Quieting the Biker's Rage

by Piper Davenport

  “The Spiders are planning on expanding their operation from coast to coast, but they need to take Portland first,” Doc explained. “The Saints need more soldiers on the streets, and we need their protection. Without them, we’re vulnerable.”

  “It still feels like we’re caught in the middle of some shit we didn’t start.”

  “Sounds like life to me,” Doc replied.

  “So, what’s our next move?” I asked.

  “Our next move is to lay low and keep close tabs on our families. I want everyone paired up when you’re out, no exceptions. If you see a member of the Spiders, or come across anything out of the ordinary, you report it to me directly.”

  “That’s it?” I snapped.

  “What are you looking for, Doom?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe a plan for going after the guys that tried to blow up my family.”

  The words “my family” had never felt so heavy on my lips. My heart was burdened with my love for Lyric and our child and my desire to protect them.

  “I know how you feel, Doom,” Doc said.

  “You have no idea how I feel, and I have no intention of laying low, while the Spiders that tried to take out the people I love are crawling the streets.”

  I stood and walked out, slamming the door behind me.

  * * *

  Lyric

  The bed dipped and I craned my neck as Doom stretched out beside me. “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “You look like someone killed your puppy, John Wick.”

  “Someone tried to kill my woman,” he growled.

  “Well, there is that.” I sighed. “How’s Rabbit?”

  “He’s gonna have some rehab to deal with in the coming months, but he’ll be okay.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, baby. I promise.”

  I relaxed and pressed my back against his front, snuggling closer.

  He slid his hand across my waist, palming my belly. “I should never have let you go over there.”

  “Um, hello, you don’t let me go anywhere. I’m an adult and it’s my house. I go where I want to go,” I pointed out.

  “Lyric, don’t get all alpha female on me right now. It wasn’t safe, I knew it, and I should have gone with my gut.”

  “I can’t have someone dictate my life, Lin—”

  “Jesus Christ, woman, stop. I’m gonna fuckin’ dictate it until I know you’re safe, hear?”

  I sighed. “Okay, honey, I hear you. I know this freaked you out, but I’m okay. You’re okay. My house…not so much.”

  “Dad’ll take care of it,” he promised. “How’s our little blip?”

  “He’s fine, honey.”

  “It wasn’t Garrett.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “No. Dalton’s been working behind the scenes to get him back inside. He was re-arrested two days ago. And this time, his grandma’s been indicted on several charges as well, so she’s being held without bond. There’s been no chatter about her hiring anyone to get to you, but there is evidence of a another kind. This was a hit from a rival club.”

  I gasped, rolling to face him. “What kind of rival club?”

  “That I can’t go into yet.”

  I stroked his beard. “Baby, how bad is this?”

  “It’s bad, Angel.”

  “Am I going to be able to go back to work?”

  “Not right away. Need you to work from here for a couple of weeks.”

  “What about the other women?”

  “I’m not responsible for the other women.”

  I bit my lip. “Well, that’s gonna go over well with Liv, I’m sure,” I deadpanned.

  “Which is why Doc gets paid the big bucks.”

  “I just don’t understand why they’d nuke my house.”

  “They’ve been followin’ us. They can’t touch the compound and they know we come here every week, so they’ve been bidin’ their time. But families should be off-limits.”

  “You should be off-limits, too, honey,” I pointed out.

  “If only it were that easy.”

  “Who’s doing this?”

  “Not something you need to worry about, Lyric. Put it out of your mind.”

  Oh, how I loved it when he treated me like the little woman, said me, never.

  I rolled my eyes. “Do I have you for the rest of the night? Can we make some food and watch a movie or something? I really need you close.”

  He kissed me gently. “Yeah, Angel. You got me.”

  * * *

  Two days later, I had information Doom would rather I not have sealed in a manila envelope and hidden behind the sofa in my office.

  I’d had Shawn do some digging for me and I now had information that could prove useful, provided I could sneak out of my prison without being detected. For the moment, however, I was starving and I was in the mood for bacon. Probably because I could smell it wafting from the kitchen.

