by Lane Hart
“Took your sweet ass time, didn’t you,” I remark as he hands over the bag. Opening it up, I look inside and pull out the wad of cash, quickly thumbing through each stack to make sure it’s enough.
“Don’t make us come back again,” I look down and tell the president of their club, who is still sitting on the floor, before I fold up the bag and climb off the barstool.
Abe and I are about to walk out the door when a redhead steps into our path.
“Are you boys leaving already?” she asks in her sultry voice. She hooks her thumbs in the belt loops of her painted-on jeans to make her fake tits stick out even further in her V-neck blouse. “I didn’t even get to talk to you yet.”
Fuck.
Knowing Abe has a weakness for gingers, I shake my head and answer for both of us before he can.
“We need to get on the road. Maybe next time, honey,” I say, trying to blow her off as nice as I can.
The truth is, while fucking new pussy can be great, I prefer to stick to the loyal bitches back in our clubhouse. It makes things a lot easier when the girls know the drill upfront and don’t expect anything else from me. They sit, speak, and roll over on command like they’ve been trained to do. Then, when we’re finished, all it takes is one word, and they leave. Nice and simple. They may want more, but I’ve made it clear that’s never gonna fucking happen.
I’ve only loved one woman enough to want to make her my old lady, and a million random biker sluts will never equal even one of her.
“Aw, come on, Chase,” Abe whines as he reluctantly follows me out. “She was hot as fuck and would’ve done us both at the same time.”
“She was Aces’ pussy, numb-nuts. She’d gladly distract us long enough with her tits and ass to give them time to shove a knife in our backs. No fucking thank you,” I say as I throw a leg over my Street Glide and fasten on my helmet.
“Fine,” Abe huffs as he gets on his bike. “I’m hurtin’ bad now, so can we at least go straight back to the clubhouse where I can fuck something?”
“Hell yes,” I tell him with a grin, then start up the engine, ready to get home myself. “Try and keep up,” I yell to Abe as his bike thunders to life. Before he can reply, I take off, heading for the highway. There are a few curvy backroads that we have to take to get there, and I like to see how fast I can hang them.
Speeding down an open road on a beautiful summer day with the wind in my face is the only time I ever feel even some hint of peace.
Today my fucking peace doesn’t last very long.
I spot the black SUV as soon as it appears in my rearview, about a quarter of a mile behind me and Abe, who has finally caught up. Whoever the fuck’s behind the wheel must be in a hurry, because they come roaring up on our asses like a bat out of hell.
When the motherfucker starts to pass us on the curvy, one-lane road, warning flags go off in my head. “Hell no!” I shout as I drop a gear and twist the throttle, gunning it so they can’t get in front of me.
Apparently, they didn’t actually want to pass us; they just wanted to get our attention when they pull up beside us in the oncoming traffic lane. If their driving didn’t get us to notice them, the goddamn barrel of a sawed-off shotgun pointing out the passenger window at us does the fucking trick.
I glance back at Abe, who is on my right, to make sure he saw it too. With a single nod of his head, he slows down, and I do the same, knowing we’re sitting ducks on the road, unprotected with a gun pointing right at us.
I ease off onto the gravel shoulder first with Abe behind me. Then, the fucker in the SUV falls back to pull in after him.
By the time I climb off my bike, three men, all wearing goofy ass zoot suits, are already out of their ride, the gun still pointing in our direction.
Taking off my helmet, I hang it on the handlebar and stride toward them.
“What the fuck do you want?” I bark, not giving a shit about my attitude. I’m no longer intimidated by the gun either. If they wanted us dead, they would’ve pulled the trigger already when they caught us off guard and unarmed. These assholes just want to talk.
“Hands up,” the shorter man in the front of the trio with the gun snaps. I roll my eyes, but Abe and I put our palms up in the air, waiting for the men to come closer.
When they do, the dick with the gun gets a little too close to Abe.
“Get your fuckin’ gun out of my fuckin’ face,” Abe growls at the man in warning.
