Ride or Die 1

by Claire C. Riley

  “No, it was noticed, but only by people who didn’t care to look too closely since they were being paid off by the Reverend.” Parker stopped pacing and waited for me to say something, but it took me a moment to gather my thoughts.

  “Well, let’s give Hardy a call and get the Reverend taken care of. Never good when clubs go to war, but if the Rev knows those are our drugs he’s selling, then fuck him, right, Jesse?” Casa looked at me and I nodded.

  “Fuck yeah, man needs to go to ground,” I reply. “I got another question though, before we speak to Hardy and settle this shit up. How did Butch get involved in this? I know my brother well enough to know he wouldn’t have turned his back on his brothers and gone over to the Reverend. Money just wasn’t important to him—family was. And drugs were never his thing.”

  I didn’t doubt Butch for one moment. He’d always been loyal and fiercely protective of those he loved—same as all my MC brothers—but for Butch it was more than that. I was his blood, and there was no way he’d do that to me. I glanced at Dom and knew he wouldn’t do it to him, either.

  “The night Butch was killed, he stumbled upon a meet between the Razorbacks and someone else. He said he saw things he wasn’t supposed to see,” Parker said regretfully. “He turned up at my place afterwards, but he wasn’t himself—he was acting erratically, told me he thought he was being followed and he didn’t know who to trust anymore. I told him to call you, Dom, but he said he didn’t want to involve you, especially since you’d argued earlier on. But he did make a phone call to someone, Jesse, someone in your club, and then he left, saying that he was going to meet them and blow this whole thing wide open.” Parker went silent, his head bowed slightly, and when he looked up at me, the pain on his face was almost too hard to look at. “The next time I saw him he was in the morgue.”

  The room fell silent, and for a moment I felt numb to everything. Only for a moment, though, and then the familiar pang of rage began to blossom in my chest and surge through me. My mind strayed back to the night that Butch died, and my stomach sank. He had been going to check on our new warehouse. Rider had sent me to check it out, but Butch had taken my place because Laney had been drunk and he’d wanted to clear his head or some shit.

  Once again, Butch’s death fell back on me, landing heavily on my doorstep. I should have been the one that stumbled on that meet, not him.

  But worse still was that someone in our club had betrayed him. Names popped up in my head, familiar faces flashing before my eyes, but my heart wouldn’t let me pin Butch’s death on any of those men. They were my brothers, my family, and I couldn’t believe that one of them would turn on another. I had thought for a while that morning that it had been Dom that had turned on Butch. They’d been arguing that night. But then I remembered the pain in his eyes at the funeral. The way he’d gone into himself after Butch’s death. His pain was too raw, and too much like my own for it to have been him. Besides, I might have been blind once and not seen the depth of the feelings he had for my brother, but I could see it now.

  “Wait, so the Reverend is behind all of this? Behind Butch’s death?” Casa asked, breaking the silence. “And he’s been ripping off our club?”

  I looked up sharply, my stare finding Parker, who shook his head. “Not all of it. The Razorbacks and the Reverend are in bed together for sure, but it gets deeper.”

  “This shit gets any deeper we’re gonna be sitting side by side with the devil,” Casa replied darkly.

  “Funny you should say that,” Parker said sounding hesitant. “The other club that’s involved, it’s your club—the Devil’s Highwaymen. I know that there’s at least one of you that’s turned on your club.”

  Casa pulled out his gun at the same time that Parker did, and both men stood glaring at each other with their guns aimed at one another’s heads. I was in too much disbelief to do jack shit about it, despite the fact that there was going to be a river of blood running through that lockup any second.

  “You’re fuckin’ lying,” Casa growled out. “Jesse, say the fuckin’ word, brother, and let me end this lying sack of shit! None of our brothers would do that, and this sorry fuck needs to die for saying it.”

  “He made a call to someone in your club, asshole! Whoever took that call is the one that set him up,” Parker yelled. “Dumb fuck can’t see what’s right under your nose.”

