Ashley

I was a woman on a mission, the soles of my feet were burning through my shoes as I trekked out of church, through the doors of the club and began the walk back to my childhood home. Before I went to church I was so nervous to discover the impending news, now I’m just a rolled-up ball of fury and frustration. Now, all my patience has been exhausted and I’m running on an empty stomach craving vengeance.

My heart rate continued to shoot up, every pulse that was sent up to my ears made me remember the sentences read from the lovely little note that the Bears so happened to leave attached to my gift.

This “patriarch of the family” bullshit had me reveling in my head. They called me livestock, as if I had wandered out of my own house like some lost sheep. No, I wasn’t a fucking sheep and they didn’t have the balls to amount to any kind of shepherd. Harry had to be fooling himself if he thought I’d walk myself back to that house with a leash around my neck. Then again, he was never the smartest man.

Still, it made me red with anger. I was past humility to the point that I could’ve gotten nauseous in the pile of rage sitting in my stomach. The thought made my hand come down to my stomach––to my lost love. It was as bare as that marriage had been and all the time in the world couldn’t have wiped my memory clean of that. What I had developed in my conscience was no longer fear. It was vengeance.

“Ashley!” A voice called from behind me.

I whipped my body around and saw him standing there, panting from what I can assume was him running after me.

“Blackjack.” I mutter. It was the first time we’d even spoken since Billings. I wouldn’t say that things were awkward between us, but I don’t know what to say about how things truly were. We hadn’t talked about it, so it was just…there.

“Just…hff…” He coughed, bent over to catch his breath. When he picked his head back up, I felt his weary eyes grow serious. He saw the wound on my hand. Truthfully, I’d almost forgotten about my stupid slip up. Everything with Harry and the Bears was weighing so heavily on my mind.

“Where do you think you’re going now?”

I stare at him, pursing my lips. “I’m going home.”

His brown eyes stayed fixed on me, “Ash, you’re going home with a head full of thought.”

I couldn’t say anything to that. Even when I was younger the man knew me better than I knew myself, those eyes of his made my heart swell up, a tension that could’ve dissolved me to tears. His voice sounded so soft while I was still struggling to come up with words that made sense. In my head, I understood every flicker of resentment I had for the man who destroyed my happiness. Yet, it was Blackjack that made me forget myself even for a moment.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asks with a tenderness to his voice as he stands up straighter.

“No.” I stutter immediately, “I’m fine, Rob. Really.”

“Ash…” He steps closer.

I immediately falter, and I could feel my own arms wrap instinctively around my body. Blackjack’s expression winced, and I could feel it. It hurt him that I couldn’t easily express what was on my mind.

“I just need some time to think.” I assure him, offering a weary smile.

Blackjack took my words with a grain of salt and nodded. “Sure.”

With that, I turned back around and kept moving with the feeling of his eyes still staring into my back. I almost shuddered with regret, I wanted to run back and tell him everything but before I could do that I needed to get my head on straight.

Despite the terrible news, I could focus on the things to be thankful for – like how this weather hasn’t turned to shit quite yet. I tried my best not to think about Blackjack as I continued the walk up to the house. Every small twig that snapped under my foot made me want to turn around to check if he was still there.

When I reached the porch, I turned around to see the stretch of land before me. He hadn’t followed me back. I should’ve known better. I was a dumb girl, he hadn’t stayed when I needed him before – even though this is completely different – why would he stay now? There was so much that we could’ve said to each other, but we just drifted farther apart. We started as good friends to becoming something I couldn’t even describe at the time. It just didn’t make sense anymore and I couldn’t dwell on that feeling for too long.

I was no longer the sickly thin, black and blued girl that stumbled back home. The shreds of me that were clinging to life in that moment were built up with adrenaline, ready to tear into anyone that threatened me or my family.

The package sent to our gates should have been the signal I needed to pull everyone in the club closer together. A threat was sent to our gates, the biggest MC in Montana.

I couldn’t help but think about how the Bears could hurt us. When I thought hard about it, it was rather easy to do. They know where our strengths lay, as does every other MC in the tri-state area. We had to take our steps carefully when collecting any of the drugs from our suppliers and at best, even our normal distribution. The Bears knew this meant war, but I didn’t put this past them. When they strike – and they will – this would mean that all prior agreements were now void. We couldn’t be sure of anything that would happen – The Bears knew of where we held some of our product, we’d need to move it to avoid any potential loss, or a raid by the State Police, or even the DEA.

