“So I met Desiree at the Tumbleweed the other night,” Julian said to Griffin in the lull, as they waited for the signal. This was the worst part of any kind of raid, the waiting. Usually, the guys would sit around, maybe even play cards if the time allowed, but now they just hung out, talking about anything except for the job at hand. It took Griffin a moment, but this was probably the secret that Julian had been sitting on the entire time.

 

“Huh?” Griffin said, looking up at Julian with a confused look on his face. “Who’s Desiree?”

 

Julian may have been built like a brick house, but his face was incredibly expressive, and it was currently rifling through a few warring emotions. With that, Griffin realized that he probably knew Desiree a little better than he originally thought. Immediately, embarrassment began to dawn on him.

 

“You…met her acquaintance earlier this week?”

 

Oh, shit. Yeah. Now Griffin remembered. He at least had the grace to be a little embarrassed. Desiree had been the girl he had spent some time with before Emanuel’s funeral, before he met Natasha, and before everything else went to hell. He had not been particularly nice to her, but he very rarely was nice to any of them. Now none of it mattered a tiny bit. He had already moved on to another girl, but he could already tell by Julian’s sheepishness that Desiree might have already found another guy.

 

“Right,” Griffin said. “Of course. I remember her.”

 

She had been that stereotypical kind of biker chick, with long dark hair, tattoos, and bored looking eyes. She had been hot, of course, but she was not Natasha. He couldn’t place her right away since all the biker chicks he had spent time with in the past had also been hot. They all knew how to ride a bike, and not a single one of them had ever blinked twice about the violence and craziness that permeated the life of the Disciples, and yet Natasha was more than that.

 

Sure, she rode a bike like an angel and seemed to be totally fine with the fact that he was out on a revenge mission right now. There was something more, though, something Natasha was striving for. Her entire life did not revolve around the Disciples like some of these other girls. It made him feel as though she was not with him just because he was an attractive and high-ranking member of the Disciples.

 

Maybe it was because Natasha was not a part of the Disciples normally, and because of that, it made her choice to be with him less about status and more about who Griffin really was. The thought of that terrified him for some reason.

 

“I was just wondering if you were still…” Julian searched his brain for the best term he could come up with. “If you were still making her acquaintance. I mean, she didn’t say anything one way or another, but she did say that she knew you….”

 

It did not take long for Griffin to know what Julian was getting at. For a tough man with a poker face to rival most professionals, Griffin could see right through his intentions. The worst part of Griffin’s psyche was relieved; Desiree had the potential to be clingy. For a normal guy looking for his Old Lady, it would have been perfect, sometimes girls were a bit hard to pin down. He had never heard of Julian being interested in another girl before, but hell, it made a certain kind of sense.

 

“I am not man, why, you interested in her?”

 

Julian did not say anything, but by the twist of his mouth Griffin knew that he had touched on something. Good, he thought. He was happy for his friend.

 

“I’ll figure it out,” Julian replied. Griffin laughed and punched him in the shoulder.

 

“I heard through the grapevine that you were hooking up with some new girl anyway,” Julian continued. “She someone you met at the Bootheel?”

 

The idea of putting Natasha in the middle of the Bootheel was both completely laughable and also incredibly enticing. He pictured her sitting there, surrounded by bikers, drinking all of them under the table and laughing about it. He had absolutely no idea if she was the kind of girl who could do that, but he would love to see if that was the case. Maybe one day he would take her; it would be interesting to see the prim and proper college girl in the middle of a biker bar.

 

There was a flash in the distance…the signal. Griffin immediately snapped to attention and motioned to his club.

 

The twenty of them were armed to the teeth and completely ready for their part of the plan. Somewhere out there were another group of ten. Griffin was the leader of the group he was with, his job was specifically to lead the original attack on the Los Diablos’ clubhouse. Their job was to attack first to draw the attention of the Los Diablos, and then the other group would attack from behind. Griffin still was not fully into the idea of it, but he admitted it carried a certain reckless excitement. He reached down into his pocket and touched the gun at his hip, cradling the shotgun in his other arm. Already excitement began to make his heart beat faster, and he was fully ready to give himself over to the excitement of the craziness to come.

