by Leah Wilde
Then, after telling myself that he was a bad idea, my brother told me the same thing. I still made it a point not to listen. Instead, I charged head first into this, convincing myself the whole way that he was for real.
He never called or texted except to set up a time for us to meet up. He never just asked how I was doing or expressed any sort of general interest in my life. It was always about us being together and moving forward with sex.
I cleared my throat.
“I’m sorry,” I told my brother, who was still on the line, surprisingly enough. Why couldn’t I find a man who cared for me the way my brother did? They all just wanted a piece of my ass. Well, I wasn’t a virgin anymore, so maybe getting in my pants would no longer be the prize it had been for so long.
“It’s okay,” Titus said. “I wasn’t going to hang up on you, but I do need to go. I’ve got work to do if I’m going to take care of our friend Rogue.”
“Titus, there’s something you’re not telling me about him,” I said, drying my eyes and straightening my voice.
“What do you mean?” he asked. My brother prided himself in being able to keep a steady voice, but I had known him all my life, and I could tell when I struck a nerve, when someone else’s voice would have faltered but his did not.
“I mean, I’m going to get down to the bottom of your relationship with him one way or another. Rogue targeted me specifically to get to you. I should have realized it the night he walked into the store. Looking back, it’s pretty obvious he hadn’t gone in there just on accident, and I had never seen him in there before. He came in that night because he knew I was going to be there, and that means he was already planning on using me to get to you. I’m going to find out why, Titus, even if you won’t tell me.”
“I will tell you when the time is right.” Titus sighed. “Until then, don’t worry about Rogue. I will handle him.”
“You do that,” I told him, my voice firm in my new resolution to find out why he wanted to handle it himself so badly. This wasn’t a normal heartbreak for him. This was personal, and I needed to know why.
After we hung up, I sat and stared at my phone, realizing I was still sitting naked on the side of my bed. I plugged my phone back into my charger and got up to get showered and ready for the day.
Chapter 15
Rogue
I walked downstairs to meet Vance and Drake with the possible new prospects in hopes that they would distract me from Violet. I couldn’t shake her out of my head, despite telling myself I was going to let go of the emotions I had allowed myself to feel. It was time to move past all of that and get down to business. Part of rebuilding the MC was going to have to be bringing new members in again.
Brodie led me downstairs to the clubhouse on the first floor of HQ. Vance and Drake stood in front of four young guys they’d brought in. At first I was impressed that they’d worked so quickly. I was pretty sure, though, that they already had people in mind when I told them it was time to bring someone in. Everyone always had someone in mind, so I hadn’t been expecting them to scour the streets for anyone.
“Vance, Drake.” I nodded at the two leadership members. “Who do we have here?” I asked, throwing on my hardest face and tone. I wanted to try to convince the new guys that they didn’t want to come in underneath someone as mean and frightening as me.
“We’ve got four new recruits for you, Rogue,” Vance started.
I looked over the four faces staring back at me. These guys weren’t new to the game. Usually, when we brought people in for the first time, they were people who needed a place where they fit in, or they were seasoned riders who had been living the life without an MC to back them. These new guys looked like they’d been let go somewhere else.
I pulled Vance and Drake aside, nodding at the four guys standing there waiting to be addressed. Brodie must have seen what I had noticed as well. He stood with his arms crossed and a stern look in his eyes, not turning his attention from our recruits as I took our recruiters away for a quick private conversation.
“Where did you find these guys?” I asked them.
“They’re just guys we ran into at the bar a while back,” Drake answered.
“Who brought up joining the MC? Did you guys approach them about it, or did they approach you?” I followed up.
“They brought it up to us a couple of times when they realized we were in The Hellions,” Vance answered.
“All four of them came together? You didn’t find each one individually?”
“Look,” Drake said with a hand on my arm.
I glanced at his hand and didn’t look back up at him until he pulled it away from me.
“Look, we’ve checked them out. They’re straight, okay? No funny business here,” Drake continued after he took his hand away.
“You two better hope not,” I warned them both. “Now, we’re going to go back over here and act like everything is okay,” I told them before turning them around to walk back over to their men to make introductions.
I didn’t feel that great about meeting them. I knew I wasn’t going to get their real names. Their real names would have given away everything they were trying to do here. When we turned around to walk back over to them, they didn’t even look worried. Innocent newbies would have been worried that they weren’t good enough or that I suspected they were up to something. For the four made men standing in front of me, everything depended on not letting me know they were concerned I might have been on to them. So I played along with their little game and let my guys introduce them to me.
