Grady drove away from Callie’s house, away from her street, and her neighborhood. He avoided the freeway and instead took a number of frontage roads until he headed out into the open plains to the north. He needed to get back to the headquarters, but he wanted some time to think, to pull himself together. A myriad of emotions raged through him, one replacing another, then circling back again. Confusion. Pleasure. Satisfaction, not just physically, but emotionally. He wasn’t any good for Callie. He was too messed up. But still.

The vibration of the motorcycle underneath him felt comfortable and familiar. This was where he belonged. Not in Callie’s bed. She deserved better than him, more than he could offer. Still, wishful thinking trapped him in its grasp. Oh, and let’s not forget the guilt, the guilt of sleeping with his best friend’s widow. What had he been thinking? But he hadn’t, at least not with his big head. Even though Callie had seemed to enjoy him just as much as he’d enjoyed fucking her, it couldn’t happen again. He wouldn’t let it.

Frustration and guilt brought him to a state of anger, at himself and his apparent inability to think before he acted. Fuck. He’d just irrevocably changed their relationship. He’d stepped over the line, big time. Shit, was she struggling with the same feelings of guilt this morning? Would she ever want to see him again? He couldn’t think about it, or he’d lose whatever shred of sanity he had left right now. He shook his head, throttled the engine and accelerated, leaning low over the gas tank now, face thrust into the wind rifling through his hair, cleansing him, or at least trying to.

It was roughly an hour later when he pulled up in front of the old, converted saloon. Several guys were out front, tinkering with their bikes. As he rumbled into the yard in front of the building, they looked up. Some nodded. Some offered a wave then went back to what they were doing. Most of the guys gave Grady a wide berth, not necessarily because they were afraid of him, but because they didn’t get him. He was moody, he knew that, quick to anger but also quick to calm down, depending on the situation. He wouldn’t exactly say that the guys walked on eggshells when he was around, but close to it. He couldn’t bring himself to care much. Besides, it didn’t hurt to have people at least little bit afraid of you, did it? Keep them at arm’s length, encourage them to mind their own business. But at the same time, such behaviors reminded him that he was forever on the outside looking in. Would he always be the outsider?

He walked inside the saloon and paused to allow his eyes to adjust to the darker interior. A couple of guys lounged against the bar, smoking and talking quietly. Another trio was in the room beyond, shooting pool. Grady took the stairs hugging the west wall of the interior and up to the second floor, an old-fashioned wooden balcony looking out over the lower floor. Five rooms graced the second floor of the building, two of them converted into what you might call personal spaces for the president, where Levi took care of business and often slept, the other two for the vice president, Seth. The last room upstairs at the end was a bathroom.

He strode to the top of the stairs and knocked at the first door to the left.

“Come in.”

Grady turned the knob and entered. Levi was slouched on one side of a leather sofa on the left wall, one leg crossed over his knee, arms stretched along the back. Even sitting, Levi was an intimidating figure. When standing, his six-foot-two bulky frame and often serious persona completed the image of authority he projected. Grady didn’t know much about Levi’s background, at least not prior to his rise within the Steel Kings, but at times he sensed a quiet camaraderie, as if they shared a similar pain, a similar sense of betrayal from society.

Levi glanced at him, met his eyes, but said nothing about his battered face as he slowly uncrossed his legs, shifted his position on the couch, and crossed his arms over his chest. Grady turned to the other side of the room. Against the opposite wall stood a flat-screen television, at the moment playing some black-and-white movie, sound muted. He barely glanced at it as his gaze shifted to the window, in front of which Seth “Sticks” Sterling stood, scowling darkly as Grady entered.

This was Levi’s sitting room, or whatever you wanted to call it. It was where you met with the president of the Steel Kings if you had something to discuss outside of church. The other spare room on this floor, next to this one, was Levi’s office. It held his desk with computer, enabling Levi to take care of the finances and business dealings of the club. A lot of people believe that motorcycle clubs just terrorized people, trolling for trouble, stealing, murdering, or whatever. Many of those people had grown up watching the very movies that Levi liked, but not nearly as much as he liked his horror flicks. The Kings weren’t one-percenters. More of a family, if you want to get into semantics. A group of misfits that had nowhere else to go.

