Girth

by Savannah Rylan

  Talon was anal about making sure we got the guns we’d paid for, so I knew he would take care of the discrepancy. If there was one thing you could count on him for besides protection, it was accuracy. He was the one in charge of teaching newcomers and the children of the club to shoot in order to defend themselves because he wasn’t just accurate, but he was also safe. He was the enforcer of our group when he needed to be, so I wasn’t worried about the inventory we seemed to be missing. Talon would comb through every last person, corner, and connection we had to figure out what the fuck had happened.

  Even if it got a bit messy.

  “Wanna tell us what your hold up was?” Mac asked.

  “When I got enough alcohol in me, sure,” I said.

  “Shit. That bad, huh?” Fox asked.

  “Not bad. Just surprising,” I said.

  “You good?” Talon asked.

  I looked over to my comrade who was staring me right in my eyes. Even though Snake and Mac were the ones that read people the best, it was moments like this with Talon that I questioned that part of his character. Talon had this stare about him. It was unwavering and intense. Like a fire was brewing behind them and all he needed was a direction to cast his anger. He was distant until he felt there was something that had to be corrected. He was nonchalant about his life until there was someone that professed to need him.

  He was absent until there was something he could heal.

  “Yeah. I’m good,” I said.

  “Then we need to talk about our next inventory run,” Mac said.

  “Two weeks from today, right?” I asked.

  “Yep,” Fox said. “Comin’ in by transfer truck.”

  “We’ll need some hands on deck in order to get it over with quickly. We won’t have much time to get it stocked before everyone’s gonna wanna go be with their families,” Snake said.

  What he meant was we needed as many people to help us unload before we got caught doing what we were doing. The quicker we could unload, the quicker we could line up people through the lodge in the back to get their shit. We fucking ran this joint like a line factory. Drugs came right through the front door to eliminate any sort of idea that we were hiding something and were taken right back into the lodge. Then, people drove up to the lodge, made it look like they were checking in their cars to get serviced, picked up their shit, then paid us on the spot.

  Then, we’d send that money right on over with Snake to the bar where he could process the payments, do the first clean, and work his magic from there for the next two days. All this meant we could get paid quicker, which meant we could divvy up funds necessary for our accounts, which meant we could talk about expanding our operations and possibly taking on another business.

  Right now, however, the trip to Redding, California was on everyone’s minds, and this shipment would allow us to pay off the rest of the trip so no one would have to pay shit out of pocket to go enjoy themselves.

  “That means the trip to Redding is on?” Talon asked.

  “Yep. Just confirmed the inventory shipment,” Mac said.

  “Good. Everyone’s excited to get back to Redding,” Talon said.

  “Don’t blame them,” I said. “Got a decent slice of pussy the last time we were there.”

  “I still can’t believe you didn’t take her number. She was drooling all over you,” Snake said.

  “It’s just pussy. I can get that shit anywhere,” I said.

  “Wow. A pompous statement. Didn’t think you had it in you anymore, Hawk,” Snake said.

  “He’ll always be hooked on Syd. You know that,” Fox said.

  He wasn’t wrong, but I tried to not to react. I wasn’t ready to tell them that Sydney had rolled up on my doorstep with a six-year-old daughter that was mine. I wasn’t ready to tell them that I was actually considering taking her in and keeping her here. I needed to respect Syd’s wishes on keeping Emery sheltered from this type of lifestyle. On the one hand, as I sat here talking about shipping in guns, I could see what she meant. But, Emery had an entire family that would be itching to protect her and love her.

  I felt Sydney was robbing her of that time and time again.

  Not only that, though. The group would be hounding my house trying to see her and induct her back into the group, and the only thing that would serve to do was give her an excuse to run again. She ran out of fear and grief the first time, so there wasn’t anything that signaled to me that she wouldn’t run again. If she felt an entire group of people would go against her wishes on how to raise her child, she’d flee and tell herself she was protecting Emery.

  And I wasn’t going to lose her a second time just because The Road Rebels didn’t understand how to fucking cool their jets.

  “We got the auto part crates coming in this time, right?” Fox asked.

  “Yep,” Mac said. “Which’ll make unloading everything a bit easier since those jugs aren’t quite as big.”

  All of our drugs were shipped in through auto part crates. With the mechanic shop, we had so many parts constantly coming in, that it just made sense to hide the drugs in the crates as well. We took precautions just in case one of our shipments ever got busted. They never came just sitting in the crates. The drugs were packed tightly within the frame of the crate. Our club dealing in cocaine and weed. We never got into the harder shit. It was too risky, and we wanted to draw some sort of moral line.

  None of our members were allowed to sample the product for their own use. My father had made that rule back in his time, and I was happy that Mac was enforcing it as harshly as my father did.

  And so far, it had kept us all clean.

  We knew dealing drugs was one of riskiest businesses we could divulge in as a club. Our supplier was associated with the Columbian drug cartel. If we fucked shit up, things would get serious real quick for us. But our club had voted it as our best business when my father was alive, and it has been that way ever since. It supplied us the money to keep everyone happy and operations moving.

