Mason

 

By catching me on the phone with Mick, Clara knew I had been searching for Skull the whole time. I felt pretty shitty about going behind her back. I felt even worse lying to her about what we intended to do once we tracked Skull down. We were not planning on just talking to him and trying to convince him politely to give up his side of the drug trade.

 

For those first few days we had spent just lounging around my apartment, I thought I had done a pretty good job of keeping my work conversations from her. Most of what I discussed with Mick was handled over text messages so I didn’t have to actually talk about anything in front of her. On the odd occasion that anyone called, I made sure to take it outside on the balcony so I could keep it from her, and her from it.

 

There was a lot going on. My budding relationship with Clara was causing a lot of turmoil, it seemed. In the first few days of our new status, I had been forced to handle Liam’s new position at his new chapter after punching him out in front of everyone at our main HQ. There had been more lost business due to Skull’s encroachment. And, of course, there was the search for Skull. Now that everyone knew we were officially looking for him, it was hard to settle for managing things from home, but I wanted to prove to Clara that I could put her before business.

 

Unfortunately, I hadn’t been doing that at all, and she knew it as soon as she caught me. I hung up on Mick and finished getting dressed. I wasn’t in a position to lie to her about what I was doing. There was no use in it. She knew already. She had to have known there was only one matter of MC business that would have pulled me out of bed with her at that point.

 

If so much hadn’t been on the line, I would have walked away from all of it to be with her, but everything was on the line with this Skull business. It wasn’t just the drugs. It was our reputation that was at risk. He’d been making fools of us for long enough, and we had to show everyone that we weren’t going to let him get away with it.

 

“Hey, man, you having trouble shaking the old lady, or what?” Mick asked, calling me while I was trying to get out.

 

“I’m on my way now, bro,” I told him, turning away from the bedroom door. I grabbed my keys and headed for the door.

 

“She coming with you?” he asked.

 

“No, she’s hanging back on this one. I told her she’d be safer that way.”

 

“Good. I’m not trying to step on your toes, bro, but we need to keep her as far away from all of this as possible. Want me to send someone to keep an eye on her?”

 

“No, she’s fine. You’re starting to sound like Liam,” I said, laughing.

 

“Fuck you,” Mick joked back. “I hate to admit it, but he’d probably be right about her. Are you sure he cornered her like she said?”

 

I couldn’t believe it. Was I the only one who didn’t question her? But, for some reason, hearing it from Mick, it made sense. I paused as I left the building for the parking garage. I looked up to my floor, almost expecting to see Clara standing outside watching me leave.

 

“She was working for Skull when she came to us, Mason. She might have been trying to sneak away to call him or something, and that’s when Liam found her. I know no one likes that asshole, but he’s seen damn near everything, and he calls it like he sees it,” Mick continued.

 

“You know, you might be right,” I told him absently, “but I think I got through to her.”

 

“No,” he laughed, “she got through to you. Whatever. If anything comes up, we’ll fix it, just like we always do.”

 

“I guess so. On the way.” I hung up and climbed on the back of my bike, firing the engine up and listening to the roar fill the garage, letting everyone know the king of this concrete jungle was awake and on the prowl.

 

On the way to HQ, I managed to convince myself that if I’d brought Clara with me, I would have at least given myself the chance to see her true colors. When confronted with Skull’s fate, she would have shown us exactly where her loyalty was. Deep down inside, I already knew. I knew that no matter what she said to me, she was always going to be on Skull’s side.

 

We were just going to have to fix that by taking him out. She couldn’t be loyal to him if I killed his ass. And if she tried, well, I didn’t want to think about that possibility yet.

 

I pulled up to HQ to find the delivery bay doors open and several of our members getting strapped. As my bike roared into the building, Mick approached me with a smile as wide as his arms.

 

“Good to have you back, bro,” he said, patting me on the back as I climbed off the bike.

 

“I was only gone a few days,” I joked.

 

“Yeah, but we’re dealing with a lot of shit right now,” he said. “The guys were wondering where the hell you were.” He laughed, but I could hear the seriousness behind his words.

 

“You mean to tell me you couldn’t handle it on your own?” I asked. “I mean, who do you think is going to take my place when I step aside one day or if anything happens to me?”

 

“I never said I didn’t have it under control, boss. I was just letting you know,” he joked. “Um, Liam is back,” he added cautiously.

 

“Good,” I said. “I owe him an apology, and we need a hard ass like him with us today.”

 

“I’ll get him,” Mick said, walking towards the crowd gathering in the door.

 

“Hey, get all the senior members. We need to have a meeting before we go. We need a plan of action,” I called to him.

 

While Mick went to grab the guys for a quick meeting, I grabbed some ammo for my handgun and one of our assault rifles. I really preferred handguns, but we were addressing a pretty tall order on this mission. I needed something with a little more power. Plus, looks went a long way. If it looked more dangerous, it usually elicited a different reaction. Rivals were less likely to act up when they saw an assault rifle than when they saw a little handgun, regardless of the caliber. There were pistols out there that made our assault rifles look like toys, but the thing was they didn’t look like toys.

