Ride or Die 1

by Claire C. Riley

  I was lying back on my bed, the cold metal underneath me. The sound of footsteps coming closer made me look up, and I watched as a guard dragged a chair over to my cell and sat down on it. He cleared his throat and then slid a bottle of water through the bars of my cell, placing it on the ground.

  “Thought you might be thirsty,” he said.

  I didn’t bother to reply. Instead I turned to stare back up at the ceiling.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” he asked.

  “Why the fuck should I?” I replied darkly.

  “We went to school together.”

  “So?” I snapped, already tired of the conversation.

  “Drink your water, Jesse.”

  I sat up in one movement and glared over at him. “Get the fuck out of here!” I stood up and walked toward the bottle of water and picked it up, ready to launch it across the cell, but the light from the window caught his face and I realized I did recognize him.

  “I’ve only got a few minutes, so sit the fuck down and listen to me,” he snapped in a whisper.

  “You sure you wanna be speaking to the guy that just beat someone to death with his bare hands like that?” I growled out.

  “Looks like there are bars separating us,” he replied.

  “Won’t always be.”

  He sighed and stood back up. “You know what? Fuck this. I was trying to help, but I can see you got your shit handled, right?”

  I laughed darkly. “Wouldn’t be stuck in here if I had my shit handled.” I sat back down on my bed. “Besides, ain’t no one who can help me.”

  “I have information—information you’ll want.”

  I looked down at my hands, still covered in college boy’s blood. I flexed them feeling the split skin stretching. “What kind of information?” I asked, thinking of the club.

  Because that was what it always came back to, didn’t it? The club and Laney. That was all I had left. Not that I had Laney anymore, of course. But I still had the club, and they’d make sure I was looked after if I got sent down. At least, I hoped so.

  “It’s about your brother,” the guard replied after a long silence.

  I stopped flexing my hands and looked over to him. “Ain’t nothing you can tell me about him that I don’t already know.”

  He stalked forward until he was directly in front of me, his hands reaching out to grip the bars. It took me a moment to place his face, but yeah, I remembered him. He’d grown since last time I saw him, though. Of course, the last time I’d seen him he was getting his ass handed to him by the college quarterback for being gay. Don’t know what had made me do it, maybe it was that I was so full of rage at the time that I couldn’t think straight, or maybe I just liked spilling blood. Either way, I’d stepped in and beat the shit out of that quarterback and hadn’t bothered to stick around for this kid’s thanks afterwards. Little punk had turned up at my house later that day to speak to me, though. Of course I didn’t give a shit what he had to say, but Butch had spoken to him and accepted the thanks for me.

  Funny thing was that he was in Butch’s year, not mine. Yet I was one angry little shit that was looking for any way to vent my fury on the world.

  “What’s your name?” I asked, standing back up.

  “Parker,” he replied.

  I stalked forward. “You need me to kick someone’s ass again for you, Parker?” I sneered. “Gonna need to start charging if this becomes a regular thing.”

  He shook his head at me. “Your brother was a much better man than you.”

  I snorted out a laugh. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “How about I tell you how Butch really died?”

  Time stopped, the air stilled, and even the dust motes froze as his words settled over us both.

  I scowled. “You better think really careful about what you say next, Parker.”

  He didn’t look away from me, though he sure as shit should have if he wanted to live. “It wasn’t an accident, Jesse.”

  “Fuck you! Fucking pussy, you don’t know shit,” I snapped, my jaw clenching. “He was drunk, and speeding, and the dumb motherfucker couldn’t handle the beast of a bike we just built together. Idiot had a lapse in fucking judgment—” I couldn’t finish my sentence without choking on my words.

  “He wasn’t drunk, Jesse, but he was speeding, and then he was rammed off the road.”

  I stepped toward the cell bars and gripped them, trapping his hands underneath mine. “I’m going to crush your hands now, and you’re not going to make a fuckin’ peep, you hear me?” I gritted out between my teeth, my grip tightening. “And then when I get out of here, I’m going to carve out your fuckin’ tongue and then make you eat it. You hear me?”

  “Do what you have to. I don’t need to tell you this—I want to. Butch was good to me, and I want to do right by him.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah! And any moment now I’m going to get told to get out of here, and you’ll get sent down and probably killed before you reach trial. Then I might not ever get to tell you the rest, so back the fuck off, Jesse!” Sweat glistened off his forehead as I continued to glare at him, but he didn’t pull away or fight me. Instead he gritted his teeth while I continued to squeeze his hands under mine.

  “So tell me, now,” I growled.

  Parker glanced over his shoulder to the doorway, where we could both hear voices. “He was driven off the road because of what he found out.”

  I thought about his words, and what it would mean if they were true. The guilt. The pain. The misery we had been through. And what the fuck would it mean for the club? I let go of his hands and Parker had the good sense to wait a second before he pulled his hands off the bars.

  “What did he know?” I asked, suddenly more serious than I’d been in all my life.

  Parker nodded, and looked relieved that I was finally listening to him. “You ever heard of the Razorbacks?”

