When Nicole Bower saw the first pack of five Chrome Horsemen pass by them on the boulevard, speeding in the other direction, it sent a thrill through her. She looked over her shoulder and saw them making an illegal U-turn, then roaring even faster to catch up to her and Cole. It was like real Wild West stuff with the Calvary and everything.

 

She didn’t even know these men, but that didn’t seem to matter to them. They were here to back-up Cole, simply because he said he was in trouble and they came hunting for that trouble with guns and grim faces.

 

After three more blocks, however, she said to herself, "This is getting ridiculous," because there were over forty riders around them now, all armed, and none of them joking. Riders shot their bikes forward, up the side of the pack, to come to rest in the middle of intersections, to block traffic for the rest of the pack.

 

When she looked down crossing roads, she often saw three of four bikers running down the side streets while keeping up with them. These men were called "outriders." Cole had explained them to her during pillow talk the day she officially moved in with him and asked him about is work with the club.

 

"Outriders," Cole had told her, "and that was my first real job with the club’s security service, follow or pace the main pack or convoy."

 

They were kept back for two reasons. The first was to give an attacker a false idea of how many men are guarding the convoy. The second was that in case of an attack, they would be the ones who are going to engage the attackers and hunt them down.

 

The men riding in the main pack only have one goal: to see that the package makes it safely to where it is going. If an attack came, the pack sped up to escape the area, only returning fire if it will help them get the package get out of the danger zone.

 

That was their job and their only job. While the pack is doing this, the outriders come in from behind and from the sides, assessing the situation as they do and focus on the attackers themselves with the intent of killing them."

 

He explained this in as few words as possible, but that didn't stop Nicole from thinking just how dangerous everything was. When she told him that, he just laughed.

 

 

"Riding as fast as you can into the middle of a gun fight to go after the people firing the guns at you is dangerous, yes. But you eventually get good at it." he assured her.

 

She had grinned at him, "Don't make fun. This is all new to me."

 

"That's not going to be true for long," he told her and then brought her to him and kissed her until her toes curled up with rioting pleasures.

 

By the time they made it to the clubhouse, Nicole had lost track, but was sure there were at least fifty riders in the main pack and one limo. Brian, the man who would have been her new driver if Antonio and Davis were successful in kidnapping her earlier, remained right behind them in the limo that used to be her car.

 

The bar they pulled into the parking lot of was the clubhouse for the Horsemen, called Abbey's. They pulled in surrounded by armed men and thundering engines. As soon as they were parked, Brian beeped the horn of the limo and continued down the boulevard with a parting wave out the window as he guided the long car into light evening traffic.

 

The sound of all the engines and watching the large group of men fanning out, guarding them as Cole took her by the hand toward the club was calming, almost soothing. Gabriel wasn't going to be able to get her here. Not a chance. But, of course, she couldn't just stay here.

 

"What's the plan now?" she asked as Cole took her hand and gently pulled her through the front doors of the club.

 

"World domination. But then, that's always the plan…there is no other plan. However, what we are going to do right now is to talk to Big Jim, the president of the Horsemen. We'll have a clearer idea of what we can do and what we should do after that. My first instinct is to ride over there right now while your pimp Gabriel still believes you’ll back in his stable within an hour or so. Just ride right now and kill him. Get this over with. And I would, too, in a heartbeat if…"

 

"If what, Cole?"

 

"Well, we have agreements with Gabriel and a profitable partnership. Big Jim would not enjoy the news that I just went over there and killed one of our regular customers – well, without his permission anyway."

 

"How would he feel about Gabriel killing you?"

 

"He would seek retribution, but that may not come in the eye for an eye way."

 

Odds are, they'd probably work out some concessions on Gabriel's businesses or cite a cash value to cover the cost to the club for no longer having me as a resource.

 

Most of the time, things like this were handled with cash and plenty of it. No one wanted to go to war and everyone likes cash, so it was  normally the preferred method to put the guns away and get back to business.

 

She listened, then nodded her understanding, and asked, "So, how much are we talking here?"

 

"For my death? Probably one to three hundred grand would be asked and then negotiated down to nearly half that much. I'm a patch-holder of the club -- they couldn't let my murder slide, but they wouldn't want a war over it either.

 

"For you? To put an end to any claim he believes he has on you? Over a half million, I'm sure. You are obviously a profit center on Gabriel's accounting ledger; you are all black ink. He will be claiming damages, not merely the loss of a resource."

 

Once they were inside of the doors, she noticed only eight men in the whole building. All of them had a gun in hand as they watched the streets outside of the window. Two of them waved to Cole, who waved back as he guided her toward the bar.

 

"What will Big Jim say?" she asked as more men began filing into the bar. Most of them were silent, even brooding, but a handful were on adrenaline rushes, talking and joking loudly against the quiet place. Music wasn't even playing right now. Maybe they turned it off when they announced that Cole needed help and forgot to turn it back on.

 

"That's going to be hard to guess, baby. Yep, kind of hard," he told her and squeezed her ass in his large hand as she got up on the barstool, "Been wanting to do that for almost a week now."

 

She wiggled a little, "We could jump into the ladies’ room for a quickie. Doesn't look like many ladies are here right now."

 

"Oh, wow," he sighed with restrained desire, "don't tempt me with that right now. We really have to see Jim right away." Cole asked the man behind the bar to give him a notepad and pen.

 

He wrote a brief request to see Jim, adding that he and Nicole would remain in the bar for at least three hours before using the hotel directly across the street. "That's our hotel," Cole explained to her. The Horsemen used it as a makeshift safe house. Cole wouldn't need to register or show ID there, or anything else. As far as the manager and employees over there would be concerned, the couple didn't exist and the room they were staying in would be logged as empty."