  “And how do we know that you’re telling the truth, huh? You could be making this shit up, for all we know,” Casa yelled back.

  “Why? Why would I do that?”

  “Dirty cops don’t need reasons.” Casa spat on the floor at Parker’s feet. “But who knows, two clubs taking each other out would make your job a hell of a lot easier. Maybe that’s the reason: we go to war and you get a badge of fucking honor!”

  “Butch was important to me,” Parker said, his gaze still on Casa. “I want vengeance for his death, I don’t give two shits about your war or your drugs or your fucking clubs. None of that matters to me. What I care about is Butch, finding his killer, and making them pay. What I care about is finding out who he made that call to…” Parker’s words died off as we all stared at him.

  For once Dom didn’t look like he was going to kill Parker; instead he just looked wounded by his words, as if they had cut him deep.

  Casa looked at me, his aim still steady but the anxious look in his eyes showing me that he wasn’t so sure on what to believe anymore, but that he’d kill Parker either way if he felt like it.

  “What do you think?” I asked Dom, because the whole thing was getting deeper by the minute, and if we got part of it wrong, someone was going to end up dead who didn’t deserve it.

  “I think he’s right,” Dom said with a shake of his head. “And I think I know who it is.”

  Both Casa and I stared at him in surprise.

  Dom pulled out his cigarettes and lit one up, his face thoughtful as he struggled to word what he needed to say. Eventually he looked up at me, his eyes full of pity. “I’ve suspected something for a while, Jesse, but I didn’t have any proof. Still don’t, not really, but my gut says he’s telling the truth.” He nodded toward Parker.

  “Who is it?” I asked, my brain buzzing from all the information.

  When I think back to that day, I think I already knew who he was going to say. I think, deep down, if I would have been able to see past my own self-pity, I would have seen the man’s face that had sentenced my brother to death. Goddamn, the air in there was too thick and hot, fucking choking me with every breath I took. Because with the realization came the guilt.

  The man who hated me had gotten the wrong brother killed.

  Dom’s shoulders sagged, his face taking on lines of pain as he spoke. “Butch taught me to trust my instincts, and my instincts tell me that Hardy is dirty and has been for some time. The name the Razorbacks—that night down in Atlanta when we read the note—I’d seen it once before, I just couldn’t place where. It wasn’t until last night that I remembered where.” Dom dragged a hand down his face and went on. “Rose had been emptying the trash from Hardy’s office a couple of weeks ago—you know how he is with shit like that. When Pops had the stroke she had been coming out with the bag of trash, and had dropped it when she ran to him. We’d both gone with him to the hospital, though I left her there once Pops got the all clear and a couple of prospects turned up to watch over him. I headed back to the clubhouse. When I got back, the trash was still all over the floor—so I cleared it up, and on one of the pieces of paper I saw the name Razorbacks. Didn’t think anything of it, because it was just a name and none of my fucking business, and then I forgot about it.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything,” Casa said angrily, but behind the anger I could hear the doubt in his voice. “It’s just a name on a piece of paper.”

  “He’s right, that could mean anything,” Parker said.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Casa yelled at him. “This is club business—you shouldn’t even be here.”

  To me, it a
ll made sense, right down to the fact that Hardy hadn’t seemed even a little bit surprised when I mentioned the name to him. But why would he send me to the meet if he knew they were going to be there?

  It was obvious now that Hardy had turned on his club.

  On his brothers.

  But would he really turn on his own sons?

  Because if he had, I was going to make him pay for it even if it was the last thing I did. Because if I thought I had felt rage before that day, it was nothing compared to what I felt as the pieces began to fit together, and the desire to walk right out of there and blow Hardy’s fucking brains out was instinctual.

  “Easy, Jesse, we need to do this right,” Dom said, sensing my next move.

  But I could barely hear him through the rage ringing in my ears. Dom reached out and put his hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged him off and glared up at him as another thought dawned on me.

  “How long have you suspected?” I asked, slowly.