  An alarm bell rang in my head, sparks flying in all directions. Because damn straight I’d fucking heard of them. And if they’d had something to do with it, I would kill every last one of them before I died.

  I started pacing my cell, realizing what an idiot I was because I was fucking trapped in that damn cell. “What about them?”

  “So you have, that’s good. That makes it easier. That night, a large shipment of ice had just come in for your club. Butch got wind of a deal going down between the Razorbacks and another MC club that were looking to steal it.”

  “Highwaymen don’t deal in that shit,” I growled out. We might have dealt drugs, but ice was something we had always stayed away from. It was off-limits. Always had been because of the shit that had gone down with my mom.

  “Looks like your club is changing,” Parker replied bluntly.

  I glared at him for a moment, thinking about all the ways I was going to hurt him when I got out of here. “Who was the other club?” I asked tightly, because now he had my fucking undivided attention and I wanted to know every piece of information he had, and I wanted it right the fuck then.

  “That’s not the most important part,” Parker said with a shake of his head, like I was wasting his time with dumb questions.

  “Who the fuck was it?” I asked again, my temper rising.

  “I told you—,” he started but I cut him off.

  “Of course it is!” I yelled, pacing my cell. “Stupid fucker should have told someone what he saw—should have told me. I would have gone with him, I could have helped him.”

  “He did,” Parker replied calmly.

  “What?” I snapped, turning to stare at him.

  “He did tell someone.”

  “Who? Who the fuck knows about this? Because any brother of mine who knows about it would have said something, and whoever rammed him off the road—the Razorbacks or whichever dumb fucker it was—they would be in the ground now.” I was raising my voice when I needed to be calm. I knew it but I couldn’t keep calm. I was angry and wanting to break something, but I was
stuck inside that fucking cell with no way out.

  “Keep your noise down! They don’t know I’m in here!” Parker hissed at me.

  “Who gives a fuck?” I yelled. “This is club business. This is family business. And I want to know now so I can destroy everyone who had a hand in Butch’s death.”

  The sound of footsteps coming closer had him backing up. “Keep your mouth shut,” he mumbled to me as another guard walked into the room.

  “What’s going on, Parker?” the new guard said. Fat son of a bitch too—looked like he’d been greased up like a fat hog ready to be spit-roasted.

  I glared in his direction, warning him away from me.

  “Heard him shouting and thought I best come check it out,” Parker replied, completely blanking me like he hadn’t just told me news that would tear my world in half.

  The other guard stepped forward, pulling out his baton, and I stepped toward him, gripping the bars. “The fuck you looking at?” I asked, my voice tinged with unhinged rage.

  “Looks like he’ll live,” he replied with a sneer. “The man you almost beat to death. Good for you, too, or it would be a murder charge you’d be on. Though I think we should line men like you up and just shoot you down. That’ll teach you people who’s in charge.”

  I laughed in his face and spat on the ground at his feet, not giving two fucks right then whether the man who had pushed my woman to the ground lived or died.

  “You bikers, you’re all the same—none of you give a damn about the lives you ruin!” He shook his head and swung his baton at my hands clasping the bars and I let go quickly, the baton just barely missing my fingers. “I’ll be making sure he presses charges against you and you get sent down for it, don’t you worry.” He took a step back from me. “Come on, Parker. Let’s leave him to sweat alone in the dark.”

  He turned and walked out of the room and Parker watched after him.

  I stepped forward again. “Who did he tell?” I whispered angrily.

  Parker looked back at me. “I don’t know. What I do know is that it was someone in your MC. And whoever it was, it was the wrong man, because less than three hours later your brother was dead.”

  My body was humming with anger and restlessness, but with no outlet for it, all I could do was try and breathe through it. The possibility that Butch hadn’t died for something like drinking and riding, but because of club business, that somehow made me feel both better and worse.

  “How do you know he told someone?” I asked. “Unless you were there, there’s no way for you to know that shit,” I said, the cogs turning as I tried to piece everything together.

  “Because he told me,” Parker said almost bluntly. “He was at my house, and he said he needed to make a phone call—asked me to leave the room since we always promised to keep our work out of everything else.” He smiled. “Our jobs didn’t exactly make us compatible.”

  “Why the fuck would he be with you—a cop, of all people? Now I know you’re bullshitting me, and I swear to God, Parker, I won’t always be in here so you better be fucking careful what you say next, because my brother ain’t a rat.”

  “It’s not my place to tell you Butch’s secrets, but I promised him I’d watch his back, and when the time came I couldn’t, so now I’m passing my promise on to you.” Parker paused and I stared at him. “I have to tell you, because I need your help.”

  “What the fuck are you going on about?” I snarled at him, wishing that there wasn’t bars between us because I was ready to destroy him for tearing my world apart. His words were going to rip my club in half, and my club was the only thing I had left. But he had to be telling me the truth, didn’t he? What reason would he have to make that shit up?

  Parker took a deep breath and dragged a hand down his face. “Butch was a good man. After the day when I came to your house, we met up more and more and became friends.”

  I laughed. “Butch wouldn’t be friends with some fuckin’ cop, asshole!”

  “I wasn’t a cop then,” he bit out, his temper flaring to life.

