by EA Hunt
“Since I’m Prez, I can do anything I want,” Doughboy countered, already getting bored with this conversation. He didn’t care who Bash was, he was going to kill him and his tag-alongs, right here and right now. There was warm pussy at the club calling his name.
“See, that’s where I believe the communication has gone wrong,” Bash shook his head. “You believe you are all-powerful. That you can do no wrong. But you’ve been doing nothing but wrong. You make deals that benefit you more than they benefit the club or its members,” Bash accused. In the time he’d been moving the pieces he needed in order to take over what was rightfully his, he’d learned Doughboy was taking more of a cut from the club’s profits than he should. In fact, he was paying the men pennies when they should have been making dollars.
“This is my club, you little piss ant! You have no right to tell me what to do with it!” Doughboy hollered. Dropping his arms to his side, he opened and closed his fists. He was itching for a fight and this little shit was about to give him one.
“See, I can tell you anything I want,” Bash replied calmly, seeing from the corner of his eyes that his men were at the ready. Trigger and Danish were faster than the men before him. They knew to take out anyone Doughboy brought with him but to leave the fucker before him alone – Doughboy’s kill was his, and his alone. “You’ve run this club into the ground. At one point we used to be the most respected club around. Doing charity work. Hosting barbeques for kids to go back to school. Showing people that the biker club wasn’t the most horrible thing in their town. But you’ve changed that, haven’t you? You’ve made this town fearful. The hatred of anyone wearing the Black Crows cut is everywhere. People are spit on. Their children shunned. But not anymore. Now it’s time for a new start. With new leadership.”
“You?” Doughboy questioned, pointing at Bash. “You’re going to lead us now?” he mocked. “You couldn’t lead your way out of a paper bag!”
“That so?” Bash questioned. “Your deal with Pierre?”
No one knew about that deal. Pierre St. George was a new player in the arms game. He’d been looking for someone to help move shipments discreetly and quietly for the right amount of money. Doughboy had offered the man their services, with a generous cut for himself. “What –”
“I rearranged it,” Bash smirked. Pierre had been a contact of Danish’s when he was undercover. The man had figured out who Danish was and since he was there to take out a rival of Pierre’s, he’d decided to help. Pierre had been more than happy to take their call since he wanted to expand into the US market and what better way to do that than with ex-military personnel? Now, the deal not only benefited the club, it benefited everybody in the club – not just one. “Since I sent Pierre to you in the first place, he was eager to agree to my terms.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Doughboy demanded, squinting at Bash. Though Pierre wasn’t a player in the US he was a player internationally. How could someone like Bash know him well enough to send the man to the Black Crows?
“Just a man. Unlike you,” Bash replied. No man, no real man, would come to a grieving widow’s home three days after her husband’s death and offer his bed to her. With Melody’s refusal, Doughboy had had his whores and those loyal to him spread rumors around their small town. Saying Melody was sleeping with the men at the club. Had gotten pregnant, then ended it when she realized it wasn’t her dead husband’s. Bash’s favorite rumor had been the one where his mother had ordered his father killed so she could be with her lover and Bash’s true father, Doughboy. His mother’s parents had even gotten in on the bashing of his mother. Stating they knew she was doing ungodly things with the nasty biker who’d turned their sweet innocent daughter into a whore for the club. Thank God those people were dead.
As a result of those rumors, and her parents’ subtle corroboration, his mother had lost her beloved dance studio. No one wanted a murderess or club whore teaching their children how to dance. His father hadn’t even been dead a month before they’d been on the verge of losing everything. His father’s life insurance had been confiscated by the club. They’d sued, claiming his father hadn’t paid dues for years. And in lieu of placing a lien on the home his father had bought for cash for his mother, they’d taken the half-million-dollar policy and left them destitute. All because Doughboy was jealous that he couldn’t have what wasn’t his.
“I’m twice the man you wish you could be,” Doughboy countered, standing to full height.
“Doubtful,” Bash countered, wanting to laugh at the man who was attempting to seem taller than he actually was. At six-eight, Bash stood four inches over the man before him. Not only was he taller than the man before him, but he was also a little leaner. Doughboy was just that – dough. He sat on his ass most of the day or drank the day away in the club’s main room. And while Bash wasn’t lean like his friends, he was more in line with being husky. He’d always been this way, even when he was in the Marines. His mother had said that he took after his father – a compliment he'd always enjoyed hearing. “No man creeps into a woman’s home at night while her child is sleeping in the bed next to her and attempts to rape her,” Bash lifted his hand and rubbed it over his left shoulder.
“Bastion?!” Doughboy breathed.
With a nod, Bash listened happily as Trigger’s Beretta ended Sexy and Danish’s Glock put a hole in the middle of Nasty’s forehead. With them lying on the ground in a pool of their own blood, Bash pulled out his 9-millimeter from its holster and pointed it at Doughboy. “That night you broke my mother more than she already was. For months you’d had people spreading rumors about her. Causing the once bright light in her to dim to almost nothing. You tried to harm her because you couldn’t have her, but you didn’t count on me!” He stepped towards the man. “You didn’t count on her son waking and embedding the knife his father had given him in your shoulder,” Bash stopped a few inches from the man. “Nor did you count on me coming back to take what was mine and my family’s.”