  “You guys will be in charge of this shipment,” Mac said. “I’ve got some business to attend to around the time this shipment comes in.”

  “Any particular people you want us to enlist to help with it?” I asked.

  “Where the hell you goin’?” Snake asked.

  “Gotta be with my mother that weekend. Chemo and shit Friday. She’ll be sick as hell through the weekend,” Mac said.

  “Shit, I forgot about that. How’s she doin’?” Snake asked.

  “Holding up,” was all Mac offered.

  “You’re good. We’ll find some people to fill in, then we’ll fill you in on how it all went down that Monday,” I said.

  “It’ll have to be that Monday evening,” Talon said. “That’s when we all hit the road for Redding.”

  “Won’t be coming to that, either. In case something happens,” Mac said.

  “I’m staying behind on this one, too.”

  “Yeah, ‘cause you got the clap on the last one,” Fox said as he snickered.

  “Thanks for that reminder, dick,” I said.

  “Oh, you’re never living that one down. Not a fucking chance,” Snake said, chuckling.

  “Fuck you all,” I said.

  We worked together for a couple of hours to finish up the weekend overflow before I headed off to the grocery store. I hadn’t forgotten about the things I promised my daughter I’d pick up, and I thought about what I could possibly make us all for dinner. I walked up and down the aisles looking around, picking up shit like macaroni and cheese and stuff to make tacos with. I figured those two things would be a hit, and if they weren’t then, I could cook up the hamburger meat in burger form. I grabbed some last minute breakfast foods to shove in with the snacks I’d promised, then quickly checked out and stacked it all on the back of my bike. I’d been gone for about three hours now, and I didn’t want Sydney to start panicking.

  Plus, I was ready to get back and see my daughter.

  It made me nervous, being
away from them. With Sydney being on the run from the DEA, I knew she posed a threat to our entire operation. We’d be dodging DEA for years, and I wanted to keep it that way. If even one person followed her here and started studying me, they’d quickly get to know my movements. They’d follow me in order to learn more about Sydney, and in the process they would most certainly piece together what we were doing. I knew I needed to get her somewhere else… kick her and Emery out if I wanted to preserve the secrecy of the operation The Road Rebels had built.

  But I was torn. Emery was my daughter, and Sydney was the mother of my child. I couldn’t just abandon them when they needed me the most.

  I was torn between two families I wanted to dedicate myself to, and I didn’t really know what to do about it.

  I pulled out of the parking lot and allowed the wind to clear my mind. If I ever found my mind swirling, I knew I could always rely on a solo ride to clear my head. I would blast music in my ears while I weaved in and out of traffic. Sometimes I’d ride until I’d burned through an entire tank of gas, then simply camp for the night wherever I was before coming back the next day.

  Rides like that were therapeutic for me, like the drive I had ahead of me now to get home.

  But, I noticed something suspicious as I was driving down the highway. I bobbed and weaved through traffic as I kept my eyes in front of me, but every single time I looked in my rearview mirror, I saw it.

  A fucking black sedan that kept exactly one car between my motorcycle and its headlights.

  I turned down foreign roads and looped around on paths I never took. I pulled over to a gas station and filled up a tank that didn’t need filling as I watched the black sedan parked in the lot across the street. I watched them in my mirrors as I got back onto the road, speeding up as I hit the highway again. But just like I suspected, they kept right on my tails.

  And always with one fucking car between us.

  I might not be an educated man, but I sure as hell wasn’t born in a barn. I was being fucking followed.

  And if I was being followed, that meant someone knew Sydney was with me.

  Chapter 6

  Sydney

  I knew in the back of my mind that Hawk hadn’t gone to church. In all the years I’d lived alongside The Road Rebels, religion was not something they had ever delved into. It was probably a cover for something. Whatever it was they now did to get money. Back when I was running with them, they had the mechanic shop as well as the bar, but nothing else to my knowledge. Though they always tried to keep the women and children out of the loop with those kinds of things.

  At any rate, I knew he wasn’t at church, and he was trying to diminish my knowledge of his whereabouts by feeding me the lie.

  I wasn’t upset. I understood that’s what he was doing. I had rolled up onto his doorstep with his daughter, and now he felt it was his time to protect us. We were running from the DEA, so I knew I brought trouble to his doorstep with whatever operations The Road Rebels were running. He was taking a massive risk, taking both of us in. My risk of being followed was high, especially since the government was wanting to use the Iron Souls as an example of what happens to motorcycle gangs if they got caught.

  But when four hours rolled around, I was beginning to worry about where he was.

  I knew Hawk could take care of himself, I wasn’t worried about that. But with everything blowing up in our faces and me running to the only person I knew I could trust, it brought back a lot of memories.

  Memories I wanted to keep at bay.

  “Daddy… please keep your eyes open.”

  “I’m fine, princess. Just restin’ ‘em.”

  “You gotta keep your eyes trained on me, okay?”

  I could still feel the warmth of his blood as I gripped my hands tightly. Emery was playing in the backyard out in the sun as I sat on the porch and watched. I made a pot of coffee after Hawk left and was slowly working my way through it. Emery kept asking when ‘Mr. Hawk’ would be home, and it only reinforced the truth I had yet to tell her. My hands were shaking, and my arms were warm. I looked down and saw gallons of blood splattered along my clothes. I wiped at it, watching it soak into my clothes as my eyes widened with panic.