 

He still remembered his first raid. It had been three years ago, when a smaller club started getting a little too big for the territory. They called themselves the Desperados, and the only thing they really had going for them was the fact that they had a seemingly endless supply of heroin and several pretty strong contacts with the cartels over the border. They were steadily growing, but not as fast as they thought they were. Soon, they were beginning to style themselves as actual rivals to the Disciples. At first, it was completely laughable, the Disciples had several chapters spanned across Texas, and it was not like a little club was going to upset them really. However, once the Desperados started to attempt to jump a few of the lower members of the Disciples, it was decided that something had to be done.

 

It had been a lot smaller than his current one, of course, only a handful of guys. They waited outside of a local bar, not one that had much of a biker presence, but was desperately trying to cultivate one. At the end of the night when the leader and several key members of the Desperados had left to go home, the smaller raiding party had jumped them and beat them within an inch of their lives. The Desperados did not last much longer after that.

 

Now with enough luck, the Los Diablos weren’t going to last that much longer either.

 

“Alright, guys! It is time to go out there and get those assholes!” Griffin cried. There was a murmur of excitement as card games were finished up and men mounted their bikes. High fives were exchanged, and Griffin had to stop a guy from firing into the air, lest they give the nature of what they were doing away. It was not time for that yet.

 

The Los Diablos’ clubhouse was about forty minutes away from the one belonging to the Disciples, but looked pretty much the same regardless. Dozens of bikes were parked outside, probably with more in the garage, but Griffin was not worried.

 

Julian mounted his motorcycle, grinning as he felt the excitement over battle. Griffin thought about Natasha and hoped that she was still safe.

 

“Man, nothing like a battle, eh?” Julian said as he straddled his bike and readied his guns. “It gets the blood flowing.”

 

“The only thing better than a good fight is letting out all the pent up aggression afterwards,” Griffin told him with a smile. “You better have Desiree’s number ready.”

 

Julian laughed, but Griffin could tell that there was truth inside of it. Griffin could not help but dream a little bit of what he was going to do to Natasha once he came back from the raid. He imagined lifting her up like some conquering hero and carrying her into the bedroom, letting out all the feelings he had pent up and feeling her move underneath him. It was going to be incredible.

 

Maybe then she’ll finally make up her mind and stay. He did not want to actually think about what would happen if the threat was eliminated. Would she just go back to school? Would she forget all about him?

 

It was not worth thinking about right now, especially not at the beginning of the raid. Instead, he stopped thinking about the future and decided to focus on the present. Holding his guns and mounting his bike, he turned to his fellow men. On every man’s face was trust and determination, and he momentarily let his thoughts about Natasha go in order to throw himself into the battle.

 

With another whoop and a chorus of “Disciples!” from the group of men, they drove off, finally working on their mission of revenge.

 

Once they were all outside of the clubhouse, Griffin could hear some noises coming from within. They were the normal sounds of a bunch of guys shooting the shit, talking and laughing. Griffin figured that if someone sat outside of the Disciples’ clubhouse, they probably would hear the same thing. For a moment, Griffin hesitated, remembering that probably not all the people inside of that clubhouse were people who had killed Emanuel.

 

Then again, he also remembered that Emanuel had never killed a single member of the Los Diablos, and it made him feel a lot better.

 

The sun began to beat down on the assembled Disciples, and Griffin could feel sweat breaking out on the back of his neck, right underneath the bandanna he had tied around his mouth. He dug around in the pocket of his sleeveless vest and pulled out a walkie-talkie. “Damon, you there?” he spoke into the device.

 

There was a crackle of static on the other end before he heard Damon’ voice come over the walkie-talkie. “Loud and clear, Griffin. Is team one in position?”

 

Griffin’s eyes swept over the assembled group. “Damn right, and team two?”

 

“We’re in position. Let’s give those guys hell!”

 

Hanging up the phone, Griffin turned to the guys who were waiting.

 

“Let’s do it!”

 

Unshouldering his shotgun, Griffin aimed and fired directly at the front door.

 

All hell broke loose.