Jackson

“Another round, barkeep,” Trapper slurs on his bar stool next to me.

“Might wanna consider calling it a night, brother.” I recommend as I take a long pull from my beer.

We are the only patrons in the place so I am sure the bartender would be more than happy to keep serving Trapper. The problem is drunk Trapper is more dangerous than sober Trapper, which is saying something. Tonight, I am rooming with him which means the more he throws back the longer I’ll be dealing with him trying to find some sort of trouble to get into.

“Just gettin’ started. How’s that song go…,” Trapper grips his chest. “Drink you away,” he wails.

I shove his shoulder hard. “Fucker, don’t quit your day job.”

He pauses and looks at me as a seriousness washes over his face before he busts out laughing. “Dipshit, we don’t have day jobs.” Then he goes back to singing his song.

I take another long drag from my draft. Maybe I need a strong chaser. I look to Trapper. His dark hair is disheveled and the circles under his eyes have me wondering when the last time he had a solid night’s sleep.

While the six of us have come together to make a family our way, Trapper is always unsettled. No matter the circumstance there is a darkness that seems to haunt him. The common thread we all share is in what we seek: retribution. We come from six different places, with six different stories, and six reasons we need to seek justice. Each of us have shared our pasts in order to have a plan together for the future … that is everyone but Trapper.

He stumbled into our world a bloody body on Earl’s doorstep. We were in town for some ink from Earl “Old Dog” Wilbur. He kept the shop open late and by the time he finished with X and me, it was pitch black dark outside in the early morning of the night. Finding a body at three AM is never a good thing. We drug his ass inside and after he insisted no hospital, we did what we could to clean him up. Thank fuck for Deacon’s time in the Navy SEALs so he knows a little more than basic first aid. In time the wounds healed visibly, but it’s the scars you can’t see that have us all wondering when Trapper will finally break.

“Rack ‘em,” Deacon instructs Judge at the pool table behind us. I turn my head to look over my shoulder. Judge is devouring Tamalyn’s face and not the least bit worried about his game, even with the pool stick in his hands.

Those two recently found their way back together and it’s good to see Judge so happy. Tamalyn fits well with our group. She’s also cousin’s with Tempest who runs Haven’s Harbor, a battered women’s shelter in Tennessee. Tempest is always welcoming to our group and she is a friendly comfort in our crazy life.

The bar is small. Only one pool table, no dart boards, and a single stall bathroom that currently says occupied by the sign being flipped over – even though in the last hour not a single person has entered or exited the facility. There are only four stools in front of the bar and one person behind it mixing drinks.

We tend to stick to dive’s like this one. The less people who are around, the less questions we get asked. Broads, bimbos, and bitches alike see a group of bikers and suddenly their panties are flooded.

Small shacks like this one mean less pussy to fight off and less trouble for Trapper to find himself in.

“Dammit, you two. Save it for your room!” Deacon growls at Judge and Tamalyn.

“Don’t be jealous. Tempest asked you to stay.” Judge throws back a low blow at Deacon.

Gentry “Deacon” Hawkins, the All-American hero. The former frogman, did time as a Navy SEAL. He is one of the elite. He also has tangled himself in deep with Tamalyn Andrews’ cousin, Tempest Adams. The problem is, the man thinks he deserves solitary confinement for life. They have no future based on the bars holding them back from the past.

It’s something I understand all too well.

Deacon puts the pool stick back in the rack before looking to Judge. “Don’t go there. I’ll fuckin’ nail you to the wall in front of your woman.”

“She misses you,” Tamalyn says softly. The only sign Deacon even heard her is the single tick of his jaw before he walks away heading to the bar, no doubt to toss back a drink and his regrets.

There’s no doubt Tempest misses Deacon, but what does she really know of him. Tempest’s entire world is built around her non-profit. She is all things good and helpful. I doubt she wants to tie herself to a biker seeking justice vigilante style.

It’s what we do, the Devil’s Due Motorcycle Club. We go from town to town seeking justice for unsolved crimes. The six of us, Collector, Judge, X, Deacon, Trapper, and myself are a family of our making.

Only the justice we seek isn’t the kind you find in a courtroom.

Nope.

I trusted the good ole American legal system once and it cost me everything.

The club started when I got out of prison. After everything that went down, I never thought the person who would believe me the most would also be tied to the man who helped put me in the situation to begin with.

Detective Lee Bates was a cop with the Cloverville Police Department for seven years before my incarceration. He had a partner on the force. A partner who thank fuck follows evidence and not the word of a corrupt cop with an agenda like everyone else did.

Dover “Collector” Ragnes is a good ole boy from Cloverville, Tennessee. As a teen, he lost his younger sister Raleigh in a tragic way at the hands of a serial rapist and killer. This put Collector on his path to justice. He, too, tried it the legal way, becoming a cop and then working up to detective. Together with his partner, Lee Bates, Collector solved more than his fair share of crimes in the area.