  And then it happened.

  My father’s voice in my ear again.

  “I’m gonna be all right, princess. Just hold yer chin up.”

  “Daddy, there’s so much blood.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to keep my tears at bay as bullets blew by my head. The wind picked up, rustling the few trees in the area as I tried to take some deep breaths. Bringing Emery to Hawk’s broke the only promise I ever made to my mother.

  The only promise I ever made to myself.

  “Hey, hey. John. Keep your eyes open, okay?”

  “Hawk. The blood. I-I-It won’t-”

  I could see Hawk peeling his coat off, tossing it to the side before he ripped his shirt over his head. I could remember counting the seconds it took for his white shirt to dye itself red in the life that dripped from my father’s bullet-riddled body. I sucked in a choppy breath through my lips, trying desperately to rid myself of the images as I latched on to Emery’s giggles.

  I promised my mother I wouldn’t bring her around this kind of life.

  I promised myself I’d raise her under better circumstances.

  “Daddy? Daddy! Open your fucking eyes! Look at me! No! Daddy! Please!”

  I could remember watching Hawk scurry to his father, shirtless and panting as Joe laid on the ground only feet from where we were crouching. Hawk’s father had been trying to get to his best friend. To make sure he was all right.

  To make sure my father was still breathing.

  I could remember sobbing into my father’s corpse. I could remember picking him up and holding him close to me. I could remember how heavy his body was. How it was limp in my arms as I cried into the bullet wound in his chest. I could remember how it felt to lean up against the barrels, cradling his twisted body into me as I learned for the first time what the term ‘dead weight’ really meant.

  My chest was heaving, and tears were dripping down my face. I opened my eyes and saw Emery staring at me oddly. She was holding weeds in her hand she had picked like flowers as her auburn hair blew around her face. She stared at me with her father’s eyes while she tried to figure out what was wrong, and immediately I got up and went inside.

  My legs felt like jello, and my heart was beating in my ears. I stumbled into the kitchen and dropped my coffee mug into the sink, bending my forehead over to lay on the cool metal surface. I tried to take deep breaths, willing my body to stop shaking. I knew Emery would follow me into the house, and the last thing I wanted to do was expose her to this side of me.

  The side of me that panicked.

  “Mommy?” she asked.

  “Yes, sweetheart?” I asked, breathlessly.

  “You okay?”

  “Oh yeah. Mommy’s fine. I’m just not feeling very well.”

  “Wanna cuddle on the couch?” she asked.

  Her question brought a smile to my face as I slowly raised my tear-stained gaze up to meet her beautiful green eyes.

  Holy hell, she looked more and more like him every single day.

  “I would love that,” I said.

  She ran to the couch and jumped on it, cutting on the television. I snuggled down next to her, holding her head to my chest while she spread out along my body. We flipped through until we landed on Aladdin, a squeal of delight peeling from her lips. I ran her fingertips through my hair as I kissed her forehead, feeling her settle into me before I pulled a blanket up to cover us both.

  I never told my mother about the Iron Souls. It would’ve killed her to know I had jumped back into the motorcycle life. But, I never brought Emery around them. They took care of me when I was pregnant and didn’t hound me about my decision to keep Emery away. They respected the fact that my mother wasn’t in agreement with how I had to live my life, and until I could get a place of my ow
n, it was just easier to keep my daughter away. A few didn’t like it. They had helped me through the bulk of my pregnancy and helped me recuperate a bit, but the majority of the group understood.

  Which was a relief to me, because The Road Rebels were not the same way.

  With them, you were either in or out. If you associated with anyone regularly in the group, there was an attempt to induct you. They were very family-oriented, but it was born out of a necessity to keep those who understood their secrets close. The Road Rebels, before John and Joe, had been run by a President who was paranoid about any of their whereabouts or movements getting out to rival gangs. Everything about the way they operated was to be kept close to the chest, and if someone wanted to associate with a member and know the in’s and out’s, they had to become part of the group.

  That’s why I left without ever looking back. My father spread the rumor that my mother had died so she could be free to live her life without being hounded, and I left without so much as a word back to anyone for the same reason. I knew they’d hound me if they knew where I was going, and I knew if they hounded me long enough I’d come back.

  Come back to the group that had gotten my father killed.

  It was the real reason why I didn’t attend his funeral… a decision that still rose guilty streams of bile up my throat when I thought about it.

  I swallowed hard as I closed my eyes.

  As I laid there, feeling Emery smiled against my skin, I cursed myself for coming here. For putting her right in the middle of this fucking life. If I knew what was good for us, I needed to take that black sedan as a signal. I needed to pack our shit up, put us back in my car, and keep on driving. Away from here. Away from The Road Rebels.

  Away from Hawk.

  But even with the promise I’d made for myself and even with the promise I’d made my mother, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t tear her away from her father any more than I could tear myself away from Hawk. It was a knee-jerk reaction, coming here and showing up, but one that wasn’t prompted by a random decision.