“Or what, big guy. Whatcha gonna do?” the little man asks, thinking he’s tough and safe because he’s holding a weapon. Guess he can’t read or doesn’t know the definition of the word Savage on the back of our fucking cuts.
My best friend has an even worse temper than me; it just takes longer for it to be unleashed. A gun in his face will definitely unleash it.
When Abe smirks down at the asshole from underneath his thick black beard, I know what he’s going to do before the man with the gun does. Dude has always been a savage beast with zero fucks to give.
Abe’s elbow comes swinging around and smashes right into the fucker’s nose so hard blood pours from it. He screams like a pussy and drops his gun to clench his nose.
“You son of a bitch!” the asshole yells as he and Abe both start to go for the abandoned gun on the ground.
Before either one can pick it up, there’s an ear-splitting POP! POP! getting everyone’s attention. One of the other guys pulled out his gun and fired it right into Abe’s bike, blowing out both of the damned tires. The bike jerks forward as the tires collapse; and with a tired creak, the kickstand folds and Abe’s baby topples over.
“What the fuck?” Abe bellows as he starts to lurch forward. I throw my arm out in front of his chest to hold him back.
“Everyone needs to calm the fuck down and listen up!” the fucker, who has now assumed the leadership position of the rat pack, tells us as he aims his handgun at us.
“Settle down, Abe,” I warn my best friend before he goes off again and makes these guys change their mind about killing us. When he eventually nods, I remove my arm from him.
“Just get on with it already,” I say to the assholes. “What do you want?”
The new gunman looks straight at me and says, “We’ve got a message for your brother.” My teeth clench in anger because, for whatever reason, I know he’s referring to Torin, my brother by blood and not just one of my MC brothers. “Time’s running out, so tell Torin that the boss wants all of his money by Friday, or everyone Torin knows is gonna fucking suffer.”
If possible, my teeth grind together even harder. I try to reel in my rage before I pound the asshole into the ground for threatening my brother. Hell, he’s threatening all of us.
“Got it?” the dickhead asks. “Or should I write all that down for you?”
“Yeah, I’ve got it,” I grit out.
“Good. Glad to hear that,” the asshole replies.
The three guys slowly start to back away toward their SUV; the one that’s bleeding in a bigger hurry to leave than the other two. As soon as they’re inside the vehicle, they hook the wheel hard to do a U-turn, tires kicking up dirt and gravel before they straighten out the SUV and speed away.
“What the fuck was that about? And why the hell did they have to fuck over my bike?” Abe grumbles as he walks over and kicks one of the ruined tires.
“You better call Turtle to bring the flatbed,” I tell Abe as I stomp over and pick up the sawed-off gun the fuckers left behind. It’s a double-barrel, so I crack it open to make sure it’s loaded. It is.
“Turtle?” Abe asks. “Fuck, you know he’ll take his sweet ass time.”
“Then tell him to get his ass in gear!” I reply, shoving the gun into the saddle bag that only covers about half of it and straddling my bike while quickly putting my helmet back on.
“Where the hell are you going?” Abe asks.
“No one gets away with threatening the fucking Kings, especially not those idiots,” I explain.
“You’re
going after them?” Abe asks before he jogs over to my bike. “Shit, at least let me ride with you. I can shoot while you drive.”
“Sorry, man, but you know I never let anyone fucking ride with me,” I remind him. No one, not a single club slut, has been on the back of my bike in ten years. “Just get out of here as fast as you can, yeah?”
Abe curses. “This isn’t smart, Chase.”
“Since when am I ever smart?” I ask with a grin before I start my bike. I make a U-turn in the middle of the road, then take off after the SUV. Since there’s only the shitty ass Aces bar in this small coastal town, there’s just one place they could be headed – the highway.
It doesn’t take me long to catch up to them since a Harley is a helluva lot faster than an SUV. They abide by the speed limit; I don’t. There are no traffic rules that I follow while weaving in and out of traffic to get closer.