I shook each of their hands and stared into their dark eyes. They could have been brothers. They all had brushed back dark hair and chiseled, hard jawlines with dark brown, almost black eyes. They were too clean. They stood up too straight. They didn’t look like bikers at all, so I decided to ask a few questions to get a little better idea of who they were and why they were here.
“Who here rides?” I asked them.
All four of them raised their hands.
“Did any of you ride here today?” I followed up.
They shook their heads. I found that answer rather convenient.
“Okay, fair enough. Maybe you didn’t think you were coming to an actual MC’s HQ today. Whatever.” I looked at the first one. “How many miles have you ridden in the last month?”
“I, uh, I don’t know,” he stammered.
“You?” I asked number two.
He just shook his head with a dumbfounded look on his face. I glanced at the other two, and they followed suit. Well, if they were made men, it certainly wasn’t because they had ever belonged to another MC before us.
Picking out men who were in the game versus guys who were just looking for a place to fit in was like comparing domesticated pets to their wild and feral cousins. A dog that lived in a nice fenced-in yard or inside its owner’s home did not look the same as a dog who roamed the streets for its food. These men were domesticated, but they weren’t bikers.
“Tell you what,” I said, “you guys spend today with Vance and Drake. They’re top members of The Hellions. They’ll get you broken in with some Hellions culture, and if you still feel like coming back tomorrow, make sure you ride up here tomorrow. I want to see your bikes, and I’m going to take down your mileage. We’re going to start tracking how much you ride when you’re not here,” I told them.
“How many miles do you require a month?” one of them asked in a professional tone. He had obviously done his homework. A quick search online would have revealed that many larger MC’s had different mileage requirements for different levels of membership. Some required monthly or annual miles depending on the member’s position. We had never written down a set number of miles we expected from our members. We used our judgment.
“I expect you to ride,” I told him. “If I feel that you’re riding enough, you’re good. I’m not going to give you a number, because if you really are riding as much as you should be, it will show regardless,” I explained fur
ther.
“Got it,” he said.
“Good. Now, Vance, Drake, get these guys some drinks. Take some time to get to know each other. Let them get to know the MC a little. Brodie and I still have work to do.” I shot Brodie a look and tilted my head back to the staircase.
We stepped back as the new guys walked over to the bar.
“What are you thinking?” Brodie asked me.
“I’m thinking I don’t trust these guys,” I answered him. I watched as they sat at the bar while another of our members served them beers. They started to look nervous. Whatever their job here was, it started then. They glanced over their shoulders a couple of times, looking back at us or back at the bikes.
“Okay, as long as we’re on the same page,” he said.
“Where’s Mason?” I asked. “He needs to keep an eye on these guys. If they are up to something, and I think they are, he won’t have any problem putting a stop to it for us.”
“Not at all.” Brodie chuckled. “But I don’t know where he is right now.”
“Probably getting ready for the raid on Titus,” I suggested.
“Yeah, probably. I really don’t like these guys, Rogue,” Brodie said.
“Me either. Something’s not right about them.”
“Why are we even letting them stay here?” he asked.
“I’m hoping that by letting them hang out, we’ll be able to get something out of them. After a couple of drinks, someone is bound to start talking,” I explained.
“Probably, but still, it just doesn’t seem safe.” That was the most sensible thing Brodie had said to me in a while, I thought.
“I think we’ll be fine as long as we keep current members on them and don’t get lazy about watching them,” I said, dismissing his objections. “We’ll be fine, Brodie.”
“I hope you’re right.” He sighed.
“I know I’m right. Don’t worry too much. I mean, look at them. They’re in good shape and all, but honestly, if anything went down, do you really think we couldn’t take them?” I laughed as I started up the stairs.
“Good point,” he said behind me, reminding me that no matter how much we may have agreed on the new guys at the moment, he was still on my list for having so many doubts about the MC.
“Hey, Brodie, there’s an outside chance that these guys are for real,” I told him. “If they are, that’s what we need. We need more men who are ready to do what needs to be done to put us back on top. Yeah, we’re a motorcycle club, but we’re also an organization. We’re a business, and we’ve got to put the business first. If these guys can help us focus our energies on growth, I’ll welcome them in.”
We reached the second floor and stepped aside to talk.
“I just feel like they’re here for something other than joining the MC,” he objected. “It feels like they were planted.”
“I know. I saw it, too, but it could be that we have a heightened sense of alertness about us right now because we’re getting ready to go after Titus and his men. We have to have our eyes wide open right now, brother, but that doesn’t mean that everything we see is the Big Bad Wolf, okay?”