Levi was a smart guy and knew the he was responsible for his crew. He had his own set of rules that were expected to be followed. If not, Grady usually took care of it. If things got really bad, they would hold a “meeting” where issues, complaints, arguments, and even disagreements about the club’s future were discussed.

“Where the hell you been?”

Grady turned slowly toward Sticks, who was also taking in his bruises and still swollen eye. They locked gazes. Sticks wasn’t a bad guy, but sometimes he got overenthusiastic regarding his role as vice president. He and Levi went way back, and Grady didn’t know that much about Sticks’ past either, which was just as well. He was loyal to both of them, although he and Sticks often clashed. You could call it a difference in approaches.

As always, when Grady stepped into this room, the floorboards creaking beneath his boots, he thought the same thing: take away the television, put one of those red settees or a couple of old-fashioned parlor chairs against the wall, a wash basin with a porcelain pitcher and bowl, and you’d believe you’d step back into the 1800s. Maybe that’s why Levi liked it here. Maybe Levi belonged in the past, as he certainly didn’t fit much into the present.

Grady turned away from Sticks and back to Levi. “I didn’t find him.”

“And it took you this long to come back here and report that?” Sticks asked, leaning against the window frame, arms also crossed over his chest. “I ask again, Grady, where have you been?”

“None of your business,” Grady snapped, turning to Levi. “I—”

“It is my business,” Sticks pushed. “It’s all of our business when someone tries to shoot the president. And as our Sergeant at Arms, it’s your job to take care of it. Now you take care of things, Grady, or we’re gonna have to do something about that.”

Grady turned to Sticks, arms hanging loosely by his sides even as the frustration and anger that he’d felt after leaving Callie’s house returned full force. He didn’t need this shit, and especially not from Sticks. Still, the vice president was right. As the Sergeant at Arms for the club, it was his responsibility to make sure that certain situations were taken care of in a timely manner. He grunted. “I followed him out toward the northwest. He disappeared out there in the flats. I hung around for a while, hoping to pick him up, but I never found him.”

“You sure it was a Joker?” Levi asked.

Grady nodded. “We need to do something about them, and soon. If we don’t, something’s going to blow, and we’re going to have an all-out war on our hands.”

The Jokers had slowly, gradually, yet inexorably been moving into Steel King territory. While most of the time, Levi took a live-and-let-live approach, the Jokers were intimidating the good citizens of northwest Oklahoma City and its surrounding neighborhoods, which was their territory. Levi had taken it upon himself to stifle this encroachment, with varying degrees of success. This back-and-forth had been going on for months now, but last night’s shooting, aimed at their president, called for more drastic actions than posturing and threats.

“You shouldn’t have let him get away, Merc.”

When Sticks used his nickname, Grady knew he was pissed. Irritation caused a flush of heat to race through Grady’s body, starting in his gut and flaming outward. The way Sticks had lingered on his nickname carried a patronizing tone this morning, and he didn’t like it, not one bit. His hands fisted at his sides. The vein in his neck pounded as he tried to breathe, tried to force himself to relax, that now was not the time—

“Take it easy, Grady,” Levi said, giving Sticks a look along with a small shake of his head.

Grady saw it. Levi seemed to be the only one in the club who could tell when Grady was hovering on the edge, before the loss of control hit him, when his emotions surged and he exploded without warning, sometimes over the stupidest things. Sticks glanced at Levi as he pushed himself away from the window and stepped toward Grady.

