the pain subsided. He wiped the sweat from his brow with a red-stained sleeve from his ruined, fitted Henley undershirt.

  “No shit,” I scoffed, checking over his bandage. The blood had soaked through and would need to be replaced soon. Mac only had time to make sure the wound wasn't going to kill him, before having to get us the hell out of Dodge.

  “It's your own damn fault!” Buck barked from the couch along the wall halfway down the trailer. His bottle of bottom-shelf bourbon was almost gone. Buck hadn't stopped drinking since we'd escaped from the shit storm and ensuing firefight of a lucrative gun deal gone bad. “You're bigger'n a fucking Buick, Yoga. The fuck you think was going to happen when they started shooting? I'm surprised you didn't catch more bullets, you goddamn moose.”

  Buck was irritating on the best of days and was a downright asshole when he was worried. Seeing his brother get shot was going to bring out the worst in him. Yoga and Buck were twins actually, but you wouldn't know that at a glance. The men couldn't have been more different despite having the same face structure, height, and eyes. At just over two-hundred fifty pounds, Yoga was almost twice as heavy as his lanky brother. Buck was a hard drinking, gambling, loose cannon, ladies-man accountant, and his brother was a gay, body-building, vegan mechanic.

  They made a great case for the nurture-over-nature argument.

  “Ease up,” I snapped. “It wasn't his fault.”

  “No.” Buck shot up and stabbed his pointer finger in the air at me. “It was yours, Wreck. It's always fucking your fault you Grizzly Adams-looking, numb-sculled, fuckwit! Couldn't keep your fucking big mouth shut, could you, hot head?”

  “My fault?” I roared incredulously, feeling my blood start to warm up. “How the fuck was this my fault? They never said anything about using kids as gun running mules. That's on them not me.”

  Dreamer, our club's vice president opened his mouth to say something but just shook his head and went back to cleaning his guns on the trailer's folding table. He was just as pissed off about what happened as the rest of us.

  “Yeah you really saved the day punching that cartel general like that.” Buck stalked up to me, getting in my face. Buck was a few inches taller than me, but I had sixty pounds on him. “Happily ever after for those kids now, right?”

  “That wasn't part of the deal. It was supposed to be just us and them.” I said in a deadly low voice. We weren't going to kill each other, but both of us needed to vent some steam before things got real ugly.

  The trailer's side door swung wide and the last two members of our nomad MC joined us. Our president, Dunk climbed in. Several slow steps behind him-with the stubbornness of a man half his age-came our driver, who was also my uncle, Mac.

  “For fuck's sake.” Dunk growled, easily picking up the tension between me and Buck. He shoved us apart. “Stop acting like idiots. We got bigger problems than your pissin' match.”

  Mac took his medical bag over to Yoga and started to get set up.

  “Where we at?” Dreamer asked, assembling and holstering his pistol in the back of his pants.

  “Fucked is where,” Buck muttered under his breath, but caught a glare from Dunk and sunk deeper into his bunk.

  It was the first thing I agreed with him on all day.

  “Did a walk around. The trailer's fine, but the truck...” Dunk began with a heavy sigh as he crossed his arms. He leaned against the solid oak table in the middle of the trailer. “Spotted a few bullet holes and it's leaking a good amount of fuel. Mac and I plugged it as best we could at the last truck stop, but something's going to need replacing.”

  He didn't have to say what was on all our minds. That meant thousands more dollars that we didn't have.

  “Truck's staying put til’ we get it fixed. Like it or not we're stuck here,” Dunk continued.

  If the truck had too much battle damage it would draw the wrong kind of attention. With the feds sniffing around our latest business misadventure any kind of attention was the last thing we wanted.

  But it was more than that too. We loved our decked out rig. Inside five bunks lined the back of the trailer. We had a wall mounted TV on one side and a long couch on the other. We didn't have traditional windows, but we did have skylight windows running all the way down the trailer's length and a rope lighting setup. There was a one-stall camping bathroom set up in a corner, and a kitchenette with a fridge, stove and a little counter space. Dead middle in the trailer was the wood table from our old club before we all turned nomad and the place was torn down. Finally at the front of the trailer where the big door opened was our bikes, tools, guns, and equipment. That semi was our home, our club, our bike garage, everything. We were a nomad MC in a very real way. If anything happened to it, none of us would know what to do.

  We always parked the truck a safe distance away from any club business and took our bikes everywhere we needed to go. This time was no different. We were nestled behind a derelict building on a rarely used back road. No one would stumble across us out here. It was important to always keep our home out of the fight. We just didn't realize that when everything went tits up on this past deal we were tailed by some cartel members back to the truck. They thought we sold them out and that was when Yoga caught one of the hail of bullets.

  When Buck saw what happened to his brother he lost it and made short work of the cartel assholes.

