by Paula Cox
And then I sit back, panting with the force of the memories, and wait for Grizzly to tell me that this shit is unacceptable, that this is the shit that gets a man de-patched, or worse.
Brat is still sobbing, can’t seem to be able to stop. She takes my hand and brings it to her lap, gripping it with both of hers. I expect Grizzly to say somethin’ about this, but he doesn’t. He just watches me. His expression is changed, now. It’s more like how he used to look at me when I was young, when I was his adopted son, before all this stuff went down.
“I held your father as he died,” he says, looking past me now. “Those fuckers shot him through the chest, and I held him when we waited on that damn slow ambulance. I held him, blood all over me, looking down at my best friend and seein’ the life go from his eyes. Do you know what he said, Slick? Do you know what his last words were? My son ain’t got a mom, and now he ain’t got a daddy, neither. Take care of him, Jacob. Take damn good care of him.”
Grizzly smashes the table with his fist, causing me and Brat to jump in our seats. “Whisky!” he roars.
When he’s drunk the whisky, he says, “What do you want with my daughter, Slick?”
“To be her protector,” I answer at once. “To watch out for her and my daughter. To be there for ’em.”
“Done,” Grizzly says. “Fuckin’ done. And fuck anyone who’ll get in the way of that. I told your dad I’d protect you, and I failed. I fuckin’ failed. Every time I wanted to take the boys down to Seattle and storm you out of that hellhole, I had Clint in my ear, tellin’ me it was too dangerous, you weren’t worth it. And I fuckin’ listened.” He makes a growling noise, and then lifts his whisky glass before realizing it’s empty. “Listen, I can’t say I’m happy about you two bein’ together. I wouldn’t go that far. But Brianna has always said I wouldn’t be happy with anyone she chose. And I reckon that’s right. Sittin’ here with you, Slick, and hearin’ your story, I believe that for the first time. If you ain’t good enough, who is?”
“That means a lot to me,” I say. “A damn lot.”
“Alright, let’s get back to the clubhouse before we start growing lady parts.”
“Dad!” Brat squeals, her voice breaking through her tears. “Why’d you have to go and ruin a nice moment like that?”
The three of us make for the exit. “I’ve gotta tell the men that you’re all good, Slick. Let ’em know that you’re one of us again, and not to bother you in anyway. You’ve got a few loyal to you anyway, ain’t you? Spike and a couple of the old boys.”
“A few,” I agree, as we walk out into the street. “Don’t know how Clint’s men’ll take it, though.”
“They’ll take it,” Grizzly says. “That’s all that matters.”
Chapter Twenty
Slick
When I see Spike with his head covered in blood and his body twitching, at first I don’t believe what my eyes are telling me. I’ve seen Spike around the club enough times, offering me a supportive smile and sometimes shooting pool with a couple of the older guys. He’s even whispered to me a couple of times that he’d help me escape if I needed it. He’s a good kid. Me and Grizzly stand in the doorway, lookin’ down on him, both of us not knowing what to make of a Rager on his back in the entrance lobby to the clubhouse. After what feels like a damn long time, my paralysis fades and I run to him, kneeling down beside him.
“Spike,” I say. “You alright, kid?”
He grins up at me, dazed out of his mind. “Gotta get those fishies, Slick,” he says, his teeth covered in blood. “Gotta get those fishies ’fore you get to fry ’em.”
“You’ve had a knock to the head, kid,” I tell him. “Wait here. I’ll get some damn ice—or somethin’.”
But when I stand up, I see that Grizzly’s got his gun out. He brings his fingers to his lips and points at the door to the bar. That’s when I notice it: the silence, silence like there never is in a club. When you walk into the clubhouse, you hear glasses and pool balls and men laughing and shouting. You hear swearing and fighting and fists slamming onto tables. You never hear silence, like it’s a fuckin’ library. I take out my gun and follow Grizzly as he approaches the door. The two of us go to either side of the door, crouched against the wall, and then Grizzly holds up his fingers. Three, two, one . . .
