by Ryan Michele
About six months ago, Leah signed up for an internet dating website. She had high hopes of meeting someone, but instead, she gets propositioned with some crazy stuff.
“Alright. What has love chosen for you today?”
“Oh shit, there’s like, seven messages.”
I stare up at the ceiling, her clicking of the keys the only sound in the room. “You’re hot, what do you expect?”
She is. Long, dark hair, a kickass body, and stunning brown eyes. Why she wants to look for love on a dating site is beyond me. To each their own. I’m here for moral support and the laughs.
“Oh, my God!” Her hand flies over her mouth, and I sit up instantly, looking at the screen.
An image stares back at me. It takes me a moment to digest it. A woman is lying on her back, legs up, knees on either side of her face, ass in the air. A man is sitting on top of her, legs spread while reading the paper, both naked. It looks like he’s taking a shit on her.
“What the hell is this?”
“Apparently, this is the ‘butter churner.’ It’s a sexual position this guy wants to do to me.”
I burst out laughing, unable to hold it in. It racks my body so hard that I shake uncontrollably. “What! He wants to shit on you and read the paper?”
She scrolls down through his message. “He says he likes having his women sit like this. His dick inside her, while he sits and either reads the paper or watches television.”
“Like a damn chair? Don’t they make some kind of blowup doll or something for that?”
“Hell if I know. Wouldn’t it, like, break a guy’s dick to just sit in that position? I mean, he’d have to, like, push his dick, like, straight down. How is that even comfortable?”
Laughter bubbles in the room, bouncing off the walls and echoing back. Tears stream from my eyes, and my stomach clenches.
“How does this relate to a butter churner? Where would that name even come from?”
Leah hiccups her laugh. “I don’t know. Maybe he likes to circle his hips or move up and down. Oh, my God, this is just nuts.”
“So, he’s out.”
“Ya think?”
I fall back on the bed. “What else did ya get?”
She clicks around. “A marriage proposal and five date requests. Oh, Lord …”
“What now?”
She brings the laptop over to me and sets it on my belly. I read: I want you to whip me and spank me. Make me drink your piss. I’m your slave; you’re my master. This guy didn’t send a picture, thank goodness, but his profile picture is so fake.
“Leah, that guy is a model. I’ve seen him in magazines. There’s no way this is legit. Someone is yanking your chain.”
She lies down beside me and looks at the picture. “No way.”
“Lord, the things we do for entertainment. You’re not going on any of those.”
“I know. It sucks. Where are the good men?”
“Damned if I know.”
Bang … Bang.
My eyes flutter open at the sound. I look around, noting I’m in my small living room, lying on the couch. I must’ve fallen asleep. Naps are my friend, not that I get a lot of them.
“Bristyl! Open up,” Stone’s voice comes through the door.
Rolling off the couch with a groan, I move toward the door and open it.
My brother breezes right in, almost knocking me over in the process. Come on in.
He enters the kitchen and opens my refrigerator, his head buried inside of it.
“Sure, Stone, eat whatever you’d like. Drink whatever you’d like.”
“Shut it,” he says back, pulling out a small bit of a sandwich I didn’t eat a few days ago and chomping on it.
A smile plays on my lips, remembering I should have thrown it away because I dropped the sandwich on the ground. Serves him right.
“You bellowed?” I ask, resting my hip on the side counter.
My kitchen is small. It has the necessities—fridge, stove, sink, and microwave—but it’s about the size of a postage stamp. My father redid the countertops and put in new cabinets about three years ago, and I’ve kept it in really good shape. My cooking skill suck, so it’s golden for me.
“We got a run. We’ll be gone for a few days,” he tells me.
I shrug. “And?” This isn’t something new. My father and several of the guys go out on runs all the time. I don’t know what they do on them, and I don’t want to know. As long as they come home in one piece, that’s all I give a shit about.
“Most of us are going, including Hunter, Racer, Dad and me.”