“True.” He nodded in agreement.
I tried to rationalize what we’d seen in the new recruits. “These guys obviously already know the game. That’s probably all we’re picking up from them. They’ve been around. They obviously aren’t just new kids from the street, so we could definitely benefit from that.”
“And they could also be here because someone planted them here,” Brodie insisted.
“Also very true,” I agreed, even though what I really wanted to say was that he could also be terrified of his own shadow, but I bit my tongue. One of those new guys could have replaced Brodie eventually, if they lasted that long. Unfortunately, I found that I sided with Brodie on this more than I wanted to admit. They were probably here for all the wrong reasons, whatever those reasons were, and they probably wouldn’t stick around for long once they realized what we were about.
I laughed to myself, thinking that they probably weren’t going to be around longer than it took them to realize I was serious about riding motorcycles. We were a motorcycle club, for crying out loud! We rode. We rode often. Outside of only a handful of situations, we rode almost every day. As for mileage, riding every day racked up the miles on a motorcycle. It wasn’t like I was going to go out there every day, every week, or even every month. If they were riding for us, I would know. I would see it.
The real question was whether or not they would fall in line and start riding. If not, we may have had other uses for them, as long as they weren’t working for someone else, like Titus. Then, again, if they were working for Titus, their employment under him would be coming to an end shortly anyway. If we had some men outside the MC working for us, it wouldn’t hurt when the time came to expand into other areas.
There was so much to think about, so much to consider. It was one hell of a time to be the president of The Hellions. But, more importantly, it was about to be one hell of a time to be anyone else on the streets in our city. Titus was going to be but the first to take the fall. We were going to go after everyone and reassert ourselves.
Those men downstairs were already serving a purpose for us. They were distracting Vance and Drake while the rest of us prepared for war.
Chapter 16
Violet
I could not sit by and wait for work knowing that I had been fooled by this man. I could not ignore my brother’s words echoing in my head, that they’d had run-ins before and that Rogue wasn’t an upstanding person.
I grabbed my laptop and opened it on my coffee table. I was going to find out what I could about Rogue and my brother. Everything was online, and if my brother had been telling the truth about how Rogue was involved in some shady dealings, there would be news articles about him.
I went into Google and started typing his name, realizing that I didn’t know his last name. I typed out what I did know—Marcus Rogue—and Google brought up several search suggestions, starting with Marcus Rogue Erich prison sentence.
“Prison sentence?” He hadn’t said anything to me about going to prison for anything, but it would have explained why he had appeared out of nowhere like he did. I clicked on the suggestion and pulled up a list of results.
Apparently, he had been convicted in the murder of a local business owner after robbing his store. It was crazy. According to the article, he maintained his innocence the entire time, even when his attorney went in to cut a deal with the prosecution. The items stolen were never found.
I looked through other articles about the investigation, looking for any involvement his MC may have had. Surely they went to The Hellions to try to find anything that had been stolen, I thought. According to the news articles, there had been quite a few weapons and other things removed from the store, none of which was on Rogue’s person when they found him of course.
Early on, he had tried to convince everyone that he had been set up by someone who was trying to get him off the street. However, everything I read made it seem like everyone had been pretty sure from the start that it had been him.
I didn’t know what I expected to find by searching through articles about the murder and the trial that followed it, so I went back to just search for his name. There must have been something else prior to the murder trial to make everyone so eager to believe Rogue was capable of the crimes for which he’d been convicted.
A search under just his name brought up a long list of articles and blog entries about his trial. After scrolling through the list, I finally came to some articles about his MC, The Hellions. None of it was positive.
They had been under investigation for trafficking drugs, weapons, and even people. He had gone into prison before I left home, so everything I was reading was before my time, so to speak. That thought was of some comfort as I realized that I couldn’t have known about what he had done before he walked into my life.
Even the murder happened during my seni
or year of high school. I knew he was older, but if I judged his age by the timeline of his other alleged activity, he would have been close to a decade older than I was, unless some of what he had been accused of in the past happened in his early teens.
I couldn’t find any other murders, though I found theft, robbery, and lots of drunk and disorderly conduct. Prior to his prison sentence, Rogue had been a popular topic on a local crime blog.
I read through several entries in the blog, written by an anonymous cyber journalist who wrote like a cross between a newspaper journalist and a cop, though the voice was probably by design. I imagined some pretentious college student or recent grad sitting behind a computer screen writing from a position of self-proclaimed privilege and superiority for the rest of us who sat in fear and curiosity as the city around us went to hell.