  Dom shook his head and threw his cigarette to the ground. “Couple of weeks,” he replied. “Rider had let slip that Hardy had gone on a couple of meets on his own—not wanting any club support, extra money in the safe when I put the books away, that sort of shit. Nothing huge, but enough to make me wary of him.”

  “But did you suspect he had something to do with Butch’s death?” I gritted out, needing to know for my own selfish reasons.

  Dom nodded, his gaze slipping from mine as guilt crossed his features. “That night we found out about Butch, he didn’t seem surprised—like, not at all. He seemed pissed off more than anything else. Thought it was weird when he stalked off to take a phone call in his office instead of dealing with the fact his eldest boy was dead, but people deal with pain in their own ways, right?”

  “It was supposed to be me,” I said. “Rider had asked me to go check it out, but Laney had been drunk as shit so Butch told me to go because he said he needed some air anyway, and I let him go even though it was my job.”

  All those months I had blamed myself, when it had been Hardy’s doing, not mine. The pain I had put Laney through as I tried to push her away from me to avoid the fallout from my crazy, fucked-up life. I had ruined everything in my self-pitying. And Hardy had let me—likely watching from the side-lines and enjoying every minute of it since it was him that had burned his words into my mind…

  ‘It should have been you…’

  Yet Dom’s betrayal felt worse somehow. I hated Hardy, always had, and I knew the feeling was more than fucking mutual, but I had thought Dom was my friend, yet he had let me live on in agony, blaming myself for something I had nothing to do with.

  I didn’t think when I punched Dom in the jaw; I reacted. His words cut me deep and hard, like a blade to the heart as they tore through me, destroying muscle and bone and organs as they created a great chasm in the center of my chest, like a bomb had exploded. I hit him over and over, reopening the healing wounds on my knuckles from the day before. And Dom didn’t fight back once.

  Casa and Parker grabbed me and began to drag me off of Dom, but not before I managed to get in another hit to his face and make a large cut right above his eye. Blood began to ooze out of the cut and trickle down his face, and the sight somehow brought me to my senses.

  I pointed at Dom, aiming my rage at him because Hardy wasn’t there, my nostrils flaring and my teeth bared to him. “You’re dead to me.”

  Dom slowly got up to his knees, wiping the blood away from his with his sleeve. “I hear ya, brother.”

  “You’re no brother of mine,” I gritted out.

  He nodded and swallowed, reminding me so much of Butch in that moment with his broken expression. I shrugged out of Casa and Parker’s grip and glared at Dom.

  I paced the room like a tiger in a cage, my body trembling with untampered rage. “How could you continue to let that piece of shit fuckin’ breathe after what he’s done!?”

  “I had to be sure, Jesse.” He spoke in a broken whisper, his words coming out choked and starved of life. The oxygen sucked from his very lungs. “I had to be sure before I made my move or I’d get us both killed, and I couldn’t let that happen. He’d get away with it, and I promised Butch I’d always look out for you, and him. I was trying to keep that promise to him.” He dragged a hand across his face. “I thought it was all my fault. We’d argued and he’d walked out, taken your place on the ride, and then he was gone—and it was my fault.”

  “He had him killed!” I roared in anger. “And you did nothing, Dom, nothing! You self-pitying motherfucker!”

  “I just wanted to do right by him and keep his little brother alive. Never thought it would come to this—to you and me and this whole fucking explosion of shit. Hardy fucked us all. He fucked Butch over, and despite how much you hate me right now for not telling you, we have to take him out and make him pay now. You can hate on me later. I’ll leave the club, walk away from fucking everything, but right now we need to work together to end Hardy!”

  Casa and I glared at Dom. I had lost the inability to form words so Casa took over.

  “How can we still trust you, motherfucker? You kept this shit from all of us. How many times have you put another brother in danger by not saying something?” Casa yelled, his fury matching my own, because he had seen the toll that Butch’s death had taken on me—hell, he’d been there trying to help me through it every step of the way. But nothing had tempered it because my rage and anger were built on guilt and poisoned lies—but it was all bullshit. Not one single thing was true.

  I hadn’t done it, Hardy had.