This does come as a bit of a shock. Usually, one or two of my brothers stay behind. Someone is always at the clubhouse or garage when I’m there for work. It’s a bit unusual, but it’s their club and how they run it. I can’t say it doesn’t give me a twinge of anxiety, though, and I’m not sure why. The air in the club has been different these past few weeks, and I wish I knew the reason. It must just be me.
“Okay …?” I draw out, waiting for more of this puzzle to come together.
He shoves the sandwich into his mouth, then grabs a soda I didn’t see him pull out, popping the top and taking a swig. He’s tall, go figure. Unlike the rest of us, Stone has dark hair, almost black. He wears it long on the top and shaved on the sides. He has a slight beard and hazel eyes. They aren’t blue or green, but both. When I was younger, I used to hope I could have his eyes. Then reality kicked in.
“You’re on storage and laundromat duty.”
“Stone, I got this. I do it every day.”
“But one of us goes and fixes whatever’s wrong. You either need to call in one of our people or take a prospect with you if something happens.”
“Got it.”
No way in hell I’m calling a prospect to go with me to fix something. Normal things that happen are the bill validator jams up or someone can’t get a machine to work. It’s nothing I can’t handle. Yes, it’s nice to call one of my brothers and have them do it, but I’m more than capable. Needing a babysitter is not on my agenda.
“Just try not to burn it down.”
I hit him on his shoulder. “I only burned a trailer, and it wasn’t my fault!” I charge back with a smile in my tone. “That old thing needed to go, anyway.”
“Bristyl, you can’t burn a man’s camper on storage unit property. At least take it out in the back field.”
“I didn’t mean to.” I really didn’t. Its propane tank had a leak, and I didn’t know.
I had just tried starting to smoke. I lit a cigarette and boom. Luckily, I wasn’t hurt. Thrown back and hit my head, but not hurt. That was also the last smoke I put between my lips.
“Mean to or not, no fires.”
“No fires,” I repeat. “I got this, Stone. You don’t need to worry.”
He steps closer and wraps his arm around me before pulling me to him. I inhale the leather, smoke, and spice that is my brother. The scent is a comfort. His lips touch the top of my head, adding to that warm feeling.
“I’ll always worry about you … until I take my fuckin’ dying breath.”
I squeeze him a little bit harder. “I know, but you gotta let me loose a bit.”
“Never.” He gives me another kiss then steps back. “Alright, you need anything, you can call us. We won’t be able to come back, though. We’ll be home in two days.”
“Yes, kemosabe.”
“Smartass,” he grumbles, going toward the door. Gotta love my brother. “And, Bristyl, stay aware,” he warns before stepping through and taking off.
The warning isn’t unusual, but the way he said it is. Stay aware seems like there’s an actual threat, but no one has said anything.
It must be in my head.
Chapter Six
The wind in my hair and heat on my skin is freeing. It’s life. Being on a bike, not surrounded by metal, is like floating on air. The high from riding is something I hope never dies. Riding with my club, my family, it’s unexplainable. A brot
her flanking me to the front, the side, and the rear, we move as if we are one. And we are. There isn’t a thing I wouldn’t do for any of these men, and them for me.
We’ve been riding for the past four hours with a few stops along the way. Now we are almost at our first destination—a meeting with a client who wants us to transport for him.
Normally, Ravage is up for anything, but this time, it’s coke. We don’t deal in coke. Never have. That shit is fierce. Weed, we’re good with. But since most states have legalized it and people can grow the shit in their basement, that leaves little to transport. We kept to guns because they are lucrative and in demand.
Coke is in demand, too, but something we just haven’t done. The guy, Tommy Bean, wants a sit down, and we voted to do it at church. Pops thought it would be good to keep relations because we do supply Tommy with guns. Rhys has some issues, not giving a flying fuck about biker relations. He says he’s not a fucking PR person.
He’s right, but times are changing. Our word is and always has been our bond. Now we’ve expanded so much that we need to keep everyone on point. Knowledge is power, and we need to know exactly what Tommy wants to do with his product and where he wants it to go. The main goal in this meeting is to get information and smooth shit over when we decline.