  “I did not agree to be locked up for a week, Tristan!” Olivia bellowed as I made my way toward the aroma.

  “Don’t give a fuck,” Doc retorted.

  “I’m going to Clementine’s, then.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “Tris—”

  “You’re stayin’ here until the threat’s eliminated, Olivia. End of story. You wanna argue more about it, we can do that later. I gotta go.”

  I heard a feminine screech, then a loud crash and Doc bellowing, “Goddammit, woman!”

  I rushed into the room to find a cast iron skillet on the floor, bacon and grease all over the tile, and a huge divot in the wall.

  “What the fuck?” Doc demanded.

  “I brought the bacon and fried it up in the pan,” she screeched.

  “You could have hit me!” Doc accused.

  “Please. I pulled my punch. If I’d wanted to hit you, I would have,” Olivia snapped. “You know how good my aim is.”

  Doc put his hand out. “Lyric, don’t move. You might slip on the grease.”

  “Well, that was a waste of perfectly good bacon,” I pointed out, but stayed where I was. The last thing I needed was another broken leg.

  “Don’t encourage her,” Doc growled.

  “I want out of this fucking barn, Tristan,” Olivia seethed.

  Doc shook his head. “One week, Liv.”

  “Go, Doc,” I said. “We’ll clean this up.”

  He scowled at Liv, but still managed to kiss her quickly, then walked out the door.

  “Fucking pain in my ass,” she hissed as she started to clean up the mess.

  “At the risk of being nosy, do you think you might be a little hard on Doc?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Some days I feel like I’m in quicksand, you know? I have no idea what the fuck that man wants from me. We aren’t even a couple. We fuck occasionally, we have no deep feelings for one another, but he insists on whisking me away whenever there’s some kind of threat.”

  I was pretty sure the fact they didn’t have deep feelings for one another was a lie, but I wasn’t going to say that out loud…she was still holding the skillet.

  “Can you get us out of here?” I asked, switching subjects.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Secretly. Can you find a way to get us out of here clandestinely?”

  She dumped the skillet in the sink and faced me. “Why?”

  “Not here.”

  She smiled slowly, evilly, and cocked her head. “Well, well, Lyric Morgan, what did you have in mind?”

  We cleaned up the grease and headed to my office.

  * * *

  It took two days to put our plan into motion and by the time we got Doc, Doom, and Alamo out of the compound, we were both nervous wrecks. Me more than Olivia. I got the impression Olivia was a pro at subterfuge…me, not so much. Jasmine was at her salon with her best friend, Parker, under heavy guard. Dash and Badger were out on a run for one of the bars the club owned, and Quin and Willow were being watched by Gator and
Milky here at the compound.

  Olivia and I were technically being watched as well, however, our girls were going to distract them with questions about the war or something Gator and Milky would argue over, so that we could skedaddle and head to our rendezvous spot as soon as feasibly possible.

  “Jazz is ready,” Olivia said.

  “Good.”

  “Did you turn off your phone?” Olivia whispered.

  “Not yet,” I said. “If Doom sees it’s off, he’ll investigate why. I’ll wait until we’re on the road.”

  “He’s going to freak the fuck out.”

  “He won’t if this works.”

  “Even if it works, he’s going to freak the fuck out.”

  I sighed. She was right. He would. But the end was going to justify the means for me, and right now, that’s all that mattered.

  “Eagle one to Iron Mountain, the coast is clear,” Willow whispered.

  “Who the fuck are you calling a mountain?” Olivia ground out.

  “Well, you’re tall and you’re fierce, ergo…mountain.”

  “Jesus, you’re weird,” Olivia said. “Cute and I love the hell out of you, but you’re fucking weird.”

  Willow grinned and handed me her keys. “Go before Gator figures out you’re gone.”

