Danny
Danny and Sara stood at the front of the room, beside Thorn. Together. He never would have imagined him and her like this, not in a million years. And especially not under their current circumstances.
“Alright, you boys,” Thorn bellowed from the front of the room, “we're calling this shit to order, now. So y'all settle down.”
The previously bustling room, full of whispering conversations and loud horseplay, came to a complete silence. All the men, most of them wearing their patched vests, turned their eyes slowly to the acknowledged leader of the Fallen Knights.
In the crowd was Jed, who'd finally joined back up as a recruit, and Karl, who had renewed his vigor and dedication to the club. Seeing them both made Danny's heart swell with pride that they still wanted to be in the MC.
“Now, you boys know that over the last couple months we've been having problems with the Free Jackals coming onto our turf and messing with some of our boys.”
The crowd nodded and grumbled in ascent. On this, their hatred of the Free Jackals, it was as if the whole group was one, pissed-off person.
“That they went after Danny's family first,” Thorn said, nodding to Jed in the crowd before he continued on, “then, after the Old Crow, which is ours.”
The assembled bikers mumbled about the cowardice of the Free Jackals. Cowardice at them getting the cops involved, at trying to get the boys-in-blue to fight biker battles. It wasn't right, and they all knew it.
“Now, we keep everything clean around here, but they wanted Danny again on that one. Luckily, nothing came of it. But, then, that same night, they went after his ol' lady -” Thorn stopped and turned to Danny, “- wait. I can call her that, right?”
Danny put his arm around Sara and pulled her into his side, clearly and for all to see. “I don't care, old man.”
Beside him, Sara shook her head. “I don't care either.”
Thorn nodded, smiling despite the issue they were there to discuss, and turned back to the other men. Danny noticed that the other guys nodded approvingly when he finally admitted what he and Sara had been feeling for a while now, aside from the hiccup that was the last few weeks.
“So, now, we clearly got Sara back, and everything's squared away. Now, though, we gotta get back to basics and find this fucker.”
The guys murmured their agreement. They wanted this shit to be over and done with just as much as Danny and Sara did.
Thorn turned his attention back to Danny and Sara. “You wanna tell 'em about everything else?”
Danny nodded and took his arm from around Sara. He stepped forward and addressed the club. “Alright, guess I should start with what we know so far. This guy Adam's an old buddy of mine, from way back when I was a kid. Some of the younger guys, you may recognize him, or you might not. I sure as fuck didn't when he whacked me with a fucking baseball bat. That's for sure.”
The crowd laughed, despite the circumstances.
“But, we've been trying to nail this guy down since he took Sara. We know his name, we know his club, but that's about it. He doesn't really have a fixed address, just kinda blows around in the wind. Some people say he's staying out at one of the hotels outside of town, but there was nothing to find there. Others said he was laid up with some club girl, but that didn't pull anything either.”
“Hell, we rolled over a couple Jackals last week,” Tyke added in from the middle of the assembled bikers, “but they didn't know shit. It's like this motherfucker's a ghost or something.”
“He ain't a ghost,” Danny said, his voice adamant. “He's a coward who's been preparing for this for a long time, that's all. He's got his boltholes set up, his places to go run and hide. Hell, he might even be staying out in the woods for all we know, or sleeping most nights in the Jackals clubhouse. We just don't know because we can't lay eyes on him.”
“So what's the plan, then?” Karl asked from the side of the room.
“Simple,” Danny said. “We stake everything out, we wait for him, we pounce. Nothing big, nothing fancy. Guy's gotta turn up sometime.”
Tyke and the rest of the guys nodded.
“It ain't gonna be easy,” Danny said. “But, it's gotta be done, or our name ain't shit on the street. Got it?”
All the guys nodded again. “Yeah,” Tyke said, “we got it.”
“Alright,” Thorn said, “we'll start divvying up who goes where, with who. This guy's big, and crazier than a badger on PCP. I want you to stay with your partner while we're looking for him, and work as a team to bring him down. We'll bring this fucker in, and we'll deal with him the way he needs to be dealt with. Got it?”
“Got it,” they all agreed.