Long Ride The Slayers MC #3) (2 page)

He noticed me checking him out, I got him to admit that to me years later, and he made sure he gave me plenty of eye candy to look at. Bulging muscles. Dark sunglasses. Jeans that were tight in all the right places.

The thing that got me though? That sealed the deal and made me want him? His bike.

The first time I heard that old Harley start up was the very first time I came. Anyone who tells you that you can’t have an orgasm from listening to that… they’re lying.

“Well what if
she
takes a liking to a bad boy with a bike?” I tilt my chin down to reference our daughter.

Stitch pushes my hair aside exposing the skin of my neck. His lips find their way to it and suck hard enough to make my knees weaken.

“Over my dead body. Her momma may have fallen for a biker, but she’s not even going to get the chance. I’m looking into convents now.” He slaps my ass hard, squeezing a handful of the few extra pounds of baby weight that I haven’t lost yet. “Be back after dinner.”

Lu stirs in my arms from the voices and I move to console her before it becomes a full-blown tantrum.

“Be safe!” I call over my shoulder as her leaves.

For Lu’s sake, I hope Stitch is right. I hope she never falls for a biker, especially a member of the Slayers MC like I did. Every time he steps out that door, I worry. With good reason, too.

This is no easy life.

It’s not one I would want for her.

CHAPTER TWO

STITCH

I feel naked.

No matter how many layers I put on, I feel completely exposed without my leather on. Don’t get me wrong… finally getting sprung out of the joint is worth it, under any conditions. It meant I got to see my kid being born. It means I get to be here for my Ol’ lady and try and make it up to her for being away so long.

But, it also means I have to play by the rules.
Their
rules. The board of parole.

I gotta keep my nose clean and my hands even cleaner to enjoy the freedoms they’re givin’ me. For a few more months, anyway. Sure, it sounds easy, but, in reality it’s only being able to breathe half way.

The things I do, the club, those aren’t just trivial things that you can give up without feelin’ like something’s missing. I know my leather cut is only a piece of fabric with a bunch of patches sewn on. That’s what it looks like to most people, anyway.

To me? To the club? To anyone else that knows better? It means a hell of a lot more than that.

Every single one of those patches is a part of me, earned the hard way. Every single crease in that leather was put there after years of hard wear. Every tear, every blood stain… they’re all a part of me as much as a scar on my skin would be too, and Lord knows I have enough of them, too.

The most recent one, a long red gash of a line on my stomach, is healing well enough for me to be able to ride my Harley without having to wince in pain behind sunglasses anymore, was earned just the way all the other scars had been.

For my club.

The Riverdale Chapter of the Slayers MC.

Doc says I’ll be fine, and most of the time I forget it’s even there. Until I look in the mirror and am reminded of the attack. A couple of spineless thugs thought they could outman me and use my flesh to send a message to my club.

Sure, it hurt like fuck, but it takes a hell of a lot more than that to take down a Slayer. We’ve got steel in our veins. If you’re gonna try and take one of us down, you better come at us with a shit ton more than those two bastards did.

They learned their lesson the hard way, though, buried six feet deep to pay for their crimes. There’s only one thing more dangerous than trying to take out a Slayer and failing… and that’s when his brothers come lookin’ for you to properly pay you back for your error in judgment.

Even though I can’t wear my leather while on probation, I know each one of those brothers has my back just the same as if I were wearin’ my cut with pride, it still cuts deep to know that I have to hide my allegiance to them.

No wearing anything that can be taken

No going down to the strip club that doubles as our clubhouse.

No going on runs with them, riding down long stretches of highway with nothing but the sound of our tailpipes roaring.

No being seen with them out in the open as most of them, like myself, are convicted felons.

No earning my money the best way I know how, the way I have been since I was seventeen years old.

Those are some, but not all, of the terms of my probation.

As long as I want to stay a free man, without steel bars caging me in like an animal, I gotta play by their rules.

At least, I have to make it
look
like I’m playing by their rules.

Am I wearing my cut on my back? No. But I most definitely have the pull logo tattooed on my back just as every other brother does. This is the one you can’t ever take off. It’s there for life, just like your loyalty to them.

