Aaron - Day 14

Our Motorcycle Club’s dangerous reputation and its history of violent crimes, arrests, and murders had earned us a certain level of respect that was required in our line of business. But, it had also left a spotlight shining on us; not only by the authorities, but it’d also cast rival eyes in our direction. Over the years, my father and I had discussed ideas and implemented plans that were designed to take the spotlight off us.

Hard work and planning had kept most of our activities hidden. It had taken some time, but my father and the rest of the MC had acknowledged that whispers about our reputation were just as effective as broadcasting it. Although my father had made attempts, I had remained the MC’s go-to guy for finding more conventional ways of doing business without calling too much attention to us.

After I’d returned from the military over three years ago, my father had allowed me to do most of the planning, although I’d earned money for the MC by running guns.

I’d just returned from a trip to New York and Mexico, where I’d met with one of the Mexican cartel shot callers who’d been in bed with my MC for over ten years. He was requesting to double the size of his usual weapons shipment. I handled the guns, my cousins handled the drugs, and my uncles handed the strip club, which included managing the women.

Based on the worn appearances of some of the strippers, we’d be wise to burn the strip club down with the women inside and start over from scratch, but that was not my call.

It was my suggestion that we implement more business-like practices that would at least make our MC appear legit and offset some of the expensive tastes and habits some of us had adopted. The bar, the car washes, and several coin laundries had been purchased over the years to clean our dirty money. The businesses also provided legitimate jobs to members whose criminal pasts prevented them from finding employment anywhere else.

I maintained a steady job as head of security for the local town of Copper Springs’ largest security firm, Fox-Butler. As a result, many of the men in the MC worked under me. We posed as full-time or part-time security officers, which served as cover jobs to help offset some of the outlandish lifestyles some of us were determined to have.

Sometimes, I wondered what life would be like outside my MC, but this was the life I’d been born into and the only one I knew. Besides, I’d participated in so many illegal and lawless activities that I believed I was too far gone to be anything other than a gunrunner and enforcer for my MC.

Outside my stint in the military, I’d never sought a way out of this life because I didn’t know any other way. It was an interesting parallel that the life I’d grown up in had prepared me for the military, and in return, the military had armed me with the knowledge and skills that made me a force to be reckoned with when I returned to my world.

However, just because I had embraced this life, it didn’t mean I liked it all the damn time. I was grumpy more often than cool, went from zero to asshole in a heartbeat, and spoke my mind--good, bad, or ugly. A few of the older MC members said I had a black heart, but my heart wasn’t black. It merely sat farther back in my chest than other peoples’ hearts did as far as I was concerned.

My father had started me cutting coke by the time I was seven and cooking meth by the time I was ten. My mother, who was thankfully dead, had put her fist in my face every chance she got. I’d witnessed so many murders; many of them at my own hands, that my mind had gone numb to the gruesome nature of it. I’d killed many. Some were in self-defense, some for crimes against my MC, and others to prove myself as Shark’s son.

The safe inside my secluded house in the woods contained more than two hundred thousand dollars, but the kicker was I didn’t know of shit I’d want to spend that kind of money on. Other than motorcycles and the occasional woman that caught my eyes, there wasn’t much else that piqued my interest.

After shoving the familiar doors of our clubhouse open, I heaved a quick breath before entering. I hated this fucking place and these fucking meetings we had. Why couldn’t I show up once a month, say my piece, and leave? My father had made me an MC chairman, so I was required to attend these damn meetings.

In my opinion, we were nothing but a bunch of ruthless rednecks that hated as easily as we breathed mainly because we couldn’t stand our own fucking reflections. Some of us were so hateful and deceitful that it seemed our mission in life was to make everyone around us miserable.

My fingers combed through my hair, and I gripped my scalp for a second as I entered the boardroom. A heavy duffle bag was clenched over my shoulder as I headed for my spot at the table. My boots beat up the floor as I made my approach. The large spoke-wheeled motorcycle and rider carved into the table caught my eyes, and I concentrated on it to keep myself grounded.

My younger brother, Ryan, had sketched the carving. Ryan was the artist in the family. He’d started designing and inking tattoos before he’d hit double digits and our dangerous lifestyle had snuffed out his life before he’d become a teen.

The men sitting around the table as I made my approach were already yelling across the space at each other, undoubtedly, about some shit that didn’t matter. Grudgingly, I lugged myself over to my chair next to my father who sat at the head of the table. The stench of cigarettes and the scent of leather met me as I took my seat.

All eyes landed on me when I heaved the big black duffle bag full of money and guns off my shoulder and handed it to my father. The bag contained more than three hundred thousand dollars and some guns the group had been asking for. I was like the criminal version of Santa Claus to this bunch of ungrateful assholes.