If we were careful enough, we could find other routes to undergo our drop offs. As it were, my Dad explained that the drop off locations hadn’t been changed since over three years ago and that would be the only explanation that I needed for why our shipments were short. He even confessed that our warehouse outside of Whitehouse had been hit a few weeks back, all the drugs were wiped clean. I couldn’t believe him when I heard what happened. There was a worry that the police were involved, but if they were they would have already come for my father, and the club. We didn’t have proof, but deep down I knew that this was the Bears. I’d had a long talk with my father to move the product to different locations, locations that we hadn’t used in years.

This is war, it’s barely begun, and I will try to avoid bloodshed, but bloodshed is what got us here in the first place. If worst comes to worst, the Bears will be hunted down like the vermin they are. I will personally make sure that every member of the Bears is extinct.

I kept thinking over and over about how this even happened. How did Harry think of something this slick?

Harry Vale… that fucking snake. It couldn’t have been his idea, so it had to have been Grizzly. The man wasn’t able to snare me in his bear trap to destroy my father’s reign, so he decided to manipulate the system any way possible to slow us down. I knew one thing – and the root of our problems with the drugs is because of the Bears. We have a mole, a rat of sorts. I planned on discovering exactly who this mole is.

If the Bears wanted a fight, we’d give them it. They could cheat our system, they could even cheat the law.

The one thing they couldn’t cheat was death brought by a Reaper.

***

Blackjack

We’d been stuck in church for hours afterward. I was able to slip away to check on Ashley for just a moment, immediately going back through the doors to discuss our next move. We had to think of a plan, and nothing that was suggested measured up. It had been hot as hell in church, it didn’t help that it was blistering outside today. Every man was sweating in their skins at their seats. After hours and hours of sitting in this room, making suggestion after suggestion and us all being shot down – we were beyond exhausted.

This was a sensitive subject, at the very mention of it, I knew everyone was just waiting to tear into it. Whether it was curiosity biting the neck of every man in that the room or the hunger to give the Bears exactly what they deserved, we were prepared for whatever was waiting for us. I wasn’t exactly thrilled that we were leaving this decision up to a club vote. Ashley is family, Fist’s daughter, Kade and Zane’s adoptive sister, she’s the fucking princess of this MC. We shouldn’t be debating what to do at all. It should be obvious. None of us should be on our asses discussing this, a decision on HOW we need to handle the Bears needs to be made – not IF we’re doing anything.

When we discovered what was sitting in that package, I recognized it had very little to do with the Reapers and a lot more to do with Ashley. That’s why I had to fight off my urge in my body to call off the meeting and save her the emotional turmoil that had to be running through her mind.

She had gone pale as death and I couldn’t get it out of my head for the remainder of that day. From the moment she stepped inside and walked to the table to the second her eyes found the bottom of that box, I knew we were losing her. None of the men in church could have possibly understood how she felt in that moment. To them, the Bears had spat on the integrity of the Reapers; to Ashley, it was more than that. This was a woman who had invested some of her best years into a fake marriage with a heart of pure gold. She was cheated out of her club and ripped from her family. To make things worse, she lost her child when she fought to escape.

I repeat, no one knew a single thing to what this girl’s been through. I couldn’t even cut past the surface of what went through her head when she opened that damn package. When she did catch sight of the cut––everything changed.

Everyone spoke up. Loud, crass men that thought that their word would determine fate, the war, the aftermath, and even the deaths of every son of a bitch that crossed their Prez’s daughter. It was such a raw taste of adrenaline that even I couldn’t stand for it. I was sick of it all. When Fist read the letter, I wanted to burn that damn box with a flamethrower.

I restrained myself as soon as Ashley spoke, repeating her father’s wise words. That’s when I realized it. She wasn’t shook up at all, in fact it was quite the opposite. As every man observed her and absorbed every word that left her mouth, it became clear that she hadn’t lost faith of her father’s values, or her MC’s law.

“The Reapers follow no man who poises himself as a God, therefore the old tradition of MC law is fool’s gold”.

Sure enough, Ashley was walking in her father’s footsteps when she spoke the words passed down by him. From the last words that left her lips, I could tell that she was twice as determined than these men combined to put these fuckers down. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen from her before and I felt like I recognized her from all those years back. She was no longer that beaten down girl that stumbled back into her home. There was a strength to her that resembled Fist’s and it let her stand on her own two legs in front of the entire MC. Even then, I saw her hands tremble as they were balled up in fists.

Turning my eyes away from her didn’t help me forget what happened in that changing room. If anything, it made me sit deeper in my thoughts than ever before. She trusted me on another level that not many of her friends could attribute to and I still––I still couldn’t control myself. She knew that now and if anything, she probably wanted answers. I had none to offer.

