Ride or Die 1

by Claire C. Riley

  “Crystal,” I replied. “You should know, though, the Reverend was there tonight.”

  Bridge stepped forward. “Seriously?”

  “Serious as a fucking judge on a murder rap, brother,” Casa replied. “Heard he was looking to retire to the Bahamas or some shit like that. Never thought he’d betray his brothers, though.”

  “That change anything for you?” I asked Beefcake.

  He looked up at Bridge and they exchanged a look which I took to mean that it did, but Beefcake surprised me by looking back at me. “Not a damn thing. Two things I can’t stand are disloyalty and assholes who think they’re above everyone else. Looks like the Rev just crossed both those lines. The Bangers have the Highwaymen’s back, brother, no problem on that front.”

  “Appreciate that,” I replied.

  Beefcake stood up and came around the desk, and both Casa and I stood up too. I reached out my hand and Beefcake took it before pulling me into a manly hug and slapping my back. When he pulled back, his expression had softened from serious to sympathetic.

  “This shit with Butch, real sorry, Jesse. The whole club is still in shock. None of us saw it coming.”

  I nodded, not really wanting to talk about it, but I had known I would have to when I came here. All the other charters had been desperate to talk about it too, but I’d so far avoided it. Clearly that wasn’t going to happen for much longer.

  Not that I could blame them.

  “Thanks, the club appreciates it,” I replied, my throat feeling tight.

  He reached into his cut and pulled out a cigar before handing it to me. “It’s the life we choose to lead though, right?”

  I took the cigar and nodded at Beefcake. “Damn straight.”

  “Anything I can do, you let me know,” Beefcake added.

  “Think we could do with a drink,” Casa said, knowing me well enough to cut in.

  “Of course, of course, let’s go get a drink. You still with that woman of yours?”

  We headed to the door, and he pulled it open and we all filtered out, heading back into the main clubhouse.

  “Yeah,” I replied, lying through my teeth.

  “Woman is fucking beautiful, but we’ve got plenty of bitches here if you wanted a break from the usual, brother. Take what you need,” Beefcake said before heading off to his seat.

  Bridge patted me on the shoulder and stalked off, leaving me and Casa alone. I pulled out my cell and tried to call Hardy again, but it only rang out and went to voicemail. I hung up and slipped my cell in my pocket and looked around, finding Dom, Pipes, and Max sitting together drinking beer out of red plastic cups. A sexy little brunette was draped across Dom, her face buried in his lap where she was bobbing her head up and down while she gave him a blowjob—not that you could tell from the blasé look on his face. He saw me and Casa and pushed the brunette away, ignoring her angry glare. Instead he tucked himself back in his jeans and zipped them back up. He walked toward us, with Pipes and Max following close behind.

  “Everything cool?” he asked, his tone devoid of emotion.

  “Yeah, the Bangers are with us, no matter what goes down,” I replied.

  “Any news on Hardy?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Nothing. Just ringing out constantly.” I frowned, wondering what the fuck else could go wrong with that crazy-ass night.

  “I tried Rider and Gauge but there was no answer from either of them,” Dom said, dragging a hand down his beard. “I don’t like this, Jesse. Something ain’t right.”

  “I feel you, and I agree, but fuck knows what’s going on. Meeting they were going to was nothing but a meet and greet. Nothing heavy.”

  “Let’s wait it out, see what Hardy says in the morning. We’ll figure it all out,” Casa said and Dom nodded in agreement.

  The blonde from earlier had spotted me and was on her way over, her eyes making their way up and down me. “Fuck me, I could really do without this shit tonight.”

  Casa turned to look and then he grinned. “You want me to take care of that problem for you, boss?”

  “Fuck yeah, go knock yourself out,” I laughed and patted him on the shoulder.

  “No problem. All in the line of duty and all that shit.” He laughed and took off, cutting into the blonde’s path and directing her in the opposite direction.

