by Nicole Fox
He sat with his feet up on the table in the war room, listening to music on low volume and thinking pleasant, mostly empty thoughts. His missions for tonight were out and running, he’d received updates from all his teams, and everything was going as expected. Spike’s weekly shipments were once again in shambles. He had grown used to this turmoil-free peace, so it was only fitting that when it shattered, it did so in a spectacular fashion.
Chopper heard Mickey before he saw her, quick feet pounding down the hallway outside the war room. “Is Chopper in there?” she yelled as she ran. Someone shouted back an affirmative, and then she was pounding on the door. “Chop, open up!”
He bolted out of his seat and let her in. Her copper hair was all over her face, her cheeks bright red from running. “What the fuck’s with you?” he asked affably, but his guard was already up. Part of him knew what she was going to say before she said it, so the news wasn’t a total shock.
“Spike’s gonna attack the compound!” she gasped. “I’m not sure when, but soon. You need to get Kelsey and the baby out of here.”
Chopper froze. The world stopped around him. He had imagined this day for months, even looked forward to it. In the beginning of his plans, it was to be the day of reckoning between Outlaws and Mongols, the final test of their strength. If Spike Lawler had the balls to show up and try to reclaim his stolen girl, Chopper and the Outlaws would be waiting. He had envisioned an all-out brawl, the kind with dirty tricks and a body count. And he’d known that his men would be happy to die for the cause of the Savage Outlaws, if they had to.
Until he met Kelsey, Chopper was willing to send them to their deaths. He was a man of brutal principles before she came into his life. He believed in himself, in his club, and in the downfall of the Mongols. Nothing else. The relationships he fostered were forged on tenuous ties. There was an understanding that loyalty was inextricably linked with revenge. Every time, violence followed violence. That was how the MCs lived. That was what they knew. Dog-eat-dog.
But now, Chopper had a girl with a baby in her belly that was there because of him. For the first time in his life, he had a legacy that extended to his flesh and blood, and he was struck by how much that really meant. The child was an extension of himself, a physical representation of his impact on the world that he felt compelled to nurture and raise as best he could. And because of that, Chopper was forced to change his whole perspective. He could no longer view death in the line of fire as nothing more than honorable sacrifice. He had other things that meant honor, other duties to fulfill. Not only that, but he was starting to realize that everyone else did too.
The face of the Savage Outlaws was changing, but its goals had not. By continuing to carry out his campaign against Spike Lawler unaltered, Chopper accidentally put his own haphazard little family directly in the line of fire. He saw everything he’d worked to build crumbling away into dust, and the vision filled him with white-hot rage.
He turned to Mickey, eyes blazing. “Do you know what they’re bringing?”
She shook her head, eyes wide. “No. Guns. Knives. I don’t know what else they’ve got. Knowing Spike, it could be anything.”
She was right. Spike had been silent for too long not to have something special up his sleeve. Chopper racked his brain for possibilities. Bombs? Fire? Gas? He put his hand on Mickey’s shoulder. “Spread the alarm. Tell everyone you see that we’re gonna try to head them off before they get here. If the Mongols reach the compound, we could lose everything.” He was well acquainted with their slash-and-burn style of conquest, and he didn’t hold much hope that a Spike Lawler bent on vengeance would be willing to spare anything.
Mickey nodded and took off like a shot, shouting his message at the top of her lungs. Chopper went the other way, bee-lining straight for his apartment. He found Kelsey puttering around in the kitchen, trying to decide what to make for lunch.
“Kels!” He called her name as he popped his head around the corner of the doorframe. She jumped.
“Oh my God, Jess, what?” She turned to stare at him reproachfully, but the look in his eye clued her in very quickly that something was wrong. “Are you okay?”
“We have to go. And by ‘we,’ I mean you.” He went into the bedroom and started throwing things into a suitcase from the closet. “Grab what you need right now. I don’t know how much time we have.”
Kelsey moved into high gear as fast as her pregnant body would let her. “What are you talking about?” she called. “What’s going on?”
“Spike’s coming,” Chopper answered tersely. “Soon.”
She didn’t ask any more questions. The stuff from the bathroom was dumped into the suitcase, then Chopper brought it and her out of the compound in record time. They peeled out of the lot with a squeal.
“I’m taking you to my house,” he said. “Spike doesn’t know where it is. You’ll be safe until this blows over.”
Kelsey gnawed on her lip. “What if it doesn’t blow over?” she asked.
“It will.” Chopper wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince. Mickey’s panic on delivering the message of Spike’s impending attack made him wonder if he had underestimated Lawler. If so, by how much? The thought of Kelsey and his baby in Spike’s clutches made Chopper’s stomach turn. He wouldn’t let that happen.
The house was an innocuous, two-story block with prim white siding and green-shuttered windows. All the shutters were drawn, as they had been for a long time. Chopper didn’t spend too many days in this house. He owned it outright, but its location remained a secret from any and all of his enemies. It was the closest thing he had to a safe house, under the circumstances.