We smash into the bar to find half of the men tied up in the corner, Trevor watching over them with a huge machine-gun bigger’n most men’s torsos, staring ’em down, the other half all standing around Clint, who has dragged out Grizzly’s throne-like office chair into the bar and sits in the middle, a gun in his hand, watching the door. The men behind him have guns, too, handguns and sub-machine guns, all of them aimed at me and Grizzly. I see the men loyal to me and Grizzly tied up try and shout and fight when they see us, but they’re gagged and tied arm to arm and then to the floor, like a shackled line of prisoners in the Old West. Grizzly and me ain’t got a choice but to lower our guns. It’s clear Clint has somethin’ to say. Otherwise, we’d be dead right now.
Grizzly barks, “You’re a fuckin’ coward, Clint. A fuckin’ coward.”
“Don’t be so rude,” Clint says, rising to his feet. He’s wearing a spotless white suit and white shoes, with a silver watch. A fuckin’ fop. A fuckin’ dandy. Once again I can’t believe these assholes are following this piece of shit. And once again I have to remind myself that beneath all the showiness, Clint is a violent psychopath.
“What’ve you done?” Grizzly says. “The fuck have you done? Who do you think you are?”
“I am the man with all the guns and all the support—well, all the support which isn’t about to be mowed down by an impressively big gun, that is.”
“You’re a dead man,” Grizzly says. “You’re a fuckin’ dead man.”
Clint just laughs at that. “I fail to see how you came to that conclusion,” he replies. “But you always were slow, weren’t you, Jacob? A big slow fucking oaf that I had to stand beside and watch as you made poor decision after poor decision.”
“What’s this fuckin’ woman offered you?” Grizzly asks, turning to the men who surround the throne. I recognize many of them, all of them in Rager leathers, many of them recent additions to the club—Clint’s additions. “What could a fuckin’ woman like this offer you to betray your club?”
“Just a good reason, Jacob,” Clint says, hefting his gun. Even his weapon is stylish, a large silver Desert Eagle to match his outfit. The extent that this man’ll go to make an impression shocks me, even now. “These men here care about profit,” he went on, nodding to the men behind him, “and these poor deluded bastards care about loyalty.” He nodded at the tied up men.
“You fucked up with the one in the lobby,” I say. “Meant to kill him, did you? Just wounded him, Clint, you fuckin’ asshole.”
Clint bristles, and then gestures to the men behind him. “Go and get the boy in here.”
I relax. That was what I wanted. In here, at least I can keep an eye on him. I don’t want him out there bleeding and dying with no one to see it. As the men pass by me and Grizzly, I see Grizzly tense up, like he’s about to jump on one of them. Both of ’em are holding sub-machine guns—Uzis—and both of ’em are new, so new they probably hardly even know Grizzly or me, and’d have no problem killing us. Grizzly must think the same thing, ’cause he settles back. Goddamn, but I’m glad Brat went with Heather, and not here with us. The men bring Spike in. I’m glad to see he’s moaning, still alive. It just seems he’s dazed, is all. He makes to fight, even in his dazed state, but I say, “Just let ’em tie you up, kid. They’ll kill you.”
Hearing my voice, he slumps in their arms, and lets them carry him to the rest of the men.
“Smart boy,” Clint says, enjoying himself. I hate how much he’s clearly enjoying himself. Like this is a damn show, like these aren’t men’s lives we’re talking about, like this ain’t the club we’re talking about. Some of the men behind him just look like mercenaries, like bought and paid-for guns, nothing more. T
hese are the kinds of men who’d stand by and watch as whole clubhouses weren’t burnt to the ground and wouldn’t give a damn. It wouldn’t have taken men like these months to take off their leathers and put on the Skulls’ leathers; they would’a done it right off, on principle. But most of them are men I recognize, club men who’ve just been led astray.
“Let me tell you something,” he says, looking at me. “You little fuck.” The first sign of real rage shows in his face, and I focus on it, getting my plan ready. It’ll be dangerous—Clint is tough, far tougher’n he looks—but it’s the only way I can see getting out of this. But first I’ve gotta let him give his little speech. It’s clear he needs to say it, on some level. “Do you wanna know what really happened in Seattle, Slick? Do you really wanna fuckin’ know?” He flashes a grin, calming himself. “I arranged for those guns to be faulty. I hired men to seal the ammo slots, and I also hired a clever mechanic who knew how to fix your bike so it would work on the way there, but not the way back. It was me.”