  “Yeah, you’re a real fucking saint, Casa.” I shook my head and laughed. “Let’s get a beer. Not much I can do until I get ahold of Hardy and find out what he wants to happen.”

  We walked outside to where another keg was and I got myself a beer, downed it in one, and then got a second, feeling better as the shitty beer sank into the pits of my stomach. Pretty sure I hadn’t eaten anything since the night before. Not that I remembered it, because I’d been so fucking drunk—drunk enough to cheat on Laney—but I’d seen the pizza boxes scattered across my living room table.

  Goddamn, I was an asshole, but that was what I’d aimed to be. Had to make her see that I was no good for her. Had to make her understand that she needed to get away from me. Couldn’t blame her for leaving my sorry ass; it was more than I deserved and then some.

  Someone had started a couple of fires in the metal drums around the place, and an orange glow lit up the dark sky. I stared into the flames, wondering what the hell I was going to do. It was turning out to be one of the craziest nights in a long time. First I fucked up my relationship with Laney, and I had no doubt that it was well and truly fucked this time and I wasn’t delusional in thinking I couldn’t come back from it. Then Hardy asked for my help, which was fucking unheard of, and then the Highwaymen got a declaration of war from a start-up charter and we found out we’d been betrayed by the Reverend, of all people.

  Shit was crazy.

  Nah, this shit was more than just crazy; this shit was fucked right the fuck up.

  I downed my second beer and threw the plastic cup to one side, needing more than just warm beer to get me through the rest of that fucked-up night. I needed to keep my head in the game and stop thinking about Laney—for a little while, at least. Too much was going on and too much was at risk to be distracted. Yet I couldn’t stop myself, because if I didn’t think about Laney I would think about Butch, and when I thought about Butch, bad shit happened around me. As usual, Laney and Butch dominated my very being. They were the two most important people in my life—or they had been. Now, through one thing or another, I had lost both of them.

  “You okay?” Dom asked, coming to stand by me. He handed me another beer, and I took it because there was nothing else there to get me through this shit and I needed something.

  “Not really,” I replied, still staring into the flames. “You?”

  “Nope,” he replied. Dom had been Butch’s best friend and they’d known each other way back before we’d even moved in with Hardy, back when we lived with my mom and she was a crackhead junkie and we were half-starving to death because she’d spent our family allowance on drugs. Dom’s mom had fed us, helped clothe us; even though she had six kids herself, she helped me and Butch like we were her own.

  Even after Mom died and we went to live with Hardy, Dom and Butch had stayed friends. Fucking nothing could keep those two apart. Not distance, not the club, nothing. Or so we thought. Now Dom was as lost as I was, going off the rails while he tried to sort out the rage that was filling him from the inside out.

  Rage I knew only too well, because I lived and breathed right alongside him. Most of his shit went under the radar because he was always fucking quiet and moody anyway. Shit, maybe I wouldn’t have noticed too much either if I didn’t know him so well.

  Because for me, it was his eyes that gave him away. Where once they had held a certain ferocity now they were cold and dead, just like Butch. They were grey, like slate or marble or some shit Butch had once said, but now…now they just seemed empty. Dead of anything.

  At least for Dom the only thing he couldn’t fuck up was his relationship, because he didn’t have one. The man barely glance
d at bitches, his time having been taken up by the club and caring for his brothers and sisters for as far back as I could remember. He was a goddamned saint as far as I was concerned, because most of his siblings were crazy fucked up too.

  But Dom was a good man, and he was the biggest connection I had to Butch now, and vice versa. We stood in mutual silence, both of us watching the flames, drinking our warm, shitty beer and thinking of Butch, my brother, and his best friend, and wishing shit would have turned out differently.

  We both missed him like crazy, and we would both probably never get over his death.

  But at least Dom didn’t have to live with the guilt like I did.

  Chapter Fifteen:

  present

  Jesse

  I woke to the sound of water dripping into a metal bucket somewhere in the room. I was lying on my back on a bed that had seen better days, given the amount of springs that were digging into my spine. Rubbing at my eyes, I yawned and rolled onto my side before realizing that my bladder was on fire and I needed to piss.