  “Yoga's bike is gone. Even if it didn't get too fucked up in the crash the area is way too hot to go back to.” Dunk continued, looking over at Yoga who's hand was burying his face. We all knew it was gone, but hearing Dunk officially confirm it was the icing on the shit sandwich for Yoga.

  “Did we get any of the bags of money?” I asked hopefully.

  Dunk shook his head.

  “The guns then?” Buck asked.

  “We were lucky to even make it out alive. I'm thinking a mole in the cartel maybe? Or the feds must've somehow caught wind of the location of the meeting through the grapevine.” Dunk leveled his gaze on me. “And you running your fucking mouth sure as hell didn't make things any easier for us.”

  I slunk a little deeper in my chair. The anger drained from me, quickly replaced by something else. Regret maybe? Fuck if I knew. Sometimes my temper got the best of me. At the meet up they had a group of ten year old kids load the handguns we were selling them
into their school backpacks. It was too fucked up to not call out.

  I ran a hand over my face and beard in the thick silence that followed and thought about those kids. I didn't do anyone any favors. We bailed when we heard the FBI closing in. The cartel of course thought we were the ones to set them up, especially after I knocked that prick on his ass, and opened fire on us on our way out. Caught between us and the feds the cartel was cut to ribbons I just hoped none of the kids were killed in the crossfire.

  “Fuck!” Dreamer broke the heavy silence first with curses in English then for good measure some in Spanish. Dreamer had done the most leg work to gain the cartel's trust. “Five hundred thousand dollars gone. That was everything we had! What the fuck are we going to do now?”

  It took most of the club's money to invest in getting the guns to sell to the cartel in the first place and everything had been going to plan. It was a textbook sale that should've been a sure bet. When the feds showed up it was nothing but bullets and blood and smoking tires.

  “Buck's going to take us to meet his connect and we're going to get us some work,” Dunk said. “If he's not too drunk.”

  Dunk walked over and pulled the mostly empty bottle away from Buck.

  “That why you made me drive us into the asshole of Baltimore?” Mac asked in his typical surly grumble. He cleaned Yoga's wound and set out his surgery pan on the next bunk over. “How do you know this guy?”

  “You know me I got my ways.” Buck smirked. He reached under his pillow and pulled out another half empty bottle and began waving it around dramatically. “Ear to the ground. Man of the people. I hear things.”

  “Pat's in Buck's fantasy football league. Low level pimp looking to push into the drug game. Needs a few tough guys to be his muscle.” Yoga said through gritted teeth. The pain from the alcohol cleaning made it hard for him to talk.

  Buck threw his arms out incredulously at killing the mystery, but his twin brother only shrugged indifferently.

  “Mac, you stay and fix Yoga up.” Dunk pressed the button that automatically raised the trailer's main door. “The rest of you load up what you need and let's go meet the locals.”

  We unhooked the supports on our bikes that kept them secure while Mac drove the truck, and put the ramp down. It was hard seeing the empty spot where Yoga's bike should've been. He put a lot of love into his vintage Harley. The feds showing up wasn't my fault, but I couldn't help feeling responsible for the beef with the cartel. Them shooting at us and Yoga losing his bike...that was on me.

  I had to find a way to make it right by him.

  “Here,” Buck put on Yoga's electric teapot and took out some herbal tea. He started off for his own bike then stopped and set down his bottle of bourbon next to the box of tea. “And this is for when your hippie bullshit doesn't work.”

  “Fuck you, little brother,” Yoga said without any anger in his voice.

  “Fuck you too,” Buck replied with the same almost-sympathetic sentiment then hopped on his bike. Buck knew that even with a bullet in him Yoga wouldn't go for the booze, not that that would stop Buck from giving him shit. It was a brother thing.

  I ran a hand over my own black on black Indian Scout Bobber. My girl had some wear and tear on her and could use a little maintenance work when I found some free time, but she was as solid and dependable as the day she was made. We all came from Dunk's mechanic shop before we hit the road so most of the guys knew their bikes inside and out with the exception of Buck and Mac. They had different roles but they both knew how to turn a wrench.

  Dreamer was the first one down the ramp and out into the parking lot. Dunk and I followed. It'd been a cold-ass spring and after what felt like weeks of rain the sun had finally come out.

  It was a beautiful day to go stir some shit up.

  Buck drove us through some beaten down neighborhoods that seemed to bleed seamlessly into the industrialized outer harbor area. Asphalt, shipping, and industrial equipment sale and repair companies took up huge swaths of real estate. Man-made hills of sand and gravel broke up the train tracks, cracked four lane roads and vast lots of barbed wire encased concrete landing areas for rusted-out tanks. Smokestacks endlessly belched, darkening the cloudless sky. When we slowed to a stop outside a dingy laundromat I could feel the greasiness in the air on my leather jacket and in my hair.