  We headed out to Willow’s car which was parked around the corner, and drove into downtown Savannah. Jasmine was getting ready for a soft launch of a new salon and was using the space as a ruse for our plan, so we parked in the back where we wouldn’t be seen from the road.

  Turning off the car, I faced Olivia. “Ready?”

  “Born ready.”

  I nodded, grabbed my bag, and we headed inside. Jasmine was waiting and raised her finger to her lips before leading us to the back where the treatment rooms were. She’d obviously managed to ditch her ‘detail.’

  “Parker’s ready when you are,” she whispered.

  “Do it,” I instructed.

  Like a well-choreographed routine, I heard two feminine screams, a few crashes, then some rather creative cursing before Tammy, old lady to Sugar Bear, Savannah Chapter President of the Spiders was walked out, fully naked, with her hands zip-tied behind her back, closely followed by Lulu, wearing only panties and a look of total confusion. Olivia had a strong hold on Tammy, while Parker gripped Lulu.

  “Goddammit,” Tammy snapped. “I knew all this was too good to be true.”

  “What?” Lulu said.

  “That’s Lyric. Doom’s woman.” Tammy nodded to Jasmine. “And that’s Alamo’s bitch. Fuck, I shoulda known. The freebies were a trick to get us here.”

  Jasmine smiled. “Yeah. Sorry, not sorry.”

  “Right. Well, I wasn’t expecting you to be so, um, naked. Can we get them some robes?” I asked Jasmine.

  “I’m not ashamed of my body,” Tammy declared. “Are you sayin’ I should be ashamed of my body?”

  “No, not at all,” I rushed to say.

  Crap, this was not going well. I needed to get the upper hand back.

  “She’s been doing that polenta stuff,” Lulu said.

  “Pilates,” Tammy corrected.

  “Well, you look great,” I said, diverting my eyes.

  “What do you want, bitch?” Tammy snapped.

  “I was hoping we could make peace.”

  “Why the fuck would we make peace with you?”

  “To be nice?” I asked, hopefully.

  Tammy let out an inelegant snort. “Make your demand, bitch, so we can get the fuck outta here. Our men are gonna love this.” She leaned forward. “Specifically, making each one of you pay. Slowly.”

  “Look, there must be some common ground here,” I said. “You’ve got kids—”

  “You leave my kids out of this.”

  “I’d love to leave your kids out of this, Tammy, but the drone that dropped the pipe bomb on my house didn’t give me the same consideration.”

  That got her attention, so I pressed on.

  “Your man’s club dropped a bomb on my house. On. My. House. It landed inches from the nursery. Inches, Tammy. Inches from where my child is going to sleep.” I laid my hand on my still flat belly. “And if I’d been standing by the window, it could have killed me and my unborn child. Are you alright with that? If my man did that to one of you, would you be okay with it? We have to figure out a way to make our men stop the war.”

  She squared her shoulders but didn’t look at me.

  “We are level-headed, smart women. There is no reason why we can’t come to some kind of agreement that will be beneficial to all of us.”

  “Sugar don’t take orders from no woman,” Lulu pointed out.

  “Shut up, Lu,” Tammy snapped.

  “Look, maybe we can’t get them to stop fighting amongst themselves, but we have the power of the pussy,” Olivia pointed out. “We have some influence.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Can we agree to keep the fighting on neutral ground, because, I swear to god, if someone comes after my home again, I’m going to lose my religion.”

  “And what’s in it for us if we agree to this Geneva Cuntvention?” Tammy demanded.

  “The peace of mind that our kids can walk to the bus stop without being killed by a pipe bomb?” I said.

  Tammy smirked. “I don’t worry about that shit.”

  “I know,” I said. “Because our men don’t go around bombing innocent people!”

  Tammy shrugged and I seriously wanted to smack her skanky face.

  “Your little brother’s name is Joseph Fines, right?”

  She glared at me.

  “And he’s in county awaiting trial, right?” I asked.

  “What about it?”

  “He pulled Stein as his public defender, correct?”