  “Fuck,” I mumbled, stumbling up to my feet and crossing the room. I threw open the door and looked around, not having a clue where the bathroom was in this place. A couple of bitches were still up and drinking, though they should probably have quit a couple of hours ago, by the state they were in.

  “Bathroom,” I barked out to the closest one—a tiny redhead with tits bigger than my head.

  She pointed behind me and I turned and headed back the way I had just come, intending on going back to visit her as soon as I was done. There were several closed doors along the corridor, though it was easy to spot the ones that were occupied, given the snoring or the grunts coming from behind them. I found another door right at the end of the hallway and pushed it open, praying it was the magical room with a piss pot, and lo and behold, it was.

  “Thank fuck.” I closed the door and stumbled over to piss, holding onto the wall for support.

  Didn’t remember much about the previous night after the twelfth or so beer and Beefcake bringing out the whisky. Dom had disappeared around that time—fuck knew where, though—and Casa had returned from fucking some bitch and joined me in taking shots in memory of Butch.

  It was blank after the memory of sucking whisky out of some blonde’s navel.

  I finished pissing and shoved my junk away, desperate for coffee and some fresh air, when I felt my cell vibrating in my pocket. I fumbled around trying to grab it, and stared bleary-eyed as Hardy’s name lit up.

  I slid down to sit on the floor and tried to clear my head as I answered the cell.

  “Hardy, I’ve been trying to get ahold of you,” I said, and dragged a hand through my hair.

  There was silence on the other end of the line before Hardy replied. “Jesse?”

  “The one and only,” I said, stealing Butch’s line.

  “Don’t get smart. I’ve been calling all morning, why didn’t you pick up?” He sounded strange; more confused than pissed off.

  “I was sleeping. I was calling you all last night. Gave up around two a.m. Where the fuck were you?” I did not need him giving me a lecture at the moment; too much other shit was going down that was more important than whatever his feelings for me were.

  “I’m the president, Jesse, I’m not at your beck and call!” he yelled down the cell, making my ears ring and my head swim.

  I pulled the cell away from my ear while he continued to shout and I tried to contain my own anger. Arguing with him wouldn’t get me anywhere, I knew that, yet right then my head didn’t give a damn who he was. All I could picture was slamming his head into a brick wall.

  I put the cell back to my ear. “Will you shut the fuck up?”

  “What did you just say to me?”

  “I said shut the fuck up, Hardy, we got bigger problems than whatever it is between you and me. The Reverend betrayed us and we’ve got a new player in town, call themselves the Razorbacks.”

  The line went silent and I wondered if he’d gone, but the sound of his breathing made it obvious he was still there.

  “Hardy?”

  “What?”

  “We need to put the Rev to ground and then we need to pull all the charters in to take out these Razorbacks. Fuckers had snipers on me and the boys last night.”

  “You and the boys?” he asked. “Who did you take with you?” Now he sounded angry. Really fucking angry.

  “Dom, Casa, couple of prospects—Pipes and Max. Thought it would be better going in with bodies,” I replied, confused by his anger. Seemed pretty obvious to me that we go in with a small crew, show force against being cut out.

  “I told you to go alone,” he said darkly.

  “No, you told me to be discreet, and I was.” My brain was wide awake now and I stood up, my senses alert. “I made a judgment call,” I replied. Something was wrong, off somehow, something that, in all my brilliance, I hadn’t picked up on the day before.

  “Where are you?”

  “Why?” I asked, unsure as to why I felt so uneasy about the whole conversation.

  “Because I fucking asked, that’s motherfucking why! I’ll be back at the clubhouse around noon and I want you in the Chapel, Jesse. Tell your brothers that, okay?” he said. He cleared his throat. “So, where the fuck are you?”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’ll meet you at the clubhouse at noon,” I said, hanging up quickly before he could ask me again where I was.