Am I seen out in the open with them, where any of the beat cops would be lookin’ to jam me up? No. That doesn’t mean I don’t see them every fucking day, though. We just get creative about it.

The strip club may be our main hang out, the place where my parole officer would head first if he wanted to see me back at my old tricks, but it’s not our only meeting place.

At any given time, it’s a safe bet to assume at least one Slayer is on parole. We’ve been down this road before. We have alternatives in place, just like the one I’m riding to now.

If my prick P.O. wants to try and trap me by scoping out the strip club like he’s been doing every night since I’ve gotten out, then let him. I hope the girls rip him off big time and leave him to go home with blue balls.

Cocksucker.

While he’s busy dreaming up ways to nab me breaking parole, I’ll be busy handling my business behind the scenes, discreetly.

Johnny Dangerously’s is a bar about twenty minutes outside the Riverdale town limits, off the old highway near the river. Johnny D, the man who’s owned it for the last ten years or so, is a friend to the club. He lets us use the private pool room in the back whenever we’re feelin’ the law breathing down our necks.

By the time I reach the old dirt packed parking lot, the collection of Harley’s is already pretty impressive. The first one I see in the late morning light is Dawson’s shiny black custom Harley low rider with chrome everywhere. As President, he’s earned the very first place in line, no matter where these bikes park.

Next is the Vice President, Gryff’s, Harley Dyna. A man’s bike is kind of like his fingerprint. No two are the same. I’d be just as able to point out a brother’s bike as I was his face.

Following the line, we have Chase’s, the club Enforcer, followed by Uno’s. As one of the oldest brothers still active in the game, Uno prefers comfort over style. That explains the heavy as hell bagger he sports around.

Bandit, Shooter, Hops and Ese’s bikes round out the long line of shiny steel gleaming in the sun. In order of seniority and position, I back my own Harley Softail into the empty space that’s been left between Uno and Bandit’s.

I leave my key in the ignition, just as all the other bikes have. This may not be our backyard, but we’re close enough to Riverdale where everyone who’s anyone knows not to touch our shit.

Our bikes.

Our money.

Our women.

All off limits unless you’ve got a cut on that matches ours.

“Hey, jackass, took you long enough to show up.” I hadn’t seen him before, but Chase is leaning against the side of the rust colored building, sucking on a cig.

I flip him off and dismount. “I got a curfew or somethin’ I don’t know about? What the fuck does it matter if I’m here now?”

He takes one last drag of the smoke and then drops it to the ground, smashing it with his heel. “Boys are waitin’.”

He’s busting my balls like he always does. We prospected together and have mad love for one another, but sometimes we also like to punch the shit out of each other in the boxing ring, too. It’s been a while, but I can feel a match coming on soon.

I reach the door first and pull hard, sarcastically waving my hand. “After
you
, Mary.”

Chase laughs.

“’Bout fuckin’ time!” Dawson calls out as soon as as the bright daylight from the open door announces our arrival.

I do a double take. “What the fuck has happened to all you pussies since I been locked up? Someone shove a damn alarm clock up your asses or something?” The Slayers have never been known for punctuality. I didn’t know we were running on a schedule nowadays.

“Let’s see how fuckin’ prompt
you
are when you got a kid screamin’ her head off all night, D.” I know it’s only a matter of time before Dawson knows exactly what it is I’m talking about, with his Ol’ Lady, Angel, knocked up.

I can’t wait for that kid to come out, and then I’m gonna be the first person to call his house in the morning and ask how
he
slept. He’s got no idea what he’s getting into and I can’t wait to be there when he finds out for himself.

“Here. Calm your ass down,” Uno hands me a cold long neck bottle of beer.

I take it and swig generously. This is one more thing I’m not supposed to be doing while on probation. No drinking, no recreational supplements of any kind.

Good thing we got a man down at the county lab on our payroll who can change piss test results or anything else we need him to. I’m not big into taking anything that’s gonna fuck me up. Been there, done that. That shit gets left behind when you hit a certain age.

But beer and whiskey are two things I’m most definitely
not
going to go without.