I followed her for as long as I could up until I tried to confront her after church. Despite my determination, I couldn’t do jack shit to comfort her. To make her know that she was safe so long as I was beside her. How could a man swear to protect someone close to him when he couldn’t even trust himself around them? Especially when she’s had everything taken away from her in life. Even when I tried, she turned me down to return to her thoughts. The only thing left to do from then on was to return to my own.

***

With a somber head, a week had passed me by since the Bears lovely drop off. The time went by so damn slow I could’ve sworn I felt older with the sleepy drought of summer. I sent Dex out of the house to fetch me a new battery from Tex for the bike since the Harley wouldn’t so much as cough if I turned the key.

I sat next to the bike with the garage door open to let in the cool wind from outside. The white standup fan did me a huge favor in keeping the sweat off me but from the looks of the sky, it seemed like it was going to rain in an hour or so. With the back of my hand, I wiped away the salt from my brow and kept polishing the grime that settled on the bike’s exhaust. It hadn’t collected so much rust, but the dirt was so noticeable that I couldn’t take my eyes off it after taking out the battery.

Running my nail underneath the cloth, I could only shake my head as I stubbornly applied more effort into the polish. A couple of more budges and a good chunk of the dry mound crumpled out from underneath my finger.

“Blackjack, you there?” A voice called out.

I looked up from the exhaust to find someone approaching the garage. Squinting my eyes, I couldn’t recognize them immediately but as soon as I wiped my eyes I saw the old friend before me.

“Dixon…” I mutter in disbelief. “Where have you been all this time?”

The man that was now standing before me was the Sergeant of Arms of the club. He was a 6 foot something that wouldn’t be caught dead without his steel-toed boots. His hair was sleek jet black but that classic smirk was his trademark. With all his cockiness, he was a real James Dean in the making. You wouldn’t recognize him without a smile that could fill you up with a ton of doubt. With a smart head and a knowledge for every piece of metal we had in the community, you would’ve figured he would have been rooted to his home. Not Dixon, though. He’d been known for traveling around the U-S-of-A since he ran away from home at sixteen to see the Rockies. He’d been officially patched in as the Sergeant of Arms just a year ago, then flew free of the bird cage he called home – normally you wouldn’t just ride around North America being a main officer of the club, but Fist, that man let Dixon do whatever the fuck he wanted.

He and I were tighter than a clam’s ass in high tide. We’d seen rough days being in the club as long as we both had. From what I could recall, he was an ex-Marine that served a shit-ton of tours. I had a great amount of respect for that. Whenever we caught him for dinner or a barbecue, he’d tell us where he’d been. Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Japan––oh, the places. Swore he wouldn’t settle down anytime soon so he could keep it up.

“Nowhere outside the U.S. this time, man.” The man laughed, stroking the brim of his thick mustache. “How long have you been polishing that waste of space you call a bike?”

I snorted, “Easy there, tiger. We’re not going to fire up this debate again.”

The man shrugged playfully. “All I’m saying is, you could’ve come to the dark side and got yourself a Triumph.”

“A Triumph Bonneville Bobber is the last thing I’m spending my money on, idiot.” I scoffed, tossing the rag back in its bucket. “It’s marketed for city college students and I’m not going to under appreciate myself by riding something that’s younger than my son’s future bike.”

Dixon cocked up a brow, “I’m going to ignore the fact that you ragged on my brand and ask you plainly what you intend to get your son that’s any better than a Bobber.”

I opened my mouth–

“And if it’s another Harley, I don’t want to hear it.” He cuts me off.

I shook my head with a smirk, “I’ll spare you the disappointment then. What do I owe the pleasure of this visit anyway?”

The guy’s lips thinned too suddenly, pursed in reluctance. He turned his head over to look behind him and asked, “Is your son home by chance?”

My brows furrowed, confused.

“No, is he in any kind of trouble?”

“Not exactly.”  

Dixon turned his attention back to me and his expression didn’t change.

“When is he coming back, Rob?”

“Soon, why.” I respond with caution.

“We have visitors at the gate.” He spoke slowly, “You make sure your son doesn’t get to the entrance until they’re gone.”

“Who are we talking about, Dixon?” I step forward, fists clenched.

“Calm down, now.” He held his hands up. “It shouldn’t be a problem, but I just have to make sure––”

“Dixon.” I repeat, all the humor gone from my voice.

The man sighed and took his face in his hands, “Prez just told me but I didn’t know your boy hadn’t gotten home yet. When the prospect reported them waiting out here, I didn’t even know that Ash came back.”

“Fuck..” I muttered under my breath.

There was no doubt about it. It was them.

War had walked straight up to our gates.