After the attack, his mother had scooped him up and gone to his Uncle Rock. He’d hidden them until he could get them out of town. That was how they’d ended up in Mississippi. Their Uncle, a confirmed bachelor, had tried to support them. Had tried to come and see them. But Doughboy had had Sexy watching his Uncle, hoping he would lead them to Melody. His mother had lived in fear and hadn’t really left their home except for work. When he'd left for the Marines, he’d made sure she knew how to shoot the guns he’d put throughout the house. He’d even paid a neighbor to check on her every few days.
“Your mother was a whore,” Doughboy laughed. “And your father was a pussy. Following Melody around. Allowing her to do what she wanted. If she was my woman, I would have kept her ass in place. School and dancing with other men? That wouldn’t have even been an option.”
“Which was the reason she chose a man who supported her and what she wanted to do. A man who wanted her to be happy in life because it made him happy,” Bash told the other man.
“See? Pussy. One who thought I was going to allow him to take over my club,” Doughboy said, pounding his chest. “I knew he was plotting. Knew he wanted what was mine. But I wasn’t going to let it happen. He’d already taken my woman. Sullied her with his seed. I wasn’t about to let him take my club too.”
“You sound pathetic, you know that? Melody was never yours,” Bash told him. “I saw my parents together. Theirs was a solid love. One of mutual respect. One you should have respected but you didn’t. All you saw was what you couldn’t have. And because of that, you killed a love that most people only wish they could find and hold on to.” Cocking his gun, he placed it in the middle of Doughboy’s forehead.
“No one will follow you. My brothers will seek revenge,” he told Bash.
“I don’t think so,” Bash replied. “I’ve been planning this since before I walked through your door. I have the backing I need to take what was built by decent men to the next level.” He gave a little shrug of his shoulders. “Your time was over
when my father was alive, but you made a deal with the devil to keep moving. Now I’m here to not only collect for him but for those who loved me and my club. Black Crows is mine,” he said finally, before pulling the trigger and watching happily as a bullet with his parents’ names engraved on it passed through the man’s skull. “Rest and ride easy, Daddy and Momma,” Bash whispered before turning and facing his men. “Are the graves dug?” Bash questioned his VP, Trigger – though the man didn’t know it yet.
“Yeah. A few of the old-timers had their sons out here digging. Hoping you would take them on once everything was done,” Trigger replied, pulling his phone out from inside his cut.
Bash nodded as he holstered his gun and headed towards his bike. “Give them a call and have them out here in ten. Their potential probation started once they started digging,” he replied, straddling his bike. He turned towards his new SAA. Danish had taken the job immediately – always loving a good fight. “Wait for the new Prospects then tell me which of them are going to be a pain in my ass but worth the time and which ones are going to be friends but not brothers.”
“Will do,” Danish replied with a little salute.
Bash looked at Trigger. “Let’s finish this.” Trigger nodded and they were off.
Chapter One
Lining up his shot, Bash gave a little smirk as his pool cue hit the white ball and knocked the nine ball into the corner pocket, ending the game. Straightening, he leaned his cue against the table and reached over to grasp the money that was lying on the side of the table. “Nice doing business with you,” he told the young college guy who’d assumed he was too simple to win a game of pool. Giving the fuming man a small nod, Bash watched as the man turned and almost stomped away. Chuckling he picked up the glass of whiskey and downed the drink in one take. Replacing the glass, knowing it would be refilled without him asking, he looked around the bar. It was almost filled to the brim. He’d have to speak with the brother on the door and have him limit the number of people they allowed inside. The last thing he needed was a sheriff’s deputy out here, shutting them down. Or pretending to shut them down. The local LEOs were a joke – one he took full advantage of. Donating to the local women and children’s fund that was just a way for the people of the county to pay the local law enforcement, or city officials, to look the other way.
Walking around the table, he started to pull balls out of the pockets, looking to set up another game. Once the balls were racked, he lined up another shot as he kept an eye on those around the bar. It’d been the first thing he’d set up when he’d taken over the Black Crows. With several tv shows and movies emerging with bikers as the main focus, he’d thought it good to have the bar set up where he and his brothers could not only drink but could also give what he called ‘Looky Lous’ the biker experience. They’d wanted to be in the biker environment – maybe flirt or fuck a biker or a woman who was associated with the club. The Black Crows and the club whores made a decent living with that little side venture. Moving around the table, he picked up his drink and took a sip. The building they were standing in now not only allowed for the bar but also for several rooms to be placed in the back for the whores and their clientele. A brother was assigned to that section of the building to make sure everyone was on the same page and if one of the women said ‘no’ then the transaction was finished. If the clients still fought, they would disappear, much like Doughboy and his men.