While I’m all for keeping everyone on an even keel, I’m there with Rhys. If they come at us and don’t back down, we’ll do what we have to do to extinguish it.
I’m not dealing with anyone trying to get us to do anything. We are Ravage—we do what we want, when we want. If we have to take out the whole crew, so be it. It’ll be in Tommy’s best interest to remember that.
Pops leads the pack, with Becs, Dagger, GT, Rhys, my father, Tug, Breaker, and Buzz right behind him. Dagger has been with the club since my great-grandfather Striker was around. He’s a burly man with long hair he braids down his back and always has a red, white, and blue bandana around his head. The stories of him back in the day paint him as a man who played with a lot of pussy. Now, his ol’ lady, Mearna, would gut him, and he knows it.
Tug is another brother who joined back when Buzz and Breaker did. His ol’ lady, Blaze, used to strip at X, but now works side by side with my mother.
After them are Green, Ryker, Derek, Jacks, and myself.
We are one. Pops turns his bike, we all do. We are a pack. A family. We follow each move Pops makes, keeping our eyes open to everything around us. Observation is key, and knowing our surroundings at all times is a must.
Back in the day, we’d have someone staying back at the clubhouse to take care of the women and children. Now, Ravage doesn’t have any threats or reason for such protection. That doesn’t mean we left them alone. Four prospects are at the clubhouse, just in case.
We follow Pops into the parking lot of a place called Schooners Bar, off the main highway. I take note of the five bikes in the parking lot, three trucks, and two cars. There’s wide open space around the blue tinted block building; therefore, no surprises.
Tug and Buzz break off, and Ryker follows them. They’re going around the building to make sure it’s secure. We may not have a threat, but we take our safety very seriously.
Surprisingly, none of the ol’ ladies wanted to come with us on this trip. It shocked me because my mother is always up for an adventure, but she said she had shit to deal with at X.
Pops parks his bike, and we follow suit, making a row of steel machines in front of the bar. I reach around my back and make sure my gun is holstered. Even with conceal and carry, it’s not smart for a man with a cut on his back to be found with a gun, but I refuse to be without. The metal has been checked and is totally clean, just in case.
“Let’s do this. Florida is calling,” Pops says after Rhys gives him the all-clear, strolling into the place. He’s as confident as ever, but the small twitch in his cheek is leading me more to my conclusion that he’s about done.
The inside is dark, so I remove my shades to see clearly. It’s a typical dive bar that looks like it should have been shut down years ago, but somehow, they keep it afloat. There’s a large bar to the left, and a wide-open space to the right. There are two doors. One has a window and looks like it leads to the kitchen area. The other door, I assume, is a bathroom. I’ve learned never to assume. Find out facts. Facts, you can deal with. Assumptions, you can’t.
Tommy sits in the corner of the bar. His hair has a comb-over that looks like it’s been fucking teased by a brush. It seems he’s having a hard time with getting older and losing his hair. Three other men sit around him. Sizing them up, they have bulk, but numbers alone have us on top.
“Tommy,” Pops greets, strolling up to the table.
Tommy rises and holds out his hand. “Pops and the Ravage boys.”
His other men stand, and we all shake.
“Nice of ya ta stop by,” Tommy says.
With the vehicles in the lot, I clock there are ten, maybe more, if they had passengers. A lone bartender is behind the bar so that would be five people. Two older men sit at poker machines, slipping coins into the slot. That’s seven. There are at least three more.
I grab my father’s attention and angle my head to the left.
“Just gonna check things out,” Pops says when Tommy looks over at me as I move to the kitchen door.
“What, don’t trust me?” he says on a laugh.
“Only men I trust are the ones at my back,” Pops replies as I make my way to the door with the window.
Peering in, I see one older male with a pot belly stirring something in a pot. That leaves two guys unaccounted for.
Entering the space, the older man’s head pops up. “Can I help you?”