I stay behind a box truck so they can’t see me until traffic clears up ahead. Then, I pull out the sawed-off from my bag and gun the engine up the left lane.
Holding the throttle with my right hand, I angle the shotgun over my handlebar and shoot with the left.
BOOM!
I unload into the rear tire and then race up beside them to fire the second barrel into the driver’s window before they know what hit them. The SUV swerves off the right side of road, probably because the man driving is dead or badly hurt. They were going more than sixty miles an hour, so in my rearview, I watch them flip at least two times before I disappear down the highway.
Now, I just need to figure out who the hell they were and why they were threatening my brother.
Chapter Two
Sasha Sheridan
The scattered wreckage from the auto accident along the highway brings back a lot of shitty memories. Ones that I’ve tried to forget over the past ten years, without any luck. And no, it wasn’t the pain of the four surgeries or even the agonizing year of physical therapy that was the hardest to overcome. The worst part was going through it all without the man who said he loved me and wanted to marry me.
When I woke up in the hospital after my first surgery, Chase wasn’t there.
And I was so fucking angry at him for bailing on me that I refused to call him to ask why.
After the first few days, reading the articles in the paper, I started to think Chase disappeared from my life because he felt guilty, that he may blame himself for not being able to get out of the way of the drunk driver who hit us.
If that was the case, though, then why didn’t he just come and tell me that? I would’ve assured him that it wasn’t his fault and that he didn’t do anything wrong, except run away when I needed him the most.
But my pride wouldn’t give in and seek him out first. Weeks went by, and then months while I kept waiting for him to come around. I missed my entire senior year of high school, including prom and graduation. While my friends were partying, I was struggling through therapy and homeschooling. My choices for college were narrowed down significantly after the year out of school and without having any extracurricular activities to pad my applications, so I ended up going right down the road to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. I was at least able to convince my parents to let me stay in the dorms like a normal college student. But I haven’t felt normal for one day in the ten years since the accident.
When I graduated with my journalism degree, I landed a job working at the local television station. My dream had always been to travel the world as an international correspondent, reporting from the most exciting places on Earth. For some stupid reason, I haven’t been able to make myself leave the state where he still lives. After ten years, I think a part of me has still been waiting for Chase Fury to find me and give me an explanation for why he broke my heart.
Most of the people who see me on television will never even know about the ordeal I’ve been through. That’s because fixing up my busted face was a pretty easy procedure for the plastic surgeons. My new chin and nose turned out better than before the accident, but even after all this time, my face still looks a little foreign to me when I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror. The hardest part was trying to repair my knee. I never wear dresses or any clothing on the air that reveals the thick, four-inch scar that runs over my kneecap. The damn thing is so fucked up that, after several surgeries to put in pins and screws, I still walk with a slight limp. It always hurts whenever rain is on the way, making me wonder if I should’ve been a meteorologist instead of a reporter.
I shouldn’t be complaining, because I know that the weeks of recovering in the hospital and months in physical therapy required for me to walk again were nothing compared to what could’ve happened to me. The doctors said I was lucky to be alive, unlike one of the victims of the wreck we’re here reporting on today. At the time, I didn’t feel very lucky because I lost something that could never be replaced.
“Sasha, are you ready?” Steve, our cameraman, asks me. “Sergeant Barnes, you good to go?”
“Yes,” the deep voice of the uniformed man I had forgotten was next to me answers.
Nodding my agreement as well, I push aside the memories of my past, straighten my red WBRL polo shirt with my free hand and grip the microphone in the other. Then, I wait until Steve holds up his three fingers and counts down. When he gets to one, I launch into my rehearsed spiel.
“I’m here on the scene of a serious accident involving at least one fatality on highway seventeen south in New Hanover County. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the wreck. With me this afternoon is Sergeant Barnes of the Highway Patrol. Sergeant Barnes, what can you tell us about this horrible accident?” I ask as I tilt the microphone toward the tall man’s face.