Years prior, during my four-year tour as a marine, I’d brokered a deal with the son of a German gun supplier I’d met. My MC ran guns much faster than our original Russian supplier had been able to get them to us, but the supplier refused to let us out of the on-going deal my father had brokered before I was set to take over gun operations.

Long story short, one of the first tasks I’d taken on after I’d completed my tour in the military was to kill our Russian supplier before we took on the new deal with our new supplier.

Now, our supplier sold us guns at a discounted rate, and we sold some to the Mexicans at a rate below market value that they’d agreed to. In turn, the Mexicans supplied us with quality cocaine, and we distributed it to several trusted distributors, including our gun supplier. These types of transactions happened several times a year, and occasionally, I’d get contacted for a few special orders.

For my trouble and coordination, I roughly profited a half a million or more a year, give or take a few hundred thousand.

My father handled the process of sharing the wealth with the MC’s other chairmen, the grumbling assholes I currently sat and stared at with disdain. Hopefully, the disdain reflected in my gaze was strong enough to blind each of those bastards in one eye. You only needed one good eye to do the half-ass jobs they did anyway.

Every guy at the table had a specific job, and my father thought of himself as a stickler for job performance, although goals were rarely met and tasks were never completed to standard in my opinion. It could have been the military coming out of me, but I believed in detail and order.

During the course of the meeting, my gaze was drawn from the issue we were addressing, and my grumbling mind stuttered because I swore I thought I saw a black woman…a good-looking one, walking towards me.

I closed my eyes and attempted to shake off the fatigue that continued to plague my body from my trip. I hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours and still had tasks I needed to complete before I headed home.

Shit! I must be tired as fuck.

When the woman walked around the table and started sitting dishes of food down in front of each chairman, my tired gaze followed her every move. No one was saying a goddamn thing to explain to me; one, how a black woman was roaming freely throughout our clubhouse and two, why the hell she was serving us food.

My penetrating gaze cut into my father’s, who was shaking his head and seemed to be attempting to do everything in his power to keep from bursting his gut with laughter.

“It’s a long-ass story, son. I’ll tell you after the meeting’s over,” he informed, acknowledging my bemused expression.

“Would you like something to eat, sir?” The delicate voice barely made its way into my ear.

Am I awake right now? I asked myself the question as I watched members at the table eating whatever it was the woman had served them.

I glanced at the woman still standing next to me. I assumed she hadn’t moved because she was waiting for my answer.

“No, thank you. Not hungry.”

My elbows hit the table, and my face fell into my hands as I massaged my head. When I glanced back up, the woman had moved on to my father.

Good God! The woman was gorgeous, and despite being brown, her presence was eye-catching. I scratched my head, realizing this was the first time I’d noticed…truly noticed a woman of color. Since I’d been forbidden from being around them all my life, my reaction to my attraction to this one was justified, I supposed.

When she offered my father one of the bowls of food she had on the tray, my gaze zoomed in on the dish. My father leaned away and allowed the woman to set one of the bowls in front of him before he expertly took up the napkin and spoon she’d set in place and started eating.

Soon after the exchange, my father continued his conversation like I wasn’t sitting there, freaking the fuck out at what was going on. Were their lives in jeopardy and they, for some reason, couldn’t say what was going on? I placed my hand on the .45 tucked in the back of my pants. Weapons weren’t supposed to be allowed in the clubhouse, but I was the enforcer, so I was never without a weapon.

The crease in my face deepened, and the veins below the surface of my skin started to pound. My gaze left my father and followed the woman, who was heading back into the kitchen. She wore a long-sleeve, baby blue, cotton T-shirt and thin cotton sweatpants that were about two sizes too big, although it was July and hot as fuck outside.

My eyes swept around the table as spoons clinked against bowls and rose to mouths. Lips smacked, and even a few grunts of satisfaction escaped. Was anyone planning to tell me what the fuck was going on? My chair creaked under my shifting weight as I sat higher and leaned over the table.

My voice rang out, carrying the weight of my frustration. “Does anyone plan to tell me what the fuck is going on? Are my eyes fucked up or did I just see a black woman inside our clubhouse boardroom serving food that all of you, crazy motherfuckers are eating?”

Throats cleared and wide gazes traveled towards my father. So, my gaze shifted in that direction too.

“Son, she’s working off a debt for her crack-head sister. Your dumb-ass cousins let her drug-addicted sister get away with about three grand in coke, and this one was crazy and brave enough to come out here and work off the debt to keep us from killing her sister.”

My gaze traveled around the table. This shit just wasn’t sinking in as my father’s words continued.

“If you ask me, she is just as fucked up as her sister for doing some suicidal shit like this, but so far, she hasn’t been any trouble, so we’ve agreed to let her work off the debt. The only law I laid down concerning her was that no one was to fuck her. I can’t allow any of you to get tangled up in some black pussy. Now, if you need your house cleaned or a maid, she’s a good cleaning lady and a pretty good cook.” My father tossed one of his hands in the air. “Look around, son. Haven’t you noticed we’ve done some remodeling?”