“Who else is back here with you?”
“Who the fuck are you?” he retorts.
Not wanting to pull my gun out just yet, I say, “I’m just checkin’ shit out. Need to know if anyone’s back here with you.”
“And I don’t give a fuck.”
Having enough of the man’s shit—hell, I gave him more chances than most of the guys would—I pull out my gun and point it at him. “See this, motherfucker? Tell me who’s back here with you.”
He drops the ladle into the pot and puts his hands up in the air. “Now, now, calm down.”
“Don’t fuckin’ tell me what I don’t want to hear. Answer the damn question.”
“Brother?” I hear Ryker behind me as he steps into the room. “Everything okay in here?”
“We’ve got at least two people unaccounted for, judging from the vehicles outside. Trying to get Boiler Bob here to tell me if there’s anyone back here, but I guess we’re gonna have to check the coolers.”
“You don’t need to do that,” Boiler Bob says, looking at the deep freezer that could totally have a person inside of it. What the ever-loving fuck?
Ryker steps toward the freezer while I keep my eye on the guy. Gun extended, he opens the freezer.
I glance at him.
“Nothing.”
“There’s nobody in here. Don’t know why you’ve come in here with all the metal. If you saw an old black four-by-four, that’s Willard’s. His wife had to come get his drunk-ass and take him home. There’s no one back here.”
“Why the fuck couldn’t you have just said that, asshole?”
Ryker pulls out some cheese and starts eating it. He shrugs. “I’m fuckin’ hungry.”
“There’s one left.” The gun is aimed directly at Boiler Bob’s head.
“That’s probably Sally’s car. A beat-up Honda Civic? It breaks down all the damn time, I swear. She uses this place for storage. She’s one of the waitresses on the weekend,” he responds.
Thinking back to the cars, he’s right. One of them was a piece of shit Civic that needs serious help.
“Thanks.”
Entering the main room, Ryker goes to check the bathroom, finding no one.
Pops and Tommy are in discussions with Becs, GT, Rhys, Dagger, and Tug, sitting in chairs, while everyone else is eit
her behind them or at the bar.
Me, I order a damn beer and breathe for a moment, keeping my ear on the conversation as I sit next to Ryker, who seems to be doing the same thing. Being in the know is a must in this business.
“Nah, Tommy, we’re not runnin’. You need your supply from us, you give us a call and we’ll get what you need,” Pops says calmly, but there’s tension in his voice, one that I’ve only heard a few times in the last couple of months.
The worry hits me like a weight in my gut. It’s getting closer to time.
“It’s only a few runs. Five tops to get it where it needs to be,” Tommy tries, his guys looking back and forth between him and Pops.
“Told ya no, and I don’t say what I don’t mean.”
The air becomes thick with tension.
Abandoning my beer, both Ryker and I move to stand behind Pops with our brothers. If something is going to happen, we’re prepared. Always prepared.
“We were really hopin’ to come to an agreement here,” Tommy says, scratching his cheek.
My eyes burn into the surroundings, checking every single person. Tommy’s little gesture could be a signal for a gun raid, bomb explosion—hell, just about anything at this point.
There’s nothing out of order.
“You want to talk our supply, we can talk. Other than that, Tommy, Ravage has lines. That one, we don’t cross.”
“Since when? I remember a time when Ravage did anything and everything,” Tommy fires back.
“Don’t need to give you any explanation. The answer is no. You gonna let this rest, or we gonna take care of this shit right here and now?”
Tommy’s eyes come to each one of us who are supporting and standing by our president with everything we got. No way in hell those three will make it out of here alive. It’ll be a bitch to clean up with the innocents around, but we’ll make it work.
Pops clears his throat obviously having enough of his time wasted.
When Tommy’s focus goes back to Pops, he sighs deeply. “Fine, no mess. I’ll find someone else, but you gotta know …” Tommy leans forward on his forearms. “You bastards are some of the best to transport this shit. You’d make a fuckin’ killing.”