“Let’s get to business. How we doing with the new delivery schedule?” Dawson, or Das we call him, asks Bandit.

He’s kind of like our logistics guy. “Almost got all the kinks worked out. The Conquistadors are pretty efficient. Doesn’t look like any of our supplies will drop low before they can replenish them.”

A lot has happened in the last month. Things that still take some getting used to.

We’ve always been a pretty solitary, self sufficient club. Now, all of the sudden we’re in with a fucking drug cartel. I know Dawson is still feeling this out and trying to buy us some time until we’re in a position to do anything about it, but it still makes me uneasy.

Some crazy shit went down and an agreement was made, one that guarantees us a little peace for a while. But, everything comes at a cost. We’re just trying to figure out if the costs of doing business with the Conquistadors are worth it.

The biggest deciding factor, frankly, is me. It’s my freedom.

The new leader of the Cartel just happens to be Chase’s woman, Caterina’s, cousin. He somehow got Dawson on his side and we helped him oust the previous boss, who was none other than Caterina’s own father.

It was a shit show. One that nearly cost us our lives, being caught in a Cartel coup.

Somehow, we found a way out of that mess, but at an expense. We sided with Caterina’s cousin, Mateo, and with that came concessions. We’re now tied to a fucking drug cartel, who are our new suppliers.

The Slayers have controlled Riverdale and the surrounding towns for as long as I’ve known, even before I started wearing their patch. Gambling, guns, girls, drugs… it’s all run by us. No outside interference. Well, now, we’ve got some outsiders jumping in and it turns out
we
invited them.

So far, the Cartel has kept it on the up and up, merely supplying the inventory, but staying out of our hair. We’ll see how long that keeps up. We don’t play well with others.

“Esè, where we at with the stockpile?” Dawson includes the youngest and newest brother. Esè was a brand new prospect when I got locked up last year. I don’t know him that well yet, having known him mostly as a hang-around begging for the chance to prove himself to the club.

We don’t take new prospects often, but he got a chance and apparently made the most of it, because he’s now wearing a brand-new barely broken in cut with a vivid Slayer patch, the Grim Reaper and two scythes, on his back.

Regardless of what a brother’s cut, or leather vest, says on the front, you can always tell his club standing from the way his patch looks.

Take Uno for instance. That fucker’s been around forever. He’s seen prospects come and go, he’s seen brothers get jammed up, thrown behind bars and even buried. The patch on the back of his cut is worse for the wear. Ripped in places, stained, with a healthy layer of road dust soaked into the threading.

It’s obvious to anyone that he’s been around the block and worn that cut for more years than he hasn’t. It’s a stark contrast to the young kid with caramel colored skin and dark, almost black, eyes that stands next to him, with a patch that is still so white in places that it’s nearly blinding.

The patch deserves respect, though, no matter
how
old it is. From outsiders, or civilians, as we call them, the respect is the same from patch to patch. Within the club, though, there’s a direct correlation the amount of respect you get and the condition of your patch.

“Tested all the hardware myself, D. Good to go. We’re almost double where we were last month. Got a delivery of new ammunition coming later today. The price was good but it’s not great. I’m hoping we can do a little last minute negotiating,” the kid reports.

It’s a necessity for each brother to be able to protect himself and what’s his, his family. Every single one of us has a healthy stash of weapons hidden around for when we need them. Besides that, though, there’s a cache of guns for emergencies, one that we’ve been building up in anticipation of this thing with the Cartel going sour.

Esè’s been put in charge of it. By the looks of how eager he is, he’s clearly looking to gain some brownie points with his new President. Good. Let the kid prove his worth around here.

“How we doin’ with the charity auction? Trix need anything?” Dawson now turns his attention to Uno.

Trixie, Uno’s Ol’ lady, is kind of like a surrogate mom to most of us. They never had any kids of their own so they take care of everyone else’s down at the nursery school Trix runs.

Once a year, she throws a charity auction to help raise money for some of the kids’ families that struggle to pay for it. It’s not a direct club event, but we support it as if it was.

Most of the donations come from our own pockets and coffers, and every single bit of manpower that goes into setting up the carnival-themed day is supplied by a Slayer.