Tension in the room grew so thick Grady could’ve cut it with a knife. Cliché, yes, but the truth. He stared at Sticks, and Sticks stared back. The two of them had an uneasy relationship, sometimes good, sometimes not so much. It all depended on Grady’s mood. Often, Sticks just wouldn’t let something go, like a dog with a bone, continuing to gnaw relentlessly on it. Grady knew that Sticks was aware of his past, that he was temperamental. He was nicknamed Merc because of his military past, but he’d never been a mercenary. Although, with his position in the club, perhaps he could be considered one now. He shook his head. It didn’t matter. Sometimes his unpredictability worked out well for the Kings. At the same time, that very unpredictability often caused not only Sticks, but Levi, some consternation.

“Pull it together, Grady,” Sticks said, his tone calmer. “How are we supposed to know what’s going on if you disappear on us like that? For all we know, you’re lying dead along the side of the road with a Joker’s bullet in your head.”

“And who appointed you to be my mother?”

Sticks shook his head, his frown returning as he grumbled low in his throat and stepped toward Grady, his own hands balled into fists now. Before the two could step closer, Levi stood and approached them both.

“Knock it off, you two. We’ve got bigger things to worry about than which one of you has the bigger dick.”

Grady stared at Sticks for several seconds while Sticks did the same. Then Sticks grinned, turned to Levi, and shrugged. “Bottom line, Levi, if he doesn’t quit disappearing on us like this, leaving us hanging, in the dark . . . well, you know where I’m going with this, right?”

“I’m right here, Sticks,” Grady growled. “If you’ve got something to say, say it to me. If I had something to report, I would’ve come back sooner, let you know like I always do. I didn’t. I knew Levi was okay, that you guys were out here. I did some recon and didn’t find what I was looking for, so what’s the big deal?”

Sticks sighed, shook his head, and turned away, returning to gaze out the window. “We’ve got to do something about the Jokers. This is the first time they’ve taken potshots at Levi, and it’s not gonna be the last unless we do something about it. Unless we send them a clear . . . a very clear message.”

While Grady appreciated the sentiment and agreed with Sticks’ point of view, they had to tread carefully. They had what you might call a truce of sorts with their own local county sheriff’s department, but it wouldn’t take much to blow that away. There were times when Levi felt that it was in not only their own best interest, but that of neighboring communities to the south of them to receive “certain bits of information” as needed to maintain law and order out here on the edge of civilization.

They were surrounded by hundreds of square miles of flat plains out here, roads traversing the territory from the south and north, quiet roads that enabled transportation of drugs, sometimes even humans from the south northward. There had been a couple of times when Levi had been approached by law enforcement, encouraged to “cooperate” with said local law enforcement when it came to these issues involving possible connections to cartels, drug trafficking, and even sex-trade trafficking. The kidnapping of a sixteen-year-old girl last summer had started it all, with a deputy with the county sheriff’s department arranging a meeting with Levi, asking for his help in tracking down the people who had kidnapped the girl.

Levi had agreed, and so too had Sticks and Grady. It was one of the few times that he and Sticks were actually on the same page. While none of them were without some trouble in the past, an arrest or two, none of them condoned sex trafficking, and most especially crimes against children. Knowledge of their “help” in that investigation was known only to the three of them inside the club, and none of them talked about it outside of this room. The investigation had been successful, no little thanks to Levi. Ever since then, the sheriff’s department had given them a little leeway. Not much, but a little. For the most part, Levi and the crew lived on the fringes of society, most of them a group of misfits seeking some type of camaraderie, of belonging. At the same time, Levi insisted that members of his crew keep their noses relatively clean and didn’t intimidate the natives.

While Levi and Sticks began to suggest probable scenarios and ideas for dealing with the Jokers, Grady found his mind drifting. The two of them would figure it out. He would do whatever Levi told him to do once they decided. For now, however, he found himself straddling two distinct and separate loyalties: Callie being one, the other being his sense of belonging to the club. He’d leave her alone. She didn’t need him barging into her life, disrupting her tenuous sense of equilibrium.

At the same time, more than anything, he wanted to do just that.