He parked the car on the street and quickly trundled Kelsey and the suitcase up the driveway and through the side door. The interior was a little musty and cool, its corners heavily shadowed. Kelsey stood awkwardly at the kitchen table, glancing around. Chopper left the suitcase at the foot of the stairs and came to wrap his arms around her.
“It’s not much,” he said sheepishly. “I would have taken better care of it if I knew you’d be here so soon.” He kissed the top of her head. “The windows will have to stay closed up, just in case. But other than that, I don’t give a shit what you do in here. This place is gonna be yours when the baby comes.” He hesitated. “If you want it, I mean.”
Kelsey looked up at him. “Will you be here too?” she asked.
Chopper smiled. “If you want me.”
She nuzzled her head into his chest. “Always.”
He brought her things up to the master bedroom on the second floor and helped her get as comfortable as he could before he left to get back to the compound.
The whole way there, he worried about the woman he’d just left in his home. Did she like it? Did she feel safe? Was she scared? He didn’t know any of the answers, and not knowing was almost as bad as knowing that he had an undetermined amount of time to prepare a counterassault. If the Savage Outlaws were even five minutes too slow, it could cost them dearly. Kelsey had been told not to contact him unless it was an emergency, but he wished he could break his own rule just to make sure she was okay.
The compound was in a state of frenzy when Chopper reached it. He’d never seen it buzzing with so much excitement. Once again, he was thankful that his men thrived on conflict. This was like Christmas and a surprise party rolled into one for them. As he walked to the war room, he heard whoops and hollers over the rhythmic sounds of guns being loaded and cocked. If the Mongols didn’t land tonight, every member of the Savage Outlaws would be sleeping next to a pistol.
Within twenty minutes, every onsite member of the Outlaws was locked and loaded. The ones who finished early had gone around the perimeter, delivering extra weapons and ammunition to the guards on the compound border. All of the stolen drugs that had yet to be sold were consolidated in the deepest safe room Chopper had. He had checked every wall for weak spots, made sure all the possible breach points were covered. Once satisfied, he returned to the war room
and sat at the table, flanked by Red and Hoss.
Security patched the camera feeds through onto the TV, and the three of them sat there and watched the video in silence. Anticipation hung thick in the air, but nothing happened on any of the screens. Chopper tried to remember to take deep breaths. He didn’t think about Kelsey. He couldn’t think about her.
All he thought about was Spike.
There had been a day when Chopper and Spike had been civil, if not friendly. Back then, Chopper remembered a lot more neutral areas between clearly marked territories, and he even recalled more than a few pickup ball games — without any trace of threatening subtext. At the end of the day, the two clubs would retreat to their respective jurisdictions, and when the sun came up in the morning, the dance began again. It was like this for a few years. Even at the time, Chopper remembered thinking there was no way it could last.
He was right. Around the time he started Bike Out of Hell, Chopper noticed a vast increase in shady dealings happening on and around the Mongol territory. He suspected drugs, but he never said anything, because the Mongols had their business, and the Outlaws had theirs. As long as they stayed separate, Chopper couldn’t give a rat’s ass what went on under Spike Lawler’s roof. But things did not stay simple. They never did.
One morning in spring, when Chopper was twenty-five, a Mongol died on Outlaw property. Chopper himself had no clue what happened; he was miles away from the site of the killing, at the house where Kelsey was hidden now. All he knew was that when he got to the compound that day, he was greeted by a declaration of war stabbed into the front door and signed by Spike Lawler. Those early fights were brutal; they were the reason Chopper always had a doctor on call. Many a Savage Outlaw had been dragged back from the brink of death, and there were others who weren’t so lucky. Their numbers fluctuated wildly during that time, as skirmishes ebbed and swelled. Two days would go by without a casualty, then three, then a week, only for the record to be smashed by a string of six killings one right after the other. The whole city was walking on eggshells, waiting for the next deadly strike.
Over the years, a pattern developed. The Outlaws and the Mongols reestablished their relationship, now as solid rivals instead of just casually competing gangs. And as the drug traffic through the city increased, so did the potential for moneymaking. The lure of profit caused Spike Lawler’s well-documented greed to rear its ugly head, and just like that, the delicate balance was once again upset.
Lawler’s rough and merciless tactics blasted him to the top, rolling over lesser organizations as if they were merely insects. He’d already garnered a heavy nest egg from an early lucrative weed trade, so in terms of resources, the Mongols stood head and shoulders above everyone else. Chopper had to admit that Spike had him beat in business smarts.
But where Spike excelled in money management and investments, he failed in leadership. Chopper long believed that Spike’s place at the head of the Mongol table was secured more by his willingness to kill his own brothers than his ability to unify them behind him. More than once, rumors of a shift in Mongol power would reach the Outlaw stronghold only for the would-be challenger to disappear. Such barbaric tactics weren’t upheld in the tacit MC Code of Respect, but no one ever seemed to last long enough to challenge Spike in any meaningful way. And now, Spike Lawler was an institution more than anything, a fixture in the scene. The Mongols couldn’t get rid of him if they tried.