  It didn't matter that we were in eyeshot of the ocean, the whole area felt like a grungy, wet towel that was wrung out of all color.

  “Paddy’s Wash ‘N’ Go,” read the sign out front. The sign below it was hand written and read, “A premium laundromat that offers volume discounts to our corporate clients, Quick Clean drop-in rates and extra perks for those that are enrolled in our Deluxe Cleaning Services Package.”

  Yeah... Nothing at all shady about this place.

  Whatever, we were criminals ourselves. This was par for the course.

  Patrick saw us pulling in and came out to meet us. He was tall with some heft and bad posture, had a few days worth of stubble and seemed to almost hide behind his thick-rimmed glasses and ball cap over his balding head. With his build if he hadn't been wearing a button down shirt, slacks and loafers he'd easily pass as a construction worker. He welcomed us to Baltimore with a wide, too-excited smile that made me a little uneasy and ushered us into his dingy laundromat. It was late morning and the establishment was empty save for an out-of-place pair of mid-teenage girls who should've been in school. Patrick hustled them out with a few whispered commands and was quick to put up the closed sign and lock the door behind them.

  He led us through all the machines to another room behind the actual laundromat area. It was a lounge with several couches, tables and chairs, a bar and a pool table in the middle. It had the vibe of a refinished man cave and was a few hanging wall TVs short of a sports club.

  Over a few beers Patrick told us what he was looking for us to do. It was all pretty straightforward stuff that we'd done dozens of times before. We’d light a few fires, break up a few meetings of his rivals, help Patrick solidify a few alliances and crack a few scumbags’ heads. It was all guerrilla warfare shit which was fine by us. We had a small crew so we were used to being outnumbered.

  Dunk, who had a soft spot for small, independently-owned businesses, made it clear that we wouldn't be fucking over any mom and pop stores. After a failed attempt to persuade our president, Patrick reluctantly agreed although he did so through an air of annoyed disappointment.

  I could tell that this guy was used to getting his way and didn't handle the word No very well. It was something to keep an eye on.

  Patrick’s main rival was a guy named Mikhail. The guy had a ton of enforcers due to his close ties to the local russian mafia and would need to be avoided for the time being until we had a clear plan of attack. While we did recon and gathered intel on Mikhail and his small army we’d knock off all the smaller local threats. Dunk was incredibly good at taking seemingly impossible tasks – like upending the criminal powerstructure in a city the size of Baltimore – and breaking them into doable chunks.

  Dunk laid out what was possible and in what kind of timeframe then they shook on an agreement. The deal was that the club gets seventy percent of all the drugs, guns, money, hell anything of any value that we...liberated...from Patrick's rivals during our partnership. Dunk also negotiated an upfront payment. I didn't catch the details of that but figured it would be a lump sum to help with incidental expenses while we got the lay of the land.

  Oh how very wrong I was.

  Ten minutes later twelve working girls from his stable came parading into the room. I was glad to be in the back room. It would've been a weird juxtaposition seeing whores lined up next to washing machines and candy and soap machines. A few of them were fusing with their clothing and hair, having obviously been just pulled from other clients. The big, bad bikers were now Patrick's number one client. It was easy to tell from our grins as we looked the girls over that the arrangement suited me and the boys fine. After last night we
all needed a stress reliever.

  “You got a fairy back there?” Buck asked after squeezing the asses of two giggling girls and leading them both away. “Got a brother who ain’t interested in this kinda merchandise.”

  “No, but I'll uh...” Patrick stammered, taken aback by the request. We all turned to regard him, seeing how he'd react. It was pretty clear he didn't approve, but he needed us so he watched his words and tone very carefully. “I'll see what I can do.”

  “You do that.” Buck winked at him, then turned his attention back to the girls he picked.

  The guys all found their type. Dreamer liked blonds, Dunk had a weakness for busty redheads, Buck loved whatever he could get his hands on and we earmarked a cute Asian girl for Mac.

  I was a sucker for the pale, gothic look, but was out of luck. There was one girl that caught my eye though. Where everyone else was laughing, drinking and unwinding, this fair-skinned Irish brunette was trying her best to blend into the background. She wore a low cut, plain black dress that barely covered her mid thigh, but it was her purple silk scarf that really caught my attention. Immediately I was interested.

  A shy prostitute? I almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of it.

  “Hi. What's your name?” I asked, looking her over. Short with shoulder-length brown hair and little in the way of curves, I couldn't help but fantasize about all the things I could do to her. She was dressed more modestly than the rest, but not conservative by any stretch of the imagination.

  Patrick assured us that all the girls here were legal, but the girl in the purple scarf looked about five or ten years older than the rest. That was fine with me, in fact it made me a little more at ease.