  I slipped the cell into my pocket and walked over to the sink before running the taps and filling it. When it was full of ice-cold water, I leaned over and took a deep breath before dunking my head under. My heart sped up as the cold water shocked me, but I stayed under for as long as I could, waking my brain up and straightening up all my thoughts. Shit was fucked up, but out of everything that had happened, Hardy’s reaction bothered me the most.

  When I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, I pulled the plug on the sink and stood upright, letting the cold water trail its icy tendrils down my chest and back. I rubbed at my face, my cheeks feeling numb from the cold, but my mind was awake and alert. And I had a feeling that today I would need that.

  I stepped out of the small bathroom and into the hallway and headed back to the main clubhouse. Dom had finally shown back up and he was standing at the bar talking to the redhead with the huge tits and drinking a coffee. He draped a jacket over her shoulders and she picked up a mug of coffee and took a tentative sip of it before laughing at something he’d said.

  I raised an eyebrow as I got closer, and he raised his chin to me.

  “Mornin’. Any more of that coffee going?”

  “I’ll go get you one,” the redhead said, sliding off her stool on unsteady feet.

  “I got it.” Dom put down his mug, and with one swift movement he’d hoisted her back up on the stool. She blushed profusely and looked down into her coffee, her red hair framing her face. Looked like Dom had staked some sort of claim on her, which could be added to the list of crazy shit going on right now.

  Dom wandered off to what I presumed was the kitchen and I stared down at the redhead. She looked young—not jailbait, but close enough—and she was beautiful, too. Plump mouth, little upturned nose, and high cheekbones. She looked up at me through her lashes, obviously feeling uncomfortable but also feeling too much like shit to do anything about it. Her makeup was smudged under her eyes, like she’d been rubbing them and forgot she was wearing makeup, and even though Dom had covered her up with a jacket, her huge breasts were still on display for anyone to look at through her low-cut top.

  Dom came back and handed me the mug of steaming coffee. There was no milk, but I didn’t care too much.

  “Where’s Pipes and Max?” Dom asked, sitting down opposite the girl.

  She looked over at me and I jerked my head to one side, making it clear she needed to go so we could talk. Dom grabbed my arm and started guiding me away instead, which was even more fucked up than anything else.

  We headed across the room and I sh
rugged out of his grip and glared across at him. “What the fuck is that about?”

  “Nothin’, bitch just looks like she needs the seat more than you,” he grumbled out.

  “You sweet on her?” I laughed.

  Dom raised an eyebrow and shook his head, a coy smile on his face. “I miss your brother even more when you come out with stupid shit like that, Jesse,” he said, and I frowned, wondering what the hell he was talking about.

  As we pushed open the clubhouse door, Casa groaned from one of the sofas and stood up, one hand grabbing at his head.

  “Gotta stop drinking whisky,” he grumbled, and stood up before following us.

  He grabbed my coffee as we sat down at a small table outside, and after a long gulp he put his head in his hands and groaned again. I looked at Dom and we both laughed.

  “You seen Pipes or Max yet?” I said, banging the table right next to his head.

  “Fuckkkk,” Casa yelled without looking up. “Not since last night. Saw them outside talking to the Bangers prospects. Pussies probably complaining to each other about not being patched in yet,” he said with a chuckle which morphed into another groan.

  I looked over at Dom and he took a swig of his coffee and shrugged. “Probably. I know Pipes is ready for it. Not sure Max is yet, though.”

  “I’ll speak to Hardy,” I replied. “Speaking of Hardy, I got a call from him this morning.”

  “Yeah?” Dom asked, pulling out his cigarettes and lighting one. “How’d that work out?”

  “Same as usual,” I replied, thinking back to the conversation. I dragged a hand down my beard thoughtfully. I trusted both Dom and Casa, but I also didn’t want them getting into any shit with Hardy because of me. I didn’t know what was off with the conversation with Hardy yet, but I knew something wasn’t right. And until I knew what, it wasn’t fair to put that on my brothers.