My calm, measured plan goes out the window. Rage grips me, real rage, rage which causes my vision to blur and my head to ache. A throbbing, far back in my head, a throbbing telling me to just run at him and end it now, squeeze his fuckin’ head until it pops like a watermelon. I even step forward, before Grizzly puts his arm out, blocking me.
“Why?” My voice is hoarse with anger.
“Why?” Clint laughs. “Because I was fuckin’ tired of seeing that big bastard there treat you like you were anything more than a goddamn courier. Calling you son and all that shit. I was VP, and he brought you into the fold way more than me. So I sent you away—to die, really. But it seems you’re so fuckin’ stupid you don’t even know how to do that.”
“Enough talkin’!” Grizzly roars. “Do what you’re gonna do, Clint.”
“Unfortunately,” Clint says, “I can’t do what I would really like to do. You see, some of my men have relatives—stupid relatives, but relatives all the same—in your camp. So I can’t just throw them in a pit and set them on fire.” He smiles, and I know he means it, that he would really do that. “So here’s the deal. All of you are going to leave Colorado, forever. I’ll give you twenty-four hours. If any of you dumb fucks are still here by then, you all die.”
“You know that won’t work,” Grizzly says. “Course you know that.” Grizzly looks closely at Clint, and I see it at the same time he does; Clint has another plan. “Nah, you’re gonna kill us all the same, just in some way those with family in the club don’t know about, eh? Smart, evil bastard.”
I shrug Grizzly’s arm away—he’s been holding me back this entire time—and take a step forward. All the men behind Clint aim their weapons at me, but right now, knowing that this is the fuck who’s responsible for having me shot and hacked at, the man who made me the Beast, the man who stole two years with my daughter, I don’t give a damn how many guns they have pointed at me. I look past Clint to his men, arms held in the air, completely defenseless.
“Look at you,” I say, looking each man in the eye in turn. A couple of ’em stare back, but most of them turn away. A good sign, I reckon. It means there’s some guilt in there. It means Clint hasn’t taken all of their loyalty from them, just a few of them. It means I can get through to them. “Is this the man you wanna follow? Is this the man you’re gonna trust with the fuckin’ club?” I remember reading, back in that icy, frosted cell, that when you’re talkin’ to folks you’ve gotta find a way to talk on their level, gotta find logic which speaks to their logic. It was money that got ’em into this, so I’ve gotta find a way to use money to get them out of it. “Sure, Clint might know some folks with some connections. Maybe he even will make you some cash—in the short run.” I see a few of them really listening to this, really taken into account what I’m saying. “Maybe he’ll even make you more cash than you’ve ever made.” Pulling them in, using their own logic. “But what about when he decides he would rather have your share, eh? What about when this fuck decides that he’d rather take all that’s yours? What’s to protect you, the patch?” I nod at the men, tied up, Slick slumped at the end of the row. “The patch don’t mean shit to him. And if you ain’t got the patch, what’ve you got?”
I pause, breathing heavily, worked up, angry, desperate in that I want to get the hell out of here and back to Brat and Charlotte in one piece.
“Words!” Clint laughs, and some of the men laugh with him. But not all. That’s something. “You can’t talk your way out of this, Slick—”
“Then I’ll fight my way out of it!” I roar, taking another step forward, within a couple of yards of him now. Clint aims his Eagle at me. At any second, my head could be blown off. At any second, I could be sent to the grave, never seeing my woman or my daughter again. And all ’cause this bastard decided to get jealous.
“Don’t come closer,” Clint says, stroking the trigger. “Don’t be a fool.”
“I’m not the fool here,” I say. “No fuckin’ way. That’s you, Clint, you and your merry band of merry fucks. But I don’t blame them, ’cause maybe they think you’re tough. Maybe they’ve heard some stories about you. Well, here I stand.” I lift my arms higher, and then turn on the spot, demonstrating that I don’t have a weapon. “And I wanna challenge you, Clint. Let’s fight, like men. Show your boys just how tough you are. Show your boys they aint’ just followin’ a pack of words. You find words funny—show ’em you’re more than that, then.”