 

“Upstairs?” Mick asked, grabbing my shoulder.

 

“No, right here is fine,” I told him, turning to address the guys as they surrounded me at the table where Mick had spread out our guns and ammo.

 

Liam stood front and center. That was no accident, surely. His position was significant. He wanted me to see him.

 

“First off,” I started with a harsh tone, commanding everyone’s attention, “I want to start with an apology. Liam, brother, I should have paid better attention. You were right, man. We need to talk about your chapter placement when all of this is finished.”

 

“Accepted, brother,” he said with a nod. Neither one of us really expected a reaction from anyone else. Even Liam knew that no one really liked him. It was kind of his thing.

 

“As for the rest of you, today we’re going after Skull, as you all know. And I hope everyone can appreciate how serious this is. We’re not going in with guns blazing. I want you all to form a perimeter around his hideout. Liam, Mick, and I will go in to talk to him. Unless you hear gunshots, the rest of you stay back. I don’t care if his men can see you or if you decide to sit far enough back that they won’t be able to spot you.”

 

“They’ll be able to see us,” Liam interrupted.

 

He was right.

 

Skull had started off as a small-time hustler and glorified pimp. He built his business on illegal gambling rings and prostitution. He expanded to call girls at some point, and as his reputation in that department grew, so did his business. It was rumored that through his escort service he made some pretty important connections that went way above anyone on the street.

 

The story was that he’d landed a politician for a client, and he blackmailed him into giving him access to military grade weapons. Skull took our weapons business because he could provide clients with things that couldn’t be purchased legally, and it was all clean. Nothing was traceable back to anyone so long as nobody was caught red-handed. That also meant Skull and his goons had access to some pretty heavy duty toys for themselves, and they were not afraid to use them.

 

Guys like Skull really made the streets more dangerous than they needed to be. The rest of us just provided services and goods. Skull offered up game changers. His prowess in the weapons game hit us on two fronts. Not only did our supplier go under, but our security business took a pretty serious hit. We had some clients who were extremely loyal because they preferred our clean-up service to anyone else they’d ever used, but most people went with the guy who had the biggest guns. We couldn’t blame them.

 

“Yeah, you’re right, Liam. His guys have the equipment to see and hear us even in the dead of night when we’re not making a single noise.”

 

I saw a few worried looks.

 

“Guys, don’t sweat it. If anything goes wrong, we just do what we do. We kill everyone,” I added with a hearty laugh.

 

That got their spirits up.

 

“I mean, really, what good is this sort of thing if it doesn’t lead to a fight? And we know that if it turns into a fight, we’ve got them. They may have better weapons, but they don’t have the balls,” I said.

 

One of the things we were known for was our ability to fight. The Storm’s Angels MC had been built on bar and street fights. We used to go into bars just to start fights until we got so big that it was beginning to undermine the rest of our business.

 

“Well, are we ready?” I asked everyone.

 

They all threw their fists in the air.

 

“Everyone got a weapon?” I asked.

 

I watched as the senior members all pulled their assault rifles around to the front. Liam also pulled a shiny silver revolver out of his waistband. Sometimes, I thought he should have been an outlaw in the Old West, not on the city streets of urban America.

 

“Then let’s go,” I told them.

 

Of course, they ran off yelling, howling, and whistling to get the other members riled up and ready to launch an all-out attack on our biggest rival.

 

“Alec,” I snapped as he walked past me with his gun in the air.

 

“Yes, sir?” He stopped dead in his tracks and turned with a frightened look in his eyes.

 

“You’re staying back. We need someone to watch HQ while we’re out,” I told him.

 

He let out a sigh that was equal parts relief and disappointment. He was obviously relieved that I wasn’t scolding him for letting Clara out of his sight, and he was understandably disappointed that I wasn’t letting him tag along.

 

“It’s an important job, brother. I need you come through for me. Don’t drop the ball on this one, got it?”

 

“Got it.”

 

“All right. Close the bay doors behind us after we leave. Lock this place down while we’re gone.”

 

“I don’t get to keep anyone here with me?” he asked.

 

I looked at Mick, and he shrugged.

 

“Up to you, boss,” he said.

 

“Yeah, grab three guys to stay back with you. Stay armed. Stay vigilant. It’s possible Skull knows we’re on the way, and if he decides to pull anything, you need to be able to buy enough time to let us know.” I looked right into his young, scared eyes. Sometimes I wondered what I had been thinking by making him a senior member, but he had the muscle and weapons know-how that we needed. He didn’t have any common sense whatsoever, but if you told him to hit it or shoot it, it was handled with precision.

 

Mick and I walked to our bikes in the noise of everyone gunning their engines. We watched as Alec grabbed a few guys, stopping them from riding out and convincing them to stay with him. It really humorous. They looked at us for confirmation that he wasn’t just losing his mind, and we simply nodded to let them know it was legit.

 

We pulled out of HQ and into the afternoon light. This was the kind of business that was usually handled at night. We hoped that handling it in the afternoon, in broad fucking daylight, would give us a bit of an advantage over Skull and his goons.