“Well, based on the bullet holes on the vehicle’s driver’s side, we believe that this could have been an unfortunate road rage incident turned tragic. We do have a witness who says she saw a single white male ride up on a black Harley-Davidson motorcycle and fire a gun into the victim’s SUV. If anyone has any additional information about the possible gunman, please call our local office. The suspect is believed to have been wearing motorcycle gang insignia on a leather vest or jacket.”
A chill goes up my spine. I can’t help but think about the leather-wearing man from my past who still haunts my present.
“Do you have any suspects?” I ask the sergeant.
“Not yet, but there are only a few motorcycle clubs in the area who are known to wear the bearded skull patch that our witness was able to draw for us, pointing our investigation in a very clear direction.”
“Oh shit,” I mutter, knowing that exact bearded skull logo all too well. The Savage Kings are killers now? Is that the type of man Chase turned into? I guess anything is possible after ten years. I’m starting to think I never really knew him…
“Cut!” Steve says before he lowers the heavy camera from his shoulder. “Sasha, once again, watch the language!”
“Sorry,” I apologize with a cringe.
“Let’s wrap this up so we can edit it for the six o’clock news. Jim will be pissed if he has to hold off until the eleven o’clock.”
“Okay, I’m ready,” I say. Steve gives the signal, and then I pick up where we left off. “Again, if anyone has information that could lead authorities to the suspect responsible, please call the Highway Patrol Office at the number on the bottom of the screen.” Steve nods, knowing they’ll be happy to plug that number into the clip during editing.
“This has been Sasha Sheridan reporting from New Hanover County for WBRL Seventeen News.”
“And cut!” Steve says. “We’re good.”
Turning to the sergeant, I put the microphone in my left hand to hold out my right for him to shake. “Thank you so much for your help.”
“Anytime. It was a pleasure,” he replies with a grin as he clutches my hand in his strong grip. “I mean, I feel awful about the victims, but I’m glad I got to meet you.”
“Oh, um, right,” I agree.
“Besides,” he says as he steps closer and lowers his voice, “Off the record, these guys have criminal records a mile long. They were all wanted.”
Why does hearing that make me feel better? It shouldn’t. Three men are still badly injured and at least one is dead because of one of the Savage Kings.
“Did the witness describe the biker?” I ask.
“Well, she said he had light hair and a pretty thick beard, both almost a reddish-blond color. She wasn’t absolutely sure, so we won’t be sharing that with the public. She also noticed several tattoos covering his right arm, but keep that between us too, okay? We need to hold a few of our cards to verify any witness information that comes forward.”
“Okay,” I agree, even though speaking that one word is difficult. While I haven’t seen Chase Fury in years, the description may very well be a match for him. All except for the beard, which he could’ve grown out. Would he do something so…so brutal?
Removing his hat and running his fingers through his short, dark hair, the sergeant says, “So, um, would you maybe want to have dinner with me sometime?”
“Ah, well, um.” Caught off guard, I stammer, which is unusual since I thought my public speaking courses beat all of those sentence fillers out of me. I’m still working on the potty mouth.
“Here, how about I give you my card; and if you come to a decision, you just let me know?” Sergeant Barnes suggests. Pulling out his wallet, he reaches inside and pulls out his business card, complete with the shiny badge logo and all.
“Wow, okay,” I say when I take the card. He’s a nice looking guy, tall and muscular like I prefer. Besides, I haven’t had a date in…okay, longer than I care to admit.
“Have a good one,” Sergeant Barnes says. He puts his big hat back on and tugs down the front brim at me like a cowboy.
As I watch him walk away, I notice his nice plump ass in his uniform; but other than that, there’s no real spark. Which is a shame. He’s just too…nice. I need…well, I need a little bit of a bad boy to keep things interesting.
Blowing out a breath, I make my way back to our news van and climb inside for a drink of water to try and wrap my head around the breaking news.