  Hardy—my father—had tried to have me killed, but instead he’d killed my brother.

  I swallowed and took a long breath, Casa’s anger somehow caging mine as it simultaneously set me free. “What makes you so certain now?” I asked.

  Dom looked up, his gaze straying to Casa’s gun before moving to me. “I heard him talking about another deal.” He dragged his hands down his face. “I didn’t know who I could trust—how deep the fucking poison seeped. I didn’t want to risk anyone else before I could figure it out. I was going to go myself, alone, finally find out exactly what the fuck was going on before I came to you, but now…” He looked at me and I nodded, agreeing with him

  Butch had tried to do it on his own, and look where it had gotten him. No, this time we were doing it together. We’d kill Hardy together or we’d die together trying to honor Butch.

  “What about Rider?” Casa asked. “Do you think he’s in on it too?”

  “Good question,” I replied. “Real good fuckin’ question. I guess we’ll find out when we turn up and surprise the traitorous motherfuckers. He’s the one who sent me over to the warehouse that night, so he must be a part of it, right?”

  My thoughts strayed to Laney who was staying with Charlie and Rider and I had a fleeting moment of worry for her safety. But Old ladies and family were untouchables, and Charlie was best friends with Laney. Unless that was bullshit too? The hate Charlie had directed at me in the gas station had been real though; the pain and anger she felt for Laney—her friend, that was real too. No way was that bitch that good of an actress. At least that’s what I hoped.

  I looked down at Dom and finally felt some pity for him. I hated the fact that he hadn’t said anything to me about any of it, that he’d continued to be Hardy’s bitch and errand boy for the past few months despite suspecting that he’d had a hand in Butch’s death. But Butch had always trusted him, and I knew I had to too. Dom didn’t know my final words to Butch, so he didn’t know my guilt. He only knew that I had lost my brother and best friend. He only saw the misery I had been in—the same misery he had been in himself. More so because of their relationship.

  It dawned on me then that he had been holding a guilt of his own inside for all that time, but worse still was the fact that he’d known Hardy was involved somehow but had had no one to talk to about it.

  Butch was in my head, begging that I listen to him and trust Dom, and I knew I had to
. Because somehow I had to get past the betrayal so we could move forward. If I didn’t, we’d never get our revenge. And that was the most important thing of all now. The Reverend was going to pay for it, and so were the Razorbacks. But more important to me was that Hardy pay, too—and I couldn’t do that without brothers at my back.

  Dom was right about one thing: there was no way to know how deep Hardy’s reach in our club was, or how many brothers—if any—he had on the inside. And until we knew that, the only people we could trust were there in that room.

  I reached a hand down to Dom, and he stared at it for a long second before taking it firmly and letting me pull him up. The blood was still oozing from the cut above his now swollen eye, and his lip was split. He spat the blood on the ground, his eyes holding me and begging me to forgive him.

  I couldn’t though, at least not yet. But we could move past it until there was a time to clear the air more. I pulled him to me and held him, both of us sharing our guilt and misery with one another without saying a damn word.

  We had both loved Butch, and it was our love for him that fueled our hate for everyone that had a hand in his death.

  They would all fucking pay.

  Chapter Twenty-nine:

  present day

  Jesse

  The three of us rode toward the supposed meet between the Reverend, the Razorbacks, Hardy and whoever else it was in our club that had betrayed Butch and the rest of their brothers.

  My anger fueled me in a way it hadn’t before, and I thought of all the ways I would make my supposed prez and brothers suffer. I would burn the Devil’s Highwaymen tattoo off the traitor’s backs before killing them slowly.

  We left Parker to head home, deciding it was best if he kept a low profile in case shit went south when we got to the meet. No point in all four of us dying. Besides, the fact that Parker was important to my brother hadn’t gone completely unnoticed to me, and if he was important to Butch, it mattered that he stayed alive. Therefore I’d do my best to keep him living and fucking breathing if I could. I didn’t know what would happen when we got where we were going; I only knew that I was going to put as many of them in the ground as possible.