Clint tries to laugh this off again, but a ginger-haired man with a scar down his face mutters, “Yeah, show him.” Another man, short, with dirty blonde hair and a sliver-capped tooth, says, “Yeah, go on. A fair fight’s a fair fight.” One by one, the men start to echo each other, saying that their boss should be able to fight in a fair match, saying that they should be able to count on a President for that much, at least. All but the few hired goons.
Clint spits on the floor, stands up straight, and stares at me across the bar. “Clever boy,” he whispers, just loud enough for me to hear. “Seems you learned a thing or two in Seattle.”
“No guns!” I shout. “Just fists. First to give up—or be knocked out—or die—is done!”
If there’s one thing bikers love, it’s fighting. It’s in their blood, thick, and once you introduce the idea of it, it can’t be so easily ignored. The men start stamping their feet, banging their weapons against their belt buckles to make a clink-clink-clink noise which is like the ding-ding-ding of a boxing match’s bell.
Clint has no choice. He sees it, and I see it. All he can do is drop his gun and come at me, so that’s what he does.
Clint is a dandy. Clint is a smart dresser. Clint is a fancy talker. But Clint is also a patched Rager, and that means he knows a thing or two about fighting. He comes at me quick, so quick I don’t have any time to react. His fist catches me in the side of the jaw with immense power, sending me flying to the floor. I feel like my jaw has dislocated. As I fall, blood sprays from my mouth across the room. The men start cheering and shouting. I hear Grizzly shouting at me to get my hands up. Then Clint kicks me in the stomach. I keel over, spitting more blood onto my boots. He kicks me again, and I spit again, gasping. I just manage to stand up before his next hit comes, a brutal upper-cut that would’ve floored me if it hit. I step aside, swaying, dazed, and just barely step aside to avoid a haymaker.
Then I jump back, jaw throbbing, but my vision clearing. Clint has his fists up, his white suit already flecked red with my blood. His eyes are squinted, focused. It’s like being in a fight with a wildcat, his attention completely on me, his only desire to put me down as quickly possible. Clint ain’t a fancy fighter, never has been. I once saw him stab a man in the neck with a pen and kick him into the dirt and walk away like it was nothin’.
“Come on, fucker,” I growl through the blood. “Fuckin’ come on.”
He lurches at me, but it’s a feint. He pulls back at the last moment, leaving my belly exposed, and gives me two swift jabs in the side. I cough, splu
tter, and he goes to work on my body. He punches me five or six times, fast, before I even have a chance to respond. And when I do, he steps cleanly out of my range. “Get your fuckin’ knees in him!” Grizzly roars, his voice the only one coming through the shouting and the pain. “Get your fuckin’ knees in the bastard, son!”
I know what he means. When I was a kid, Grizzly said the same thing to me when I used to spar with some of the men. My punches did little to them ’cause they were so much bigger, but I’ve always had damn strong legs on account of all the ridin’, ever since I was a little kid, so my knees did some work, even on full-grown men. Clint charges at me, and I let him, making it look like I’m so tired I don’t have the will to move. I sway on the spot, coughing, and let him charge right into me, wrapping his arms around my waist and trying to lift me off the ground. He wants to slam me to the floor and finish me. But I plant my feet, dig my elbows into his back, trapping him waist-height. Then I start with my knees.
I work my knees into his face, over and over, putting all the strength of my years of being a courier into it. I feel his nose pop, blood bursting over my leg, and then pop again as it breaks twice. He tries to stand up, but I keep my elbows in his back. I keep kneeing him, my legs starting to ache, and then burn, but I don’t stop. It gets so that the men stop cheering, that Clint’s body goes limp, that Grizzly has to come up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder to try and stop me. But even then I can’t stop. I’m the Beast. Slick has gone. It’s like when you put a soldier in a warzone. He don’t think. And I don’t think. I just knee, knee, knee.