  “But you are now, fuckwad! He wouldn’t have put you out if you were on fire! Yet you expect me to believe that you and he were best buds? Get fuckin’ real.”

  Parker glowered at me. “We were more than friends,” Parker said, and the words sank into the pit of my stomach as guilt washed over his features. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Why? Because you’re a piece of shit liar?”

  “No, because it wasn’t my secret to tell.” He took a deep breath and looked away from me. “I had no right to tell you that.”

  I stared at him for a long moment, trying to understand what he was saying to me. None of it made any sense, and yet it did. Everything made more sense. Despite the huge questions hanging over everything, things were much clearer.

  Parker shifted uncomfortably and looked back to me. He swallowed noisily before speaking. “Butch and I were seeing each other, Jesse. We had been on and off for some years. He was in love with someone else, though—but they weren’t ready to come out, so whenever they fought, he’d come to me. They fought that night, and after the meet he came to my house to talk about it. I loved him. Had ever since that day I met him.” Parker shook his head sadly.

  I staggered backwards. “Fuck off, Butch wasn’t gay,” I whispered, confused as to what he was saying, though in my heart I knew it made sense. “He would have told me if he was gay. We told each other everything.”

  “Not everything,” Parker replied, almost smugly.

  “I’ll fucking kill you for saying shit like that about him!” I snarled, ready to rip his throat out with my bare hands. What I’d done to that other pussy was nothing compared to what I would do to Parker. “You think you can say shit like that about my brother and get away with it? You filthy motherfucker, I will rip your throat out and shove it up your ass. Do you hear me? Your days are numbered!”

  Parker shook his head. “You sound just like your father now,” he replied grimly.

  And there it was, the ultimate punch to the gut.

  I was just like my fucking father.

  Chapter twenty-four:

  present day

  Jesse

  I stared at Parker quietly, my body almost collapsing under me.

  “What did you just say to me?” I hissed out through gritted teeth, my body burning with anger.

  “That’s pretty much what your dad said to Butch when he found out. Told him he was going to kill him. That he refused to live with the shame of it.” Parker shook his head. “Clyde Hardy might be the feared and revered president of the Devil’s Highwaymen MC, but he’s a fucking homophobe who turned on his own son, and it looks like you’re just as bad as he is.”

  I staggered back to my bed and sat down, because my legs couldn’t take my weight any longer. If I’d had a gun, I’d have put it to my head right then. I might as well just die if I was anything like my father. And the fact that Butch had kept that from me proved that I must have been—or that he at least thought I was. Everything was fucked.

  “I loved my brother, and I ain’t nothin’ like Hardy,” I said, talking to no one in particular. And I meant every word of it. I didn’t care if Butch was gay or not; shit like that didn’t bother me—shouldn’t bother anyone else, either—but Butch obviously thought I would reject him just like Hardy had. The thought was almost too much to bear.

  “He loved you too,” Parker said.

  “Parker? Where are you?” the fat fucking guard from before called, and Parker took a step away.

  “I need to go.”

  “So go,” I replied. “This has nothing to do with you anymore. This is club business now.”

  “I have more to tell you,” he replied. “Besides, I told you I promised him I’d always have his back.”

  I laughed, the noise having more to do with hate than happiness. “He’s fucking dead, and I’m a grown-ass man—I can take care of myself, now get the fuck out of here, Parker.”

  “I p
romised him!” Parker hissed impatiently, his voice tight with emotion. “I can’t let him down, not again.”

  “I don’t need help from some dirty cop. Now get out of here.” I lay back on my bed, everything swirling around in my head.

  “I’m not dirty! I’m probably the only clean cop in this place!” he snapped. “Just don’t mention to anyone that we talked, okay? Butch said you would always have his back, and that if you knew I was important to him you’d have mine too.”

  But I wasn’t listening anymore. Instead I was thinking about Butch keeping that secret from me for so long and why he felt that he had too. Was I more like Hardy than I realized? My thoughts switched to wondering about who Butch had called—which of my brothers knew about Butch, and did they help toward his death.

  I dragged a hand down my face, a million questions swimming through my mind. When I looked over, Parker had gone.

  The whole thing was a mess. I had more questions than answers, and no one to talk to about it. But the one good thing about being arrested was uninterrupted free time. I had all night to think about everything I’d just been told, and to think of a solution.

  I stared up at the ceiling, glad for the dark around me. My knuckles still hurt from earlier, but it was nothing compared to my heart right then. One thing was for certain, though: I was going to sort out this mess and fix this shit. No way was I being sent down for beating up some little pussy and letting my brother’s killer get off. No fucking way.

  No, the club would get me out of there and then I was going to find out what really happened to Butch, who those fucking Razorbacks were, and then I was going to make everyone involved pay for his death in blood.

  *

  3 months ago

  I walked back inside the clubhouse, a smile on my face. The party was getting a little too wild and I needed Laney out of there. She knew what went down, but she didn’t need to see it. Rider and Axle looked like they were rounding up their women and sending them packing too, but I couldn’t see Silvie so I made a guess that she’d already left for the night. Either that or she was in Hardy’s office on her hands and knees before she went.