The only crime he couldn’t solve with his badge was his sister’s murder.

In the end, the truth for me is one he sought out. If it wasn’t for Ragnes’ determination to find the real story about Paul’s death, I don’t know if I would have ever found my own retribution. Collector investigated the crime all the way, even when it led him to his own partner, Lee Bates.

When I had no one and no where to turn, Dover Ragnes was there for me.

It’s a debt I can never repay him.

Times have changed over the years. Collector was reunited with his sister’s best friend, Emerson “Sonnie” Flint. The two overcame their pasts to find this love and life together.

Knowing what that feels like, well, it couldn’t have happened to a better man.

X yanks the pool stick from Judge’s hand. “Low blow, fucker and you know it.” He chastises Judge for throwing Tempest in Deacon’s face.

Hadley, X’s woman goes to the table and racks the balls leaning over to give her man a peep show of her pert tits down the V-neck of her shirt.

Owen “X” Gallow knows life on the streets. Hadley Combs captured his soul when they were teens and never let go. He thought she was dead but the woman was very much alive.

I reach up and rub my chest feeling the ache deep.

I wish I could believe in second chances.

Closing my eyes, I can see her face plain as day. It pains me to know I’ll never kiss her lips again. I’ll never get to know for myself if she ever figured out the truth. I never would have hurt her by killing her brother. Can she see me now? Does she know she got it wrong?

She was my angel and I am damned to hell.

“Tennessee, a hell on earth,” I say lifting my beer and swallowing the rest down.

“Nah, Bama.” Trapper argues before tossing back another shot.

Annoyed I raise an eyebrow at him. “Wasn’t talkin’ to you, Trapper. Just statin’ a fact to myself.” I clarify.

He doesn’t take the hint but instead argues again, “Alabama. Crimson tide, all covered in red, blood shed. That’s hell, brother.”

“You’ll argue with a tree won’t you?”

“Will it fight back?” Trapper gives me a grin.

Mitchell “Trapper” Gates, the man with a death wish. He seeks it out. While I simply wish for the reaper to take me out, Trapper tries to find it. He’s the kind of man who will stand in front of a loaded gun that’s cocked and wait for the trigger to be pulled.

Standing, it takes a moment to steady his drunk ass before he struts over to Collector and Sonnie where he slaps her ass.

“Trapper, you’re playin’ with fire,” Collector warns.

“Always brother,” he smirks before rolling the cue ball into Hadley’s just set up rack.

X reacts. Instantly, he has Trapper to a wall with his forearm pressed to his throat. “Look fuck, I get you got issues bigger than the size of fuckin’ Texas. Check that shit, Trapper. Sort yourself before you find a time when we won’t be so patient with you.” He applies pressure but Trapper doesn’t fight back. No, he grins, setting X off more. “You wanna fuck with us, I’ll shove this stick up your ass, if that’s what you need, but you back off the women.”

Getting up, I move to the two men.

Trapper smiles wide.

X rears back and punches him in the face, busting his nose and lip leaving blood pouring out as I pull him back.

“He’s drunk. Don’t give him what he wants,” I try to calm the beast inside X.

Hadley walks over and takes X by the hand. He instantly settles.

Love.

A peace like none other.

I remember it well.

Trapper removes his shirt to clean up the blood on his face. Immediately, my eyes go to the fresh marks on his torso. Cuts.

“Fuckin’ hell man.” I can only mutter as I drape my arm around his neck guiding him out in a partial headlock.

Thank fuck we can walk to the hotel. I get him in our room to which he haphazardly falls onto the bed.

More specifically, my bed.

“Trapper, you’re a fuckin’ mess, brother.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” he mutters with his face down into the mattress.

His phone rings and I watch as he struggles to pull it out of his back pocket. Rather than watch a grown man fall off the bed, I go to the bathroom to wet a wash cloth for him to clean up his face.

“Avery?” I hear Trapper immediately sober up and turn to find him sitting up.

The phone is on speaker phone and the response I hear leaves me with more questions than answers as the voice says, “Let your girl Sonnie know, I’m done. Fish are fine. I’ve waited long enough for you. Mitchell, I’m done bein’ a dirty little secret.”

The call disconnects and I watch as Trapper falls backward onto the bed and simply stares at the ceiling.

Knowing what it is to be a broken man, I give my brother some privacy and decide to take a shower. The tangled past he shares with Avery is one that leaves more questions than answers for them both. Trapper is too busy chasing death to make his intentions clear with the person who knows his past. It’s something I can understand. I may not chase death, but it would be a welcomed reprieve from a life without the love of my wife.

Pushing back the feelings, the past, I go back to the shower. I don’t wait for the water to warm up, I simply climb in the shower and take it as it comes.

If only I could wash my past, my problems, and my burdens down the drain with the grime of the day.