  Tammy’s face paled and I knew I’d hit a nerve. “Yeah.”

  “I take it the Spiders aren’t getting involved? Otherwise, why would they leave him to the fates of a public defender. Especially one with such a low win rate.”

  She scowled.

  “Right. Here’s the deal. You get your men to back the fuck off, and I’ll represent him.”

  My girls gasped and Jasmine even tried to argue, but I held my hand up and shook my head.

  “I want peace, Jazz.”

  “At what cost?” she challenged. “Our men aren’t going to accept you representing a Spider.”

  “Is your brother a Spider, Tammy?”

  She shook her head.

  “He’s not a Spider, Jazz. Problem solved.”

  “Jesus Christ, chickie, balls of steel,” Olivia said.

  “Do you agree, Tammy?” I pressed.

  Tammy scowled at me for several tense seconds before nodding.

  “Untie them,” I said, and Parker and Olivia released them.

  They dressed and scurried out of the salon and I slid down the wall onto the floor and dropped my head to my knees.

  What the hell did I just do?

  Lyric

  “UM, LIV, LYRIC, you need to get back to the compound,” Jasmine said, waving her phone in the air. “Willow said Doom and Doc are on their way back and they’re pissed.”

  “What are the odds we’ll beat them back?” I asked.

  “Unlikely,” Olivia said. “Come on. I’ll drive.”

  I followed her toward the foyer and just as we hit the doors, Alamo came barreling in.

  “Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” he growled. “Jesus Christ.” He pulled his phone out and put it to his ear. “Doc, they’re here. Yeah. Yeah. No problem.” He slid his phone back in his pocket and glared at us. “Back inside.”

  I slid my bag over my shoulder. “We should—”

  “Get the fuck back inside,” Alamo demanded.

  About ten minutes later, the roar of Harley pipes rumbled outside and my stomach churned as my fate drew closer. I had no idea how much, if anything, I was going to tell Doom tonight. I knew I’d have to tell him something eventually, but right now, I just wanted to curl up beside him a
nd have him hold me.

  Unfortunately, I’d put myself in a potentially dangerous situation, so I was pretty sure snuggling and soothing words of comfort weren’t going to be on the table for me.

  Doom walked in, followed closely by Doc, and stepped over to me. His eyes studied me before taking my bag off my shoulder, handing me a helmet, and gently grabbing my arm without a word and tugging me outside. He shoved everything into the saddlebag and faced me.

  “Put your helmet on.”

  “Are we going—?”

  “Put your goddamn helmet on before I fuckin’ lose my shit, Lyric.”

  I put my helmet on, then climbed on behind him and we headed back to the compound. Once inside the safety of the gates, Doom walked me upstairs and into our room, dropped my bag on the bed, then turned and left me again.

  Without a word.

  Booger had glared at me from his cat tower but decided not to get involved. Smart cat.

  I took a minute to freshen up, then decided to go downstairs for something to eat. Only to find I couldn’t open the door. I jiggled the handle and it wouldn’t budge. I thought it was stuck, but when I bent down to peer in the old-fashioned lock, I realized the key was gone. Doom had taken the key. I was locked in.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  I banged on the door.

  “Doom!” I called, and banged again.

  Pulling my phone out of my bag, I powered it up and called him. He didn’t answer. No surprise there, so when his voicemail beeped, I said, “Lincoln, I’d highly suggest you get your ass up here and unlock this door, or I’m going to a hotel and we are done.”

  Once I hung up, I called Willow. “Hey.”

  “I’m locked in.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes. Can you come let me out?”

  “I’m not there,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m at home.”

  “How did you manage that?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. Gator, Mouse, and Milky are here with us. Dash is there, though. I think there’s an all-hands.”

  “Us?”

  “Jasmine and Parker.”

  “He made it so no one was here to free me,” I seethed.

  “Sounds like it,” Willow agreed.

  “I’m going to kill him.”

  “There’s always Olivia. She’s not here,” Willow said. “I have no idea where she is.”