I sat stunned for a moment, searching for words as I gave the place a once over. When I’d walked in, I was so concerned about getting the meeting over with that I hadn’t even glanced too far past my own damn feet.

“Are you all fucking crazy?” I asked as my tired gaze scanned the room. “What if she’s the law and you’re in here freely discussing business around her? Not to mention the fact that you just let me walk in here with money and guns. What if she has a team of fucking lawmen waiting on some line for one of you to say the right thing that will take all of us down?”

“Son, calm the fuck down,” my father said as he leaned towards me. “What do I look like? A fucking fool? I checked her out and had her checked out again. I know how to spot a fucking rat. I’ve been in this business longer than you’ve been alive. If I thought she was a danger to us, she would be buried with the rest of the bodies. She writes books—one of them nerdy bitches. Her books and shit are all over the internet, and that crack bitch of a sister of hers is in rehab just like she told us she would be. I gave her a month to work off her sister’s debt. The only place we could keep the public from seeing her is in this clubhouse.”

Shark glanced around at the other chairmen, who nodded their heads, agreeing with his words. “So far, she hasn’t been any trouble. She even helped us get rid of some vermin, Nelson Cates’ son, Scud. Fucker came in here after sniffing his balls, thinking he was going to take me out. Shit, I’m thinking about keeping her ass for good. She shot that bastard and kept him from blowing Wade’s fucking brains out.”

Wade nodded his head in my direction, confirming my father’s words. I was so fucking confused that my head started to hurt. My forehead veins started to jump under my skin, threating to pop out and spray my tired blood all over the table. It took my father’s last words a moment to take root inside my brain.

“She shot someone? Tell me you didn’t just say she shot someone. What the fuck is going on around here?”

Grinding my fingers into my temples, I roughly massaged my forehead. I’d only been gone a little more than two weeks. How could our world have changed this fucking much?

“Son, relax. I’ll give you the full-court press when this meeting is over.”

On cue, the pretty brown woman stepped back into the room with cups and a pitcher of something to drink.

Instead of listening to the rest of what my father was saying, I was too busy attempting to figure out what alternate universe I’d landed in.

“Would you like something to drink, sir?”

Sir?

This was the weirdest situation I think I’d ever been in. I caught a glimpse of the woman’s bruised arm when she attempted to hand me one of the cheap plastic cups. Those bruises reminded me of the hellish world I’d grown up in, and I couldn’t imagine the shit my MC had likely put this woman through.

“No, thank you,” I uttered without looking back at her this time. My gaze landed on my father, my anger flaring. “Speaking of cousin, Jake, he’s fucked up again,” I uttered. The words erupted from my mouth through gritted teeth. I waited until our new maid went back into the kitchen before I continued.

“I don’t know if he and his brother are taking the damn drugs they’re supposed to be selling, but I had to pay Dixon two grand he claimed they’d shorted him. I went ahead and paid him to keep things cool, but I’m going to need you to get my money from Jake. If I face him, I’m going to whip his dumb redneck ass.”

Much of the rest of our meeting went the same, with us discussing the problems we faced by trying to stay on a straighter path and the problems my twin cousins, Jake and Jackson, had been stirring up inside and outside the MC.

* * *

By the time my father got around to telling me the full story on our new maid, I’d already pieced most of it together. My father was right. This Megan was one crazy bitch. She’d subjected herself to a bunch of bikers known as racist for the sake of saving her sister. From what I could surmise, her sister wasn’t worth a damn. Megan had somehow managed to infiltrate my MC, and that was a stunt that not even I would have pulled.

“Why don’t you take our little maid for a few days?” my father suggested. “Let her give your place a good cleaning. You can use her work as a small down payment on the money Jake owes you.”

I glanced at my father, flashing a have-you-lost-your-fucking-mind look.

“Fuck no! You want me to bring her into my house. Just because she has you fooled that she’s some crazy bitch trying to save her sister, it doesn’t mean I’m going to jump on the bandwagon and believe that shit too.”

“Son, you were the one who suggested we become more mainstream and look more legit. We can’t get no more mainstream than this. Since it’s so damn late, I’ll drop her off at your place tomorrow.”

I didn’t feel up to arguing with my father. Occasionally, he made questionable decisions, and I was starting to wonder if he wasn’t coming down with early signs of dementia. My grandfather had developed the brain sickness when he was in his fifties, and my father had just turned fifty-two. I’d already decided if I started forgetting long stretches of time, I was going to eat a fucking bullet and two if the first one didn’t work.

Glancing over at my father stirred my anger. I released an irritated sigh.

“Whatever. I’m going to take care of a few more drops and take my tired ass home. I don’t have time for this kind of crazy shit you have going on here.”

I walked away with not so much as a backward glance. I’d fucking seen and heard enough for one day.