Finishing his game and his drink, he leaned against the pool table watching the men and women enjoy themselves. The club wasn’t where it once was, but it was slowly getting there. The Prospects he’d taken on the night he’d ended Doughboy three years ago had given the fledgling club seven stronger members whose fathers were proud to stand next to their sons as they took the club forward. Everyone had been happy to see the old clubhouse burned to the ground, with several of Doughboy’s more adamant followers’ dead boys located in it, along with his bad memories. A new, larger clubhouse was then erected on the land Doughboy now rested in.
Bash’s eyes cut to the middle of the dance floor, watching as people danced on the man’s grave. Two days after Doughboy’s death, he’d purchased the land and had ground broken on the bar and clubhouse, which was connected to the bar, as well as several rooms for members to either live in permanently, crash when they drank too much or until they made other living arrangements. He’d even told the brothers they could purchase some of the acreage the club owned as their own.
He, himself, had purchased two acres at the back end of the property with his cut from the third run they’d done with Pierre. He didn’t have anything built on it yet, but he would, and it would be like what his family had lived in when he was younger. His father had purchased his mother an old Victorian cottage. It had had three bedrooms and one bath. His father had had another two bedrooms and bathrooms put in the house for all the siblings he’d wanted to give Bash. The siblings hadn’t come – though not for his parents’ lack of trying – but the home had been beautiful, and his mother had loved it. When he’d first arrived back in town, he’d gone to his childhood home – only to find it had been torn down by the city. He hadn’t looked into why. But he’d had his suspicions and those suspicions were now dead and buried.
“Bash.”
He ignored the woman as she slid her hand up his arm and across his chest. Claire had come to the club a year and a half ago. He’d assumed she was a Looky Lou, especially when she’d entered the club in a sundress that reached her knees and had her midnight black hair pulled into a ponytail high atop her head. Her tanned skin spoke of a woman who loved to soak up the sun and thought entering a biker club was just for curiosity. He’d been wrong. Claire had come back the following night and given one of the brothers a blow job in the corner of the bar. That brother had taken her back to one of the club rooms, emerging an hour later without Claire. Then another brother had gone into the room and so on. She seemed to enjoy it and the brothers seemed to enjoy her, so he hadn’t asked her to leave but had made her understand the rules of the life she was about to enter. And she’d seemed to understand it all until recently. In the last few months, she’d seemed to want to cling to him. Giving others the impression that she was going to be claimed by him. That he was going to make her his Old Lady.
Something that was the furthest thing from the truth. Yes, he’d been with her. Just once – two months ago, after several particularly good runs. He’d had three going at the same time. One with Pierre, that he’d led, another with a new cartel contact; whose father had done business with Bash’s father, that Trigger had run, and the last was an over-the-border run that Danish had handled. All had gone off without a hitch and once they were back at the club, they’d celebrated.
His woman of choice after several shots of Mexican tequila had been Claire. The following morning he’d let her know that this would never happen again. So why was she being so clingy? Why was she allowing others to make assumptions, because he sure wasn’t? Anytime he saw her coming his way, he'd go in the opposite direction. But when he was in the club or the bar she’d come to him and place her hand on his shoulder and just stand by him – even when he’d remove her hand from his person. She’d even come into his office, at the back of the bar, close the door and just stand and stare at him a few minutes before turning and leaving, adjusting her clothing as she went.
Bash looked at the woman who was rubbing her hands up and down his chest. She was dressed in a leather vest with her breasts sitting high and tight, leather pants clinging to her generous hips. To anyone else, she would be appealing. Would be the perfect woman. But to him, she wasn’t. Claire wasn’t Old Lady material. And it had nothing to do with the fact that she was a club whore. There was something about Claire that put him on edge. He couldn’t put his finger on it but there was something that told him Old Lady to the President of the Black Crows wasn’t the right role for the woman before him. “Claire, I believe we’ve talked about this,” he said as he stepped back, allowing her hands t
o fall from his person.
“Talked about what?” Claire cooed as she stepped forward. She smiled at Bash. He was the only man she wanted. She’d shunned any other man who’d come towards her. Bash had ruined her for any and every other man. She’d even removed her things from the room she’d claimed. She didn’t need it anymore. She was now staying in a room next to Bash’s at the clubhouse until they found a home together.
“Claire...” Bash sighed. He was trying to be a good guy here. Was trying not to embarrass the woman. But her obsession with him was getting out of hand. “I told you this wasn’t happening.”
“You’re President,” she pressed her body into the man. “This can happen if you say it can happen. And I know you want it to happen,” she breathed against his lips.
No, he didn’t. Bedding Claire had been the worst mistake of his life, and he’d had many. Placing his hands on her hips, he set her away from him. “I’m only going to say this once more, Claire,” he removed his hands from her person. “This,” he gestured towards himself and her, “is not going to happen,” he told her before turning away.