Which brought him back to the present day. The Outlaws were like the rowdy resistance, up against a rich and powerful king. It was time to rush out and end the dynasty so that a new family could be seated upon the throne.
Or at least, that was what time it would be if Spike and the boys ever decided to show. The screens remained so pervasively empty that Chopper considered the possibility that Mickey had been tricked into spreading false information. But why spread meaningless intel? If the Mongols weren’t coming, then Chopper’s men were safe, and so were Kelsey and the baby. He’d be more than happy to take that. At this point, were it not for the money, he’d be happy never to fight Spike Lawler again.
The sun crept downward into mid-afternoon position, and still Chopper and his two men saw nothing. Hoss had drifted off at one point, and Chopper just let him sleep, knowing the old bull was always good for a quick awakening. In another hour, they could feel the compound getting restless, a sentiment the leaders shared.
“Maybe he got cold feet,” Red said.
“Lawler? Nah. Betcha he had some new stupid idea and is held up trying to make it work without ruining everything else.” Hoss leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “Smart guy,” he muttered, “but a fuckin’ idiot.”
Chopper tended to agree. But he had a creeping sense of apprehension that was proving to be unshakeable. Mickey never let him down.
Something wasn’t right.
Chapter Ten
Kelsey
Without Chopper, the house felt surprisingly, almost deceptively normal. In a way, it reminded Kelsey of her life before the motorcycle clubs. She couldn’t believe how far away that all seemed now, as if it were some other girl who’d lived back then. She stood at the draped front window, staring idly at the thin crack of light between the curtains, one hand on her now-prominent belly.
Anxiety paced like a tiger in the back of her mind. Although she understood and appreciated Chopper’s decision to remove her from the compound pending a Mongol attack, it made her more nervous not to be at the center of things for the first time in months. She’d grown used to a constant stream of rumors, information, warnings, even threats — and suddenly, she was out of the loop. It worried her. Somehow, Chopper’s boys had become like family. To say nothing of Chopper himself. Kelsey wanted desperately to know that everything was all right.
She was nervous to be alone, if she was being completely honest with herself. Chopper had assured her again and again that no one knew where he lived outside of the compound, that his house was off the grid. She believed him — or at least, she wanted to. It was common knowledge that many of the Outlaws didn’t live in the compound full-time, and Chopper wasn’t exactly a new recruit. The odds of his home address remaining a total secret were pretty slim. Even if he didn’t think so, Kelsey’s reporter instincts told her otherwise. Information like that had a tendency to leak.
She checked the windows and doors of the house, testing each and every lock. She made sure all of the curtains were pulled tight. Then she went around and did it again. All the rooms were deadly silent in a way that felt heavy on her ears. As it turned out, Chopper Slater kept his home on a quiet residential street, far from the constant din of city traffic. Perching on the edge of the leather couch in his den, Kelsey wished she could hear something — anything. She couldn’t force herself to relax. When she closed her eyes, all she saw was Chopper’s face.
And a haunting vision of the compound going up in flames. Spike had always been a bit of a pyromaniac. How many times had he shown her his store of homemade Molotov cocktails, his crates of stolen fireworks? She’d never seen any “real” explosives on Mongol property, but she didn’t doubt for a second that Spike had them, if only to say he did. If he’d been waiting for an opportunity to take them for a spin, she was willing to bet that now would be the time.
The Outlaws would be totally helpless. Much as she loved them, the boys were hardly a bomb squad. Chopper made sure his men were each outfitted with Kevlar gear, but that single layer wasn’t much in the face of what Spike could be packing. Did they even have an answer? She didn’t know. The thought of Chopper and his men being caught so off guard made Kelsey’s stomach turn. She took a deep breath and leaned back into the sofa cushions, telling herself to calm down. This was all baseless conjecture off of Spike Lawler’s juvenile obsession with fire. He dealt drugs, not bombs. Still, a persistent little voice needled the back of her mind. His trades had been evolving at the time that she left, a trend that would’ve continued. By now, who was to say he wasn’t running everything u
nder the sun?
Kelsey frowned. She told herself to stop making mountains out of molehills. Her meaningless worries were doing nothing to help the situation at hand — as it was, nothing she did could have any use at all. She just had to sit there and wait, reminding herself that she was carrying a baby, that she had to think with a mother’s fierce sense of protection.
For Kelsey, who’d stopped dreaming of anything but sweet revenge after Hannah’s death, it was easier said than done. She spent a lot of time avoiding the topic of her impending motherhood, even as her pregnancy grew more and more pronounced. Beyond going to the hospital, she barely had a plan. Her doctor’s appointments were up to date, but they always felt like going through the motions; she’d smile, nod her head, hold Chopper’s hand. Their child, invisible except on the ultrasounds, hardly felt real.
